2
25
2068
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/104/984/MEdwardsED1236492-160517-010001.1.jpg
a481c4f96461c1cd823c3c3c15141988
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/104/984/MEdwardsED1236492-160517-010002.1.jpg
455a169f4fa44096109f81cd8d78f224
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/104/984/MEdwardsED1236492-160517-010003.1.jpg
781adbc8fc6ac85cd1aa189608141ae0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Edwards, Ellis
E D Edwards
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. The collection concerns Sergeant Ellis Drury Edwards (1236492 Royal Air Force) and consists of his logbook, memorial booklet and four letters. Ellis Edwards was a bomb aimer with 149 Squadron and flew operations from RAF Lakenheath. He was killed when his Halifax crashed on an operation to Berlin 30 March 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Pauline Harkett and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />Additional information on Ellis Edwards is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/208271/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
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
2016-05-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Edwards, ED
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Crew of a Stirling
149 Squadron
lost over Berlin 29/30 March
1943
'Sergt [sic] Heulgrave, bomb aimer
" Blackford, rear gunner
" Hunt, rear gunner
P/O Ian Fulton, "the skipper"
Sergeants Saunders, mid upper gunner
" Edwards, engineer [sic] 'X',
" Crosson, navigator.
Sergeant Blackford came back but remainder paid for freedom with lives.
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
Memorial booklet
Description
An account of the resource
Cover and back have faint image of a sailing ship. Loose sheet of paper with names of Edward Ellis's crew.
Left inside page is blank, right inside page has images of seven aircrew, two at the top, 3 in the middle and two at the bottom. All are in uniform and Ellis Edwards is marked with 'X'.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page booklet with typewritten page inserted
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEdwardsED1236492-160517-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-03
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.
149 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
killed in action
missing in action
navigator
pilot
Stirling
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1018/PBriggsDW1704.2.jpg
803aa66772269fdfe04cd8cce71c54e1
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
Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Seven aircrew
Description
An account of the resource
Seven aircrew standing in battledress uniform. Don Briggs is second from the right, pilot, William Neale, is in the centre. In the background a part of a Lancaster with open bomb bay.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBriggsDW1704
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1039/PBriggsDW1725.2.jpg
4fc304cd0fe90f1ba38e72c0de729884
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1039/PBriggsDW1726.2.jpg
2a3e0a57f3a3a890b2ac4f1fe3e8bfe0
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
Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Members of 576 squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Nine aircrew officers dressed in uniform standing in front of the port wing and part of the fuselage of a Lancaster with cockpit covered. On the reverse ‘No 576 Lanc squadron, Fiskerton 31/10/44 – 13/9/45 with 49 Sqn’ and ‘F/L Namon [?] Radar Nav officer F/L ? Jock [?] Flight Engineer Leader F/L Peterson DFM Gunnery Leader F/L Atcheson [?} Acting ‘B’ Flight Commander W/C Sellick DFC & Bar Squadron Commander S/L Dutton [?] A Flight Commander F/L Fischer DFC Bombing Leader F/L Shewan [?] DFC Signals Leader F/L Smith Nav Officer’.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBriggsDW1725, PBriggsDW1726
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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
49 Squadron
576 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
pilot
RAF Fiskerton
wireless operator
-
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
Green, Langford W
Bill Green
Joe Green
L W Green
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Langford William Green (1923 - 2022, 2236292 Royal Air Force), his logbook, service documents and photographs. After training, Langford Green served as an air gunner with 218 Squadron at RAF Chedburgh. He flew 18 operations and several Operation Manna supply drops to Dutch civilians.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Langford Green and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, these items are available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
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
Green, LW
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Langford Green’s flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Air Force navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers flying log book for L W Green, air gunner, covering the period from 16 June 1944 to 8 July 1945. Detailing training, scores on gunnery course, and operations flown and post war flying. He was stationed at RAF Bishops Court, RAF Peplow, RAF Sandtoft, RAF Ingham and RAF Chedburgh. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster. He flew 18 operations with 218 Squadron, 11 Daylight and 7 Night. 3 Operation Manna to The Hague and Rotterdam and 6 Operation Exodus to Juvincourt. Targets were, Monchengladbach, Weisbaden, Dortmund, Wanne-Eickel, Dresden, Chemnitz, Gelsenkirchen, Datteln, Hallendorf, Wurzburg and Kiel.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGreenLW2236292v1
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Würzburg
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
Netherlands--Hague
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Juvincourt-et-Damary
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-07
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-25
1945-02-26
1945-03-09
1945-03-10
1945-03-12
1945-03-14
1945-03-19
1945-03-29
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-29
1945-05-05
1945-05-07
1945-05-11
1945-05-12
1945-05-14
1945-05-17
1945-05-23
1945-05-24
1945-06-14
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
218 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cook’s tour
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Ingham
RAF Peplow
RAF Sandtoft
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1113/PBubbGJ16010043.2.jpg
965d66d8f545e2b56662a54cbbe39fe1
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1113/PBubbGJ16010044.2.jpg
4e541840ca10957e8516a3afc816016a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1113/PBubbGJ16010045.2.jpg
58a03ae175b67977911a750a889967e3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1113/PBubbGJ16010042.2.jpg
545e600bf6f4d21b4ee3133cf163637e
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
Bubb, George. Album
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The album contains photographs, propaganda, service material, memorabilia and research concerning George Bubb's service with 44 Squadron at RAF Spilsby.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bubb, GJ
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
Ground crew and aircrew of 'J' 44 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Top is photograph of 13 ground crew and aircrew in two rows. Front row has five non commissioned officers and one officer in the centre sitting on a trolley. All apart from right hand man are aircrew. All are wearing tunic or battledress. At the front on the right side is a dog sitting. Rear row of seven non commissioned officers standing. The left and right men are aircrew. Two are in shirt sleeves and the rest in various uniforms. In the background a Lancaster cockpit and port engines. In front of the cockpit 19 bomb symbols in two rows. The bomb doors are open. George Bubb is third from left on the back row. On the reverse
[underlined] Left to Right [underlined]
Ground Crew and Aircrew
of ‘J’. 44 QQD. Dunholme Lodge
Sep. 1944
[underlined] Back Row [underlined]
Laurie (WOP) Len Carlisle (Fitter A) Me (Instruments)
SGT (Steffie) Green. Paddy (Fitter E0 Fred Benbow (Fitter A)
Jimmie (Rear Gunner)
[underlined] Front Row [underlined]
Jock (Titch) (Mid Upper), Bomb Aimer, PO Mitchell (Skipper)
Johnny (Navigator) “Brummy” (Flight Engineer) Bob Thrasher.
(Fitter E)
Sandy.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph and one handwritten document mounted on a scrapbook page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBubbGJ16010042, PBubbGJ16010043, PBubbGJ16010044, PBubbGJ16010045
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
44 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
bomb aimer
bomb trolley
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
navigator
Nissen hut
pilot
RAF Dunholme Lodge
service vehicle
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/116/1178/PBridgesB1605.2.jpg
5b9fb2970d3e7dc37c16e21f693963fc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/116/1178/PBridgesB1606.2.jpg
43c6c841cf46b65219591d6ca79146b7
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
Milling, Edward
E Milling
Description
An account of the resource
20 Items. The collection concerns Sergeant Edward Milling DFM (656624 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and four photographs. Edward Milling was a navigator with 103 and 166 Squadrons at RAF Elsham Wolds and RAF Kirmington. He was killed 27/28 September 1943 when his Lancaster crashed in Germany while on an operation to Hannover. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bren Bridges and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive Staff.<br /><br />Additional information on Edward Milling is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/116227/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
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
2016-03-31
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
Milling, E
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
Four off duty airmen round a table
Description
An account of the resource
Four airmen, three seated, round a table in a hut, holding and drinking from pint tankards; one is a pilot, two are observers and one an air gunner. On the windowsill in the background are enamel jugs and mugs. On the reverse 'Ted' with a large cross.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBridgesB1605, PBridgesB1606
air gunner
aircrew
military living conditions
observer
pilot
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/119/1197/MThomasWH152984-150721-02.2.jpg
5fda54e392a9ca78b17b989f8b0bc145
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Flying Officer. William Hedley THOMAS RAFVR Service No. 152984
No 166 and No 153 Squadron Crew. Kermington, Scampton 1944-45 .
Avro Lancaster Crew
F/O G.B. (Bruce ) Potter Pilot
F/O W.H. Thomas Navigator/Bomb Aimer
F/O J.S. Askew RAAF Wop/AG
Sgt. Jack Boyle. Navigator.
Sgt. D. Smith. Mid-Upper Air Gunner
Sgt. H. J. Hambrook – Rear Air Gunner.
All survived the war and maintain occasional contact
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Flying Officer Bill Thomas' aircrew
Description
An account of the resource
A list of Bill Thomas' aircrew with 166 and 153 Squadron at RAF Kirmington and RAF Scampton.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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
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1944
1945
Contributor
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Claire Monk
Format
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One typewritten sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MThomasWH152984-150721-02
153 Squadron
166 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
pilot
RAF Kirmington
RAF Scampton
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/128/1278/AAbbottsC151015.2.mp3
cc3222384b5959170d324f9b72e8d83f
Dublin Core
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Title
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Abbotts, Cyril
C Abbotts
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection consists of one oral history interview and one service and release book related to Warrant Officer Cyril Abbots (b. 1924, 1583753 Royal Air Force). Cyril Abbotts volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained as a pilot in Canada. On his return to Great Britain he flew operations as a flight engineer with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby in 1945 and later converted from Lancasters to Lincolns. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Cyril Abbot and catalogued by IBCC staff.
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.
Date
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2015-10-15
Identifier
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Abbots, C
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: So today I’m with Cyril Abbott and we are at Malvern in Worcestershire and it is the 15th of October 2015 and we’re just going to talk about his time in the RAF. Cyril, could you start off by talking please about your, family early, your earliest times you recollect?
CA: I was born in 1924 in a place called Princes’ End, Tipton. I lived with father and mother, with my grandparents. My mother was one of a large family, unfortunately she died when I was six and for the next two years we were looked after by my Grandma until Dad remarried. My mother and father were, had a house built in a village Coseley, which was about two miles away but we never moved there because of my Mum’s death. But having remarried we moved as a family, mother, or I should say step-mother, and father and my sister Doris who was four years older than myself. And we moved to a house in Bradleys Lane Coseley. I went to junior schools in Princes End, Tipton and at the age of eleven I passed scholarship and entered Dudley Grammar School where I was educated for the next five, six years. I left school in ‘39 and went out to work with W and T Avery at Smethwick as a engineering apprentice. I didn’t like work so at the first opportunity I volunteered for the Air Force, for aircrew, and having had all the two days of tests at Digbeth, Birmingham, I was accepted as a recruit and sent home and told to wait until I heard from the RAF. I was a bit of a nuisance to my father and mother because every day I used to come home from work and say ‘Has the letter arrived?’ and nothing had appeared and I really caused a bit of grief. But eventually the letter arrived ordering me to report to ACRC at Lords’ Cricket Ground, London. I travelled to, down to London with a fellow from the village who was also joining up, I think it was the first time we’d ever been away from home by ourselves in the whole of our lives but we arrived at Lords’ and the cricket ground was full of recruits, you couldn’t see a blade of grass basically. But they formed us up in groups of about forty and marched us off to Seymour Hall baths where they told us to strip off and swim a hundred yards. This rather shook us I believe ‘cause having to swim without a costume, but we did this and those who could swim the hundred yards were pushed to one side of the bath, and those who couldn’t swim went to the other side. We found out later that the non-swimmers were sent off to RAF Cosford to learn to swim, if I’d have known that I would have done the same [laughs] because Cosford was within about twenty miles of home. But still, we, we were billeted in flats around St John’s Wood, waiting for postings to ITW. Eventually I was posted to 8 Wing ITW at Newquay, Cornwall where I spent the next three to four months school work. In actual fact I can remember the flight commander was a Flight Lieutenant Paine, he was an ex solicitor and the Squadron Leader I think was a man named Fabian, who was a English international footballer amateur. But, and the two PTIs was Corporal White and Corporal Beasley, one was a Londoner, a real Cockney, and they used to take us out on cross country runs. Because one day I, I decided I didn’t want to go, so we had to get changed and set off and I drifted to the back and at the nearest public toilets I disappeared into it, little realising that Corporal White was running right at the back and he caught me [laughs] and I was taken in front of the squadron commander and given three days CB, confined to barracks, but at the end of the, I think it was about twelve weeks of school work were finished and we were waiting then to, for postings and I eventually was posted to RAF Sywell for familiarisation, twelve hours in a Tiger Moth. Again, I remember the instructor was a Flight Lieutenant Bush, I think he could have owned the flying school which had been taken over by the RAF, but we did, we did about ten to twelve hours flying around in Tiger Moths to see if whether we were compatible with flying and then at the end we were posted to Heaton Park, Manchester which was a receiving centre for people waiting basically to go overseas. I mean there were literally hundreds of UT aircrew there and we used to have to attend in the morning when they would read out lists of people with the postings and you had to answer in a certain manner to signify that you’d understood the shouted instructions. Initially I’d received a posting to South Africa, Rhodesia for flying training and we went up to Blackpool to receive the inoculations required, and having received these inoculations we were sent back to Heaton Park where we found out that we weren’t going to South Africa after all. I was sent to Canada and we, we sailed from the River Clyde, Greenock, or something similar on the Queen Elizabeth, the original Queen Elizabeth one, and I think it was about three days and four nights journey which I didn’t like, I don’t, I’m not a, I don’t like sailing, I don’t like water and it was a welcome sight to go through the harbour bar at New York to get inside the docks because as we went through the bar and they closed it the ship lit up because we’d sailed in darkness over, through the Atlantic, and as soon as we entered the, the New York dock area all the lights came on the ship. I mean New York was lit up as you see it on the films, I mean we hadn’t seen lights for three years. Eventually we, we docked in Pier 91 next to the burnt-out Normandy which had been, it had gone on fire and had capsized in the dock next to us, and it was still there. But eventually we were taken off the boat and we went under the river to New Jersey to get a train to go up to Monkton, RAF Monkton in Canada. We had to pass through the customs between America and Canada, and we stopped on the American side and one or two of us shot off because we were near to a small town and got a glass of beer, and we’d got to drink this very quickly and we didn’t realise the American beer was practically frosty, it was very, very cold. But we, eventually we arrived in Monkton, and we were there for maybe a week or so before we were sent west to the flying schools and I finished up at 32 EFTS, RAF Bowden in Alberta, I mean we could see the Rockies on the horizon, as we drove from the station, Innisfail was the station, why I know that is because I was reading a book by an ex Worcestershire cricketer, Cheston, who had trained there as well, and I picked up the name Innisfail I’d forgotten, but as we drove up from the station to the aerodrome all the training planes were lined up with their tails towards us and we all thought God, we’re all going to be fighter pilots, they looked like fighter ‘planes ‘cause they were all Fairchild Cornell which was a low wing plane. We were there for a period of time, I think we got in about seventy or eighty hours, and I soloed quite quickly after about five hours and during the training I realised that I would never become a fighter pilot because I didn’t like aerobatics. I always remember being sent up to practice spins and to do this you climbed to about three or four thousand feet and then spun down, and pulled out and climbed back and did it again. But every time I went to do it I’d get practically to the point of stall, at which point I was supposed to kick in rudder to go right or left and my nerve went so I pushed the nose down and climbed another thousand feet until I finished up at about ten thousand feet before I forced myself to spin. But having done it the first time and realised I could get out of trouble it wasn’t so bad, but aerobatics I just did not like. So I made my mind up then that I would never become a fighter pilot, I’d go for twins or multi engines. Having completed the elementary training we were posted to service flying training and I was posted to a place called RAF Estevan in Saskatchewan it was right on the American border just a few miles on the Canadian side but it was more or less in the middle of the dustpan, everything was covered with dust, there was a wind at all times and it was just blowing this dust and coating everything. The dormitories had got double-glazing with a mesh screen to try to keep this dust out, but they were flying Ansons there for training and we had to have a check to see whether our leg length was sufficient to be able to apply full rudder in the event of an engine failure. Well I didn’t like the station I thought I’m going to do my best to get away from here, so when I came to do my test I put, extending my to get full rudder and I gradually slipped down in the pilots’ seat so that I couldn’t see over the top of the board, dashboard, so that I failed the test. I didn’t realise that I could have been washed out of pilot training but I was posted away from Estevan to RAF Moose Jaw at Saskatchewan to fly Tiger Moths. The Anson hadn’t got a moveable rudder pedal whereas the Oxford had, you could wind them in to suit your leg length. The Oxford had got a bad reputation for killing people. It was a very difficult aeroplane to fly and they said that if you could fly an Oxford you could fly anything. And I took to the Oxford, I soloed after about five hours again and from then on it was just train, train, train until we eventually finished, I think we did something like about a hundred and fifty hours flying, and it came, the wings, the graduation ceremony, and I believe we were presented with our wings by Air Vice-Marshal Billy Bishop who was a Canadian fighter pilot in the First World War. I believe that it was him but we had already sewn wings on our uniforms and stripes on our arms if we were becoming sergeants, but we had to parade without, without wings or stripes on. But then having graduated, we had, we were given a posting back to Halifax, to get the boat back to England. We were allowed, I think, forty eight hours to have a leave in either Quebec or Montreal on the way back. I can’t remember now whether we were in Quebec or Montreal, but we eventually got back to Halifax and boarded the French liner, Louis Pasteur, to come back and it was a terrible journey. Since we were now supposed sergeants capable of looking after ourselves on the ship some of us were posted as assistant gunners on the anti-aircraft guns which were put about ten feet above the boat deck on a little platform with a rail around it to stop you falling off. And we had an Oerlikon cannon to look after. I mean we’d never seen a firearm but we’d got a naval man as the gunner and we were just there to help, But we always said the Louis Pasteur was a flat bottomed boat because it rolled and rocked like nobody’s business and there were literally thousands on the boat, the conditions were terrible, but every morning at about twelve o’clock if I remember rightly, we had a rendezvous with a Coastal Command aircraft so that when it came time we had to close up the guns in case it wasn’t an RAF plane, but bang on the dot it would appear out of the clouds, circle round for about half an hour, and then off it would go and we’d plough on. I mean we were not escorted it was just a, a quick dash across and I must admit I saw more U boats in the sea, that on that journey, than the German’s had got, every wave was a U boat. [laugh] But eventually we arrived at Liverpool, and we disembarked and were shipped to RAF Harrogate, the Majestic Hotel we were billeted in, and there were literally thousands of pilots, bomb aimers and navigators there. We just, we just didn’t know what was going to happen to us. I mean they came round I think twice, once asking for volunteers to change to glider pilot training. I mean those that did, that accepted it, I think most probably went in at Arnhem. But I being frightened, I decided I would stay and get an aeroplane with engines. So I was there for quite some time and eventually I was sent, we had um, because we’d been in Canada, living the life of luxury, they sent us up to Whitley Bay, Newcastle under the Army to have a month toughening up, and everything was done at the double. I was given a rifle and a band to cover my sergeant’s stripes, we used to have to wear these because the instructors were corporals and privates of the commandos and they gave us a real tough time. Route marches of about twelve miles, my feet were sore, but that was completed and we came back to Harrogate. They just didn’t know what to do with us. So we, eventually I ended up at RAF Bridgenorth, under canvas, and we always said we were draining an air commodore’s farm because we were digging ditches all the time and there were, there were Australians, and other Commonwealth aircrew with us and they used to, to show how tough they were, they’d sleep out in the open without a tent, until they got wet once or twice, [laugh] but we were there most probably two or three weeks and back again to Harrogate. And then I went on airfield control at RAF Gamston, just outside Worksop, acting as traffic control watching the Wellingtons, it was an OTU unit, and we were there [indistinct] at night on flare path duty and the control hut flashing greens or reds as required with an Aldis lamp. While I was there, I became friends with one or two of the screened pilots so I managed to get a few hours in on a Wellington. At the end of the, at the end of the time Gamston was closed down and the ‘planes moved to other OTUs so I got a few hours flying with the screen people taking these aeroplanes to the stations. The funniest part was we landed at one, we had a plane which went round all the aerodromes picking up the screened crews to take them back to Gamston, a Wellington, and it was very funny we landed one control, or pulled up at the control tower and shut the engines down waiting for the people to be picked up and out trooped from the Wellington, about eighteen people and the control officer’s jaw dropped when he saw all these people coming out [laugh] but it was quite, we stood, down the Wellington hanging onto the geo, geodetic structure, it was quite funny. From Gamston, I eventually was posted, oh yeah, I think I went back to Harrogate again and there I was volunteered to do an engineers’ course at St Athan down in South Wales. There was no chance of becoming an official pilot because they hadn’t got enough aeroplanes and there was too many people. So we were volunteered to do an engineers’ course at St Athan on the Lancaster systems, which we did about six weeks just to get the fundamentals of the system. And having completed that I was posted to sixteen 54 HCU at RAF Wigsley in Lincolnshire, where I was going to get crewed up with an ex OTU pilot and crew who wanted an Engineer, so we walked in, as engineers we walked into an office where there were pilots sitting around and the first person I saw was a man who’d been on the course immediately in front of me at Moose Jaw, a flying officer, he was a Pilot Officer Coates and we made contact and starting talking, he said ‘Well I’m looking for an engineer’ I said, ‘Well I’m an engineer but I’m also a pilot’ he said ‘Do you want to come and fly with me?’ ‘Yep’, and that’s how I joined Pilot Officer Coates’ crew because we knew each other. We completed a number of hours on the, at the heavy con unit, the conversion unit, and we were posted as a crew to 57 Squadron at East Kirkby.
CB: So when was this exactly?
CA: Well I think it was in either February ’45, because I wasn’t on the squadron long enough to be able to be awarded the Bomber Command Clasp which I thought was a bit em, bit naughty of them, I can come to that later. Well we were introduced to Wing Commander Tomes who was the Squadron Commander and I think Squadron Leader Astall although I’m not sure about that name. And we were more or less sent off to go and do some practice flying which we thought we’d done enough with the heavy con unit but it wasn’t good enough for the squadron. So we did quite a few cross countries and bombing practice at Wainfleet. And one day I was, I think most likely the last one in the engineer’s office and I was about to go for tea, and as I was walking out the engineer officer shouts, ‘Cyril, what are you doing tonight?’ I said ‘I’m going to have a beer why?’ he said ‘No you’re not, you’re flying.’ He said so and so has called in, his engineer’s gone sick, so they want an engineer so you’re flying as a spare bod on Flying Officer Jack Curran, who was an Australian pilot, he was short of an engineer so I was going with him and that night we went to Luetzkendorf which was the first operation, our rear gunner had also been made a spare bod and he went as a rear gunner with another crew. But Jack, Jack Curran had been shot down about two months previously and had got back so he was, he was a bit nervous as a pilot, he gave me a bit of jitters, because once we crossed, if I remember rightly, once we crossed over the Channel and got to the other side he proceeded to weave all the time and it made a heck of a mess of my petrol consumptions. But the thing that I always remember, was having got to the target, was the different colours or shades of red that there are, or were, I’d never seen so many different shades. Of course I mean I didn’t realise what was happening I mean I was, I’d got bags and bags of window which I was pushing [unclear] down the chute like nobody’s business thinking they were saving me but they weren’t they were saving the people coming behind me. But I pushed packets of it down, I even jammed the ‘chute once I had to get a big file from out of my kit, my tool kit and try and clear it and the file went down the ‘chute as well so that if that hit anybody downstairs they would have had a headache. But eventually we got, we came back and as we neared East Kirkby, Jack had called in to ask for landing instructions and we were told to vamoose, scatter, it was either an intruder in the circuit or something but we scattered like nobody’s business heading towards Wales, and on the way, we were told to make for RAF Bruntingthorpe which we eventually reached and Jack landed the Lanc’ alright, we parked it and were taken into a room for a bit of a debrief, given something to eat and then we were taken to beds in the dorms, in the Nissen huts. And I was, I was lying there on the bed, I couldn’t get to sleep, I suppose it was the adrenalin still coursing through the veins, but I was smoking away like nobody’s business, and I woke up the man in the bed next to where I was and he sat up and he saw I was a flight sergeant, he saw my tunic on the bed, so he said ‘What’s happened?’ so I just explained that we’d been diverted there and we were talking, he was a corporal engine fitter and he looked at me and I looked at him quite intently as if we knew each other. So eventually one or other said ‘Were you ever in Canada?’ and I said ‘Yes, you were at Moose Jaw, were you at Moose Jaw?’ ‘Yes’, he’d been an Engine Fitter out on the flights at Moose Jaw and had been posted back to, from Canada and he was working, was working at Bruntingthorpe on the Wellingtons. Well eventually we were given the all clear to go back to East Kirkby and, although it was forbidden, the squadron pilots always shot up the aerodrome having taken off. So we, we took off and joined a queue of people waiting to go down the runway and ignored it which we did. The station commander went mad and by the time we got back to East Kirkby the squadron commander was waiting for us and he proceeded to tear us off a strip. ‘They were OTU pilots being taught to fly safely and you people go down and show them what not to do’ [laugh] still it was Lancaster below zero feet going at about two hundred miles an hour is something, it’s really exhilarating, but still. Um, oh yeah, a few days later we went to Pilsen as a crew, Fred Coates the pilot and the rest of the crew, I mean he’d already done two spare bods as a pilot getting the idea of what happened, and Johnny the rear gunner had been, but the, I’d been but the others hadn’t so it was all new to them, but us old hands [laugh]. Well we went to Pilsen and our navigator was a graduate and he was a very meticulous navigator, very good, but very meticulous. I mean when we were flying you’d hear his voice come over the, the intercom, ‘What speed are we supposed to be flying at?’ ‘About two hundred and twenty, why?’ he said ‘I want two hundred and twenty five, nothing else, two twenty five is the airspeed.’ So I spent minutes trying to get the, the right speed. And he’d come through, ‘What course are you steering?’ ‘Why?’ He said ‘You’re two degrees out’, oh he was a, he was a menace [laugh]. But on the way, it’s only in latter life that I’ve realised this, but it was his first trip, it was most of us second or third and he was navigating and he said ‘We’re too early, we’re going to get to target too early’ so Fred said ‘Well what do you want to do?’ So Marsh says ‘We’ll do a dog leg, turn, and he gave us a course to turn to the left, to port, and flew out for a few minutes and then to come back into the, into the stream and go, head toward the target again, we’d lose the required minutes. And like fools Fred and I did this, but during the flight we were getting, we were getting, bumped about a bit and we couldn’t understand this because there was no flak to blow us around but we’d get jumped up and down, it would last a minute and then die down and then about a few minutes later again. We couldn’t fathom out what it was, but it’s only in latter life that I’ve realised what it was, because we got to Pilsen and back okay, and then we were put on a daylight to go to Flensburg, and I mean the RAF didn’t flew, didn’t fly in formation, they just got into a gaggle and went. So we joined the bunch and the idea was to get into the middle of the stream, so you kept lifting yourself up a bit, move over and then gradually drop down and force the man underneath to move out of the way so that you were doing this all the time. And occasionally we’d get this bump and it’s only as I say in latter life that I realised that at night when we got these bumps it was the slipstream of planes in front of us, that I never, I never saw a plane during flying at night but we must have been very, very close because it showed up during this daylight. But we went to Flensburg and it was aborted we couldn’t bomb, why we were never told but I did see a Messerschmitt 262 I think was the jet fighter, something came, went through the formation like nobody’s business but we’d got Mustang fighter escort they were most probably about ten thousand feet above us, but we did see them come down and go through the formation, on the way down to the deck whether they’d, they went down to er, hit some of these two five twos taking off, two six twos, but that was quite a sight to see these little, little bits going through the, through the formation. But my war ended with that aborted raid on Flensburg. We were thinking we should be going to Berchtesgaden but all the, the higher ups of the squadron did that, they didn’t let the lower lads do it. Then after the , after the war I flew on Lincolns, 57 Squadron were given three Lincolns initially to carry out service trials on them and by this time our pilot, Fred Coates, had departed. He’d been a police constable before the war and since they wanted the police in peace time to build up again they got Class B releases, or they were allowed to take Class B release. So Fred had just married his Canadian girlfriend who’d come over here to marry and 57 Squadron was one of the squadrons that were going out on Tiger Force to the Far East but Fred said no he wasn’t going to go, he’d get his Class B which he did. And we had another pilot, a Flight Lieutenant Strickland, who was posted into us to take over the crew. He came up I think from Mildenhall, I can’t remember which group they were, but he’d been an instructor in Canada for a number of years and he was very meticulous with his flying, everything was perfect and he kept the rest of us on top line. We flew the Lincolns, we’d got three and I think Mildenhall station they’d got three, we had lots of trouble with engine failures where as Mildenhall had airframe failures, rivets popping and things like that so it was quite, it was quite stressful flying these Lincolns. I’ve got a write up.
CB: We’ll stop there just for a moment.
CA: Yeah, I’ve got a write up actually,
CB: So we’ve stopped for a comfort break, and you were talking about Lincolns, you took on Lincolns?
CA: Oh yeah.
CB: You took on Lincolns. What happened then?
CA: Well, with the Lincolns, we as I say we’d got three and I since found that there was a Flight Lieutenant, Flight Lieutenant Jones who was one of the leading lights in the flight, I can’t recall him really, but erm.
CB: This is still war time before the Japanese surrender isn’t it?
CA: It was, yeah, but it was after the European war –
CB: Yep.
CA: And it was in the time between May and August -
CB: Right.
’45. The Lincoln was, was being produced to go overseas with the Tiger Force because the Lanc’ hadn’t got the range that was required and the Lincoln was supposed to have. But it wasn’t, in our eyes, it wasn’t as good as the Lancaster, I mean we were in love with the Lanc’ whereas the Lincoln was, was something different. I fully remember on one flight, I was sitting down on the right hand side and Pete was flying and I looked out of the starboard side and looked at the wing and I could see the skin rippling and I nearly collapsed with fear because I could see the wing moving up and down, and when it lifted up, so it rippled the skin at the join between the mid-section and the wing section, and for the rest of the flight my eyes never left that section [laugh] that part, but I found out when we got down that the wings moved five feet between the bottom and top and this was due to the weight of them and the, the fuel. And it was only after then that I noticed that when the Lincoln sat on the ground the wings appeared to be drooped and they moved up during the take off period to obtain the flying attitude. But it was a frightening sight I will admit.
CB: So it was a bigger aeroplane?
CA: It was a bigger aeroplane, it was heavier, I don’t know about the bomb load. I don’t think it was any different.
CB: But they were bigger engines and could fly higher and the span was a hundred and twenty four feet?
CA: A hundred and twenty.
CB: Hundred and twenty.
CA: About a hundred and twenty feet, yeah.
CB: Now when did you get promoted to warrant officer?
CA: Two years after I graduated. You were made, when you got your wings, you were a sergeant for about nine to twelve months and then flight sergeant for a year and then you became warrant officer. I mean a lot of the ground crew, senior NCO’s didn’t like this, I mean there were us youngsters who were up to sergeants after about eighteen months and they’d been in the Air Force for years and had just made corporal. So there was a bit of resentment between the ground crew NCO’s and the aircrews. But of course I mean we were only as aircrew given stripes, or officers in case you were ever shot down and taken prisoner, you got better treatment as a NCO, but that was the only reason.
CB: OK, so fast forward again to the Lincolns, your time in the RAF finished when, 1946?
CA: 1946 November.
CB: Right, so what did you do?
CA: What did I do afterwards?
CB: After the war, after the war finished?
CA: Well, I came back and as I said previously, I’d been an apprentice with Avery’s, and my apprenticeship had been cancelled when I joined up. So I went back to Avery’s and recommenced my apprenticeship but due to my service, instead of having to do a further length of time, because I was apprenticed for about five years and I had only done about twelve months, they reduced the remaining time by about twelve months and they concluded my apprenticeship about twelve months, having served and I’d done a four year apprenticeship instead of five, and that would have been somewhere around about 1947, ‘48 when I, they transferred me into the drawing office at Avery’s and I became a draughtsman.
CB: How long did you work as a draughtsman?
CA: Well I left Avery’s in 1951 and I was employed by the Cannon Iron Foundries for a year and then I, I went to Thompson Brothers in Bilsden for about three years and finally finished at ICI Marston Excelsior in ’56.
CB: What did you do there?
CA: I was a design draughtsman there and I, I did design, design work on, I always remember my first job was designing a heat exchanger for the Folland Gnat , just a small one, I can’t remember what it was for, I believe it was for the pilot cooling system to keep him cool. But this was on heat exchange. I finished up actually on heavy fabrication work, in aluminium work, and I became a section leader. I did various jobs, I engineered a liquid ethylene storage plant for ICI organic, organic section I think, or one of the sections at Billingham where we stored surplus liquid ethylene. And we stored it in a big container like a gasometer and I, I was given a piece of ground on the side of the river and put a storage plant there. I must admit that my initial estimate of costs was way down, [laugh] I made a hell of a bloomer, I think I estimated about a hundred and fifty thousand and it finished up at about, eight hundred thousand [laugh] we had quite a, an argument, not argument, discussion why [laugh]. But then I went onto production, onto the production side of the factory, as chief planning officer on fabrications which I, I did until the work started to peter out so I went onto development work on cold rolling of noble alloys for jet engines.
CB: This is all for ICI?
CA: All, yes, it’s all under ICI’s name, we bought in a cold rolling machine from Holland and we used to roll to very, very close tolerances. Rolls Royce were trying to reduce their costs by getting in components where they didn’t really have to do any work on, and I mean the jet engines required diameters to a thou’ in tolerance and we were supposed to try to do this by rolling them, which we did eventually, I mean we bought this machine. I went out to G, GE the American counterpart of Rolls Royce. GEC?
CB: GE yeah, General Electric.
CA: And I spent a fortnight out there getting some idea of how they tackled it but I mean they’d got a different idea I mean where here we had to justify spending sixpence, there the engineer, development engineer said ‘I want a machine it costs two hundred thousand pounds’ and he was given the money and they got the machine. Whereas we were trying to do it on one machine they’d got a battery of them, about ten. I mean this is the reason why they are the world beaters. Money is no object.
CB: When did you finally retire?
CA: I retired in March ’86 having completed thirty years.
CB: OK, thank you, I’ll stop there. So we’re restarting, we’re restarting just on a flashback. So you’re back from Canada as a qualified pilot.
CA: Yeah. I should have said then that I went up to, we were asked where we wanted postings to go to for flying. I never realised that there was a flying school at Wolverhampton otherwise I would have asked, instead I got posted up to RAF Carlisle on Tiger Moths where we did about a month flying a Tiger Moth around getting used to flying in English conditions. We used to take a navigator or a bomb aimer as a passenger for them to practice map reading while we flew it. We did a lot of flying around the Lake District, we were flying over Maryport and Workington I think is the other port, on the coast there. And we, we used to go down and count the number of ships that were in the harbour and things like this, and then having to fly back over the Lake District which was very, which could be quite treacherous with the down draughts and the winds whistling over the hills. It used to bounce the Tiger Moths around like nobody’s business. But we did that for about a month and then we were posted again hoping we were going to get posted to OTUs but it never, never, I was, you asked how I felt. I felt disappointed having made my mind up I was never going to fly single engine fighters I put down for twin engines or multis. The onus was on providing crews for four engine planes. So to get there I’d got to go to an OTU and that was never going to happen. So when I was posted to the engineers’ course I accepted it and it, I was still flying, that was what I wanted to do, I wanted to fly. So that, I made the best of a bad job. I thoroughly enjoyed it I mean, I enjoyed the, being on a squadron, being a crew, being a member of a crew and we’d got a good crew. I mean our mid upper gunner was the only one who could shoot through the aerial leading to the rudders which he did time and time again, it used to cost him half a crown a time when he pierced them, I mean this was when we were doing air to air gunnery and he was firing at a drogue and he’d traverse and ‘ping’ and Andy the wireless operator would say ‘You’ve done it again’ [laugh], but um.
CB: So, how long did you keep your pilots brevet?
CA: All the time.
CB: Oh did you, throughout the war?
CA: Yes, yes we were never forced to change them. That is why I always say I was a PFE rather than a flight engineer, I was a pilot flight engineer. And the pilots that I flew with gave me the opportunity to fly, to pilot. I mean Peter who was the ex-instructor, he was always within reach of pulling me out of the seat if necessary, but Fred he used to go and wander down to the Elsan at the back and leave me in charge. I mean I was playing about one day above the clouds and I was following the, the shape of the clouds up and down and Johnny who was sitting with his turret doors open, fore and aft, and it, it started to get a bit robust, the movement of the up and down movement and the Elsan lid which was tied down with a bungee rubber broke and the contents of the Elsan came up, [laugh], oh dear, and it covered him [laugh], he didn’t speak to me for days [laugh] because he knew it was me and not Fred [laugh].
CB: How did the crew get on together socially?
CA: Very good, very good we never went anywhere unless we went as a six. I mean, we bought our beer in the mess, we bought it by the bucket and helped ourselves with dipping the glass into the bucket rather than separate. No, it was a very good crew, very good.
CB: So in those days you could buy beer in a bucket could you?
CA: In the mess.
CB: In the mess, right.
CA: In the mess yeah.
CB: OK, and as a crew you worked well together?
CA: Oh yes, yes.
CB: And er.
CA: Well Marsh, he was working, he wanted to get onto pathfinders.
CB: Marsh being?
CA: The navigator. He was a very good navigator but, Mac, the bomb aimer, he was more of, an easy come, easy go.
CB: So.
CA: That second or the first raid as a crew to Pilsen we went through the target twice because Mac he wouldn’t drop because he couldn’t line it up properly so he said ‘I’ll send you round again’ and the rest of us shouted ‘What the hell, will you pull them’ and Fred said ‘If you don’t I shall jettison’. So he says ‘Go round again!’ So we had to make our way round and come back and get it back in the stream and fly it through but on the second time he let them go.
CB: This is a daylight raid?
CA: No, this was a night raid —
CB: This was in the night. So the reason I said that is because that sounds a particularly dangerous thing to do when you can’t see anything —
CA: It was a, well this is it, I mean what with trying to get in, slip into the stream, I mean you, I never saw another Lancaster in the stream. And I mean we went through the target we were only given somewhere maybe half an hour from the start to the end of the squadron’s time over the target so I mean God knows how close we were, but we were very close when we were getting buffeted by slipstream. But I mean a, when Marsh sent us on a dog leg when we turned out of the stream and then had to come back and join it again. We didn’t realise the stupidity of it, but Marsh being Marsh he’d got to have it down on his chart.
CB: Why would it have mattered if you had arrived early?
CA: Well a, the target may not have been indicated, or they were down below marking it, so you, I mean er.
CB: You could have bombed your own people —
CA: You could have bombed them, yeah —
CB: Right OK.
CA: And since the Lancaster was always the top flight, I mean it was Lancasters, Halifaxes, Stirlings.
CB: Right, there’s a ranking.
CA: So.
CB: And how did the crew feel, and you feel, about what you were doing as bombers?
CA: I don’t think we thought about it.
CB: OK.
CA: I don’t think we thought about it. I mean the first one — we had been bombed at home in 1940. We’d had a landmine dropped within about a hundred yards of home and our house is most probably still standing with the back, back wall bulged where the roof lifted and the walls started to move and it dropped down and it held. So I wanted to do something back but having that I don’t think you, we never talked about whether there was a right or wrong, it was a job.
CB: My wife was born in a bombing raid in Birmingham.
CA: Eh hum.
CB: What about LMF, did you know anything about that, or experience.
CA: We knew of it.
CB: Yes.
CA: We knew of it but we never met anyone who was accused of it or anything like that. But we didn’t like the idea because it wasn’t nice when you were over there. A funny tale, we had a man on the squadron, he was a dark, a Negro, and he was as black as the ace of spades, colour. And he’d got perfectly white teeth and he was known as twenty three fifty nine, that was his nickname, because twenty three fifty nine is the darkest part of the night, or supposed to be, a minute before midnight. And he was a rear gunner and when he was in his turret at night and you walked past it all you could see was these white teeth. It was really funny, but he was a good lad.
CB: What about other aspects of the work? When you boarded the aircraft what did you have with you to eat or drink?
CA: I think the only thing I can remember is boiled sweets. I mean I can’t ever remember fruit, or anything like that. I don’t think we ever took, I never took a drink at all. I mean I can tell the tale where, I mean, we used, sometimes to remember to take a bottle to use and one day Fred had forgotten his, the pilot, and he was in, he was in dire trouble. So he said ‘I’ve got to have something, I’ve got to have something’ so I was scooting round trying to, what the hell can he have? And I went and took the cover off the G George instrument, gyro, which was a pan of about eight or nine inch diameter and about three or four inches deep held on with four screws. So I took this off and gave him this to use, which he used. So he used it and said ‘Here get rid of it’ so I said ‘How?’ he says ‘Throw it out the window’ so I pulled my sliding window back —
CB: [laugh] —
CA: and threw it out, threw the contents. Of course, I mean as soon as the contents went out the slipstream took it all the way down the canopy, the Perspex, and we, I couldn’t see out of that side all the way back, and I also lost the G cover [laugh] which cost me five shillings and a telling off from the engineer officer. How, why was the G cover uncovered. ‘I can’t remember’ [laugh].
CB: Now what about the ground crew because you relied on them so, what was the relationship with them?
CA: Very good, other than the first time I went, we joined the squadron, and I don’t know whether I ought to say this, can I, can I not get up?
CB: Um.
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 Cyril Abbotts
Description
An account of the resource
Cyril Abbotts volunteered for the Royal Air Force while he was an engineering apprentice with W T Avery at Smethwick. After his reception at Lord’s Cricket Ground and initial training,he trained as a pilot at RAF Bowden and Moose Jaw in Canada. On his return to Great Britain, he spent some time in holding units, before being posted to retrain as a flight engineer at RAF St Athan. He flew operations with 57 Squadron from RAF East Kirkby in 1945 and later converted from Lancasters to Lincolns. Post-war he completed his apprenticeship, becoming a draughtsman for various companies including ICI. He retired after 30 years of service with them.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-15
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
Format
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01:18:53 audio recording
Language
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eng
Identifier
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AAbbottsC151015
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Saskatchewan--Moose Jaw
England--London
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Great Britain
Germany
Wales
Saskatchewan
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
1654 HCU
57 Squadron
African heritage
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
Cornell
crewing up
demobilisation
fear
flight engineer
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lincoln
Me 262
military discipline
military living conditions
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
P-51
physical training
pilot
promotion
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Carlisle
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Gamston
RAF Heaton Park
RAF St Athan
RAF Sywell
RAF Wigsley
RCAF Bowden
RCAF Estevan
recruitment
sanitation
Tiger force
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Window
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1283/SFlowersHJ[Ser -DoB]v10001.jpg
e42f967cedc362ff55abeb8f4b71e757
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
Flowers, James
H J Flowers
Horrace James Flowers
Harry James Flowers
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers, a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Flowers, HJ
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
James Flowers
1944, Sgt H James Flowers
Description
An account of the resource
Head and shoulders portrait of Sergeant James Flowers sitting with arms crossed wearing uniform tunic with air gunners brevet and side cap. Caption at top '1944, Sgt H James Flowers'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SFlowersHJ[Ser#-DoB]v10001
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
air gunner
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/130/1284/PNewsteadA1702.1.jpg
78005219656c9e485af907bde59d36a7
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
Sharpe, L V
L V Sharpe
Newstead, A
A Newstead
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. The collection consists of photographs related to Sergeant L V Sharpe, who was billeted at A Newstead’s home.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by L G Reid and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Newstead, A
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-07
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
Seven aircrew in front of a Lancaster
Description
An account of the resource
Seven aircrew standing in front of the rear turret of Lancaster VN-R. Five men have Mae Wests, one unfastened. The pilot in the middle wears a peaked cap.
L V Sharpe is second from the right.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PNewsteadA1702
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
50 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1305/SFlowersHJ[Ser -DoB]v10010.jpg
a55ea8b0fcdf0fc270c06fd7c73c228d
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
Flowers, James
H J Flowers
Horrace James Flowers
Harry James Flowers
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers, a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Flowers, HJ
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
James and Eunice Flowers' wedding
Description
An account of the resource
Full length wedding portrait of James and Eunice Flowers. He is on the left wearing uniform with air gunner brevet and sergeant stripes. She is standing alongside dressed in white full length wedding gown with veil lifted carrying a large bouquet. In the background to the side curtains drawn open. Captioned '1944 Saturday, 21st October, 2.30 pm. St Mary's Church Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-10-21
Format
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One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SFlowersHJ[Ser#-DoB]v10010
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Sutton in Ashfield
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-10-21
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
air gunner
aircrew
love and romance
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1317/PFlowersHJ1610.1.jpg
746ddd319e6ea629327afdc6f0f68c4e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1317/PFlowersHJ1611.1.jpg
15eca4e8235d6ec1290d00ded7f00b7b
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
Flowers, James
H J Flowers
Horrace James Flowers
Harry James Flowers
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers, a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Flowers, HJ
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
James Flowers
Description
An account of the resource
Head and shoulders portrait of Sergeant James Flowers wearing tunic with air gunners brevet and side cap, seated with his arms crossed. On the reverse 'H J Flowers'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFlowersHJ1610, PFlowersHJ1611
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
air gunner
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1320/PFlowersHJ1612.1.jpg
1e027c1bb1f021e64e03e584b41c599f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1320/PFlowersHJ1613.1.jpg
0b01b7d6e10c2c3fb7f5c523fea162ce
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
Flowers, James
H J Flowers
Horrace James Flowers
Harry James Flowers
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers, a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Flowers, HJ
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
James Flowers air gunners course
Description
An account of the resource
Group of 12 airmen in two rows wearing tunics and side caps. Seven in the front row are sitting and the five in the rear are standing. James Flowers is on the left of the front row. On the reverse '3/6/44, Front left AJF'.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFlowersHJ1612, PFlowersHJ1613
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Shropshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-03
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
air gunner
aircrew
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1325/PFlowersHJ1614.1.jpg
2c6f01a59d5e1433afb0dc0c7ddc658a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/129/1325/PFlowersHJ1615.1.jpg
f320bea8e9cc7b997aa5707ae70fcf27
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
Flowers, James
H J Flowers
Horrace James Flowers
Harry James Flowers
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. The collection concerns the wartime experiences of Flight Sergeant Horace James Flowers, a rear gunner with 50 Squadron at RAF Skellingthorpe. The collection consists of one oral history interview, a propaganda leaflet and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Flowers and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
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Flowers, HJ
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Title
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Henry James Flowers in Lancaster mid-upper turret
Description
An account of the resource
In the centre a turret on top of a fuselage with the guns pointing to the right. Inside the turret the head and shoulders of Henry James Flowers wearing a flying helmet can be seen looking towards the camera. Behind the turret part of the port tail plane is visible. In the background a flat grass airfield with taxiway and a hangar in the distance. Captioned on the reverse 'P24, HJF Lanc, Henry James Flowers M/U Gunner'.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
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One b/w photograph
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PFlowersHJ1614, PFlowersHJ1615
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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.
Type
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Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
air gunner
aircrew
hangar
Lancaster
military service conditions
taxiway
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/146/1469/BTaylorWHTaylorWHv1.2.pdf
21b45172bb29d0a09e3326489e00512f
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
Taylor, William
William Henry Taylor
William H Taylor
W H Taylor
W Taylor
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with William Henry Taylor (2214212 Royal Air Force) and a typewritten memoir.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Taylor, WH
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MORE WAR MEMORIES
The RAF BOMBING RAIDS ON REVIGNY
In July 1944 three bombing raids were carried out on the railway junction and marshalling yards at Revigny, some 150 miles due east of Paris, which lay on the line from the Ruhr to north-eastern France, the Germans making full use of them to supply the battle zone. It was a strategic target that had to be destroyed, which was going to prove easier said than done. It should have been destroyed at the first attempt but extremely bad weather, and the Luftwaffe saw to it that a heavy price in planes and men would have to be paid after the job was completed.
Just 15 miles from the target was St Dizier airfield, home to an experienced night fighter unit who were going to make things difficult. During the three operations, 41 Lancasters were lost, and of the 287 aircrew, 231 were killed and only 56 managed to bale out to be captured or assisted to evade by the French resistance fighters.
During this period I was with 1 Group and stationed at RAF Elsham Wolds. Two squadrons shared the stations — Nos 576 and 103 of which I was a member, being rear gunner of Lancaster ‘U’ for Uncle piloted by Pilot Officer Roy Anthony. Our seven man crew had been together for six months, flying Wellington, Halifax and Lancaster bombers. We’d had some rough trips but were convinced we would survive and see the end of the war together.
During June and July we took part in several missions, some by day and others by night, the enemy was always active, and the anti-aircraft fire in particular was intense and alarming.
Then came operation ‘Revigny’. This trip was one and off three times, we were due to go on the nights of 8th, 10th and 11th of July, but each time the trip was cancelled because of bad weather conditions. The raid was again re-planned for Wednesday 12th of July,
The route to the target was very interesting if only for the distance to be covered — nearly 1,500 miles there and back. Instead of going in a straight line we were to cross the English coast at Bridport, Dorset, go around the Channel Islands, cross in over France by Mont St Michael, keep south of Paris and then swing north east to the target. We were to return by the same route, it was going to be a long, long trip.
The aircraft was loaded with a mixture of 1,000 and 500lb general-purpose bombs, and the fuel load was around 2,000 gallons. It was reckoned that a Lanc consumed one gallon per mile, the extra was added for safety.
Marking of the target would be carried out by 1 Group’s own Special Duties Flight which was seven Lancasters detailed for this task. 1 Group were also to provide 100 to carry out the bombing — 38 of which were to come from Elsham Wolds 19 from each squadron.
After debriefing we donned our flying suits and Mae West’s, picked up our issue of chocolate bars and flasks of coffee then piled onto our crew bus and drove out to the dispersal where ‘U’ for Uncle sat, looking very businesslike. We each carried out our
[page break]
Checks of equipment and then sat about on the grass waiting for the time to start up and go. The Padre, our flight C.O. and the Group Captain drove around to wish us ‘God Speed and Good Luck’, as they did to all crews on Ops Nights.
At approximately 21.10 hrs and still in broad daylight engines were started up and with everything in order we rolled out of dispersal on to the perimeter track waiting for the green light from the control van to line up on the runway. We waved to the usual collection of spectators, and when we got the second green light, the throttles were opened and we set off down the runway. This is when you think – ‘What if an engine cuts out at speed and we do a ground loop with all those bombs on board’ No such thing occurred and at approximately 21.25 hrs we were airborne and on our way to Revigny. By the time we crossed the English coast it was quite dark. It was a beautiful night and the stars were very bright, but that the Lord there was no moon. German ack-ack guns opened up when we were passing the Channel Islands and again as we crossed the French coast. After a while firing ceased and the searchlights were switched off. Firing was then sporadic along the route.
As we were no into German radar range it was the job of one of the crew {Usually the bomb aimer or flight engineer) to throw out bundles of ‘Window’ to confuse the radar. This was done at a controlled rate — one bundle a minute increasing to five as we neared the target. We carried approximately 350 bundles — enough to resume the rate on the homeward route.
We roared on deeper into France, and enemy fighters were now attacking, the real show was about to start. At about 01.30 with the Lancasters closing in on Revigny and the fighters closing in on us, the unpredictable weather began to play its part. It was about to have dire consequences for the raid.
All the crews headed for the briefed assembly point which happened to be about 5 miles from the German night fighter airfield and about 15 miles from Revigny. We had been instructed to carry out a wide right-hand orbit and await the order to go in and bomb.
We had flown at the low height of 6,000/8,000ft all the way from the UK and had been briefed to bomb from as low a height as possible to ensure accuracy, and to ensure no French civilians were killed. It was made absolutely clear as well that we were to bomb below any cloud there was. In the event there was a layer of cloud 5 to 8/10th thick between 3,000 and 6,000 ft. and below this cloud was considerable haze that made it difficult for the Special Duties Flight to locate the aiming point.
On top of this the Master Bomber lost his H2S radar and was forced to make a Dead Reckoning run from the assembly point to the target. He was unable to see clearly and was forced to delay calling in the main force to bomb, for 15 minutes he searched to find the aiming point. SDF crews were dropping illuminating flares over there they thought the railway junction to be, and with Sods Law working overtime the Master Bomber with his H2S already unserviceable then lost the use of his VHF radio due to
[page break]
power failure, all the ingredients for a collosal ‘Balls up’ were present now and the raid was doomed to failure
in the meantime the rest of us had been flying round in ever decreasing of over [one word indecipherable] minutes, waiting for the Master Bomber to tell us to come in and bomb. All we heard was the Deputy asking ‘What’s going on’ Just as chaos was setting in some of us heard the code word ‘Lysol’ to stop bombing and go home, broadcast, not by the master bomber but by his Deputy.
Many crews, including mine, tired of waiting and just circling, saw the white flares and that was enough for us. We had not flown all that way just to stooge around the enemy for 15 to 20 minutes, and then shoot off home. If we could see the railway lines or either those flares, fair enough, it was going to be ‘Bombs away’
Semblance of control had gone as Lancasters arrived from all points of the compass, [one word indecipherable] their left or right hand orbits. It was a real mess, the raid was breaking up, and as we turned for home the German fighters arrived. The ME 110 fighters closed in and turned onto the milling bombers. The surprise was that in addition to their usual forward firing cannon they had 2 upward firing 20mm cannon, known as ‘Schrage musik’, (Jazz or Night Music). This allowed them to get into position in the blind spot under their victim and blast away. The first thing many crews knew about an attack was when cannon shells ripped into their aircraft. (My crew found out about this on [one word indecipherable] number two when we became victims).
With the raid now falling apart at the seams, the inevitable happened. Two of the Lancs orbiting in different directions collided and went down in flames. Another had a fighter slam into it, and again both went down. Our Guardian Angel was certainly with us that night and we were able to get of the mess and fight our way home. JU88s ME110 made repeated attacks on us during the long haul out of France and they succeeded in shooting down several Lancs.
[one word indecipherable] 10 Lancasters were lost and 56 men killed. The irony is that the target was undamaged and the whole mission was a complete fiasco. Elsham Wolds suffered four of these losses with 25 aircrew killed.
[one word indecipherable] and shaken we were looking forward to landing at base, but this was not to be as Lincolnshire was disappearing under a sea of fog, so we were diverted to RAF Blyton, where we landed about 06.30, nine hours after taking off. We were debriefed and fed and watered, the aircraft were checked for damage and refuelled while we waited for the fog to disperse before returning to base, around 16.00hrs, totally exhausted.
(To be continued) W H (Buck) Taylor
[one word indecipherable] often wondered where the sun went to at night, so I stopped up to find out… and then it dawned on me.
[one word indecipherable] started out with nothing and still have most of it left.
[page break]
MORE WAR MEMORIES (cont)
Continuation of the Revigny Saga
The weather was still bad over the continent on the 13th of July, so no night Ops were programmed for that night.
On the morning of 14th of July, having slept well, we breakfasted before going to the squadron to look at the flying training programme. We were on it, but just for fighter affiliation, a short trip of 45 minutes duration.
In the meantime Elsham Wolds received notice that a second raid by 1 Group would take place on Revigny that night. At briefing everyone was totally astounded, we could not believe that we would have to go back so quickly, if at all, the news rather knocked the stuffing out of us all, as the previous raid on 12/13th July had been a total failure.
1 Group would again provide 106 Lancasters for this second raid, Elsham Wolds share of this would be 12 each from 103 and 576 Squadrons. The special Duties Flight, which had tried to mark the target two nights earlier being replaced by the Lancs from the Pathfinder Force. The route however was to be almost identical, Base, Bridport (South Coast), the Channel Islands, in over the French coast at Mont St Michael, keep south of Paris and then swing, with a slight variation, north east to the target. The return journey would be almost the same as that of two nights previously. The bomb load would be the same, as was the fuel load of 2,000 gallons, however we were to carry more than twice the number of bundles of window and start throwing them out earlier.
Briefing for the raid began at 18.45 hours after we had been fed, leaving plenty of time to collect our equipment and report to the assembly point. We were taken out to dispersal by bus as usual and carried out the checks on our individual equipment. At this point all seemed well and we sat around on the grass — but not together as we usually were, we seemed to be quite dispersed, and a look of gloom and doom was evident on our faces.
When the time came to take our places and start up the engines the trouble started. The port outer engine started coughing and spluttering, we had a mag drop. We got out and the ground crew took over to sort the problem. In the meantime the rest of the aircraft were moving out of the dispersals and taking of, we had lost our take off slot. I’m pretty sure that some of the crew, including me, were hoping that Roy, our pilot, would call the whole thing off but he didn’t. The ground crew fixed the problem, and we got back into the aircraft, taking off 15 minutes late at approximately 21.45. The weather was far from good, with 8/10th cloud over Elsham Wolds and getting worse the further south we flew, until it was 10/10th over the coast.
We were reminded as usual by the German gunners that there was a war on: they were flinging up flak blindly but without success. There were a few skirmishes
[page break]
With enemy fighters along the route, but no casualties as the Lancs continued across France until we reached the target area where we were met by night fighters in abundance — ME 110’s in particular, with JU 88’s and single engine day fighters, FW190’s and ME 109’s joining in the action.
Over Revigny proper it was the turn of the Pathfinders to locate and mark the target, but the low cloud base and underlying fog were causing exactly the same problems as two nights before and they had difficulty in finding the aiming point, but nevertheless markers were being dropped.
Lancasters were orbiting and waiting the order to go in and bomb. It was mayhem as the fighters were homing in and picking off the aircraft. We had circled the target three or four times when the order came from the Master Bomber to abandon the mission. My pilot like some others decided to go round again as he felt certain he had seen the target under the markers and it was ‘Bombs Away’ before turning and setting course for home, feeling we had done our duty.
Enemy fighters followed the bomber stream and it wasn’t long before we were attacked, there were some mighty bangs as cannon shells hit out fuselage. I shouted ‘Down Port’ to the pilot and he immediately threw the aircraft into evasive action, which he kept up for a few minutes before levelling out and then asking crew members to state their condition. There was no reply from Bill Wass, the mid-upper gunner, he was dead, and the bomb aimer Gerry Maughan, who had been throwing out bundles of Window near to the mid-upper gun position when we were hit, was very badly wounded.
We thought we had lost the fighter — and although I was scanning the sky he got us again, more tremendous bangs along the underside of the aircraft, and it was now obvious that we were being attacked by one of the new, upward firing ME 110’s. You just could not see them because they were operating from underneath the aircraft, and it became apparent that this was the end for ‘U’ for Uncle’. We went into a steep dive, against which Roy the pilot could do nothing, and like the others, he was screaming in pain, and we were on fire heading quickly for the ground.
I pulled myself out of the turret trying to reach the rear door, but couldn’t. I grabbed my parachute, attached it and pulled myself back into the turret, which I swung on to the beam and eased myself out. It was a good job that I was small, even so I lost my boots which stayed behind in the turret as the slip stream grabbed me, and away I went tumbling through the air where, luckily my parachute opened at an extremely low altitude, and I was ok.
The aircraft crashed in flames and exploded, killing the six other members of my crew, about 400 yards from where I eventually landed. I managed to reach a nearby house and asked for help, which they refused, obviously being afraid of reprisals.
I was captured soon afterwards, and I remember the German officer saying — “for you the war is over”. He was right, and I spent the next ten months of war in camps Luft 7 and Stalag 3.
[page break]
Once again for absolutely nothing, 7 Lancasters and 43 aircrew were lost.
The following I obviously found out later.
The aircrew of No5 Group were in for a surprise on 18th of July They must have thought they had finished for the day after taking part in a huge operation that had started at dawn, when they had been employed on a massive assault in support of the ground troops near Caen (Normandy) where elements of the German Fifth Panzer army were dug in. Over 1,500 bombers, both RAF and USAAF had been involved which would normally be enough of a day for anyone.
But no! The Revigny railway junction and marshalling yards had not yet been put out of action and 5 Group had been chosen to put the matter right.
The weather over the continent had improved — not a lot, but sufficient for the top brass to think that 5 Group would succeed where 1 Group had failed. The route to the target was changed, and a much shorter route was chosen, flying in almost a straight line from England to the target, but this was going to prove a far more dangerous thing to do, and it did prove disastrous. Out of the 106 Lancs taking part 24 were shot down, and a further 129 aircrew were killed.
The target was damaged but not destroyed, marking, due to the bad weather conditions again proving difficult.
Collectively, the Revigny raids were a failure, the target was a small one, and, because of strict instructions crews were not to be careless with their bombing to prevent possible French casualties. The extremely bad weather and the severity of the attacks by the Luftwaffe reduced considerably the chance of success.
The Germans too were extremely good at organising and repairing bomb damage, press-ganging about 2,000 men to clear up the mess, and had a line open to through traffic in a few hours. The allied on the other hand gained a delay of about two days at most.
This at a cost of 43 Lancasters, and the lives of 231 men.
Such is war!
W H (Buck) Taylor.
[page break]
MEMORIES OF WAR CONTINUED.
THE AFTERMATH OF BEING SHOT DOWN
By W.H. (Buck) TAYLOR
My participation in 2 of the 3 bombing raids on Revigny in France in July 1944, resulting in the loss of our Lancaster and of me being the only survivor didn’t stop there. I was told by a German Officer after my capture ‘For you the war is over’ He was only partly right, because I was about to embark on a most miserable and harrowing journey that was to last over ten months. As the saying goes — I was very much out of the frying pan and into the fire.
For the next two weeks I was shuttled from place to place, travelling in trains and lorries —through France and well into Germany. Soldiers guarding me made it plain they would shoot me if I stepped out of line. Feeding me was not a top priority for them, but they did give me bits and pieces from time to time.
On 29th July we arrived at our destination, the notorious aircrew interrogation centre ‘Dulag Luft’ at a place called Oburvel near Frankfurt in Germany. I was immediately placed in solitary confinement, a very small cell that contained just a bed. Being midsummer it was very hot and stifling, but I had the impression that they were adding to the heat somehow. I could also hear periodic rifle bursts and wondered if they were executing prisoners. It all helped to scare me a bit.
I was subjected to considerable interrogation but couldn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. After all I was only 18 years old and a rear gunner to boot. What could I possibly know that would interest them? After about three days I was taken from my cell to join other aircrew who I hadn’t seen before. I think it was here that I was given my Red Cross official clothes and washing gear, and a pair of suede boots. I was indeed grateful for the footwear because I had lost my flying boots when I baled out of my turret, and had been walking about in stocking feet ever since.
We were then loaded into cattle trucks and set off for the POW camp — Stalag Luft 7, Bankau in Silesia (now Poland) the journey taking about two days. The next thing I remember was being marched into a large compound surrounded by a high double wire fence, complete with watchtowers. The living accommodation for the prisoners was small wooden huts about the size of a single garage and sleeping 6 men. We called them dog kennels. There were no beds — only large individual sacks filled with straw, the camp had only been open for a month and was lacking any facilities at all. There was no lighting and only a very poor water supply — one hand operated pump for 800 men, and new arrivals coming in every day. The toilet facilities consisted of long deep oblong pits with logs along their length upon which you sat and tried not to fall in whilst doing what you had to do.
The good news was that a new living compound was being built next door and three months later we moved in. There was now running cold water, electricity, toilets
[page break]
and showers, which were occasionally hot, plus, Bless the Lord, bunk beds. A total of twenty five huts in all.
A 16 ft high fence covered in barbed wire the top 4 feet sloping inward to prevent anyone crawling over the top surrounded the new camp. There was also nine wooden watchtowers each containing a guard, searchlight and a machine gun placed at regular intervals. There was the usual trip wire several feet from the fence and any prisoner caught crossing it was liable to be shot, and occasionally was.
Luft 7 was a camp of SNCO’s and as such I was not compelled to work. Each day was utterly empty and boring, the greater part was spent thinking about food, or rather the lack of it. Food provided by the Germans was a daily bowl of so called soup, a small ration of potatoes and a slice of black bread. The potatoes were not peeled and were covered in thick earthy skin. We were all so hungry all the time that we ate with gusto and would have had seconds if allowed.
This diet was obviously very poor and insufficient for our needs, but what helped us physically and mentally was the occasional issue of Red Cross parcels, which gave us added calories to keep us going. In view of what lay ahead it is important not to forget this poor diet that we endured for months, because in January 1945 we were forced to leave Bankau at rifle point. More about that later.
Meanwhile the war continued apace and the Russian Army was giving the Germans a real beating advancing all along the Eastern Front, and towards our camp in particular. I thought that as we were in the path of the Russian juggernaut we would stay put and be overtaken by it all. Not so. On the day Warsaw fell, 17th of January 1945, we were told to gather our meagre belongings and be ready to march off in one hour’s time. We were also warned that for every man who dropped out of the column five others would be shot. The weather was absolutely ghastly and was probably the reason for the march being postponed for two days until the 19th of January.
There was no transport provided for the fifteen hundred plus prisoners, or the German guards, and the march commenced at the ungodly hour of 03.30. There was no change in the weather, it was bitterly cold, sub zero in fact and snowing hard. So into the freezing early morning we all marched, Germans and prisoners alike. It was quite orderly at first with the guards on the outsides of the column, but over time, trudging through the snow and not being able to see where we were going, prisoners and guards were soon all mixed together.
On the first day we covered seventeen and a half miles and finally stopped at village called Winsterfeld where the only accommodation was several small barns and a school. I was one of those packed into a barn and it was so densely packed it was impossible to lie down. Freezing wind and snow blew through the cracks and made sleeping difficult.
At about 04.00 we were awakened by the guards who were shouting and crashing about, and after a bowl of thin, watery soup we were on our way again. This time our journey was only 7 miles but took five and a half hours to complete. Our new
[page break]
accommodation was a disused brick factory, and I think it was here that we were provided with two field kitchens, each one capable of cooking food for 200 men, but as we were 1500 plus strong, you can draw your own conclusions. I don’t remember getting any food that day.
The guards ordered us back on the road around 20.00hrs, our leaders protested but to no avail, they were told it was an order and must be obeyed. The Germans produced a horse and cart to transport the sick and off we went again into the freezing night with the temperature falling to minus 13 degrees. It wasn’t long before the cart was full of sick, and, as others collapsed they were helped by their mates to continue. This night march was the longest and worst so far. We struggled and fell about in the deep snow, hour after awful hour.
What we didn’t know was that we had to reach a certain bridge over the River Oder as soon as possible, the German Sappers had orders to blow it later in the morning. Pure tenacity saw us through that 20 miles to the river, but we didn’t stop there. We had to struggle on a further 5 miles before being allowed to stop. It was 09.00 on 21st of January and we were totally exhausted having covered 25 miles, taking 13 hours. Cow sheds and barns awaited us but what luxury — at least we were out of the snow and howling cold wind.
At 03.00 the next day, 22nd of January, orders were given for us to march off at once. It was still dark and people were reluctant to move because of the exhaustion and the fact they couldn’t find their belongings. The German guards had an answer to that — they fired their guns, which had the desired effect.
We staggered on — this time to Jenkwitz, a total of 21 miles. We did see and pass through a column of German soldiers who were in an equally pitiful state, obviously retreating because they looked so shattered too. One of their horses had collapsed while pulling a cart and some of the soldiers were hacking lumps of meat from its hindquarters, they were obviously hungry too. On arrival at Jenkwitz we were housed again in humble wooden barns, and were given soup but no bread.
This horrendous night marching, with very little rest at the end of it, and practically no food continued for several more days. The blizzards raged relentlessly and the snow was so deep off the roads you could hardly see over the top of it. escape would have been easy but where would you go? And how would you survive? How on earth any of us survived so far I don’t know. We didn’t want to die. That was it.
On 5th of February the last stage of this hellish march got under way. The last five miles to Goldberg were accomplished, and lo and behold we were in the marshalling yards and we were put aboard cattle trucks — 55 men to a truck. We were all extremely weak and debilitated; Dysentery had broken out amongst the men. There was no room in the trucks to lie down — so some sat and the others stood — changing over periodically.
We remained in the trucks for three days and two nights, with no sanitation and no water — ideal conditions for the dysentery to spread. Even when the train was
[page break]
stationary for long periods we were not let out, you can imagine the conditions inside the trucks — it was filthy and stinking. The nightmare journey ended 25 miles south of Berlin and we tumbled out of the wagons just in time. Any longer and I think a lot of prisoners would have died. Personally I had great difficulty in straightening up and walking.
The journey that had started on 19th of January finished on 7th of February, a total of 20 days, and apart from the train journey we had marched 154 miles.
To be continued W H (Buck) Taylor
THE AFTERMATH OF BEING SHOT DOWN
[Conclusion)
Now, to complete my story, we had arrived at another prison camp Stalag 3A Luckenwalde, near Berlin. We were to stay here until the Russians liberated us.
Shortly after arriving I went down with dysentery, as did many others. It’s an absolutely ghastly complaint with perpetual stomach pains and diarrhoea. I was very weak before I started and very close to death with the disease. I remember being given doses of charcoal and something — cocaine I think, to bind me up.
Conditions in the camp were simply awful — particularly for we new arrivals. We didn’t have beds, just straw on the floor and were lumped together like cattle. The camp was vast and separated into compounds. The inmates were all nationalities, Russians, Poles, Slavs, Yanks and French — the latter being the most numerous and they had been there the longest. They also appeared to dominate the proceedings, but did nothing to help us.
After about two weeks Red Cross Officials visited the camp and as a result we each received a food parcel. After that was gone, it was back to soup and black bread.
The weeks passed and we wondered who would get us first — the Allies from the West or the Russians from the East. Eventually, gunfire became obvious from the East and one day we awoke to discover that the German guards had gone. The Watch Towers were empty and to all intents and purposes we were free.
The next day, 22nd April, the Russians arrived and their soldiers’ re-occupied the watchtowers. A couple of tanks drove down the camp roads with soldiers standing up in the turrets. One of them was a young blonde woman and I remember thinking how good looking she was. For some reason — I thought that Russian women might not be too pretty — I was wrong.
These soldiers were inviting us to follow their tanks to join them in the fight for Berlin. We all declined. I don’t think we could have fought our way out of a paper bag.
Alas, our food situation didn’t improve. The Russians only wanted to kill Germans not feed large numbers of prisoners.
However, foraging parties were searching for food and after a couple of days they discovered thousands of Red Cross parcels in a train in deserted Luckenvalde railway sidings and we felt better for each receiving one of them.
Our main overwhelming desire, apart from wanting regular meals, was to go home as quickly as possible, but the Russians who wanted to repatriate us via Russia were thwarting this, and not one of us wanted that.
[page break]
On 6th of May a convoy of American trucks arrived outside the camp to take us to one of their bases and then home, but the Russians wouldn’t allow it. This was too much for two others and myself. One of the U.S. soldiers — a Negro — was egging us on to get through the wire and onto his truck. We did just that and we sped off to freedom.
A lot happened after that — suffice to say that eventually I was flown home to England, debriefed, given a new uniform, money and a travel warrant, and sent home on indefinite leave.
NOW MY WAR WAS OVER.
W.H. (Buck) Taylor
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
More war memories. The RAF bombing raids on Revigny
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
France--Revigny-sur-Ornain
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Tychowo
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Karl Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Describes how his aircraft was shot down on an operation to Revigny by an Me 110 night fighter. He baled out. and was captured. After being interrogated he became a prisoner of war. In February 1944, as the Russians advanced, he and his fellow prisoners took part in the long march to Leukenwalde.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
William Taylor
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
12 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
BTaylorWHTaylorWHv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07
1944-07-18
1945
1 Group
103 Squadron
5 Group
576 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
bombing
dispersal
Dulag Luft
H2S
Lancaster
Master Bomber
Me 110
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
prisoner of war
RAF Elsham Wolds
sanitation
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
tactical support for Normandy troops
the long march
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/1477/PColeC1602.2.jpg
485d30c1cb9c3bf495fb42983d80427e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/1477/PColeC1603.2.jpg
3710d502e054435bcdee777783514751
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Cole, Colin
C Cole
Colin Cole
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection relates to Warrant Officer Colin Cole (1924 – 2015 RAF Volunteer Reserve 1605385) who served with 617 Squadron. The collection contains two oral history interviews his, logbook, service documents, medals, memorabilia from the Tirpitz and six photographs.
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. Six items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties or to comply with intellectual property regulations. 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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-27
2015-07-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cole, C
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Colin Cole and crew in front of a Lancaster
Description
An account of the resource
Seven aircrew dressed in uniform, standing in front of a Lancaster. A lorry is visible in the background. Captioned 'Woodhall Spa, Sept 1944 Mid-Upper Gunner, Flight Eng. Bomb Aimer, Skipper, Nav, w/op 'Me' Rear Gunner' On the reverse 'Colin Cole L to R M/U/G "Jock" Goldie, "Griff" Sgt Griffin, Sgt Dennis Oldman, F/Lt [?] (John), Sgt Cole, Sgt John Daley'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PColeC1602
PColeC1603
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09
617 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Lancaster
navigator
pilot
RAF Woodhall Spa
service vehicle
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/1519/PColeC1656.1.jpg
239a9ef59610749f1e3c7fd875aa0d8a
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
Cole, Colin
C Cole
Colin Cole
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection relates to Warrant Officer Colin Cole (1924 – 2015 RAF Volunteer Reserve 1605385) who served with 617 Squadron. The collection contains two oral history interviews his, logbook, service documents, medals, memorabilia from the Tirpitz and six photographs.
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. Six items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties or to comply with intellectual property regulations. 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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-27
2015-07-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cole, C
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air gunner's brevet
Description
An account of the resource
Brevet badge, cloth, gold leaves, cream wing and text, blue background.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One badge
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Physical object. Clothing
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PColeC1656
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
air gunner
aircrew
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1559/LDarbyC1897788v1.1.pdf
fcd4a4bcfdac0e065595002419fce2ec
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Charlie Darby’s observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDarbyC1897788v1
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--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Belgium--Saint-Vith
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Le Havre
France--Watten
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Netherlands--Oostkapelle
Netherlands--Westkapelle
Germany
Netherlands
France
Belgium
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-08-24
1944-08-25
1944-09-09
1944-09-11
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-09-30
1944-10-15
1944-10-23
1944-10-29
1944-10-30
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-11-16
1944-11-18
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-12-06
1944-12-21
1944-12-26
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1945-01-02
1945-01-05
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Sergeant Charlie Darby, air gunner from 22 January 1944 to 16 January 1945. Charlie Darby was stationed at RAF Castle Kennedy and RAF Driffield where he flew Anson, Wellingtons and Halifaxes Mk 2 and 3. He took part in 30 night and daylight operations over Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands: Saint-Vith, Boulogne, Brest, Calais, Le Havre, Watten, Bochum, Bottrop, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Hannover, Jülich, Kiel, Koblenz, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Magdeburg, Münster, Neuss, Oberhausen (Düsseldorf) Sterkrade, Opladen, Osnabrück, Wilhemshaven, Oostkapelle, Westkapelle. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Evans and Flight Lieutenant Stuart. Operations include V-1 sites and army cooperation, with details on anti-aircraft fire, searchlights and attacks by Me 109 and Me 110
1658 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Me 109
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Riccall
searchlight
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1560/MDarbyC1897788-150717-01.1.jpg
2e57698d502400816d32f45eaeab07ec
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined]Ode to an air gunner[/underlined]
If I must be straight rear gunner
then please God grant me grace,
that I may leave this station
with a smile upon my face.
I may have wished to be a pilot
and Joe along with me,
but if we were all pilots
where would the Air force be.
A pilot is only a chauffeur
and he’s there to fly the plane,
its the Gunner who does the fighting
though he may not get the fame.
It takes a man to be a Gunner
to sit out in the tail,
when the Messerschmitts come at you
and the slugs fly like hail.
But we’re in here to win the war
and ‘till the job is done,
let’s forget our personal feelings
and get to work behind the gun.
[underlined]You’ll Get Your Reward[/underlined]
An A.G. stood at thee Pearly Gates,
His face was worn and old,
He meekly asked thee Man of Fate
“May I come into thee Fold?”
“What have you done?” St. Peter asked
“To gain admission here”.
“I was a Tailend Charlie on a Halifax, Sir
For thee best part of a year.”
Thee Pearly Gates swung open wide
As St. Peter rang the bell.
“Come in,” he said “and welcome lad,
You’ve served your time in Hell.”
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
Ode to an air gunner
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Poetry
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MDarbyC1897788-150717-01
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
Describes the role played by the air gunner and his attitude toward danger. In the afterlife, the air gunner goes straight through the Heavens's gate as his wartime suffering is considered equivalent to expiation.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Charlie Darby
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printout
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.
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
arts and crafts
military ethos
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1563/ADarbyC150630.2.mp3
da9e5105946763a779ff81714d32e118
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: Right, so my name is Chris Brockbank and I'm here to interview a gentleman on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewee is Mr Charlie Darby and we've got here his wife Barbara as well and ably assisted and interrogated by Tony Lee their son-in-law.
CB: Okay Charlie it's running now, so here's Charlie Darby and please tell us about your life, Charlie.
CD: I'm Charlie Darby, I was born on the 26th May 1924 from a family of six boys, three girls and went through normal schooling. Went to work at fourteen [pause] er and when I became seventeen I was directed labour a government scheme that you had to fall in line with. If you didn't, there were two other choices: down the mines or prison. So, I took the job on which was at Mirdam [?] Ways, High Wycombe dismantling Churchill tanks. And I stuck at that for eighteen months and I just did not want to know any more about it [laughter]. So there was only one thing to do; that was to volunteer for the forces. And that's how I became to join the Royal Air Force. Now, having joined the Royal Air Force, or rather prior to that, I had to have an attestation which I took at Houston House, Houston Square in London. Got the result, I was passed to go into aircrew. Now, I waited my call up which came the 20th of September '43. I had to report to St John's Wood, London, for two weeks initiation. The same day of joining, I had to go down to Lord's Cricket Ground to get kitted out. And from there, I went to Bridlington ITW (Initial Training Wing) for eight weeks training. From there, number 3 EADS Bridgnorth, another eight weeks, from there, that was EDA Elementary Air Gunnery School. From there, to a place in Scotland, I don't know where they got it from but I was there. [background laughter] A place called Castle Kennedy. Never did see the castle. Eight weeks there was the AGS which I successfully passed and I was made aircrew and presented with brevet and I then awaited call to my next station which was Moreton in Marsh Gloucester, 21OTU and this is where we crewed up. There was one day we were assembled on this bit of green, [cough] and three officers came and approached us NCOs and my pilot, navigator and wireless operator were the three officers. And Les, my pilot, approached, we accepted and we found out afterwards: 'How did you do this, Les?' 'I went to each section and looked at your, your pass marks' and that's how he took judgement on us. Because we had our names on our breast and he knew where to go, he knew the names he was looking for. So therefore that is the way we crewed up. But, you never had an engineer, that came at a late a stage er at Heavy Conversion Unit. Which is what we did, er, [pause] yes just after that. But prior to that even, still in Yorkshire, we went to a place called Acaster Malbis and did a battle course. That was living rough, think that was the only, the occasion arise, you got adapted to it. Anyway, we went on to Riccall, near Selby, to 1658 Heavy Conversion Unit and did our first flying on four engines. And from there, we went to my operational station of Driffield where 466 was. Did er, training from there prior to operations [pause] yeah but-
CB: Okay we'll stop there for a mo. What I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to explain so we can understand what's coming next, how you were trained, so what happened at your initial training and in your gunnery training? So, how did that go?
CD: Dis-dis-discipline and er squad marching [pause] that it?
CB: Okay.
CD: Only two weeks of it.
CB: Right, then gunnery? So you had initial gunnery and then main gunnery.
CD: Initial training wing a little bit more extra started to pick up Morse code.
CB: Right
CD: That's something we had to know as a gunner to help the navigator. We had to know Morse at a simple rate of eight words a minute which was what occults and pundits flash at the rate of. A pundit flashed two red letters which were the letters of the aerodrome but an occult flashed one letter in white, that gave a navigator a bearing. So if you saw an occult flash, you called up your navigator and told him 'occult flashing so and so'. And then I guess I've got the bearing, we're not, we're about a mile off track. That sort of talk. Right then that it?
CB: And you're gunnery, so how did the gunnery training go?
CD: Very good.
CB: So what did they do initially?
CD: They started off with -
CB: Shotguns, was it?
CD: Yeah, yeah, started off with a point two two, a little pallet of a shot. At short range, yes, did quite a lot of clay pidge shooting, er, learning deflection. And from there, we didn't, we didn't go on to the main guns until we got to um [pause] er OTU. We were there on Wellingtons, oh may I add that, at this stage we haven't got a flight engineer. That came when we met with four engines, 'cause you didn't need a flight engineer on a Wellington.
CB: No.
CD: A pilot did all his -
CB: Yeah
CD: fuel changing. So we are now at Riccall on heavy conversion work. The normal day light, night time, cross countries, air-to-sea, air-to-air, firing and er -
CB: Were you firing live or with a camera gun?
CD: If we having fighter attacks you had a cine camera twenty-five feet of camera. And they assess you on the radical [?], on the film. To see whether you were on target or not. Er -
CB: And they had towed targets, did they? They had towed targets for you to shoot at?
CD: Yes the drogues I forgot that.
CB: Drogues
CD: I forgot that, I should have come up with that and erm -
CB: So that was live ammunition?
CD: Castle Kennedy, yes, at Castle Kennedy we were on Ans- I sh [?], I can't think of it all the time -
CB: That's alright, that's okay
CD: I can now, we were on Ansons, and an Anson took six gunners up at the time. And the one that sat next to the pilot wound the wheels up. Twenty-three turns, I might add. [laughter] Anyway, the drogue was towed by a Martinet, just above you, in front of you. So all you had level with you and behind was the drogue. Now, each gunner had a colour and the tips of those bullets for the space of two-hundred rounds I would think at the time, blue, red, etcetera etcetera. So if you were blue, they knew you were blue, bad aim [?]. And if you fired at this drogue, they'd count the number of blues and cut them in half, because it's going through the drogue, it's making two blue marks so it's gotta be halved. That's how they assessed how many hits you had. [pause] er this -
CB: I'll just stop you a mo. [beep] Right, so we're restarting now, with Charlie.
CD: I was -
CB: Johannson [?] wheels.
CD: At Castle Kennedy AGS and we were six to a plane. Six to an Anson. And the last one in sat next to the pilot who and then you had to wind the wheels up for him and [pause] I er, rather premature in that respect whereby I started to wind the wheels up far too soon for the pilot, not 'No no no!' he said 'I have not trimmed it yet'. By the way, he was a Polish pilot [laughter].
TL: Now carry on.
CD: And now, I finally passed the exam to become an air gunner and I went on leave waiting for posting to 21 OTU Moreton in the Marsh. This is where we crewed up, man-to-man, assembled on the grass. People approached one another, and that's how crews were formed. [pause] er less, a flight engineer, as you didn't need them on twin engines air craft. That was selected when you went to RCU - HCU - (Heavy Conversion Unit). The one we went to was 1658 Riccall, near Selby, Yorkshire. This was where my pilot selected his engineer, from thereon, we were fully crewed. Went on to four engine training, did the right exercises, then went from there to squadron. We were put to Driffield where 462 was, 466 was rather, beg your pardon, and in the time of pre-training operations, 462 came from out of the desert and reformed at Driffield. Ah, by the time we got operational, our first operation was with 466 and then, the time we come to our second operation, 462 was formed. Australian, yes, these were Australian squadrons by the way, and when we got through our second operation, 462 were ready formed up and started and we did our second op on their inauguration on the squadron. From there on, we did our operations. We did twenty-three in all on 462. And they were then posted down to Foulsham in Norfolk, on RCM work (Radio Counter Measures) which was in 100 Group. As we had only seven to do, they put us back on the 466, it wasn't worth sending us down there to do seven operations. They switched us back to 466, and there we completed our tour, which in January 1945. Now, the nitty gritty bit is, I ended up going into hospital halfway through my tour, which put me behind my crew. So, it eventuated that I had one trip to do at the time when my crew had done the last trip which was Hanover one the 5th of January. From there, I was placed on a battle order the next night with a crew strange to me by the name of Flight Lieutenant Stewart. And it was a hair raiser, [laughter] things like we were just set course, and one shouts to the other 'Throw the cigarettes up then, I threw them up last night!' Now, our pilot’d had gone beserk if we'd have smoked on an aircraft. With hundred octane petrol about, not good is it? Not good for life. However,[background noise] I managed to get through that operation [background noise] I went on these then I had to report to ACRC Catterick (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were being made redundant to be put on a ground staff job. Thus, what we did to the day I was demobbed.
CB: So, just going back now, to the HCU.
CD: Yes.
CB: When you're at the HCU, how did the programme go to create a crew that was operational?
CD: We did the right designated exercises to do, so many affiliations with the fighter, at night and day, to resemble an operation. Now, coming back to my initiation at squadron, we were on a cross country, a daylight cross country, which took us the last [pause] part of the er, cross country. We took a leg up to Belfast. We turn off at Belfast down to Fleetwood, near Blackpool. Well, we got to Belfast the while, the flight engineer said 'We're going down to the Elsan, Snowy' That was the pilot's nickname, Snowy. Okay, so we get down there and all of a sudden four engines cut. [laughter] 'Jock [?], where the hell are you?' [laughter] 'Down at the Elsan], Snowy', 'For Christ's sake, get back here soon! Sooner than that' he says. [laughter] We were icing up, because there were icicles on my gun that night outside, and everybody was getting to stations of bail out [background laughter]. We are now over the Irish Sea, heading towards Fleetwood, and Jock rushed back quick as he could and changed over and all the four engines picked up, just like that. In that time, all four engines had cut and we'd lost 5000 feet, fell like a tree. Everything righted itself. The explanation was for the engineer was he thought, he thought that the dials indicators were frozen. He said he checked them before he left his post but they were showing still fuel in the tanks but it wasn't so. [laughter] However, all was fair, we managed to get back to base, and that was the start of operations for you. That was a lift that, wasn't it?
CB: Now, were you mid-upper or were you tail-gunner?
CD: Rear. I was tail.
CB: Right, so did you come to choose that yourself?
CD: Well -
CB: How did you decide which position to be in?
CD: I favoured the dr- rear to be honest, and, we don't come on to operations. We are now, our second operation, the first on 462, was the flying bomb site at a place called Waddon [?] just the side of Dunkirk. And we did that one Friday evening and daylight. Succeeded with that, got to, I think, number seven. We went, we were designated to Kiel, U-boat pens , that was a night trip, very bad weather round the target area. But coming back we somehow had a fracture of the oil pressure. We're coming back over the North Sea and the pilot realises that he's got one wheel down and one up. The whole of the distance across the North Sea, he was up and down up and down with the good wheel hoping for something to happen. After about an hour, it succeeded. It dropped the good wheel and they both went back together and that was solved, just like that. That was Kiel. Now, we're coming now into September, we went to a place called Neuss in the Ruhr - N E U double S. On leaving the target, a hazy target as well because there were plenty of fires. Dead astern of me was this 1-1-0 or 2-1-0 it didn't matter, literally identical but for a small [inaudible] unrecognisable one from the other. Oh, I butted on here because, going back to my training, the instructor would always say to you 'traverse your turret'. Now after, between there and becoming operational, I sat sometimes and thought a lot. Now, if I'm round there, he could be coming from there, I can't see him. So, I decided in my mind, I'm just gonna sit there, and look. You pick things up and you cover a bigger area than you would by doing this. Because, by doing that, he could be there, it only takes seconds. You wouldn't know anything about it. So that's what I, I kicked that one out of the window and I always sat dead astern, looking dead astern, and looking for everything that's coming from those quarters, because that's where it comes from. And coming back to this, where I sighted this 1-1-0, 2-1-0, whatever, if I'd have done what my instructor had told me, I probably wouldn't be here now. To the point that I saw him, and I kept my eyes on him, and I had already informed the pilot 'prepare to corkscrew' it's gonna be port because he was dead astern of us and they're at our height [?]. So I let him get nearer, and then I gave the order to corkscrew which was to port. Now, there's one advantage there by going to port, it helped the pilot who was sitting on the port side, as he goes down to come back up, he can see going down and he can see going back up. Didn't fire, I always held fire because on your ammunition belt, every fifth bullet was -
TL: Tracer.
CD: Tracer. And with the speed of the guns firing eight hundred rounds a minute, that tracer becomes a red line and it immediately gives your position away. And that's one thing you should not do, give yourself away. [phone rings] You, you er, you er, [background noise] [pause] yes, you must not give your position away. I'm there to defend the aircraft, I don't attack, I only attack with bombs, so therefore, you do not [phone pings] put yourself in that situation by what they call firing in anger. I didn't believe in it and I never ever would but I never did it. And I think on those, on those terms, puts us on the right side of success. You getting through?
CB: This was in the night, was it?
CD: Eh?
CB: This was in the night this 1-1-0, 2-1-0 were coming at you.
CD: Yeah, at night, yeah. But in the day light totally different. They can see you, you can see them.
CB: Exactly.
CD: You adopt a different attitude then.
CB: Do you think he'd seen you?
CD: Hum?
CB: Do you think he had seen you?
CD: Oh yes, without a doubt. He had probably honed onto us. He was going that fast, it was this [pause] a matter of seconds, eight seconds, and it was all over. He never fired, by the way. So it just shows you how things happen so quick and once we did that, to start down on the corkscrew, it went, Dennis ran right us and said 'There he goes' I said 'I know Dennis I've been following him all the way along.' As we went down on the corkscrew, he went over the top of us. Now, my pilot comes up and we're in a bubble of corkscrew, I won't, I won't say the complete statement but he said 'Let's go back up and see where he is' I says 'You stop down here'.
TL: Or words to that effect.
CD: Plus a few more syllables. [laughter] Deathly hush, deathly hush because I chewed him. [laughter] And I, I'm now saying to myself, 'What have I said?' Sat in that turret thinking ‘I'm really heading for it now’. Not a word was said and between there and getting back to base, I made up my mind, if he doesn't say anything, then I won't. Let it just calm away. That's just what happened. Nothing was said. I think, I think, in a nutshell, he knew I was right. Well, I know I was right, because we were told in training, back in training, a pilot is always the captain of the aircraft but in a situation where you're under attack, he takes orders from you. That's why I did it, that's why I said it. But, having said that, I still, I still blinkering [inaudible], what am I heading for [laughter] because I could really have been brought upon the coals about this. But no, it petered out.
BD: You dropped your bombs.
CD: Yeah.
CB: What do you think was in his mind?
CD: Well, being a naughty, I think he being a bit of a daredevil. Or, he was making a joke of it. But it was the wrong time of day to make a joke! [laughter]
CB: So what other incidents did you have that were-
BD: What about when, when erm, chap shot the mid-upper, nearly shot you?
CD: Yes, I'm going back to pre-operation training-
CB: Right.
CD: At Driffield. After a daylight operation, beg your pardon, a daylight wide cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington Bay, do some air-to-sea firing at nought feet. He's shooting the foam to get deflection. He said, my mid-upper said, 'Do you want me to fire first?' I said 'Yes, okay Dennis' so he fired his five hundred off, he said 'I've finished now' and I went to go traverse round onto the beam to start mine, and I heard this zoom, and there's an on and off oxygen dial just slightly above my head to the left that hit that and went somewhere in the turret [laughter]. What was it? It was a cooked round from one of Dennis's guns. When the guns finished firing, they should always stop in the recoil position so they're clear of a round. So every time a breechblock goes forward, it takes a round with it up the spout of the gun. Hence, what they call a cooked round. The bullets in the barrel, the heat of the barrel sets it off. That's what happened. I did not fire one shot [background laughter]. It was straight back to base, to get inquiries on it. The gun, the gun was faulty. It er, it should have stayed at the recoil position but it just did not. Hence, the cooked round.
CB: So of the thirty operations you did, how many were in the dark at night, and how many were daylight? Roughly?
CD: Twenty-three daylight and seven night, I did.
CB: Other way around?
CD: No beg your pardon, that's wrong.
BD: It's the other way round.
CD: Twenty-three on 462, seven on 466. No, I did fifteen on each. Fifteen daylights, fifteen nights. At one stretch there I did ten in nine days I think it was.
CB: And how often did you have to use your guns?
CD: I didn't. I say, I did not fire in anger. I made my mind up on that one. This is the trouble with, I think, I may be wrong, but I think that by firing away willy nilly at something they got a hold on you. You see that tracer? Why expose yourself?
CB: What was the purpose of the tracer?
CD: If you were guidance. Give you, give you a guide to what you were shooting at. And, I would never, ever fire in anger. And I think, in my mind, I think that's where we lost quite a few aircraft. Not saying I'm right, but I would think it inclinates that way.
CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit?
CD: How many?
CB: How often were the aeroplanes hit by flack or fighter?
CD: Varied. I, there was one instance at a place called Bochum this was on November the fourth, fifth, where I saw one of ours over the target. It was on fire from wingtip to wingtip and it came to pass in the aftermath and later years that it turned out to be Joe Herman and with the descriptions that I know of now, that resembles Joe Herman's aircraft. The one where he finally went out last but it was blown out. The plane then blew up. I never saw the explosion, but I saw it from wingtip to wingtip. On our course, it wasn't spiralling out of control, it was still going along you know. But I can't keep looking all, too long, you've gotta look after yourself. So it was a question of just that and concentrate on your own, you know, it's, and that's what happened. It blew up. And it blew Joe out of the aircraft without a parachute. And, he went down, down, down, grabbing at anything possible. And he finally grabbed something and it was the legs of his mid-upper gunner on his chute. They went down together and they were talking to one another on the way down but he said 'Just prior to hitting the ground, I'll release myself' which is what he did, and he broke his leg doing it. Vivash [?] came out of it alright. And, er, but the others had already bailed out, they were the last two to go and Harry Nott the flight engineer was, he he was asked, told to put the fires out, the small one in the fuselage. Well, he did that but then the whole kaboosh was alight, wing tip to wing tip. So he bailed out and he hid in the forest for five days, eating anything he could put his hand to. But he decided to cross the Rhone [?] and that's where he was caught. He was made prisoner of war and the other three, four, Vivash and Joe heard gunfire. It came to pass over latter years but quite recently in this day that the, the blokes were shot by Gestapo. That was, one bloke was Underwood he was the bomb aimer, Wilson, someone else and, how this has all come about now whereby I've got young enthusiasts of 462 and 466 that have taken me up in the last two years back to Driffield and has encouraged me to go with them and tell them all the things that I've been telling you now. And Paul Nott was the great-nephew of Harry Nott the engineer on Joe Herman's crew. Now, Paul, as an enthusiast he is, he's a private pilot himself. He had this painting done by someone in Shrewsbury. He flew up and collected it. Went over to Aces High in Wendover and had it framed. And now he's got it hung in his office at Ascot. In my plane he's put above it between two searchlights because I told him I saw that plane on fire. It could onl- the description that he gave was identical to what I saw it could be no other. And that's how it's now become we're close friends with the Australians, Tiana Adair the lady. Her father was a pilot I think he was, and all these things of years gone by have all come together with someone being a relative of someone. And this is what has happened. I went, only this April on Anzac day (April the 25th) and we went to Driffield Gardens and we had the memorial which we dedicated in 1993 and Joe, Harry Arnes and myself, he's a prominent air gunner and he was on his second tour. Incidentally at Driffield he was on his second tour and I've met him twice since and last year we laid the wreath at the Gardens memorial and he came this year again but he had to get away quickly because he was going the next day to Drongen in Belgium to another parade. So, things went well. So the point, yes, it renewed our old way of living as regard being air crew in World War Two.
CB: So what was your pattern of living? What was the pattern that you went through? You got up in the morning.
CD: Yes.
CB: What happened?
CD: You went to, you went to your section and did a DI on your, on your turn (daily inspection). You cleaned your, you cleaned the Perspex with special Perspex polish to cut out all spots from the engine you get exhaust oil splashes the like and believe you me if you got any like that you think well that's an aircraft that one and that spot of oil on the air on the Perspex. So it was down to you to keep your turret clean. It's your vision, you rely on it. So-
CB: What about the guns?
CD: Yes.
CB: What about the guns? How did you clean those?
CD: You clean those with what they call four by two.
CB: Wooding?
CD: Yes, a cloth, like a flannel. You had a pull through. We cleared the flannels. Yes.
CB: So after the DI, then what?
CD: Well, you went back to section. And then if the battle orders come out, you look up and saw upon the jar the DROs and you destined. Report to briefing at so-and-so time. From there on things worked.
CB: What's a DRO?
CD: Daily routine orders.
CB: Right.
CD: Sorry.
CB: Okay.
CD: And each section line pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, went to their respective section, did a flight plan after briefing. And the gunners, engineers just sat and wait and report to parachute rooms at such-and-such a time. From there on it was on the, the bus to the perimeter track to dispersal point got up your aircraft. In my case, set my guns to fire. There's a fire and safe on each gun so you had to put it on fire, from there on hold it there.
CB: 'Cause you got four 303s you didn't have the retro fitter point fives [?]
CD: Yes I had round a minute they fire. So you got three thousand two hundred a minute. But you'd never fire it for a minute, just short sharp bursts. Yes, so-
CB: So what time would you normally be going on a raid? Did it vary a lot?
CD: Anytime. Any time of day, yes. Daylights. When we, when the, [pause] when the [pause] erm, the army was for-, going forward in France, we were always bombing the French ports because that was the last of the resistance from the guards, the German army, and they were really dug in, they were very hard to get out, suss out. And [background noise] to do a daylight, early morning, you were up at one o'clock, two o'clock. You were called by someone in the guard room came round your billet woke you up. From there on breakfast, briefing, the [inaudible], airborne, drop your load and back you come. Now, as I say, that varied, as my log book shows. Any time of day, any time of night. And I might add, every time we came back and entered the debriefing room, there was always that man stood there by the, by the tea urn [laughter] and the biscuits. And the station padre, no matter what time of day or night, he was always there. Something I noticed, it always sticks in my mind, how dedicated that man was. Yeah.
CB: How did the crews feel about that? How did the crews feel?
CD: Well about like, about the same as me I think. Such dedication, this, this is what went through all aircrew as well. You know, you had to do that to survive.
CB: What was your crew like?
CD: Very good, very good. My, especially my navigator, he was quite exceptional. And Tom, the wireless op, yes, good man. Lost him quite young, he was, he was the daddy of the crew. We were twenties and he was thirty-one. And he died when he was forty-two, back in '54. Terry and I and the bomber, we went to his funeral in London. Yes. And pilot, Les, he came over on two occasions. He was married to a New Zealand girl. He got married, lived in Australia, and his home town of Cowgill [?] Cowgill [?], yes. And she wanted to go back home, she couldn't stand the heat. This he did, [background noise] and when we went and met him on our fiftieth wedding anniversary, my son-in-law, daughter, two sons and two grandsons put us on an air ticket and we had two weeks in Brisbane with her cousin, the other two weeks in North Island New Zealand with Les my pilot and his wife. But sadly since then, they've both passed on, and my wife's cousin. And at that stage, we're now left with one two three four five. In turn, they've all died off to the point now that where there is only two of us. That's Derry, my navigator and myself.
CB: As a crew, what did you do when you weren't flying?
CD: My first and foremost job was and I did it every day like a nut, I used to write to her, yeah.
BD: Her?
CD: Every day. Can you imagine that? I think I should put it on a rubber stamp because it's the same old things I would say [laughter].
CB: We're talking about Barbara here.
BD: Yes.
CB: And what a lucky lady she was. [laughter]
CD: Yeah, well there you go you see.
CB: We're just going to stop for a cup of tea now.
CD: Okay.
CB: And pick it up in a minute. [Beep]
[At 50:20 there is a break and the recording seems to start again on another day]
CB: Right, my name is Chris Brockbank, listeners, and we're now on the 7th of July and we're with Charlie Darby and Barbara Darby and Tony Lee their son-in-law. And we're just going to pick up on where we finished up last time really which was the end of the war. And then we'll pick up on some other items. So, Charlie, we came to the point where the operations finished, what happened next? You'd done your thirty.
CD: After leave.
CB: Okay, so how much leave did they give you?
CD: Oh, there was about six weeks.
CB: Right. Yep. And then what?
CD: We then had a telegram to report to Catterick on ACRC [background noise] (Air Crew Receiving Centre) as we were going to be made redundant, they would issue us with a ground job. And, that was it. I went in on to a course called aircraft finishing which was a coating of paints and so forth, putting on [inaudible?] on aircraft. I went on a course down to Locking in near Weston-Super-Mare for that. And along came the end of the war. And from there on I just went from pillar to post, station to station, and things were never, did never happen as regards that course. So as I've told you earlier, we were just a person not needed.
CB: How did you feel about that?
CD: Well, depressing.
CB: Was all, were all the crew members together?
CD: No, no, we all went respective ways. My pilot is now already on his way home, all’s finished with him as far as that was concerned. The re-, Derry, the navigator, went to Morton in Marsh as navigation instructor. My other gunner, he went down to Wales-
CB: What was his name?
CD: On the bombing site-
CB: What was his name?
CD: Dennis.
CB: Dennis.
CD: And in the end, he turns up marrying a Welsh girl and that's where he stayed. And that's where he died, in Wales. Don, similar aspect, but then he went on the, the er Elizabeth Line.
CB: Was he the bomb aimer?
CD: No, he was the flight engineer.
CB: Right.
CD: [background noise] He went as a steward on the Queen Elizabeth and something else. Arthur, the bomb aimer, he went on a bombing site. He was sol- a practice bombing site. He was sole charge of that, somewhere up in the Midlands, and that just about covers it.
CB: And the signaller-
CD: The wireless op-
CB: Wireless op, yeah-
CD: I never did know what he went in to. And then, as I said before, shortly after that he died, not many years after this.
CB: He was the one who died - he was the grandpa of the crew and died at forty-two?
CD: Yes that's correct, yes.
CB: Right. Now, your rank when you were flying most of the time was flight sergeant?
CD: No sergeant.
CB: Sergeant.
CD: Sergeant.
CB: When did you become flight sergeant?
CD: About, it came in about a year's time, a step up.
CB: Okay. And then you became a warrant officer, when was that?
CD: Yes. That warrant officer, that was between '46 and seven. Immediately I got it, immediately they took it away. That sort of time.
CB: And put you back to what?
CD: Sergeant, basic sergeant.
CB: And what happened to your pay?
CD: Still the same.
CB: You still get flying pay?
CD: No, no. The rank of whatever.
CB: But the flying pay stopped when you stopped flying did it?
CD: So I. Yes. I think so.
CB: How much did you get paid? Do you remember?
CD: I think it's something like fifteen shillings a day. Something like that.
CB: And then the flying pay. How much?
CD: [Pause] Tough to say.
CB: Okay, doesn't matter. Now, going back to the early days-
CD: Adding to that, mind you-
CB: Yeah?
CD: We had a donater by the name of [pause] he was, er-
BD: Nuffield?
CD: Pardon?
BD: Nuffield.
CD: That's right, Lord Nuffield. He gave money to operational aircrew and you received that every leave you went on while operating. To the, to the tune of fifty shillings, something like that, every six weeks. And that fund is a trust fund still running today. Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting him once on the golf course up here at Flackwell Heath. Yeah, anyway that's another point.
CB: After the war?
CD: After the? No. No, during the war.
CB: Oh.
CD: It was on my first leave in '43. Amazing isn't it?
CB: Yeah.
CD: Then were we? I was on a ground job, yes, but it didn't materialise as I thought it was going to do. Like Dennis, Arthur, they had a distinct job of doing something on a bombing range. Well, that didn't happen as far as I was concerned. It just didn't have an end to it. I was in the end just doing silly jobs. You can't describe really.
CB: So how did they - when did they demob you? And what was the process?
CD: They demobbed me in '47, May '47. I had to go to Lytham St Anne’s near Blackpool where I was issued with civvy clothes and came home on leave, the something about leave, and then that stopped. In other words, go and get a job.
CB: So what did you do?
CD: From there, I went into Hoovers. Hoovers Limited. It was like engineering. In the time I was there in twenty years my, my bit of fire service experience before I joined up came to light again as they had a fire crew within the works and I was able to join that. Which is what I did.
CB: That was as an extra? Or full time?
CD: That was during the work time. Any fire on the building, you went to it at the same time the local fire engine was coming up. Yes. We were paid a, extra and they used us funnily enough to collect the wages every week. Down in the town, down the bank because we were insured as firemen so that allowed them to insure - to use that same insurance for us to go down the bank and collect the money. Every Friday, I had to wear a mackintosh. Along, along, a - with weather like this or even hotter, I had to go and pedal into work with my mate 'What the hell you got that mac for?' I says 'It might rain, you know?' I dare not tell him the secret was I had to wear a poacher's jacket underneath which held all the paper money. And we used to go down to the bank, the man used to taxi us, conveniently had his business right outside the bank where he drove out of and he came out. We could see him coming, we went out the door as he pulled up by the pavement and we go on in one movement and all way. It was all done. And people working next to me never ever knew what I was doing.
BD: Did I?
CD: I think I told you whilst I shouldn't have done.
BD: Ooh God.
CD: Yeah. [background noise] The money I've carried was nobody’s business.
CB: So, you worked there twenty years?
CD: Yes.
CB: So that gets us into the later 60s. What did you-
CD: ‘67.
CB: ‘67, what did you do then?
CD: I still kept in business when back to BroomWade where I did the tank work. I did precision grinding there. And then I moved to a small business in Beaconsfield, Oppermans, did work for Martin Baker. I told him [inaudible] for he had yet to see. And then from there, I went on franchise work, from the bakery, the local bakery. And he made me redundant. From there, I decided to set up myself, then I went painting, decorating. I went on a course created by Margaret Thatcher to encourage people to do that sort of thing. And I was tax-free for a year, wasn't I? I think.
BD: Forty pound a week.
CD: Something like that. And after a year, it stopped. But then I was, I'd established a little bit of a business, enough to keep me going. And this is what I did to the end of my working days. I was working right up to seventy-five, even longer I think.
BD: And now you've stopped.
CD: Even longer. And that was it. And now we're at this stage and I'm still working.
CB: Quite right. [laughter]
CD: They say when you retire, you'll be able to play bowls, yes [laughter] no way.
CB: Let's go fast backwards to when you joined.
CD: Yes.
CB: So, when you joined, where was it, and what type of people were there who joined with you?
CD: What, people with me?
CB: Yeah. To the RAF.
CD: Well, we were only there a fortnight.
CB: Yep.
CD: At St John's Wood. So you didn't get a lot of time to get personalised. Bit more introductory, check you out on your health. You had to see the dentist, he was the other side of Hyde Park [laughter] it's true.
BD: It must have been a big job for this.
CD: And did a fortnight there at St John's Wood, then went to Bridlington, ITW (Initial Training Wing).
CB: So, what sort of people were with you, were they all Brits? Were they people from abroad?
CD: Yes, all Brits.
CB: Okay. And what sort of backgrounds? Were they technical type people or office based or what were they?
CD: I wouldn't know to be honest.
CB: Right. So when you got to -
CD: Pretty general like me.
CB: Okay.
CD: Workers in the day.
CB: Yeah. And at Bridlington, then what? What were they like there? What sort of people?
CD: Well, as I say, a bit strict on the instructional side. But they have to be, don't they, to deploy discipline? Early morning start, 06:30 parade, it was very, very civilised. We paraded down by the Spa Hotel which was our mess deck, in other words. The ball- dance hall floor ballroom was the mess. And the theatre side of it was used for Morse code and semaphore flagging, flag and signals. If the weather was fine, would they use the beach. You stood at one end, and he stood the other, about a mile away, and you did your exercises there. Small arms fire, shop frontage people that have sold up or what and they've taken it over because they took over all the, all the boarding places for holidays. That were taken over for us to be housed in. And each course was sixty strong, you kept that sixty all the way through. And that was eight weeks there, seven day leave. Next place was Bridgnorth, number three EAGS. You did a bit of squarebashing there.
CB: So EAGS was gunnery school?
CD: Elementary Air Gunnery School.
CB: Air gunnery school. And what was the elementary training? Was that with shotguns or what was it?
CD: Yes, shotguns. You didn't get to the big stuff 'til later.
CB: So shotguns and clay pigeons?
CD: Clay pigeons, yes. We did quite a lot of that, especially at the next station, AGS. That was the one in Scotland, Castle Kennedy. And that's where you went for your rigorous- The main subject to think about was aircraft recognition. Because, if you didn't know your aircraft, you could be shooting at one of your own. So you had to, you had to know the characteristics of all aircraft and when you sat in the classroom, they would put up on the screen a flash of a sighting of an aircraft no matter what distance, not close up, never close up, and, a hundredth part of a second and you had to write down on a sheet of paper what it was. And you were told afterwards so that was a vital subject. It was before, it was placed before, learning the Morse code. You had to know your aircraft. It happened so many times, people had been shooting their own. Not by me! [laughter] Success at the end, having passed, as you saw in my log book, eighty-one point five percent out of one hundred. I finished third of the sixty. The remarks were above average as you saw.
CB: Yeah. Now, did some of the course of sixty not get through?
CD: Some, well, they, I don't know what they did, they just, they're not required for aircrew.
CB: That's what I mean, they weren't all selected for aircrew because they couldn't see or shoot. Was it?
CD: No, no. You went for that and from the word go.
CB: Right.
CD: Their testing found you out.
CB: That's what I mean. Yes.
CD: Yes. Sorry.
CB: Yeah. So, what I meant was, it was a very high standard-
CD: Yes.
CB: [Background noise] And some of the people didn't pass so they went to other jobs.
CD: Yes, for whatever, ground job, it’d be anyway. But one, one day, at the AGS I was called before the gunnery leader. I thought 'What the hell does he want?' Referring back to our last interview, I mentioned about firing at drogues, didn't I?
CB: Absolutely.
CD: And they recorded your hits by the colour of the paint on the tip of the bullet. Now, I was called before him and he said 'I've called you in,' he said 'because you've got an exceedingly amount of extra bullet marks.' I said, he said, 'What's your answer to that?' I said 'Well' quick thinking, I said 'Well, it can only be one thing, I'm must be nearer the drogue than I should have been.' And I said 'I'm not in control of that, that's the pilot's job.' 'Good answer,' he says and it ended like that. Now, I get pulled up, it doesn't make sense to me, I get pulled up for having too many hits. [laughter] Does that make sense? No. But that's what happened, that's what passed. He accepted what I said, but he had to, I had no other answer.
CB: What sort of range was the drogue being towed at from the aircraft you were in?
CD: Well, about one hundred yards I suppose, maybe a little bit more. It was always above you. The martinet was the one in front of you, it was a long tow rope for obvious reasons. [laughter] I'd be shooting the martinet down! [laughter] Yes, that's how it worked and the pilot of your plane, he did that. So you got more movement to make more deflection so it made it harder to hit the drogue.
CB: So, could you just describe what is deflection shooting?
CD: Well, deflection shooting is, you have two moving targets, the object and yourself. So, you've got to lay it off in front of the actual movement of the object. You never aim straight at it for obvious reasons. It's that. So you had to be in front of it and it goes into it. Now, the most common attack on an aircraft by a fighter is the curve of pursuit, what they call the curve of pursuit attack. From, from the b- er, the quarter, it comes in like that now-
CB: In a curve.
CD: You have to lay off your aiming point in the front of it, always. That is deflection.
CB: Right.
CD: And a good idea of that registering up there is doing a lot of clay pigeon shooting. Because, when they shoot those clays out, you've got to be in front of it, although you're stood still, your arms are moving. You've got to fire in front of it. There's no good aiming dead on it. You must - that's allowing the speed of the object and the speed of your bullet to be there at the same time. And that's how you register your hits. That's my term of deflection.
CB: So after you'd been at the AGS and passed that, you then went to the OTU?
CD: Malton in Marsh, after about a month's leave was a, a little [background noise] an extra for what you've done. We reported there, and after I suppose about two weeks we were all assembled on this big piece of green, some people went in hangars, and that's [background noise] where you selected your crew. Always the pilot, he was always the one that approached because he's the leader of the aircraft. And I say, he came, Les, the pilot, Derry, and Tom they were three officers. They came and approached us fellows who were stood all as one and Les, the pilot, as I said earlier, he went to every section and checked on the pass marks and the remarks of any individual and it turned - and it came to pass, he was looking for me because I'd got my name on there, everyone got their name on there. And Dennis, [background noise] because he'd been with me from day one, and Arthur the bomb aimer and that's where I met him and we were pretty close together there and it made it easy for Les. Well, he literally asked us all three stood together, if you get what I mean? Flight engineer comes into the, into the quota when we go on to four engines. Because on one engine, you didn't need a flight engineer. So, that was made easy by him, by doing what he did.
BD: Sorry.
CB: So Les had done an initial selection of his navigator -
CD: The crew, correct.
CB: And bomb aimer.
CD: Yes.
CB: When he came to you, he was an Australian.
CD: Yes.
CB: But, when you were in the hangar, he checked on the scores, you said, but he didn't know where the people came from, or did he?
CD: Well, yes, it would be English on your papers.
CB: So-
CD: Your service number would show that anyway. An Australian Air Force number was different to us.
CB: Because at that stage, they were, were they, Royal Australian Air Force, whereas originally, they joined the RAF?
CD: No, no they still come in as R double A F.
CB: They did?
CD: Yes. Yes. They came here with their Air Force number from Australia where they trained. Yes. Dennis, my other gunner, he came in with his ATC number. That started with 301, seven figures. Mine was 189, seven figures. I used to pull his leg, I says 'With a number like that, you want to get some in' [laughter] Yes. Anyway, I couldn't run that one too long.
CB: Just expanding a bit on the OTU before we have a break.
CD: Yes?
CB: You've now got the crew.
CD: Yes.
CB: Les has. When you started training, each of you is doing something different, so what were you doing as the gunner?
CD: Doing the exercises that was required. You saw in my log book, exercise one 'till three, whatever. Yes.
CB: So did they -
CD: Air-to-air, air-to-sea firing, pretty well the same as the other stations.
CB: Yeah.
CD: We were still on learning Morse and we were getting taught the essential aim of oxygen, why it's so specially needed. We were shown the proof of that by six of us getting into an oxygen chamber, compression chamber, the instructor outside looking through the port hole. And one of you not wearing the oxygen, the other five wearing it. Now the instructor would say this is the proof of what that oxygen does or if you haven't got it, it does it the other way. And we will show you now. And the man that hadn't put the mask on is now getting a bit dreary like. He said to the one sat next to him go to his pocket, take out his pay book. He looked down, he didn't, he didn't know he had taken that that log book. Afterwards, when they put him back on oxygen, and he'd come to his senses, and the fellow said 'Did you see him take anything from your pocket?' and he said ‘no’. That's, that drove it home, so essential that oxygen was. Now, [door creaks] talking on the oxygen side, we, especially at night, we always had oxygen on from the ground and going up. Normally, you can leave oxygen off up to ten thousand feet, but rather than make the contrast high up we did it at ground level. But you were okay without oxygen up to ten thousand feet, so they told us. But especially on operations you had it on, it comes on automatic anyway on four engines. With the, with the Wellington, you had this, this situation of get putting the oxygen on yourself, i.e. before getting into the turret there was a circle in, up here on the oxygen line and that had a cotton reel pushed in to close it off when not needed. [laughter] And that cotton reel is tied on a piece of string and you pulled the cotton reel up away and it just dangled and you then got the flow of oxygen. Then in the turret, you got on off tell tale. But one night, we were on a cross country and after about quarter of an hour I'm, I'm feeling, I'm a bit, I'm a bit drunk - a drunkenness had appeared you know? Light headed. And it suddenly dawned on me I hadn't pulled that cotton reel out before I got in the turret. Honest. I'll letcha go. So when he opened the door and pulled out I came round. None of the others ever knew, I just didn't bother to tell them, would have felt ashamed to. [laughter] And one, there was one exercise we had it was called a bull's eye. It involved, it was on Bristol and Derry, we had been together now what, a week I suppose, green horns, and it came to pass we got there and it was all over Derry was about quarter of an hour late. And that worried him stiff. ‘Derry boy’, the nav leader said to him 'Go and have a good drink, Derry, don't worry about it.' And from there on, Derry used to have his half a pint because he never drank before he met us. He was a lay preacher, he'd been a lay preacher for fifty years after that [laughter] but he liked his drop of sherry. [laughter] So I bought him a bottle when we left. And yes that was it, we were too late for the bull's eye. And then from there, we're going on up into the Yorkshire area now. We had to do a f- two weeks at a place called Acaster Malbis about three miles outside York. It wasn't an aerodrome it was just a plain battle course training. They took you out in the day, live it rough. One night we went out, we had the choice, we stopped at a farm, we had the choice: sleeping in the barn or under the far wall. It was a nice hot day, like one last week, not as hot as that but it was a hot day, so we proposed, [laughter] we proposed to lay under the brick wall with our ground sheets. [unclear] in the barn, went down the pub, had a couple of drinks, came back, slept under the wall, woke up the next morning, oh that bloody great cob horse stood over the top of us [laughter], oh dear. The things that went on. Did that a fortnight, then we went down the road, not far, to a place called Riccall 1658 HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit) and that's where we picked up with our, Les had a choice of flight engineer. Which is what he did. Got together, now we're now fully at strength, seven personnel starting on four engine aircrafts. Going through all the courses again, exercises, cross countries, day and night, fighter affiliation, mock attacks. Used to do that with cine camera, twenty-five feet cine camera. And then, as I say, cross country. We did, we did one and it took us up, I told you before I think, it took us up to Belfast, and the next leg back was to Fleetwood and from Fleetwood over to base, straight across. And we got to Belfast, Jock, the engineer says 'I'm go down to the Elsan, Snowy.' Okay, we barely got down there before all four engines cut. We were at freezing alt - we were icing up, had icicles that long on my guns. Daylight, cloudless sky, yeah, eighteen thousand feet, icing up. He just about gets down to the Elsan to do his necessary and they cut. All four engine cut. 'Jock where the [pause] are you?' 'I'm down in the Elsan, Snowy.' 'Well for Christ's sake get back here quick as you can' [laughter] Back goes Jock [inaudible]. He switches his tanks over and then all four had picked up just like that. But, in the meantime, we had dropped five thousand feet. Fell like a tree. Twenty-five tonne of aircraft, won't stay there, will it? [laughter] So, we were all prepared to ditch because we were over now over the Irish Sea but it didn't have to happen. Eventually got back. [background noise] On another occasion, we did a cross country, we had to go out into Bridlington, Bridlington Bay and fire air-to-sea. From Bridlington to base it's probably about twelve miles, so, nothing, just- And Dennis fired his five hundred first, he said 'I'm finished now', I said 'Okay' and I went to swing round to, to port beam, port quarter rather, and I heard this zutt. I looked up there and there was the mark, the bullet's gone I don't know where. Left me in a state of [laughter] 'What's up?' they said, I said 'For Christ's sake, something’s gone wrong here.' And it came to pass on me that Dennis, one of his guns was faulty [background noise] it stayed in the forward position. When going forward, it takes a round on the face of the breechblock into the, into the [background noise]
TL: Barrel.
CD: Barrel [laughter] into the barrel, hence, the heat of the barrel ignited the detonator the pull it [?]. Should I have gone onto the beam a fraction earlier it could have been - we marked it on getting back to base, it could have been anyone there. It was there, you see. Because it went round with the turret, it [pause].
CB: So on that -
CD: That was the obvious conclusion of it.
CB: Right.
CD: And it was called, commonly called, a cooked round.
CB: Right. So when you landed, the ground crew then-
CD: Well, we were notified then what had happened, and little doubt had then to recti- probably the recoil spring on a rod, it was a long rod like that, and the recoil spring was over it. It's probably that that snapped at the. You see, a browning [?] gun can fire eight hundred rounds a minute, for a solid minute which you never did fire a solid minute. But that was the rate of of shot. So it [unclear] the mechanism, it's amazing how it works at that rate of knots. And well you can think of many things I suppose, it's probably more technical than what I can think it can be to suggest yes that did it. But no, no-one came back to us so we assumed its righted itself in their knowledge.
CB: I think we'll take a pause there, because you've done well and we'll start another track in a minute.
CD: Yeah my tongue tells me that.
[Beep, background noise]
CB: Right, we're restarting after our tea break. And what I'd like to ask you to do please, Charlie, is to talk about a raid. So, how did you prepare the raid and, the sortie, how did it work?
CD: Well, you were first brought up on battle order, then you knew you'd got to go and do so-and-so so-and-so, then the respect of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers. After briefing, which we all went to, after briefing, they went to their respective sections and did their flight plan. Other people like the flight engineer and gunners you just sat and waited because you had nothing to do until you get to the aircraft and then you prime your guns ready to fire in action if any. You went for operational meal, then to briefing, then to respective sections and wait for take off time. In that time, ground staff are loading up with bomb, required bomb load, to each aircraft. You go to parachute room, collect your chute, empty your pockets and wait for the liberty bus to take you to your respective aircraft. Get aboard, do your pre-flight checks, pilot so-forth, gunners, breach your guns up, put them on to fire, when you press the slot to put them on safety, you get airborne and you put them back on to fire, and you were ready for any action, if any. Some occasions, it was a straightforward flight, on other occasions completely opposite. Lone situations and situations you can see from other aircraft but you never ever know what is the problem but you saw it happen, you know what I mean? I.E. the one about the Lancaster. Coming off from the target, a gas incursion. It was flying very strangely, it was veering here and there which gave it the impression there was something wrong with the works. I.E. the rudder for instance, I don't know, it's pure guesswork. There was no smoke, no flame, this this was the foxing part of it all. Anyway, it suddenly went up and over onto its back, and went down into a dive, and in that time, four parachutes came out, unfurled. And went further down and not much further it just disintegrated [?] no explosion whatsoever. It just, just fell apart. Now on the chutes, shown so, it guess the ultimate. On another occasion, the one on Bochum, where I saw Joe Herman's plane, that was alight from wingtip to wingtip. It was still on course, still able to go, it was below us, but still with us, and I had to take my eyes off him because I've got to look after my aircraft, our aircraft, so there wasn't much chance to sit and gaze. So therefore, I never saw the explosion which happened. Three, four, four of the crew have already bailed out. This is in the aftermath, it's all in the squadron book. Harry Nott, the uncle, the fellow I know and recently Paul Nott, his great nephew, who lives in Hartford, he's one of the enthusiasts of the squadron, young enthusiasts, and it tells you what really happened when Joe went for his chute. The plane exploded. It blew him out the aircraft, and he just floating down, grabbing at anything that he could put his hands to. Suddenly, he grabbed this fella, his mid-upper I think it was, he grabbed his legs, and they both went down together on the chute. They arranged it, prior to hitting the ground, that he would release himself from his legs to lessen any dead fall. And they did that, but in that throw, he broke his leg, Joe, the pilot. Anyway, he got, he got the piece of the parachute and Vivash had got an injury to his ankle. He rips some of the parachute up, and wrapped it round his foot but then they decided they'd got to give themselves up, he couldn't try to escape with a broken - he broke a bone up here as well as one in his leg, so they were forced to give themselves up. They heard gunfire and it came to pass that, they found it out since the war, one of, one of the, it must have been a farmer, he had a horse and cart with one of the crew on it. He was injured. I think it was the bomb aimer, it wasn't the bloke called Underwood, Australian. And in the presence of I think there was an army bloke, a German army bloke, and up came a Gestapo. And he didn't mince his words whatever, he just pulled out his gun and shot Underwood. That is the glowing report from the farmer with the horse and cart. They, those two, heard gunfire so went seems the match what really happened. Yeah, there's four of them who were eventually in one cemetery from that particular instance, incident. [pause] Others, there was one after we'd finished our operations. One was coming in at Driffield one foggy morning in April '45. It was on the circuit over at Kirkburn Grange which was a farm right on the circuit of Driffield. He went round and he asked permission again because it was thick fog and they requested him to go to Carnaby just up the road, ten miles up the road, to a crash landing site. He said 'Well, I'll give it another try.' He did. At this farm, there were cops of about three hundred yards, and narrow too, about three hundred yards long, and he hit that, ploughed right through it. Right by the farm house. And the present farmer in '83 was the son then. He was five years old and he didn't know a thing. That plane exploded, what, just at, about fifty yards from the house. We went over there on the '83 reunion, in a cab [?] of cader [?] cars and the squadron leader Riverton [?] he went with us and he took the Halifax book and presented it to the farmer. He wondered what was happening I think. Coming there was [?] about six or seven car loads of us. [Laughter] Anyway, we went to the site and I took a photograph of it from memory out of the book. And I wasn't far out. I leaned over the hedge of the ploughed field and I took that photograph and it was as I say as near as I could get it. But I've loaned the book out to someone with that photograph in it and I can't think who. No, that won't have gone [?]. If he'd have taken the orders right, and accepted from the control tower go to Carnaby things would have been different. But no, he wanted to do it again. Inexperienced pilot apparently, and he got people on there with DFCs, people on their second tour no doubt. [background noise] It just blew into pieces. [pause] I told you the one -
CB: Any other trips you remember when you were doing the bombing of Northern France for the flying bombs?
CD: Yes. What?
CB: What height were you and what sort of experience did you have with those?
CD: Well, that was only our second one you see and I [laughter] erm [pause] there was - it didn't happen in our squadron, but we got to know that one of the aircraft on that raid, one of the crew, must have been the engineer I would think, he's the only one who seemed to walk about, and he lifted the, the inspection panel to look and see the bombs go. It - he unscrewed the panel, got down on his knees and looked down through and a piece of shrapnel hit him in the throat. The thing, hard luck story there to the point, you're going about two hundred miles an hour and something comes up through a hole about that big, and hits you in the throat. It, now, that was the crew, it wasn't on our squadron but we got to know about it. There's another incident you see I would never ever have known about it other than getting it from our people. And [pause] that's encouraging [?]. One of those two days that we did, went there consecutively, I forget which one it was but turning, we had to turn round onto the target. And I looked round to see where we're going and this block barrage it was like that just a solid black wall of flack. At our height, dead heights, and I said to myself 'Christ we've got to go through that?' Only we did, somehow. I have said to Les the pilot afterwards he said 'I just climbed above it.' Well I didn't know that at the time you see, still had flack going around you at various heights but this block barrage, well it was just like looking at that screen. It was a massive black wall of flack bursts. I don't know how many guns had to do that, probably about fifty rapid firing. I don't know, pure guesswork. But, that was an incident and I, I don't know whether that was the same one when I saw that Lancaster do what it did because we went there two days running, yes. Seventy years ago it's tough to remember what day it was so. That was that incident. [Pause] er.
CB: Which did you prefer, flying at night or flying in the day?
CD: Well, safety wise, well obviously day light. Because when these turning points as I was saying in that Bockholme one that Bockholme bay was seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft. And you all, you're all converging on Aufitnez [?]. You're all coming at different angles so, I had it written down here. [pages turning] [pause] First turning point whereby all aircraft were coming in at all angles to turn off onto the next heading. [cough] Incidentally, all navigation lights are turned off so you're in a complete darkness which helps towards a hazard. Within our crew, we found an idea to help to overcome this. Derry, our navigator, would call up and notify us, the gunners in brackets, ten minutes before turning point and ten minutes after the turning point. This about covers the time it takes [cough] seven-hundred and forty-nine aircraft to pass through. We, you could do a raid of a thousand bombers in a quarter of an hour over the target. So that ten minutes each side of that turning point served a good purpose. [background noise] But there was this raid where I saw two aircraft collide at the first turning point, Orford Ness .
CB: And what happened to them?
CD: Well, they just hit one another and that was the end of the story. Just a vivid blue flash.
CB: Oh was it?
CD: And a black pall of smoke to follow.
CB: You couldn't see-
CD: Joe Her- incidentally, Joe Herman saw that same one. That happened just off the North, from Orford Ness in the North Sea. Yeah.
CB: So you didn't see them before they collided, just the explosion 'cause it was in the dark?
CD: No no no it was just above us too.
CB: Was it?
CD: So you wouldn't see it above us.
CB: No.
CD: No, you couldn't help but see it. Just a blue flash.
CB: Yeah. So if we go forward a bit, you've now completed the sortie and you've landed. What happened next?
CD: [background noise] You go to debriefing. First person you saw, and always saw every time no matter what day or night was the Padre, the Station Padre. He was stood there just inside the door with the tea urn and the biscuits. And welcomed us back. And then we went and sat in our crew at one table, crews at another table, [background noise] and you systematically interviewed and told what you saw, [cough] things happened. The navigator was always logged in so as, right that aircraft went down at so many degrees east or whatever. And the others gave their remarks and that was it. You went down to the mess had a return meal, no matter what time of the morning or night. From there to bed.
CB: Was it as standard meal, you always got something?
CD: Egg, bacon and chips. [laughter] Yeah, egg, bacon and chips.
CB: Okay.
CD: Some used to craftily get in there and get a meal and weren't on operation. They, they sussed that one out. So the WAAF behind the co- the hot plate, had a list of all the crews that were in operation and they used to ask you your name and if you weren't on there she didn't give you a meal, which is fair enough. How other way are you going to defeat it? And that's not all they did, tried to do, they did until they found it out. Yeah.
CB: So you've had your debrief, you've gone to bed, how long were you allowed to rest or sleep for before you had to do something else?
CD: We, you just got up and if it was too late a day to go and do a daily inspection then you didn't do it. You were probably on battle orders again the next night. I'll give you an instance, [background noise] they were very, the discipline to help the individual himself rather than not break his morale, they let discipline slide a bit. Whereby there was none of this saluting when you passed an officer and all that, as it was in training. I remember once in training at AGS, Dennis and I were walking up to the section and there were two officers coming down the drive. I says 'We'd better sling them one up, Dennis.' 'Oh, bugger him' he says, 'Bugger him' he says. I went up and he didn't. He got seven days [laughter]. 'That's alright for you.' I says, 'All you had to do, Dennis, was that.' Anyway, we came back to twelve noon again, and then, simple as that. That's strict discipline, that, you see and that, that didn't occur in- I'll give you the instance why. We had a billet inspection by Wing Commander Shannon, Dave Shannon, and we're all stood at the end of the bed, waiting for him and his entourage to come in and inspect, and Bob Elliott, the Canadian, he was in that far corner and he's still in his bed, he'd been on ops the night before. So immediately Shannon went straight over to him you see and he woke him up. [laughter] Elliott went like that on his poliasse, paliasse rather, 'What're you doing on that bed?' he said, 'I was on ops last night, sir', Oh well, alright, well get up and sweep this bit of bed fluff up.' [laughter] That's all that happened. Now, if he'd have done it the army way, he'd have blown the bloke to hell, wouldn't he? So they never, they never inclined to go down that road. In the army, his feet wouldn't have touched the ground. You know that. He'd have been in the glasses. But no, he just laid him back there 'I was on ops last night, sir.' 'Well alright, get on and sweep this bed fluff up.' I was stood down the other end, yeah, heard it all. That, that was the sort of discipline on the squadron.
CB: 'Cause we're talking about-
CD: We had to be at a level otherwise you'd have broke, you'd have broken up-
CB: Yep.
CD: You know what it is.
CB: Yeah.
CD: I don't have to tell you, do I?
CB: So, the accommodation is an H-Block.
CD: Yes.
CB: At Driffield.
CD: Yes.
CB: So that’s real comfort, relatively.
CD: Yes.
CB: Then you go to Foulsham, when did you get there?
CD: I remember, Nissen hut, wasn't it? I've got an old photograph of it in that other book, pimpernel book.
CB: Was that, what was the condition of that like? Comfort?
CD: Well Nissen hut, you had that all the way up in your training. [pause] I had a tortoiseshell stove and a mirror on the hut [laughter]. I always picked the bed away, yes, picked the bed away from there because they would all sit along the edge of your bed near the fire. [laughter] So I kept well away. But, oh, I had an incident at Bridgnorth. There was this farmer bloke, he was a farmer really, all Gloucestershire boy, you know. And he'd been out and had a few and he came back I was, I was half asleep I just got into bed. I hadn't been out. I never ever went out anyway, I was always religiously learning up, swotting up all the time. Plus, the letter writing, it all takes your evening up, doesn't it? So, I got into a habit. I never ever went out. Anyway, this night he comes back a bit worse for wear and I think he had a bit of encouragement from others and [background noise] he came and tipped my bed up. What does one do? I got straight up and hit him one. Only hit him once, honest to God, yeah, yeah. 'Oh uh buh' [?] he went, I thought 'Yeah.' I had every right, didn't I? And he had my left. [laughter] That was one of the incidents.
CB: What was the food like in general?
CD: Pretty good. Yes. Pretty good. Another, another incident there at Bridgnorth, you remember that advert, Chad? It was a head looking over a wall and a long nose hanging over the wall. Well, our, our instructor was a bloke called Firth, and he was, he was Jewish and he'd got just one of those conks you know [laughter] and in the ablutions up over the taps was: 'Beware, Corporal Cashew watching you' and that he was Corporal Cash, beware Corporal Cash is watching you pissing [[laughter]. Nobody was ever pulled up, what could they do about it?
CB: Banter.
CD: Another instance, going back off a weekend leave to Locking [?], Weston-Super-Mare, we always used to-
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Charlie Darby
Description
An account of the resource
Charlie Darby joined the Royal Air Force in September 1943 and recounts in great detail, his training as an air gunner/wireless operator on Wellingtons and Ansons at RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Castle Kennedy, RAF Acaster Malbis and RAF Riccall. He explains how he crewed up at 21 Operational Training Unit, RAF Morton in the Marsh, before being posted to RAF Driffield with 466 Squadron, where he served as a rear gunner. He recounts operational experiences, including an operation to Bochum. He discusses discipline and living conditions. At the end of the war he was transferred to ground work and moved between a number of stations before being demobbed in 1947. He worked for Hoover and other companies before setting up his own engineering business. He recalls what happened to his crew after the war and his participation in the unveiling of a memorial in Driffield Gardens in 1993.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
2015-07-07
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Bethany Ellin
Heather Hughes
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:57:04 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ADarbyC150630
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--Yorkshire
Germany--Bochum
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Atlantic Ocean--Irish Sea
England--Orford Ness
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.
100 Group
1658 HCU
21 OTU
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
demobilisation
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
memorial
military discipline
military ethos
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Acaster Malbis
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Carnaby
RAF Castle Kennedy
RAF Driffield
RAF Foulsham
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Riccall
sanitation
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/1572/LColeC1605385v1.2.pdf
146cc1c3261e10e2ec1fd6bc26ecd692
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
Cole, Colin
C Cole
Colin Cole
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. The collection relates to Warrant Officer Colin Cole (1924 – 2015 RAF Volunteer Reserve 1605385) who served with 617 Squadron. The collection contains two oral history interviews his, logbook, service documents, medals, memorabilia from the Tirpitz and six photographs.
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. Six items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties or to comply with intellectual property regulations. 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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-27
2015-07-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cole, C
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Colin Cole's navigator's, air bomber's, air gunner's and flight engineer's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunner’s and flight engineer’s flying log book for Warrant Officer Colin Cole from 5 August 1943 to 23 September 1946. Detailing training schedule and operations flown. Served at RAF Yatesbury, RAF Mona, RAF Barrow in Furness, RAF Market Harborough, RAF Winthorpe, RAF Syerston, RAF Woodhall Spa, RAF Digri (Bengal) and RAF Scampton. Aircraft flown were Anson, Proctor, Dominie, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and Lincoln. He carried out a total of ten daylight and one night-time operations with 617 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa as a wireless operator on the following targets in Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Poland: Bergen, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Hamburg, Ijmuiden, Lützow, Oslo Fjord, Rotterdam, Tirpitz Tromsø, Urft Dam and Viesleble [sic] (actually Bielefeld) viaduct. <span>His pilots on operations were </span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}">Flight Lieutenant Leavitt and Flight Lieutenant Price. </span>Annotations include bombing the Tirpitz and an attack by an enemy jet aircraft. Operation Exodus and Cook’s tour flights are included, as is a tour of India in 1946.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LColeC1605385v1
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
Great Britain
Pakistan
Norway
Pakistan
Poland
Wales
England--Cumbria
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
Wales--Anglesey
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Oslofjorden
Germany--Bielefeld
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Schleiden (Kreis)
Pakistan--Digri
Netherlands--Ijmuiden
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Oslo
Norway--Tromsø
Pakistan--Digri
Poland--Świnoujście
Germany--Urft Dam
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.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-11-12
1944-11-13
1944-12-08
1944-12-11
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1945-01-12
1945-02-14
1945-02-22
1945-02-24
1945-04-09
1945-04-13
1945-05-08
1945-05-10
1945-05-15
1945-09-27
1945-09-29
14 OTU
1661 HCU
617 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
Me 262
Operation Catechism (12 November 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Guzzle
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Barrow in Furness
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Mona
RAF Scampton
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Woodhall Spa
RAF Yatesbury
Stirling
submarine
Tiger force
Tirpitz
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/18/1662/LDarbyC1897788v10003.1.jpg
6413a8c51cc3d9733c010ea3f92bb9b0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Darby, Charlie
C Darby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-30
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.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Charlie Darby (b. 1924, 1897788 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a poem and two photographs. Sergeant Charlie Darby flew 30 night time and daylight operations in Halifaxes with 466 and 462 Squadrons from RAF Driffield as a rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charlie Darby and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, C
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Seven aircrew
Description
An account of the resource
Group of seven aircrew, four standing and three kneeling. All are wearing battledress, two including the pilot, have peaked caps, the rest have side caps. They are standing in front of a hedge, with a wooden door to a stone building on the right.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDarbyC1897788v10003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/4/1834/PAndersonW1502.2.jpg
b9a414bafba42828fd42048b1d150d98
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/4/1834/PAndersonW1503.2.jpg
20d26c719e4cc55e0f4f14e9f222ce46
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
Anderson, William
William Anderson
Les Anderson
W L M Anderson
William Leslie Milne Anderson
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer William Leslie Milne Anderson (1925 - 2018, 196733 Royal Air Force), and one photograph. William Anderson was a flight engineer and flew operations in Lancasters with 166 Squadron from RAF Kirmington.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by William Anderson and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Anderson, W
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
William Anderson and his crew
Description
An account of the resource
Seven aircrew are on grass arranged in two rows, 4 standing and 3 crouched. Men wear various combinations of battledress and tunics, side caps and peaked caps. William Anderson is standing second from the left. Buildings are visible in the background.
On the reverse '[underlined]Left to Right standing[/underlined]
Len Isacson - Mid upper gunner - CANADA
LES ANDERSON - FLIGHT ENGINEER
- WIRELESS OP.
IVAN PELLETIER - REAR GUNNEIR [sic] - CANADA
[underlined]SITTING[/underlined]
HANK LEHTI - BOMBAIMER [sic] - CANADA
LAURIE HOLMES - PILOT
KEN FOX - NAVIGATOR'
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAndersonW1502, PAndersonW1503
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/1929/PYoungJ1727.2.jpg
06d78a7c80a027bcf72cc8017f5159e4
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
Young, John
J Young
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Sergeant John Young (1569980, Royal Canadian Air Force), his logbook and 11 photographs of aircrew groups and Halifax aircraft. John Young was a flight engineer on 432 Squadron based at RAF East Moor, part of 6 Group. The collection shows a number of aircrew groups which include him as well as ground and air shots of his Halifax Mk 3 with Ferdinand II nose art.
The collection was donated by John Young and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-02
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Young, J
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Young and his crew
Description
An account of the resource
Seven aircrew in Mae Wests standing in front of the undercarriage of a Halifax. Two kneel in front and five stand behind. The middle man in the rear is wearing an officers peaked cap. The letter B can be seen behind on the undercarriage door. Crew are named as ( back row, left to right) 'Self' [John Young] - flight engineer, 'Cam' [Robert Campbell] - mid upper gunner, Earl 'Les' Fox – bomb aimer, Lloyd Gapes – navigator, (Front Row, Left to Right) 'Buzz' [? Busby] – rear gunner, John Hartley – wireless operator, Les Stedman – pilot (leaning on John Hartley). Information on the item was kindly provided by the donor.
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 Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PyoungJ1727
air gunner
aircrew
bomb aimer
flight engineer
Halifax
navigator
pilot
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/115/1936/PBaileyHH1603.1.jpg
915b853dbc0f844c60eb0c0f06816faf
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
Bailey, Harold H
H H Bailey
Bill Bailey
Description
An account of the resource
The collection consists of an oral history interview with Harold Hubert 'Bill' Bailey (b. 1925, 2221922 Royal Air Force) and eight photographs.
Bill Bailey completed 37 operations as a rear gunner with 31 Squadron, South African Air Force as part of 205 Group. He flew from Egypt, Palestine and Italy and took part in supply drops to partisan groups in Italy and Yugoslavia.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bill Bailey and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-01
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bailey, HH
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.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bill Bailey as newly qualified air gunner
Description
An account of the resource
Head and shoulders portrait of air gunner Bill Bailey with half wing brevet.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBaileyHH1603
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
air gunner
aircrew