1
25
369
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/27/143/PFilliputtiA16010054.2.jpg
3c07a50de1378330b0e3613d07f032bf
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
Filiputti, Angiolino
Angiolino Filiputti
Alfonsino Filiputti
A Filiputti
Description
An account of the resource
127 items. The collection consists of a selection of works created by Alfonsino ‘Angiolino’ Filiputti (1924-1999). A promising painter from childhood, Angiolino was initially fascinated by marine subjects but his parents’ financial hardships forced an end to his formal education after completing primary school. Thereafter, he took up painting as an absorbing pastime. Angiolino depicted some of the most dramatic and controversial aspects of the Second World War as seen from the perspective of San Giorgio di Nogaro, a small town in the Friuli region of Italy. Bombings, events reported by newspapers, broadcast by the radio or spread by eyewitnesses, became the subject of colourful paintings, in which news details were embellished by his own rich imaginings. Each work was accompanied by long pasted-on captions, so as to create fascinating works in which text and image were inseparable. After the war, however, interest in his work declined and Angiolino grew increasingly disenchanted as he lamented the lack of recognition accorded his art, of which he was proud.
The work of Angiolino Filiputti was rediscovered thanks to the efforts of Pierluigi Visintin (San Giorgio di Nogaro 1946 – Udine 2008), a figurehead of the Friulan cultural movement, author, journalist, screenwriter and translator of Greek and Latin classical works into the Friulan language. 183 temperas were eventually displayed in 2005 under the title "La guerra di Angiolino" (“Angiolino’s war”.) The exhibition toured many cities and towns, jointly curated by the late Pierluigi Visintin, the art critic Giancarlo Pauletto and Flavio Fabbroni, member of the Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione (Institute for the history of the resistance movement in the Friuli region).
The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Anna and Stefano Filiputti, the sons of Angiolino Filipputi, for granting permission to reproduce his works. The BCC Digital Archive is also grateful to Alessandra Bertolissi, wife of Pierluigi Visintin, Alessandra Kerservan, head of the publishing house Kappa Vu and Pietro Del Frate, mayor of San Giorgio di Nogaro.
Originals are on display at
Biblioteca comunale di San Giorgio di Nogaro
Piazza Plebiscito, 2
33058 San Giorgio di Nogaro (UD)
ITALY
++39 0431 620281
info.biblioteca@comune.sangiorgiodinogaro.ud.it
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Filiputti, A-S
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
New Zealand aircrew captured by elements of the Todt Organisation
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFilliputtiA16010054
Description
An account of the resource
An airman with a parachute trailing on the ground behind him is surrounded by a boy and two military personnel. A farmer is standing nearby. The men in uniform are pointing guns at the airman whilst the local boy is moving towards him. Two aircraft are flying in the distance. A black car is parked on the left-hand side and a village is close by.
Label reads “114”; signed by the author; caption reads “9 Giugno 1944. Elementi tedeschi dell‘Organizzazione Tod ai lavori sulle piste aeree di Lavariano-Sammardenchia-Risano, catturano un componente dell‘ equipaggio neozelandese lanciatosi con il paracadute.”
Caption translates as: “9 June 1944. German members of the Organisation Todt working on the Lavariano, Sammardenchia, and Risano airstrips captured a New Zealand aircrew who had bailed out.”
Language
A language of the resource
ita
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Angiolino Filiputti
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Francesca Campani
Alessandro Pesaro
Helen Durham
Giulia Banti
Maureen Clarke
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One tempera on paper, pasted on mount board
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy
Italy--Lavariano
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-09
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 New Zealand Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Artwork
arts and crafts
bale out
forced labour
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/27/188/PFilliputtiA16010099.1.jpg
ea0491d7271d59e9fb7d8248e204b172
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
Filiputti, Angiolino
Angiolino Filiputti
Alfonsino Filiputti
A Filiputti
Description
An account of the resource
127 items. The collection consists of a selection of works created by Alfonsino ‘Angiolino’ Filiputti (1924-1999). A promising painter from childhood, Angiolino was initially fascinated by marine subjects but his parents’ financial hardships forced an end to his formal education after completing primary school. Thereafter, he took up painting as an absorbing pastime. Angiolino depicted some of the most dramatic and controversial aspects of the Second World War as seen from the perspective of San Giorgio di Nogaro, a small town in the Friuli region of Italy. Bombings, events reported by newspapers, broadcast by the radio or spread by eyewitnesses, became the subject of colourful paintings, in which news details were embellished by his own rich imaginings. Each work was accompanied by long pasted-on captions, so as to create fascinating works in which text and image were inseparable. After the war, however, interest in his work declined and Angiolino grew increasingly disenchanted as he lamented the lack of recognition accorded his art, of which he was proud.
The work of Angiolino Filiputti was rediscovered thanks to the efforts of Pierluigi Visintin (San Giorgio di Nogaro 1946 – Udine 2008), a figurehead of the Friulan cultural movement, author, journalist, screenwriter and translator of Greek and Latin classical works into the Friulan language. 183 temperas were eventually displayed in 2005 under the title "La guerra di Angiolino" (“Angiolino’s war”.) The exhibition toured many cities and towns, jointly curated by the late Pierluigi Visintin, the art critic Giancarlo Pauletto and Flavio Fabbroni, member of the Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione (Institute for the history of the resistance movement in the Friuli region).
The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Anna and Stefano Filiputti, the sons of Angiolino Filipputi, for granting permission to reproduce his works. The BCC Digital Archive is also grateful to Alessandra Bertolissi, wife of Pierluigi Visintin, Alessandra Kerservan, head of the publishing house Kappa Vu and Pietro Del Frate, mayor of San Giorgio di Nogaro.
Originals are on display at
Biblioteca comunale di San Giorgio di Nogaro
Piazza Plebiscito, 2
33058 San Giorgio di Nogaro (UD)
ITALY
++39 0431 620281
info.biblioteca@comune.sangiorgiodinogaro.ud.it
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Filiputti, A-S
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
Spitfire shot down by Kriegsmarine anti-aircraft fire
Description
An account of the resource
A Spitfire is crashing in a rural landscape. The aircraft is pictured in the act of disintegration and is in flames and trailing black smoke. The pilot has bailed out and his parachute has opened.
Label reads “243”; signed by the author; caption reads “6 MARZO 1945. ORE 11.30 “Spitfire” colpito da mitragliera della “Kriegsmarine” precitato [sic] al suolo a est di Carlino UD il pilota si è salvato con il paracadute.”
Caption translates as: “6 March 1945, 11.30 am. Spitfire fighter aircraft hit by heavy machine-gun fire from the German navy. It crashed East of Carlino (Udine province). The pilot survived since he parachuted outside the aircraft.”
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFilliputtiA16010099
Language
A language of the resource
ita
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Angiolino Filiputti
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Francesca Campani
Alessandro Pesaro
Helen Durham
Giulia Banti
Maureen Clarke
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One tempera on paper, pasted on mount board
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy--Carlino
Italy
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Artwork
anti-aircraft fire
arts and crafts
bale out
shot down
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/39/282/BWilliamsonGRWilliamsonGRv10001.1.jpg
444d53e78e457f02779d065b22409b59
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/39/282/BWilliamsonGRWilliamsonGRv10002.1.jpg
b20df7bba150a07bc3d6aefd6d9cbd4b
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
Williamson, George Reid
George Reid Williamson
G R Williamson
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection consists of documents and photographs related to Sergeant George Reid Williamson being shot down over occupied France on 3/4 May 1944, during an operation to Mailly-le-Camp. Items include a memoir of his escape as well as photographs and names of helpers in the French resistance. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Don Hillier and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-01
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Williamson, GR
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] THE DAY I REVIEWED THE GERMAN ARMY. [/underlined]
On the morning on the 7th May 1944 I was hiding in a wood outside Chateau-Thierry, half starved and desperate and almost dying of exhaustion. Three nights previously I had jumped from a Lancaster bomber shot to pieces by German night fighters during the successful bombing of the Panzer Training School at Maille le Campe [Mailly-le-Camp]. Since then I had been constantly harried by German patrols, sleeping in ditches by day and moving by night. Today I knew I [underlined] must [/underlined] get help.
The farmer working in his field looked up without surprise as I approached him. Dourly he listened as I read from my French phrase book, then with a gesture turned and led the way to the farm-house.
An hour or so later, a little less hungry and with an old three quarter length coat covering my uniform jacket, I was walking towards the town railway station muttering to myself the phrase the farmers wife had drilled into me.
“Un billet simple pour Paris”
“Un billet simple pour Paris”
There was quite a queue at the ticket office and I place myself diffidently at the end trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, but as the ticket window drew nearer and nearer my confidence deserted me and when I caught a glimpse of a german [sic] uniform on the platform I panicked completely and retreated quickly into the street. By this time the sun was blazing fiercely and as I was still wearing my long flying drawers and white polo-neck sweater under my battledress I was in a truly sorry condition. A row of benches against a shady wall offered me temporary respite and I sank gratefully on to one of them. A seven foot wall ran the length of the street on the other side broken only by a large solid wooden gate opposite where I was sitting. And then it happened! A sharp word of command sounded from beyond the wall, the gate swung open and out marched a considerable proportion of the German army – column after column jackbooted and goose-stepping making straight towards me, then wheeling at the last moment and marching on towards the station.
I could have reached out and touched them but I sat there petrified waiting for what seemed the inevitable moment when an eagle eye would notice the Air Force blue of my trousers or the fine fleece-lined shoes
[page break]
I was wearing, but no! to these troops I was no Lili Marlene waiting outside the barracks gate but a nondescript French peasant, too insignificant for them to notice.
For some minutes after the gate was again closed and the last man gone I sat there stunned. Then quickly I got myself out of that town. But some eyes keener than the Germans must have noticed my departure for a mile or so on the road to Paris a youth on a bicycle caught up with me, and from that moment I was under the protection of the French Underground.
A hundred times in the next few months I had narrow escapes in Paris and elsewhere but never one that left me with the same feeling of shock as the day I reviewed the German army.
GEORGE REID WILLIAMSON
30 BRAIDFAULD ST.
[underlined] GLASGOW. E2. [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The day I reviewed the German army
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Description
An account of the resource
The memoir details the events after Sergeant George Reid Williamson baled out of his Lancaster over Chateau-Thierry. After hiding in a wood for a few days, he met a local farmer who took him back to the farmhouse for food and a large overcoat. While trying to reach Paris by train pretending to be a French peasant he narrowly escaped capture while hiding close to a German unit. He quickly left the town and encountered a French boy riding a bicycle, who put him under the protection of the Resistance.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Memoir
Text
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France--Château-Thierry
France--Mailly-le-Camp
France
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-05-07
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BWilliamsonGRWilliamsonGRv1
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
George Reid Williamson
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
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page typewritten memoir
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Cathie Hewitt
50 Squadron
bale out
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
evading
Lancaster
Resistance
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/39/283/EIrvinLLWilliamsonGR441216.1.jpg
bb03afb3c401c557c9d5866d95647873
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
Williamson, George Reid
George Reid Williamson
G R Williamson
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection consists of documents and photographs related to Sergeant George Reid Williamson being shot down over occupied France on 3/4 May 1944, during an operation to Mailly-le-Camp. Items include a memoir of his escape as well as photographs and names of helpers in the French resistance. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Don Hillier and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-01
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Williamson, GR
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
Caterpillar club letter to George Reid Williamson
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Description
An account of the resource
The letter apologises for the delay in sending out the caterpillar club badge to Sergeant George Reid Williamson. The sender encloses the badge with good wishes. Signed on behalf of Leslie Irvin.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Irving Air Chute Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-12-16
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EIrvinLLWilliamsonGR441216
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page typewritten letter
bale out
Caterpillar Club
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/51/403/ARapozziF-MG161019.1.mp3
7e45776083afba080a859f7ab3d5e18c
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
Rapozzi, Francesco and Maria Gigliola
Francesco and Maria Gigliola Rapozzi
F and M G Rapozzi
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Francesco and Maria Gigliola Rapozzi who recollects their wartime experiences in Monfalcone and surrounding areas.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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
Rapozzi, F-MG
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-19
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PC: Sono Pietro Commisso e sto per intervistare Rapozzi Francesco e Rapozzi Maria Gigliola. Siamo a Monfalcone, è il 19 ottobre 2016. Grazie Francesco e Maria Gigliola per aver permesso questa intervista. Sono inoltre presenti all’intervista Gianmaria Bugato. La sua intervista registrata diventerà parte dell’archivio digitale dell’International Bomber Command Centre, gestito dall’Università di Lincoln e finanziato dall’Heritage Lottery Fund. Prima di cominciare, la prego di rispondere alle seguenti domande, in modo da essere certi che questa intervista venga registrata secondo i suoi desideri nonché in accordo con le condizioni poste dai nostri finanziatori. È d’accordo che la sua intervista sia conservata in perpetuo come documento liberamente accessibile al pubblico da usarsi per mostre, attività di ricerca, istruzione, nonché come risorsa online?
FR: D’accordo.
MGR: D’accordo.
PC: Sia resa possibile, sia resa disponibile al pubblico mediante una licenza Creative Commons attribuzione non commerciale, indicata come CC-BY-NC il che significa che non potrà essere usata a scopi commerciali?
FR: Sempre d’accordo.
MGR: Sì.
PC: Sia attribuita a lei?
FR: Sì.
MGR: Sì.
PC: Acconsente a concedere all’università il copyright del suo contributo per l’impiego sotto qualsiasi forma ed è consapevole che ciò non preclude il suo diritto morale ad essere identificato come esecutore ai sensi del copyright, design and patents act del 1988?
FR: Non coscrisco la domanda ma sono d’accordo.
MGR: [laughs] Anch’io.
PC: Acconsente di essere fotografato per il Bomber Command Digital Archive?
FR: Grazie, no.
MGR: No, no, che no I se spaventi [laughs].
PC: Grazie possiamo cominciare. Allora, se vi parlo dei bombardamenti aerei di Monfalcone, qual è il ricordo che vi suscita questa domanda?
FR: La fotografia più importante?
PC: Il primo, il primo ricordo.
FR: Mmh. Dunque, noi abitavamo dentro l’attuale recinto del cantiere, mio padre era medico di fabbrica eccetera, ci siamo spostati prima dei bombardamenti, e la casa in cui abitavamo, una gran, c’erano tre palazzi praticamente, il secondo era il nostro, in frazione del palazzo, è saltato, quindi noi non abbiamo perso assolutamente niente, ci siamo trasferiti più distanti, vicino all’albergo impiegati. Una delle fotografie de tre che mi restano e che è il primo bombardamento, [pause] noi abitavamo a cento metri dal, dall’anticrollo dell’albergo praticamente: sentito l’allarme, alzati, rappezzati eccetera, siamo andati nel, nell’anticrollo; le due femmine, mia madre e la Lilli sono passate, io e mio padre eravamo più indietro e siamo passati attraverso la vetrata dell’albergo che saltava. Quindi l’unico ricordo importante, diciamo, è questo. Quindi, poi, niente, dopo successi, non c’erano rifugi ancora praticamente, dopo avevano fatto quei rifugi a cupola, no, quello in cui andavamo noi era davanti al vecchio cimitero, e in un bombardamento x poi sono arrivati tanti feriti dentro, ecco, e io ero ragazzino, queste cose le ricordi. Questo, terza fotografia, dopo un bombardamento, siamo andati in valle, viale San Marco a vedere [laughs], curiosi, e c’era, avevano colpito il cantiere ovvi, era quello lo scopo chiaramente, e c’erano delle fiamme enormi coi gabbiani che vol, che giravano, no, sono quelle cose che ti restano fotografate, e qui finisce praticamente [laughs].
MGR: A proposito delle fiamme.
FR: [unclear], no.
MGR: No, no, decisamente no.
FR: Mi e mio padre sicuramente sì.
MGR: Sì, ma, mio ricordo che i tedeschi prima di andar via avevano bruciato tutte le o navi, o che avevano in porto.
FR: Motozattere.
MGR: E siamo andati su in terrazza, su, a vedere, e le fiamme che ricordo io sono.
FR: Ecco, Via Bolo, Via Bologna dove abitavamo dopo, sì, vicino all’albergo impiegati, aveva una terrazza in alto, ecco, sì ma non c’entrano i bombardamenti, e io da su ho visto nel, penso sia stato il 1° maggio, comunque il 30 aprile, un treno che andava verso Gorizia e che veniva bombardato dai mortai probabilmente, no, e si è fermato, quindi i tedeschi che andavano via si sono fermati, basta.
MGR: Noi poi siamo.
FR: Ma non c’entra niente coi bombardamenti questo chiaramente.
MGR: No no, ma noi siamo ‘ndati sfollati all’Isola Morosini fino.
FR: [unclear].
MGR: Fino al 1943. L’8 settembre, guerra finita [laughs], torniamo a casa; torniamo a casa e sul ponte di Pieri c’è stato quell’episodio che eravamo noi col carro che faceva un rumore terribile perché c’eran quei san pietrini, soli, è venuto questo aereo così, l’han colpito, io ho visto, lui non ha visto, e i paracadutisti che si son buttati e l’aereo che è cascato nell’Isonzo, che era quasi asciutto; quando siamo arrivati in fondo i tedeschi hanno preso me [ghigno], ‘l carro, e c’hanno messo nella casetta da dove bomb, tiravano, come si chiama? Contraerea, della contraerea, ecco. E quindi dopo siamo arrivati a casa e ci siamo fatti tutti i bombardamenti che han fatto, là non c’era niente [laughs] da Isola Morosini, no, eh.
PC: Francesco, tu, quando abbiamo parlato assieme prima, mi raccontavi del, dei giochi che facevate, del fatto che quasi ti eri divertito durante i.
FR: Sì, sì beh avevo tredici anni, quindi è un’età, ho visto morire un tedesco, faceva la curva davanti l’albergo impiegati in moto, è andato contro il recinto, sì stupidaggini, ecco, no, che non c’entrano niente coi. Ah, un’altra cosa forse, così, che c’entra coi, relativamente coi bombardamenti, da Isola Morosini venivo in bicicletta a Monfalcone, tredici anni, e c’erano quei buchi, quei anti, gli antischegge dei tedeschi, no, due metri circa, profondo uno, largo cinquanta centimetri, passava un aeroplano, mi son messo lì, ed è caduto giù il serbatoio ausiliario, no, che quando cade non sai cosa succe, è caduto a pochi centinaio di metri, ecco, ma quando vedi sta roba che vien giù, sì [laughs].
MGR: [laughs] Si è divertito un poco meno [laughs].
FR: Ho apprezzato il fatto ecco, diciamo così.
MGR: E tu, e lui si ricorda del, del, come si si, sotto così, era sotto una cantina, sotto all’albergo mio.
FR: ‘ndati in cantina, un anticrollo, no.
MGR: Un anticrollo.
FR: [unclear].
PC: Com’era, com’era allestito dentro? Cosa c’era nel rifugio anticrollo?
FR: Niente: una stanza con un, con degli, con dei sostegni per il tetto, qualche panca.
MGR: Ma papà gaveva fat anche a casa, in cantina.
FR: No.
MGR: Aveva messo pali, qualcosa.
FR: No.
MGR: No?
FR: In Via Roman no, sicuram.
MGR: No, no in Via Roman.
FR: Ma dall’altra parte forse, ma in Via Roman no, certamente no, proprio perché avevamo sto, possibilità vicina.
MGR: Sì, sì, vicino.
PC: Ma comunque vi portavate dietro dei.
MGR: Mah.
PC: La coperta, qualcosa?
MGR e FR: No, no.
MGR: E però il papà che non aveva le, le chiavi, c’aveva le chiavi del portone, ma la prima notte, prima notte che l’allarme era sul bar impiegati quindi era come averlo in casa, non trovava, e c’erano i, quelle, come si.
FR: Bengala.
MGR: Bengala, ecco, che venivano giù [laughs] e ti sembrava di essere proprio sotto ai [laughs], co’ ste luci, co’ la pila.
FR: No, ecco, per dire che erano molto attenti , no, perché prima di bombardare illuminavano tutto, quindi, sì, facevano le cose.
MGR: E noi eravamo lì che ci si, almeno io.
FR: Seriamente, seriamente mi sembrava.
MGR: Mi sentivo proprio presa di mezzo perché papà co’ la pila [divertita], che cercava la chiave del portone, e questi ‘ti ti ti ti’, sembrava.
FR: Un po’, un po’ d’emozione nel mezzo sicuramente.
MGR: Sì, sì, ecco.
FR: Chiaro.
MGR: Perché non trovava ‘l, e dopo andavamo dove c’era l’alber, proprio di fronte al cimitero, dove ci son le scuole medie adesso, c’era questo bunker e io ho vissuto parte [laughs] della mia vita lì dentro, perché suonava qualche volta suonava l’allarme, poi c’era il cessato allarme e venivi a casa eccetera, ma comunque d’estate [unclear]
FR: Ah ecco, grato, grato ai tedeschi, eheh tedeschi, agli inglesi, io facevo, dunque nel ’44, facevo le scuole medie non so se, no, sì le medie, no so se la terza o la seconda, è stato un lungo periodo tutta l’estate, sì primavera, in cui andavamo a scuola un giorno a settimana e alle nove di mattina di solito suonava l’allarme.
FR e MGR: [laughs]
FR: Meraviglioso! Ecco, uno dei ricordi felici. [laughs]
MGR: No, io ero in terza elementare e si andava a scuola così, anche a giorni alterni quando capitava, però sì, non ero [laughs] tanto che andavo volentieri, ecco, non facevo, lui era il più grande [laughs].
FR: No, guarda, mi la scuola la sé sempre stada contraria.
MGR: Sì ecco, mi son diventada maestra però [laughs].
FR: Mi go comincià ad odiar le monighe del asilo, quindi te ga voia.
MGR: Sé morta.
FR: Ben fatta! [laughs].
MGR: [laughs] L’Alma Fides sé morta.
PC: Una domanda per Maria, mi raccontava del, del bombardamento di, del mago Delfo.
MGR: Sì, ecco, c’è di domenica, era proprio per i bambini, naturalmente ‘vevo sette anni io, accompagnati, a me aveva accompagnato la ragazza che avevamo, e a un dato momento si è sentito ‘Vuoo vuoo’, che era un rumore che quando ancora passavano quelli aerei che andavano a bombardare in Jugoslavia, [laughs] ti ricorda sto rumore, e son sal, son ‘ndata fuori, son passata tra le gambe e ho cominciato a guardare sti aerei, e loro ‘Uh, caccia, caccia! Uh non c’è pericolo’, e son partita: son arrivata prima in un bunker che era quasi vuoto, dove c’eran due feriti con schegge, tutti sporchi di sangue e non so la, la gravità ma comunque da vedere per me è stata.
FR: Beh ma se i sé arrivai fin in rifugio.
MGR: No ma iera seduti su, distesi su le panchette che iera lì. E dopo ho tagliato da, vicino, perché ‘l , per arrivare verso ‘l pol, ‘l campo sportivo son arrivata nel bunker dove c’era la mamma, papà era dentro in cantiere, e noi andavamo sem, perché c’era una parte sopra e una parte sotto, sopra non c’era più posto e son ‘ndata sotto, sicché mia mama non sapeva che io ero lì, era un po’ in pensiero e ‘l papà anche, ecco. E questo è un ricordo, e l’altro, quello del primo bombardamento, che è caduto proprio di fronte, dove ci sono le scuole “Sauro” adesso, in un campo di patate, e siccome l’entrata del bunker, un corridoio così, poi c’era, andava da fuori a dentro, poi c’era una porta che entravi proprio, venivan tutto lì.
FR: I sé vicini, no, no i sé entrate con.
MGR: Questo faceva ‘l giro d’aria, e dopo veniva dentro, quando siamo usciti nel corridoio, e c’eran tutte patate [emphasis and laugh], perché è cascata la bomba in un campo, tutto patate e terra, mi ricordo. E poi, il papà, uscendo proprio non so in che occasione, e gli è arrivata davanti, così era, che ‘l gaveva sul caminetto, una specie di, pff, mezza bomba, no so.
FR: ‘Na spoletta.
MGR: ‘Na spoletta forsi, che gli è caduta proprio davanti e che l’ha messa [laughs], mi ricordo, lì per dire quel.
FR: Se sé l’ogiva [unclear] la spoletta.
MGR: Sì, ‘se mi cascava in testa’.
FR: No, non sapevo questa.
MGR: No? Ah sì.
FR: Non apprezata.
MGR: La iera, la iera sul cainetto verde, ‘n entrata là.
FR: Quella iera tedesca allora che ‘l tirava su?
MGR: Eh sì, probabile, sì. E poi ‘n’altra cosa che ricordo, che Capodanno bisognava, perché come i tedeschi tiravano verso le finestre, e noi camminavamo sotto così, piccolini, con le luci, sempre con le finestre con la carta blu, e dopo quando sono arrivati gli americani noi ci siamo trovati.
FR: Neozelandesi.
MGR: Neozelandesi primi, sì, e anche indiani.
FR: Sì.
MGR: Perché avevano la cucina da una parte di casa nostra e nel campetto di fronte, dove c’è una scuola, un asilo, la mattina si ci siam svegliati e c’eran tutti questi coi carri. E anche la liberazione dei gli ugo[unclear].
FR: Sì, beh.
MGR: Coi carretti.
FR: Nel campo davanti appunto c’erano tre o quattro quadricanne, no, quelli da venti millimetri tedesche, tiravano da bassi.
MGR: Sì, sì.
FR: Perché non andavano da alti, ‘ndavano da bassi, relativamente bassi.
MGR: Sì, sì.
PC: Avrei ancora una domanda per Maria, sempre riguardo il bombardamento di Delfo: mi parlavi dei tuoi compagni di classe.
MGR: Sì, sono morti due, ecco, e una era proprio amica, abitava di fronte alle case nostre, è morta lei e la mamma, perché la mamma l’aveva accompagnata; dopo siamo andati a scuola un paio di giorni dopo, e abbiamo messo i fioretti sul banco, e sono i primi due morti che ho visto io; sta bambina era vestita col vestito da comunione, presumo, perché , e la mamma aveva un abito lungo celeste che, sono ‘ndata dentro e sono venuti fuori, perché non era proprio uno spettacolo [laughs]. Ma tanti [emphasis] bambini sono morti, sì, arrivavano proprio perché. Questo era nella sede dell’albergo operai, sotto nel salone dell’albergo operai, quindi papà era vicino, eh sì.
PC: Ancora una domanda per Francesco, riguardo, sempre riguardo al rifugio: mi parlavi di giochi che facevate dentro, che scherzavate, ridevate, che, che?
FR: Solite stupidaggini dei bambini, ecco, niente di, la pallina tirarsi addosso, cose del genere, niente di particolare.
PC: Ho capito. D’accordo, avete qualche altra, qualche altro ricordo che.
FR e MGR: No.
FR: Ecco, no. Notizia: che a un certo momento verso l’ultimo, penultimo bombardamento, tanti cantierini sono andati verso la pista, c’era la pista davanti alla vela praticamente, no, e ne sono morti parecchi, ma non visti, sentito dire, ecco.
MGR: Sì, sì perché prima [unclear].
FR: Sbagliata la direzione diciamo.
PC: Ancora una domanda per Maria: mi parlavi dell’aereo caduto nell’Isonzo.
MGR: [together] Quello di. Sì, sì. Io no, l’ho visto ma ci è passato proprio sopra eh, perché sarà cadu, è caduto tra, tra ‘l ponte della strada a quello della ferrovia, quindi in uno spazio relativamente.
FR: Ah fra i due ponti?
MGR: Sì. Relativamente bre. Fatto ‘boom’, il suo solito tiro, e dopo di qua son venuti dalla parte verso il paese, son venuti giù questi due.
FR: [unclear].
MGR: Però no, io non li ho visto, e non so che gli avessero sparato addosso o robe del genere, no. Perché poi quando siamo arrivati in fondo lui è saltato per conto suo, a me mi ha preso, [laughs] ficcato dentro la, non mi ricordo altro. Però lo era, eravamo e c’han detto se siamo matti, perché questo signore, la mamma ha detto ‘Ma cosa fa? Si fermi!’ ‘Ehhh se mi fermo è ancora peggio perché siamo sul ponte, via avanti’ [laughs].
FR: Sì fermarsi in mezzo no iera una bona idea.
MGR: No.
FR: [laughs].
MGR: Sì, perché faceva un rumore, iera, c’eran quei san pietrini e poi avevamo le, io e la mamma eravamo davanti.
FR: Iera probabilmente i carri co’ le rode de ferro.
MGR: Co’ le rode de ferro, sì.
FR: E io co, col.
MGR: Col cerchio, sì, e conigli. Tutti immobili però, perché avevamo masserizie varie [laughs], e siamo arrivati a casa tutti contenti che eravamo ‘rivati a casa [laughs]. E poi mi ricordo un’altra cosa, quando eravamo nella casa dentro al cantiere, che loro sono andati al rifugio, perché iera qualche rifugio vicin el teatro. Sì ecco.
FR: Sì, no me ricordo.
MGR: L’ubicazione, perché eravam piccoli. E io, papà e l’infermier Battilana, che era col papà, siamo andati nella garitta, che c’era proprio attaccata nell’infermeria, e là eravamo in tre [laughs]; loro eran tranquilli.
FR: Dio bon, iera quattro posti nella garitta, non di più.
MGR: Sì, sì, ecco. Coper, con le coperte perché avevo la febbre.
FR: Vista, vista [unclear]co’ ‘e garitte, sé ancora che gira, no?
PC: Una è ancora.
FR: Sì.
PC: In via Bonavia proprio.
MGR: Sì, sì. La, quela di notte, naturalmente di notte perché [laughs].
FR: No, gli inglesi iera sempre vegnui de notte.
MGR: E Pippo poi, e Pippo che c’era, c’era questa ragazza che avevamo, che era friulana, e non sapeva né leggere né scrivere, e dormiva sulla cameretta su, e questo Pippo lo sentiva da su [laughs], che passava, [laughs] correva giù come una matta, perché era sempre presagio brutto quello di vedere, perché venivano, non so se uno ‘veva idee che non so qualcuno ha detto quel signore che c’eran tre, quattro Pippi, non so, ma venivano sempre a dare uno sguardo prima di bombardare, no, e quindi il giorno dopo, due giorni dopo, ci si poteva aspettare le bombe, sì. E proprio lei era qua quando ha fatto quello, quello delle patate, e non sapeva leggere e c’era scritto ‘Gesù mio, Misericordia’ e lei ha detto ‘Oddio’, ha imparato a leggere [laughs], non potevo capire come avesse detto sta roba che era scritta là.
PC: Signori Rapozzi io vi ringrazio per l’intervista, grazie mille.
FR: Bon finito perché i ricordi erano proprio.
PC: No no erano interessantissimi.
FR: Minimi.
PC: Interessantissimi, grazie mille.
MGR: Posso offrirte un caffè? Qualcosa?
PC: Va ben d’accordo.
MGR: Ecco. E ti te bevi caffè?
FR: No, no, non m’interessa grazie.
MGR: Ti te bevi caffè?
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 Francesco and Maria Gigliola Rapozzi
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Description
An account of the resource
Francesco and Maria Gigliola Rapozzi remember wartime life in Monfalcone. They recollect the day the shipyard was engulfed in flames after a severe bombing raid and mentions the high number of casualties among civilians. They remember various stories: their life as evacuees, an aircraft hit by anti-aircraft fire, an aircraft falling into the Isonzo river after the crew had bailed out, and the frightening presence of "Pippo". They recall the day when, just as a magician's show was about to commence, a bombing raid started and people dashed to the shelter,Two of the victims of this event were acquaintances. They recall a bombing raid when they couldn’t find the house keys and saw target indicators falling on the town. They remember the Germans retreating at the end of the war, having completely destroyed the shipyard.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-19
Contributor
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Marco Dalla Bona
Format
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00:18:57 audio recording
Language
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ita
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy
Italy--Monfalcone
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ARapozziF-MG161019
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
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Pietro Commisso
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-08
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
childhood in wartime
civil defence
evacuation
fear
Pippo
shelter
shot down
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/78/744/ASimonsohnW170812.2.mp3
73cfe0f9105ae524241bd88ad6f67653
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
Simonsohn, Wilhelm
W Simonsohn
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Fighter planes
Bombing, Aerial
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Wilhelm Simonsohn (b. 1919), a Luftwaffe pilot.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PS: Dieses Interview wird für das International Bomber Command Center durchgeführt. Der Interviewer ist Peter Schulze, der Befragte ist Herr Wilhelm Simonsohn. Heute ist der 4 Juli, 4 August 2017. Wir danken Herrn Simonsohn für die Erlaubnis, ihn interview zu dürfen. Ihr aufgezeichnetes Interview wird Teil des Digitalem Archiv des International Bomber Command Centre werden, das von der Universität Lincoln im Auftrag des IBCC verwaltet und vom Heritage Lottery Fund unterstützt wird. Ihr Interview wird als eine öffentlich zugängliche Quelle aufbewahrt, die für Forschung, Erziehung, online und in Ausstellungen verwendet werden kann. Das Ziel dieses Abkommens ist dafür zu sorgen dass ihr Beitrag dem IBCC Digitalem Archiv hinzugefügt wird, in Übereinstimmung mit ihren Wünschen. Dieser Vertrag ist zwischen der Universität Lincoln („Die Universität“) und den befragten („Sie“) enstanden. Ich, also, wieder noch einmal die drei Fragen. Ich, der Befragte, bestätige dass ich meine Zustimmung zur Aufnahme gegeben habe und das ich hiermit der Universität alle die Urheberrechte für die Verwendung in allen Medien gebe. Ich verstehe dass es nicht meinen moralischen Anspruch beeinträchtigen wird, als Darsteller identifiziert zu werden, dem Urheber, Design und Patentsgesetz 1988 gemäß. Ja oder nein?
WS: Ja.
PS: Danke.
WS: Bitte. So, und jetzt zur Sache.
PS: Nein warte, warten sie bitte. Bitte um Verzeihung.
WS: [unclear]
PS: Nein da sind noch die anderen beiden Fragen. Ich stimme zu, dass mein Name öffentlich mit diesem Interview verbunden wird, aber verstehe dass alle die anderen persönlichen Angaben unter streng vertraulichen Bedingungen gespeichert und nicht an Dritte weitergegeben werden. Ja oder nein?
WS: Ja.
PS: Ich erlaube dass mein Interview online zugänglich gemacht wird. Ja oder nein?
WS: Ja.
PS: Dieses Abkommen wird dem Englischen Gesetz und der Zuständigkeit der Englischen Gerichte unterlegen sein und ihnen ausgelegt sein. So, ehm, ich kann jetzt zu den Fragen kommen.
WS: Ja.
PS: Also, ehm, ich wollte gerne, wir möchten gerne noch etwas zu ihrer Familie wissen, und zu ihren Jüdischen Eltern, also zu ihrem Haushalt wissen.
WS: Ich wurde als, mit zwei Jahren von Eltern adoptiert bei denen der männliche Teil aber ein Jude war. Ich habe ja auch noch einen Jüdischen Namen. Ich habe ab zwei Jahre alt, meine richtigen Eltern habe ich praktisch nie kennengelernt. Ich kenne also nur meine Adoptiveltern, wenn ich von Eltern spreche meine ich [unclear] den diese. Und mein Adoptivvater war ein Jude wenn auch kirchlich getauft und Deutsch nationaler-politischer Gesinnung. Das war’s.
PS: Können sie mir noch ein bisschen mehr erzählen, ich meine wie, wie sich, sagen wir die Geschehnisse.
WS: Ja also, mein Vater war Seeman, der fuhr zur See auf dem P-Linern der Reederei Laiesz. Da kommt jetzt in diesen Tagen aus den USA die Peking nach Hamburg, das ist einer von diesen sogenannten P-Linern der Reederei Laiesz, grosse Seegelschiffe die Salpeter von Iquique von Chile nach Hamburg gebracht haben. Auf diesen P-Linern ist mein Vater gefahren. Er war vor dem ersten Weltkrieg war er an Bord dieser Schiffe. Er hatt sich dann nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg hier niedergelassen in Altona bei Hamburg, also ein Stadtteil von Hamburg jetzt, mit einer Kohlenhandlung. Wir hatten ein Geschäft mit zwei [unclear] und Arbeitsmännern und es ging uns finanziell ging dieser Familie, deren amtliches Kind ja ich geblieben bin da meine Eltern aus biologischen Gründen selbst keine Kinder haben konnten, bin ich in gutbürgerlichen Verhältnissen hier in Hamburg aufgewachsen. Ich habe ein Gymnasium besucht aber nach 1933 ging es dann wirtschaftlich mit uns gleich ab [unclear] das Geschäft meines Vaters boicottiert wurde. Er war ja Jude. Und 1935 waren wir dann wir [unclear] Familie, waren wir finanziell am Ende. Mein Vater, Deutsch-national gesind, wollte nicht auswandern. Er glaubte Hitler sei nur eine kurze Episode und das ginge denn bald vorüber, er dachte nie dann an auswandern. Ich selbst war in der Yachtschule in Blankenese, ein Vorort auch wieder von Hamburg, als junger, als 11, 12, 13, 14jähriger und wir wurden 1934 en block, also die ganzen Jungs in der Yachtschule, in die Hitler-Jugend überführt. Und erst 1935 erfuhr ich das meine Eltern nicht meine leiblichen Eltern sind, sondern meine Adoptiveltern. Das kam dadurch das einer der Jungs bei einem Streit mir den Vorwurf macht: ‘Du bist ja ein Judenlümmel!’ und daraufhin habe ich meinen Vater [unclear] angesprochen und in der Tat hatt sich denn herausgestellt das meine Eltern nicht meine leiblichen Eltern waren. Ich selbst bin dann später eingezogen worden zum Reichsarbeitsdienst 1938 und dann im Herbst 1938 wurde ich zur Wehrmacht eingezogen. Bis dahin also mein Schicksal im Rahmen dieser Familie. Reicht ihnen das jetzt mal?
PS: Ich wollte noch ein Moment wissen was eben nachher mit ihrem Vater passiert ist, wie sich das dann eben.
WS: Ja, ich war im Herbst 1938, im November, drei Tage Soldat, es war also der 3-4 November 1938, da bekam ich dann ein Telegramm von meiner Mutter in dem drin stand, sie hätten, sie, die SS oder wehr, hätten Papa abgeholt. Da war mein Vater an diesem ersten November 1938 tatsächlich von der Gestapo abgeholt worden und [unclear] wurde gebracht in das Konzentrationslager Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen bei Berlin. Mit diesem Telegramm bin ich zu meinem Kompanieschef gegangen und habe um drei Tage Sonderurlaub gebeten, der wurde mir auch gewilligt und ich konnte nach Hause fahren, meine Mutter trösten und habe einen Brief geschrieben an den Gauleiter Kaufmann hier in Hamburg, das ist die höchste politische Instanz gewesen für mich und gerade mit diesem Brief in dem Büro des Gauleiters der mich selbst nicht empfing aber einer seiner Mitarbeiter und nun konnte ich mein Interventionsschreiben ihm übergeben in dem ich aufgeführt hatte welche Deutsch, welche positive Deutsche nationale Gesinnung mein Vater hatte und das er auch im Ersten Weltkrieg Kriegsteilnehmer war und 1935 dafür sogar, und das ist geradezu Paradox, noch im Namen des Führers und Reichskanzlers ein Orden bekommen hat, ein Orden [unclear] noch für Kriegsteilnehmer des Ersten Weltkrieges. Das muss man sich bitte einmal vorstellen, in dem Jahr nämlich 1935 bin ich aus der Hitlerjugend ausgetreten, wir mussten unsere Wohnung verlassen und aus [unclear] Gründen, wir mussten umziehen in ärmliche Verhältnisse, ich musste das Gymnasium verlassen weil wir das Schulgeld nicht bezahlen konnten und mein Vater wurde hier noch als Matrose, obwohl er Nautiker war, bei einer Jüdischen Reederei noch einigezeit [unclear]. Uns ging es dann wirtschaftlich ganz schlecht in dieser Zeit zwischen 1935, November zwischen ‚35 und ’38. Mein Vater ist dann etwa fünf Wochen später nämlich um Weihnachten herum aus’m Konzentrationslager entlassen worden, er kam dann wieder nachhause aber in diese ärmliche Wohnung und er war dann aber seelisch zusammengebrochen. Er hatte keine [unclear] mehr und ist ein Jahr später zuhause, nämlich im Dezember 1939 verstorben. Ich war dann inzwischen also Soldat geworden. Die Geschichte meines Soldatenseins die haben ich ihnen ja glaub ich schon einmal vorgetragen. Hier ist das.
PS: Ja, ich habe dann noch andere drei Fragen für sie.
WS: Ja bitte.
PS: Die erste ist, hat mit dem Episode bei der sie abgeschossen worden sind, am 11-12 mai 1944.
WS: Ja?
PS: Wenn sie mir das ein bisschen besser erzählen konnen, mit ein Paar Einzelheiten.
WS: Ja, wir sind abends von Köln und zwar nach [unclear] um 10 Uhr etwa mit einer Junkers 88, das ist eine zweimotorige Maschine die es auch in einer Nachtjagd Version gab mit Suchgeräten also [unclear]Geräten ausgestattet und entsprechend bewaffnet. Mit [unclear] Brussel – Kanalküste in dieser Nacht mit Einflügen zu rechnen ist und zwar mit Einflügen der Briten mit vorwiegend Halifax und Lancaster, Lancaster vor allen Dingen, die in dem Raum Brüssel-Leopold [unclear] Bomben werfen würden auf Eisenbahnknotenpunkte, das ganze war warscheinlich schon im Vorfeld der Invasion so gedacht das unser Nachschub gestört werden sollte. In diesem Raum zwischen Brüssel und der Kanalküste bin ich dann hin und her geflogen und warscheinlich, in etwa zwischen fünf und sechs tausen Meter höhe, und warscheinlich bei dieser Gelegenheit in einer Richtung und auch zu lange das war also der Grund das mich eine Mosquito in ihrem Funkbordgerät aufnahm, mich verfolgte ohne das ich es wusste, mit meiner Besatzung, wir waren Flugzeugführer, Funker und Mechaniker. Die schossen dann eine Salve von unten nach oben in mein linkes Triebwerk, in den linken Motor und der brannte sofort, das war eine richtige Stichflamme, wir gerieten ins Truddeln, wir sind alle drei aber durch die Bodenlucke ausgestiegen und mit Fallschirm unten gelandet, ein bisschen [unclear] aber doch lebend runtergekommen und sind dann in Brussel-Evere das [unclear] unser Flugplatz [unclear] quasi hingebracht. Das war noch die erweiterte Geschichte meines Abschusses und, aber das ist das bemerkenswerte und da will ich sie bitten wenn sie mich mal in Hamburg besuchen mich daran zu erinnern. Ich habe hier im Flur liegen von einem Holländischen Historiker ist das vollbracht worden die Abschussgeschichte [unclear] Report dieser Mosquitobesatzung habe ich hier in Englisch, die mich damals abgeschossen hat. Und wir waren, meine Frau und ich, wir waren 1980 glaube ich, auf Grund dieser Unterlagen hatten wir Kontakt noch mit einer Witwe die Mosquito [unclear] Flugzeugführer und Navigator und mit der Witwe des Navigators, ein Mike Allen, der war inzwischen verstorben, haben meine Frau und ich in Plymouth noch einen Nachmittag verbracht bei einem sehr guten Gespräch. Das ist wohl die Geschichte meines Abschusses.
PS: Ja, dann noch eine Frage zum, zu dem Thema, sie haben gesagt das als sie flogen, da zielten sie auf die Motoren und nicht auf die Besatzungen.
WS: Ja, es war ja unsere Absichten die Maschinen abzuschiessen und sie daran zu hindern, das ist ja die Logik eines solchen Krieges, darann zu hindern das diese Engländer, diese bösen Briten, bösen [unclear] wenn die unsere Städte zerbombten und in Brand warfen und wir griffen nachts in der Regel ja von unten nach oben an. Wir hatten zwei 2cm Kannonen die schräg nach oben schossen, weil man nachts wenn die Erde dunkel ist von unten nach oben besser sieht [unclear] als von oben nach unten. Da wurde also [unclear] angegriffen und wenn man die [unclear] erkannte überall, die Lancaster hatte ja so eine Spannweite von etwa [unclear] meter wenn man die also erkannte [unclear], dann schoss man auf eine der beiden Tragflächen, wo die Triebwerke sassen, die Lancaster hatte ja vier Triebwerke, auf jeder Seite zwei und [unclear] auf diese [unclear] da schoss man [unclear] war wieder nicht, [unclear] herunter, und [unclear] auch am schnellsten, dass die Besatzung dann eventuell da noch heraus kam, [unclear] noch eine Chance [unclear] oder was abgeschossen wurden. Und auf die Art und Wiese habe ich ja diesen Peter Hinchliffe von den ich schon mal sprach, aus Canterbury haben wir mal kennengelernt bei einem Fliegertreffen das war also einer der, ein Navigator eines Halifax-bombers der ich glaube 1942 war das, [unclear] Köln abgeschossen wurde und am Fallschirm heil unten ankam. Den Namen von Peter Hinchliffe hatte ich ihnen schon genannt.
PS: Ja. Ich habe dann noch genauer gesagt zwei Fragen für sie und dann möchte ich sie nicht länger.
WS: Ja, bitte.
PS: Das erste hatt mit ihrer Gefangenschaft bei den Amerikanern zu tun. Wenn sie mir dass ein bisschen so erzählen können, Einzelheiten wenn sie noch..
WS: Ach ja, das, [laughs] das ist eine Sache für sich. Ich wurde versetzt im Herbst ‚44 im Osten, ich war noch bei der Nachtjagd, zwar in einer Nachtjagdeinheit die die letzten Kriegsmonate und Wochen in Wiener Neustadt und genau in Linz stationiert war. Also ein Gebiet das in April bereits zu Österreich gehöre, wir nannten das ja noch Ostmark, bereits weitgehend von Amerikanern besetzt war. Die Amerikaner kamen von Salzburg im Süden, sie kamen von Passau im Westen und die Russen kamen [unclear] von Wien St. Pölten an die Enns. Der Fluss Enns, der Fluss zwischen Linz und Steyr war die zwischen Amerikaner und Russen vereinbarte Demarkationslinie in Österreich in der damaligen Zeit. Und wir waren mit einer Einheit die hatten noch zwölf Maschinen oder elf Maschinen in Linz und es kam ein Befehl der Luftwaffe, das war ein General Feldmarschal von Greim, der letzte Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe, der sämmtliche Kurierflugzeuge, das sind die [unclear] sogenannten „Fieseler Störche“. Jede unserer Gruppen hatte [unclear] ein Fieseler Storch und diese Fieseler Störche sollten an einen Ort Niederlindach zusammengesetzt werden aus welchen Gründen auch immer und ich war noch [unclear] fuhrer denn ich bekam von meinem Chef Major Zorner den Auftrag mit meinen Fieseler Storch zu einem bestimmten Ort zu fliegen und an diesem Ort, Niederlindach hiess der, habe ich [unclear] gefunden, das ein Sammelplatz sein sollte für die Fieseler Störche. Meine Frau hatte einen Arbeits[unclear]lager in Bregenz am Bodensee und da kamen die Franzosen und sie war schon einige Tage bei mir und ich konnte sie in diesen Fiesel Storch mit an Bord nehmen und so flogen wir beide am 3 Mai ’45, also fünf Tage vor der offiziellen Kapitulation, an einem Dorf bei Steyr bei einem Bauer auf der Wiese mit diesem Fieseler Storch gelandet und so habe ich den Krieg auf eine Lichtung beendet. Am 8 Mai, am 7 Mai kamen die Amerikaner und ich war ja dann inzwischen im Zivil und die Amerikaner haben alle Männer zwischen zwanzig und vierzig etwa dann nach einigen Tagen einkassiert und wir mussten in ein Gefangenenlager marschieren. Dieser Fussmarsch passierte dann auch in der Dämmerung und da bin ich den weggelaufen, da bin ich also entflohen und bin dann gezielt in das Dorf und habe einige Nächte dort im Wald neben den übernachtet. Und nun kommt etwas ganz interessantes. Die Amerikaner hatten offenbar in dieser Gegend logistische Probleme weil die Demarkationslinie, der Fluss Enss zwischen Linz und Steyr eben die Grenze war, die die Amerikaner auf der einen Seite und die Russen auf der anderen Seite nicht überschreiten durften, eben als Demarkationslinie. Das führte dazu das auf der Österreichischen, also auf der Amerikanischen Seite, der Verkehr sich derartig stark verdichtet hatte, mit Panzern und sonstigen Fahrzeugen, das die Amerikaner in dieser Gegend froh waren, jedem Soldaten den sie da aufgabelten die natürlich auch alle schon zivil anhatten, Deutsche Soldaten in ein [unclear]Entlassungslager zu führen, das heisst im Steyr gab es eine Einrichtung wo die Ex-soldaten hingehen konnten und sie wurden, wenn die nicht mehr SS waren, dort entlassen. Sie bekamen eine „D 2-Schein“ das ist dieser berühmte Entlassungsschein. Man wurde untersucht ob man nicht der SS angehört hatte, die hatten ja so eine Tattowierung, man wurde untersucht das man keine Kopfläuse hatte und so weiter und am Ende der Prozedur war man denn entlassen. So bin ich auf diese Art und Weise von den Amerikanern später sogar offiziell entlassen worden. Und konnte dann später, da gab es ja noch einige Umstände, konnte dann später in etwa ende Juli, Anfang August mit meiner Frau auf abenteurlichen Wegen nach Hause fahren. Meine Frau ist in [unclear] zu hause und ich bin in Hamburg zu hause und ich konnte also auch meine Mutter denn im August in meine Arme schliessen und habe am ersten November ‚45, am ersten November ‚45, mein Frau denn also geheiratet. Das ist die Geschichte meiner Gefangenschaft.
PS: Ich fand den letzten Teil sehr rührend, muss ich sagen.
WS: Ich habe sehr viel Glück gehabt.
PS: Ja.
WS: Und Österreich war offenbar bei den Amerikanern irgendwie anders behandelt als das, als im übrigen Deutschen Reich weil Österreich ja mal als [unclear] von Hitler einverleibt wurde und man hat sich den Österreichischen Bevölkerung gegenüber warscheinlich etwas tolleranter verhalten als der übrigen Deutschen Bevölkerung und davon habe ich profitiert weil die Amerikaner ja keine Ahnung hatten das ich ein Hamburger bin und kein Österreicher.
PS: Interessant. Ich habe jetzt nur noch eine Frage für sie.
WS: Ja bitte.
PS: Ehm, es hat, es geht ein bisschen zurück auf das was ich sie das letzte mal gefragt hatte, aber es das war eben um das zu stärken. Über ihre pazifistische Einstellung nach dem Krieg. Das sie mir das noch ein bisschen wieder mal ein bisschen erzählen. Und ihre Einstellung zu den Briten.
WS: Ich bin nach hause gekommen, das sagte ich ja vorher schon, und das Gefühl, das [unclear] Gefühl das wir damals hatten, das war weit verbreitet, war ein Gefühl der Erleichterung, ein Gefühl der Erleichterung weil der Krieg nun zu Ende war, es fielen keine Bomben mehr, es wurden keine Menschen mehr getötet, das [unclear] war vorbei und dieses Gefühl war [unclear] Gefühl. Auf der anderen Seite hatte man dann natürlich auch in Hamburg [unclear] Trümmer, das Leben war viel primitiv, auch die Wohnung meiner Mutter war ausgebombt, wir wurden also sehr [unclear] in der ersten Zeit. Ich hatte noch keinen Beruf erlernt da ja der Krieg dazwischen kam und 1947 wurde eine Volkszählung für die Britische Besatzungszone, das war eben in der Amerikanischen Besatzungszone auch so, eine Volkszählung durchgeführt und an dieser Volkszählung habe ich dann teilgenommen. Und diese Teilnahme an dieser Volkszählung war zugleich mein Übergang zu einer Beschäftigung in unserer Universität in Hamburg, in der Hamburgischen Universität und da habe ich mich beruflich weiterbilden können und war im Laufe der Jahre, das war natürlich ein ganz [unclear], wurde ich Leiter der Personalabteilung an der Universität in Hamburg und wurde später dann ab 1968 das waren dann meine 15 Berufsjahre, wurde ich dann Verwaltungsleiter des Universitätskrankenhauses Hamburg-Eppendorf, das ist ein ganz grosses Klinikum mit über 5000 Beschäftigten [unclear] Sanität [unclear]. Da war ich also dann Verwaltungsleiter und bin dann 1981 pensioniert worden. Und habe dann mit meiner Frau, inzwischen waren Kinder geboren, habe mit meiner Frau mir einen Megakarawan gekauft und wir sind 18 Jahre lang nach meiner Pensionierung, im Herbst [unclear] gefahren durch Frankreich, nach Nordafrika, oder über den Italienischen Stiefel, nach Sizilien, nach Tunesien, 18 Jahre lang haben wir, im Winter eher dort unten unser Reisen [unclear] verbracht. Von diesen Erinnerungen haben ich viele Photographien gemacht, Photos gemacht, von diesen Erinnerungen [unclear] heute noch ein bisschen. Und heute bin ich mit, ich werde im nächsten Jahr 98 so Gott will und heute bin ich noch in der Zeitzeugenbörse, ich gehe in die Schulen, halte Vorträge, beantworte Fragen undsoweiter, über die Nazi Zeit und so, und versuche den Jungen Menschen beizubringen und ihnen [unclear] wie wichtig es doch ist, das die Menschen hier in Europa in Frieden leben und am Beispiel Deutschland ist es ja noch viel das Dank der [unclear] nach 1945, Marshall Plan, [unclear] Union, Wiedervereinigung undsoweiter, das hier hierzurzeit mehr al 72 Jahre hier in Europa, dank dieses Europas, mit unseren unmittelbaren neunen Nachbarn in Frieden leben. Das ist eine Zeitspanne die es für Deutschland in seiner Geschichte in dieser Menge noch nie gegeben hatt. So, da haben sie es. Sind sie noch da?
PS: Ja ja, ich bin noch hier, ja.
WS: Ach ja.
PS: Ja. Also, ich würde jetzt Schluss machen und immerhin ich verbleibe mit ihnen das ich ihnen das Material schicke und das wir noch in Kontakt bleiben.
WS: Ja, das wäre sehr schön.
PS: Und ich hoffe das es die Möglichkeit geben wird, das ich sie besuchen kann. Und, ja, Ich danke ihnen erst recht herzlich mal noch einmal für ihre Zeit und für ihre Geduld.
WS: Ach ja, keine Ursache und wenn sie mal nach Hamburg kommen, dann kommen sie bei mir vorbei, ich habe wie gesagt einen ganzen Akten Unterlagen in Englischer Sprache, also aus Englischen Berichten der 141 [unclear] Group, das ist eine Mosquito Gruppe gewesen und da sind die [unclear] worden. Da habe ich die Unterlagen unter dessen Umständen abgeschossen hat. Die können sie kopieren und die würde ich [unclear]. Wenn sie nach Hamburg kommen.
PS: Danke, danke, vielen Dank.
WS: Gut.
PS: Jetzt erstmal sehr vielen Dank von seiten des ganzen Bomber Command International Archive und wir werden in Kontakt bleiben.
WS: Ich hätte noch, ich hätte nie gedacht das ich mit einem Menschen der diesen [unclear] des Bomber Command vertritt irgend noch in [unclear] weise mich unterhalten kann. Das Bomber Command, das Britische war ja, als wir damals Krieg hatten, ein Rotes Tuch für uns, logischerweise. Wir waren ja Feinde. Und jetzt sind wir, Gott sei dank, sind wir alle in einem Gut.
PS: Ja.
WS: Und haben Frieden und hoffentlich bleibt dieser Frieden erhalten.
PS: Ja, hoffen wir, ja. Noch vielen Dank.
WS: Ja bitte, gern geschehen.
PS: Ich verabschiede mich jetzt bei ihnen und wir melden uns dann. Alos, das Projekt meldet sich dann und schickt ihnen alles.
WS: Gut.
PS: Vielen Dank und ich wunsche ihnen noch einen schönen Abend.
WS: Gern geschehen. Schönen Abend wünsche ich ihnen noch. Auf Wiedersehen.
PS: Tschüss, Auf Wiedersehen.
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 Wilhelm Simonsohn
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Fighter planes
Bombing, Aerial
Description
An account of the resource
Wilhelm Simonsohn remembers his wartime service as a Luftwaffe night fighter pilot. He tells of his adoption by a Jewish family, and the discovery of his father’s background after being lampooned as ‘Jewish scum’ at school. He emphasises family hardships as a consequence of the racial policy of Nazi Germany. He describes how his father, despite being a recipient of a First World War medal, was deported to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg Concentration Camp and later released. He tells how he used to fire at the engines of British aircraft in flight over Belgium so as to give aircrew a chance to bail out. He recounts being shot down by a Mosquito while patrolling the airspace between Belgium and the Channel coast whilst on the lookout for Lancaster and Halifax bombers. He remembers events at the end of the war: his unit being posted near Linz in Austria; being ordered to ferry a Fieseler Storch to a small airfield; being taken prisoner and later freed by American troops. He stresses his relief of now being on good terms with his former foes, something hitherto unthinkable.
Creator
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Peter Schulze
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-08-04
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Format
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00:33:08 audio recording
Language
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deu
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Belgium
Austria
Austria--Linz
Germany--Sachsenhausen (Brandenburg)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASimonsohnW170812
anti-Semitism
bale out
bombing
Halifax
Lancaster
Mosquito
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1150/PBubbGJ16010131.1.jpg
83d6c0dee7e7da70d5a996b9182ba206
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/272/1150/PBubbGJ16010131.3.pdf
8324e3ad1c4d71065ab037e623526ff9
Dublin Core
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Title
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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
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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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
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44 Squadron and the Wesserling Raid 21/22 June 1944
Description
An account of the resource
Six page document courtesy of the late Allen White - 44 Squadron Historian. Reproduces narratives from three 44 Squadron crews involved in the operation. Overall the operation lost 37 crews from 120 launched against Wesserling oil refinery near Cologne. 44 Squadron dispatched 16 aircraft of which 6 were lost. Germans successfully interfered with Oboe of pathfinder Mosquito aircraft and the operation disintegrated. First narrative recounts experience of Squadron Leader Cockbain who lost control of his aircraft after attack by night fighter. Some crew baled out before he regained control and after a struggle successfully returned to base. Second narrative recounts experience of Cockbain's flight engineer, Walter Faraday. Reports on damage and that rear gunner is stuck in malfunctioned turret. Describes recovery to base and feelings next day. Final account from this crew is from the mid upper gunner Albert Bracegirdle who baled out and awoke in a forest. After evading he hands himself in due to injury and the fact he is deep in Germany. He notes that two other squadrons on the operation lost six crews. He notes that plan was standard 5 Group low level marking technique but bomb on H2S if no markers. However operation bore the brunt of successful night fighter action. An account of the loss of Pilot Officer R Woods aircraft is given by W/O A Sergeant Royal Australian Air Force. This was their second operation and they were hit by night fighter and had to bale out. Recounts crew struggling with parachutes while others are injured or dead. Three crew members survived and were caught the next day. The final account of the operation is from Sergeant F Preston, one of the only three crew to survive from Pilot Officer J W Sholtz crew. He recounts he was blown clear after the aircraft exploded and opened his parachute and landing with some small injuries. He then headed for southern France. The final account is of Ric Green a navigator on 44 Squadron who did not fly on the attack but reported his feelings the next morning on finding so many crews missing from the previous night. There follows a role of honour for six crews lost on the operation. Notes that the first crew on the list, Flying Officer R Wood Royal New Zealand Air Force was the only Bomber Command crew lost that contained members of all three commonwealth air forces plus a representative from the United States Army Air Force.
Creator
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207 Squadron association
Format
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One album page
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
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PBubbGJ16010131, PBubbGJ16010132, PBubbGJ16010133, PBubbGJ16010134, PBubbGJ16010135, PBubbGJ16010136, PBubbGJ16010137
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
44 Squadron
5 Group
619 Squadron
bale out
Distinguished Flying Cross
final resting place
H2S
Ju 88
Lancaster Finishing School
Mosquito
Oboe
prisoner of war
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Syerston
shot down
target indicator
training
V-weapon
Window
-
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
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
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
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
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
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William Taylor
Format
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12 typewritten sheets
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BTaylorWHTaylorWHv1
Coverage
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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/152/1906/PHemsworthR1510.1.jpg
3261fe481ad89d16deb2ef5e6fe3fbd3
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
Hemsworth, Ron
Ron Hemsworth
R Hemsworth
Description
An account of the resource
266 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with Ron Hemsworth (1472158 Royal Air Force) and 265 photographs, mostly taken at Dulag Luft, Stalag Luft 1 and Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camps
The photographs have been organised according the initial letters of the caption.
A consists of 19 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in August 1942. They cover the non commissioned officers’ arts & crafts exhibition: some models are for display and others are for use; there are also paintings and jewellery.
B of 54 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 1 and Dulag Luft, covering sporting, theatrical, musical and model making activities. The funeral of Sergeant J C Shaw, who was shot whilst attempting to escape is covered with several photographs.
C consists of 42 photographs taken at the sports day at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in August 1942. Activities include rugby, running, high jumping, long jumping, long distance walking, shot putting, discus throwing and basketball. Betting on the events was carried on.
D consists of 42 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in 1942 and 1943. They cover theatrical, musical and model activities. The plays were written or adapted by the airmen. Some of the models seen in section A are being sailed or steamed on the camp pond.
E consists of 39 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in March and April 1943. They cover three plays written or adapted by the airmen.
F consists of 28 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3, Stalag Luft 1 and Dulag Luft prisoner of war camps. They cover two plays written or adapted by the airmen. Also shown are views of the camp, four recaptured escapees, a sentry in his box, the NCOs rugby team and Christmas dinner 1940.
G consists of 38 photographs taken at the Flieger Jockey Club Gala Day at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in August 1943. There are many varied fancy dress themes in addition to jockeys - an American cheerleader and an Uncle Sam, cowboys and Indians, a Welsh and a Scottish section, Indian (Asian) marching band, Maoris, Highland dancing, a lot of men dressed as women, bands, top hatted 'toffs'. Betting activities were carried out on the results of the hobby horse type races shown.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ron Hemsworth and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hemsworth, R
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-04
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
Ron Hemsworth's aircrew
Description
An account of the resource
Second from the left is Flight Engineer Al Hawley, who jumped without his parachute, third is Les Thicke, who was in Stalag Luft 6 with Ron Hemsworth, fourth is Air Gunner Ron Hemsworth, extreme right is George Testal who was a fellow prisoner of war.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
This item was digitised off site by using the best hardware available at the moment of scanning. No better quality copies are available.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PHemsworthR1510
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
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
bale out
prisoner of war
Stalag Luft 6
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/152/2146/AHemsworthR150729.1.mp3
da4b01008a71d120fe27835be4e272cc
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Hemsworth, Ron
Ron Hemsworth
R Hemsworth
Description
An account of the resource
266 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with Ron Hemsworth (1472158 Royal Air Force) and 265 photographs, mostly taken at Dulag Luft, Stalag Luft 1 and Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camps
The photographs have been organised according the initial letters of the caption.
A consists of 19 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in August 1942. They cover the non commissioned officers’ arts & crafts exhibition: some models are for display and others are for use; there are also paintings and jewellery.
B of 54 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 1 and Dulag Luft, covering sporting, theatrical, musical and model making activities. The funeral of Sergeant J C Shaw, who was shot whilst attempting to escape is covered with several photographs.
C consists of 42 photographs taken at the sports day at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in August 1942. Activities include rugby, running, high jumping, long jumping, long distance walking, shot putting, discus throwing and basketball. Betting on the events was carried on.
D consists of 42 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in 1942 and 1943. They cover theatrical, musical and model activities. The plays were written or adapted by the airmen. Some of the models seen in section A are being sailed or steamed on the camp pond.
E consists of 39 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in March and April 1943. They cover three plays written or adapted by the airmen.
F consists of 28 photographs taken at Stalag Luft 3, Stalag Luft 1 and Dulag Luft prisoner of war camps. They cover two plays written or adapted by the airmen. Also shown are views of the camp, four recaptured escapees, a sentry in his box, the NCOs rugby team and Christmas dinner 1940.
G consists of 38 photographs taken at the Flieger Jockey Club Gala Day at Stalag Luft 3 prisoner of war camp in August 1943. There are many varied fancy dress themes in addition to jockeys - an American cheerleader and an Uncle Sam, cowboys and Indians, a Welsh and a Scottish section, Indian (Asian) marching band, Maoris, Highland dancing, a lot of men dressed as women, bands, top hatted 'toffs'. Betting activities were carried out on the results of the hobby horse type races shown.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ron Hemsworth and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hemsworth, R
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-04
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Clare Bennett. The interviewee is Mr Ron Hemsworth. The interview is taking place at Mr Hemsworth’s home near Bourne on the 29th of July 2015. Well, Ron, lets first of all talk about your early childhood if we may. You were born in Peterborough.
RH: Yeah.
CB: Ninety three years ago. Do you remember much of your early childhood?
RH: Not a lot. Not a lot. [laughs] I remember when I was about five I’d had enough of school so I climbed over the gates and went to the recreation ground and played on the swings with another boy and all the while we were there, ‘Is there anybody after us?’ [laughs] I can’t remember much but as I got older I, me and another friend started the Peterborough Model Flying Club and we, I stayed in that until even after the war so we was always mad on aircraft and where I lived at that time was close to what was called Westwood Aerodrome and the aircraft always, well, nine times out of ten landed over our house and they were so low you could see who the pilot was practically. Hawker Harts. Funnily enough a friend of mine when he had to join up that’s where he went to and another friend of mine was at the same place and I think he stayed there most of the war. He used to go up and take the met report. He had a nice cushy job. And of course we used to get all these air displays. I can’t remember the name of the most prolific one. Used to do all sorts of stupid things but we always used to go to those. We couldn’t stay away. And when it come to joining up I decided that I would volunteer for air crew which was the way that you could get in and they said if you was in a model flying club you stood a pretty good chance of being air crew. Whether there was any truth in it I don’t know but anyway we got in and I joined up on the 1st of January. I started the year right. That would have been 1941.
CB: What did your parents, your parents were around at this time.
RH: Oh yes. Oh yes.
CB: And did they, were they happy for you to join up?
RH: Well I don’t suppose so. We never, we never mentioned it. [laughs]
CB: But it was what you’d set your heart on.
RH: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Did you have a particular crew position you wanted to do?
RH: Well everybody wanted to be a pilot didn’t they?
CB: Including you?
RH: Yes. Everybody. Everybody wanted to be a fighter pilot. I don‘t know why. Well I suppose probably safer than a bomber pilot, I don’t know, and actually I went in the first place as a W/Op AG.
CB: Yeah.
RH: Wireless operator/AG. But I failed the Morse code on sixteen words a minute. That was enough to drive you mad.
CB: Where was this at?
RH: At Blackpool.
CB: Oh yeah.
RH: I said I’d never go back and I never went back. You can imagine what Blackpool was like in the middle of winter. It was terrible. And the RAF took over, well all the places really. You know. And –
CB: Were you in a hotel or a guest room?
RH: Oh no. We were in guest house.
CB: Ah.
RH: And some of them were very good to us actually and some of them weren’t. And one we was at, one of the men, he was a friend of Charlie Kunz, the pianist and he used to give us, he used to give us a tune every night you know. That was alright. We were there having a tune one night and the boss came in with a dead cat and put it on the fire. Well everybody was up in arms. We went and reported it but nobody wanted to know.
CB: Oh dear.
RH: He said, ‘Well I’ve got nowhere else to,’ he said, ‘I can’t bury it ‘cause all I’ve got is concrete around the back.’ Every, everybody vacated the room quickly. And then when I failed that course I went on, I went in to the stores for a while while I was waiting for an air gunner course which, in those days you had to wait quite a while to get on one. Anyway, eventually I was posted to [pause] on the Fosse Way.
CB: Swinderby.
RH: Swinderby. Swinderby. Yeah. I went to Swinderby and of course everybody said, ‘Oh you’ll be here for years.’ Nobody, everybody was waiting. And I was only there a month or two and I got a course.
CB: How were things at Swinderby?
RH: Oh quite ok. Yeah. I went into the stores there as well. Oh, that, that was alright. But from there, after about a month I went into flying control. Now that that was a lovely job that was. I was in charge of keeping the availability of aircraft, of aerodromes. It was a huge book with every aerodrome in England on it and we used to get phone calls through such and such an aerodrome is not available, there’s a crash on such and such a runway and all that. All that had to be put down in the book. Yeah. So I was there for quite a while. There was only three of us in there. You wouldn’t run one of them for, with three people would you? Not today. And I mean I didn’t know anything about anything anyway and the one who was in charge was a sergeant pilot that had been, he’d been in a crash and he was sort of resting but I mean we didn’t know anything. Nothing in particular really. There were and there was, there was him, myself and a WAAF on the radio. That’s all there was. Anyway, from there on I went to, I can’t remember, oh I went to air gunnery school at [pause] up on the east coast near Scarborough. Bridlington.
CB: Ah.
RH: I can’t remember what number that was.
CB: No. Don’t worry.
RH: But from there we went to Morpeth and that’s when we did our air gunnery. And that was spectacular. We had Polish pilots and they were absolutely mad.
CB: What sort of planes would this be at this time?
RH: Do you know I was trying to tell somebody the other day? They were aircraft that nobody else wanted actually. They were supposed to have been torpedo bombers for the navy but they weren’t successful at all so they dumped them all at the –
CB: Albacores?
RH: No. They weren’t Albacores. No.
CB: Not to worry. Doesn’t matter.
RH: Yeah.
CB: So you, did you get on with these Polish pilots? They were -
RH: We got on fine with them. In fact, after the war one of them was a friend of mine for years but you know they’d do things like, ‘They say this aircraft won’t fly on one engine. Well it will. I’ll show you,’ and then switch one off you know. Absolutely mad. Yeah. I can remember while we was at Bridlington we were doing PT on the, on the beach and two Spitfires came over and they shot us up on the beach at about nought feet. Well everybody fell flat on the sand and then these two Spitfires went out to sea. They were so low one of their wings caught the sea. He did about ten cartwheels and burst into flames.
CB: Oh dear.
RH: Yeah. And they were both Polish pilots. The other one shot up to about twenty thousand feet. I don’t know what he told them when he got back. [laughs] Anyway, that was, after air gunnery school then we went to Honeybourne. Honeybourne was next. Cow Honeybourne and -
CB: This would be your OTU. Your -
RH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Operational Training Unit.
RH: And we weren’t crewed up or anything then.
CB: No.
RH: We were all this and that. And I know it was a terrible day when we got there about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and there was about twenty people got off the train and everybody was saying, ‘I suppose we wait for transport,’ you know so we were hanging about and this Aussie came up. He said, ‘What’s everybody doing?’ So we said, ‘Well, we don’t know. We’re just waiting.’ ‘Where’s the telephone?’ So he got on the telephone. He said, ‘There’s about twenty of us here waiting at the station for transport. Get it down here quick.’
CB: Was he an officer or just a, just -
RH: No. He was only a sergeant. I thought he’d be alright, you know. He was a pilot. Anyway, after we’d soon got to Honeybourne we had to crew up. Well I suppose everybody knows how we crewed up. Everybody in a room. Just walk around and find who you want you know and I got Bruce. The one that said, ‘Send somebody down’. I got Bruce. He were brilliant. He really was. Yeah. He looked a bit like Churchill and he was more or less his build. Quite fat you know. Yeah. And we went on a, on a course while we was there. Escape course and that. And we had to do everything at the double. It was an army place we went to. Even when you went for your meal you had to go at the double. So we passed Bruce on the way, walking. He said, ‘If you pomme goers want to run,’ he said, ‘You run.’ he said, ‘I’m walking.’ And he never did run [laughs]. He walked everywhere. It was when we were, had to climb over this wall and the rest of the crew trying to push him over this wall [laughs]. It was hilarious really. He always said, ‘If anything happened to the aircraft I’ll never get out.’ Of course poor old Bruce never did. No. Anyway –
CB: So you, you’re a crew now of seven.
RH: No. Six.
CB: Six of you.
RH: Six. Yeah.
CB: And you gelled quite -
RH: We was on Whitleys.
CB: Right.
RH: Yeah.
CB: And you gelled well. You all got on.
RH: Oh yeah. Yeah, we got on well. Yeah. [laughs] The bomb aimer was about twenty seven so we called him the old man. [laughs].
CB: So you were on Whitleys for a while.
RH: We were on Whitleys. I did, I suppose I did about a hundred hours on Whitleys but you see you do what you call circuits and bumps getting used to landings and take-offs and the only people on it was the skipper and me in the back. To balance it out I suppose [laughs]. I was only a balance really.
CB: What did you think of the Whitley as a plane to fly?
RH: I liked it. Oh she was a steady old thing you know and Bruce used to say that if you, if you banked to the left if you didn’t bring the stick back again straight away she carried on going over [laughs]. Anyway, it was a steady old bus and I think it could have taken a lot of punishment as well. Big old thing. You could actually, from the inside, crawl into the wings. There was an opening where you could crawl into the wings and get to the back of the engine because it was quite a -
CB: Yeah.
RH: Wing root. You know. Anyway, from there we went to multi engines. I can’t remember the name of that place.
CB: Did you say it was near York?
RH: Yeah.
CB: And you don’t think it was Elvington though.
RH: No. No. It was only for getting used to multi aircraft. I’ve got a relation lives there now. I can’t even think of the name of the place. That’s the trouble you know. Your brain goes.
CB: No. Not to worry. It might come to you. So you then went to this place.
RH: Yeah.
CB: And -
RH: Yeah.
CB: Went on to the Halifax.
RH: Yeah. And from there we went to Linton on Ouse which was 76 squadron.
CB: How would you compare the Halifax with the Whitley as a plane to be -
RH: Well of course it was completely different really. Faster, and could carry more and it had even got two beds in it. I liked the Halifax. We called it the Halibag actually. And I thought it was good but I mean they did have trouble with the, with the first few marks until they got it right. I think they got it right in about 1944 and they even changed the Merlins for some radial engines which were a lot better and more powerful but I don’t know about that. Anyway, we were there. We did, we only did four ops. The first one we had to come back. The intercom went. Then we went to Stettin and that was low level Stettin was. That was exhilarating. Quite interesting that was. We were low, we were lower than the land at one time over the water, over the Baltic and all the Dutch people were opening their doors, showing their lights you know and waving.
CB: What did you feel when you saw that?
RH: Pardon?
CB: It must have been moving to see that.
RH: Oh moving yeah and I mean we could see people on bicycles and all lit and everybody waved. It was lovely really. Until we got to the flak ships. It’s wasn’t very nice then. [laughs] Anyway, we did Stettin. I thought it was an easy op actually but a lot of people said it was, it was a bad one. I don’t think so. And then there was Duisburg. That was a horrible. Happy Valley was a Happy Valley. You know we called, [pause] Happy Valley, yeah. And mind you we were attacked at one moment but I gave instructions to slip him away because the idea was if you could get away without firing the rest of the fighters wouldn’t say, ‘Ah there’s one there,’ you know. Actually, you give the game away once you’d started firing. So I thought until he’s getting, you know, so he’s dangerous I won’t open fire. So we didn’t.
CB: You could seem him actually following you.
RH: He was just turning on to us.
CB: Oh.
RH: Yeah. I think it was a JU88 actually. And what was the next one? Oh the next one. That was a dead loss. We were doing a gardening trip. You know what gardening is?
CB: Mine laying.
RH: Mines. Yeah. And soon after we got off the ground the intercom went so we had to stooge around for five hours getting rid of the petrol. And then we had to come in with the mines still on board you know.
CB: Five hours.
RH: Sticking out the bottom as well, you know. The horns on them sticking out.
CB: Yes.
RH: A bit dodgy. Held your breath a bit.
CB: How did you feel when you were, you know, due for an op? You knew that your name was on the list. What did you feel?
RH: I can’t remember feeling particularly scared or anything. I think, I think you were so sort of tied up in it that you didn’t think about that aspect really.
CB: The morale was good with your crew.
RH: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Except my navigator. When we was at, we went to Duisburg. That was the Duisburg one and we were just coming up to the markers that the whatsitsnames had dropped and he said, ‘Skipper, can I go up front and have a look?’ He said, ‘I’ve never seen the target.’ He said, ‘Yeah Ted, you go up and have a look.’ We heard him unplug his, about two minutes later he plugged in, ‘I’m not going to bloody well look at that anymore.’ So he said, ‘We’re not going through that are we?’ He said, ‘Yeah. And it’ll be straight and level.’ ‘God,’ he said,’ I don’t want to look again.’
CB: So they’d dropped the target indicators.
RH: He, he -
CB: The target indicators had been dropped.
RH: They had been dropped. Yeah.
CB: And you were heading for the -
RH: And we were on the run in. You know.
CB: So you’d have all the colours and -
RH: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. All the colours. Yeah.
CB: But could you see them? Had he gone through them, sort of thing?
RH: Yeah.
CB: You saw them from the back.
RH: Oh I got a better view than anybody.
CB: So, what, tell me about the conditions in the back with you being the rear gunner. It’s always thought of as the worst position in -
RH: Quite tight.
CB: At five foot eleven and a half I expect it was.
RH: Yeah. And of course when you got your full flying kit on everybody else wore sids, what they called sidcots but I had full ervins on, trousers as well you see and you couldn’t move about. I tried to do this once or twice. Well you can’t. You can’t do it. The guns get in the way or your knuckles get bruised.
CB: Did you remove the panel from the turret like -
RH: Yeah.
CB: Some of them did.
CB: Yeah.
RH: To have a better view.
CB: Yeah.
RH: You did that ‘cause that obviously made it very cold.
RH: That’s right. Very cold. We used to get, they used to pack us sandwiches and some silly fool packed salmon sandwiches one day and of course they froze didn’t they. Couldn’t get your teeth into them [laughs]
CB: I hate to mention a Lancaster but I’ve got to. Was your, the parachutes like behind the, the doors. It wasn’t -
RH: Behind the turret.
CB: Yes.
RH: Yeah. And then -
CB: So you had to swing around to get to it when you needed it.
RH: Yeah.
CB: Right.
RH: Yeah. And the Lanc was the same. Must have been.
CB: Yes. It was.
RH: ‘Cause you can’t wear your parachute in the turret.
CB: There wasn’t room for much.
RH: No.
CB: At all.
RH: And then you had to go, about that far from the turret was a door with a handle on it and that’s what I caught the parachute on which opened it and I didn’t know.
CB: So you’d done, you’d done one, you had to come back on and Stettin and Duisburg and then your, your gardening so was that you being shot down on the fifth or was that a bit later?
RH: No. Now that would have been if everything would have gone right which of course as I say we had to go back on two of them that would have been our fourth trip.
CB: Right.
RH: And at that time everybody, it worked, well they’d worked it out that the average that people did was four. You didn’t last any longer than four so we nearly did it. Yeah. I mean people who did thirty, God knows how. I mean I was reading a book earlier that somebody did thirty and they never fired their guns. They were never attacked. Well they must have been damned lucky. Must have been lucky ‘cause I mean the night fighters there would be sixty or seventy up a night. All around you, you know. And you’d see aircraft exploding all around you when they were hit. You see what they used to do they had to come up underneath and they had a gun, or two guns protruding upwards so all they’d got to do was come underneath and just pull the trigger and you couldn’t see it.
CB: Sneaky.
RH: Couldn’t see it happening and they didn’t seem to do anything about it.
CB: You were told that the operations you know that it was about four before, you know, trouble or whatever. Did that put you off making friends with others or did you just keep to your, your crew and -
RH: Oh no. No. As a matter of fact I had, I had a friend on the same squadron who worked with me before the war who I knew very well and he, he baled out and his chute caught on the tale wheel. Bob Cadmore and he went down with the aircraft. Yeah. [pause] No. No. No. We all mixed up alright together. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Was it a good station? Linton on Ouse.
RH: I thought so. I thought it was very nice and of course we was at a famous hall about a mile away was where we were.
CB: Billeted. Yes.
RH: Where our mess was and our billet was and there was food on all day long there. You could just walk in and huge table with everything on it. It was a lovely place really and I’ve been back there since and we were in a particular room called the oak panelled room and when I went I went to that room and I thought I’d take a photograph, you know, just the same. There were nothing in it. Just the bare room and the panels ‘cause my, when we walked in my navigator said, ‘I wonder which one with the secret door is.’ You know. I always remember that. Anyway, this woman came along and she said, ‘You can’t take photographs in here.’ I said, ‘Oh what a shame.’ I said, ‘I lived in this room for a while in 1943.’ ‘Ahh take as many as you want.’ And I did take some.
CB: Good.
RH: Yeah. Anyway, that was, where did we get to?
CB: We’re on now, I think on this -
RH: 76 squadron.
CB: Yes.
RH: Yeah. Yeah. Which was Cheshire’s.
CB: Yes.
RH: Not at that time. He’d just moved on. Although he was around because I remember standing to attention as he walked in front of me once. Lovely bloke though. Yeah. Everybody liked him.
CB: Yes. I heard.
RH: Yeah. So there.
CB: So we, can we talk about the operation that was -
RH: Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
CB: The final one.
RH: Well it was dusk, duskish when we were taking off and everybody got in the aircraft and my navigator was still standing there. I said, ‘Come on Ted. Get in.’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I’m just taking a last look around,’ he said. ‘I’m not coming back.’ ‘Don’t be so stupid.’ He said, ‘I know I’m not coming back.’ And of course he didn’t. Anyway, I bundled him in and so we took off but we had problems right from the start and this was a brand new aircraft actually. Went for a burton on the first night.
CB: Oh dear.
RH: Another fifty thousand quid gone. And Ted was, he gave the wrong instructions as navigator and Bruce was questioning it. ‘I don’t think you’ve got that right, Ted.’ Anyway, somebody went to him and his oxygen pipe had come undone and he didn’t know quite what he were doing, you know.
CB: Oh.
RH: Anyway we got back on course and as I say as we saw the red markers go down they hit us just as we were turning on to the markers. Yeah. And of course the flames went back about fifty to a hundred yards. You could see everything like daylight and the side of the turret was melting. It was pretty horrendous really. So I got out quick. Forgot I’d got my helmet on and -
CB: When you say you got out quick you mean you turned the turret around.
RH: Turned the turret.
CB: And got into the aircraft.
RH: Well, I was facing that way anyway.
CB: Oh right.
RH: Yeah. Opened the doors. You know.
CB: Yeah.
RH: Got out, threw my flying helmet and picked up the parachute two hooks not knowing I’d only got one on and I went up to the escape hatch and my mid upper gunner was arguing with my engineer. I could see them arguing. I could see that he hadn’t got his parachute and he was trying to make him go, ‘Get back for your parachute,’ you know, and in the end, to save himself he went you know and I’ve forgotten his name now he jumped [without] his parachute. Panicked I suppose, you know, yeah and so we were the only three that went out there. My bomb aimer remembers the aircraft being hit. He don’t remember any more but he woke up on the ground with his parachute at the side of him and he said he don’t know, ‘Who put it on or who pushed me out.’ Somebody must have done. And that’s was how we, that was the end of our trip.
CB: It must have been, we’re talking about seconds here aren’t we in-between being -
RH: Must have been.
CB: Shot and -
RH: I mean I went to jump out the escape hatch, took a last look around and the parachute was all up against the door where I’d just come out of.
CB: You’d got it caught and it had come out.
RH: Yeah. I’d pulled the rip cord. Yeah. And I thought well that’s it. I’ll go and sit with the skipper. I made a move to go and sit up front with the skipper knowing I’d had it you know but something seemed to tell me to gather it up and try.
CB: What was the plane doing at this time? Was it just -
RH: Going down.
CB: Steadily going down.
RH: Yeah. Yeah. Steadily going down. And we’d still got all the bombs on and everything and they’d hit the petrol tank and the incendiaries so you could tell the starboard wing was well on fire. Where did I get to?
CB: You just -
RH: Anyway, I fell out.
CB: Yeah.
RH: I can see it now as plain as anything the tail was that about far from me, zipped over me like that as I was going backwards you know and the tail wheel fortunately never caught on the [?] on the tail pump, the parachute never caught on the tail wheel which a lot of people had that. They made it a retractable tail wheel in the end. Anyway, it opened but it was spilling air all the because it was only on, and I tried to get the other one but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. So I was going down pretty fast but it weren’t half quiet. You can’t, you know, once you baled you’ve been sitting there for about three hours with all that noise and suddenly silence and you think to yourself, ‘Where the hell am I?’ And I didn’t really know exactly where I was to be honest. And then I could see this house coming up. I thought well I can’t steer clear of it and there was such a crash and I went through the roof up to there. I made a lovely mess of the roof.
CB: Good.
RH: Do you know that’s what, that’s funny that’s what crosses your mind. To think that’s buggered the roof up [laughs]. Sorry.
CB: No. That’s quite alright.
RH: And the next thing I was worried about was the parachute. I thought well the parachute’s alright. They’ll use it. What can I do about it? Nothing. But one of the Germans that come up he cut all the cords off me. I thought, good he’s ruined the parachute too. Aint it daft what you think about? It took them about half an hour to get me off the roof but they were very good. They were very good.
CB: It sounds as if they arrived pretty quickly.
RH: Yeah. As soon as I hit the roof I could hear voices. Well I made enough noise.
CB: And where was -
RH: Every time I tried to move clatter clatter clatter clatter you know.
CB: So this would be -
RH: In other words, ‘Come over here. I’m over here.’ [laughs]
CB: I think it’s in the book where you, do you remember the town or the place where you landed so gracefully?
RH: I can’t remember it.
CB: It is in the book over there.
RH: I don’t think it’s very far from Munster because they took me to Munster Hospital. The Luftwaffe picked me up. No, first of all I went to a little hospital which must have been close to hand and I’d dislocated my leg and they tried to put it in with chloroform but the chloroform wasn’t any good. I could feel everything you know so they packed it up and then the Luftwaffe came and they put me in this Mercedes. I remember it was a Mercedes because I remember that bit on the front, you know and inside it was my mid upper gunner. I said, ‘Where’d you come from.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I did a bit of walking but they soon picked me up.’ And they took me to this aerodrome and they dropped him off at this aerodrome. I can always remember this there was FW190s there. We were quite close to them. Then they took me to Munster Hospital and they were, they were marvellous. They really looked after me.
CB: A civilian hospital.
RH: Yeah.
CB: Was it? Yes.
RH: Big hospital. I had a room to myself and when I was getting better, I was there a month, I mean I needn’t have been there a month really. I could wander where I wanted. Go outside. Do what I wanted. And there were nuns. A lot of the nurses were nuns and they were lovely. ‘Anything you want you tell me. I’ll get it for you.’ You know. And there was a picture of Hitler on the wall like that, about as big as that and the first thing I did I turned it around face to the wall you see and she came in she said, ‘You mustn’t do that. You can’t do that in Germany. You mustn’t do that. ‘And she put it back. When she went out I turned it back again. I was doing that backwards and forwards.
CB: Were they German nuns? Yeah.
RH: In Munster.
CB: Yeah.
RH: Anyway, I had a good month there really. There was a lot of French kreigies as we call POWs. There was a lot of French kreigies there and they kept coming in and bringing me some of their food and, although I got plenty of food, and there was a few Russians as well and they stole some neat alcohol and they were drinking this stuff. They wanted me to have some. I said, ‘Not likely. I’m not touching that stuff.’ Anyway, I’d been there about three weeks, no, perhaps about a fortnight, about a fortnight when they did the dams raid. They did the dams raid on the 16th and they brought this other fellow in and he was off my squadron. He was off 76 squadron as well, and he’d got five bullets in him so the doctor there who was a General actually, red stripe down his trousers, you know, he said, ‘We want you to come and hold him down.’ I said, ‘Hold him down?’ ‘We’re not giving him - ’
CB: Chloroform.
RH: ‘Chloroform or anything because we need it for ourselves.’ He said, ‘You’ll just have to hold him down.’ I thought this is going to be fine. Anyway, I went in the operating theatre and held him down while they started taking them out. It’s horrible really and eventually well pretty early on he passed out anyway which was the best you know but he’d got one in his back that was close to his heart. He’d been shot in the back and they went in like that about that far around, took the meat out, took the bullet out, put some stuff around it and put it back. Do you know in a month you couldn’t tell it had been done? He were running around. Tommy Thompson. Yeah. So anyway, we, we got over our little problems and they decided to send us to Dulag Luft. I suppose you’ve heard of Dulag Luft.
CB: Near Frankfurt.
RH: At Frankfurt yeah. So they sent these three Germans to pick us up. The two of us. Well one of them was a fighter pilot who was on a rest and he were lovely. He really was and then there was two more. He was in charge of the other two. So he said, ‘Well before we go to the station,’ he said, ‘If you don’t mind, if you don’t mind, I’m going to see my girlfriend who lives in Munster,’ he said, ‘And you can come along with us. And we went in this house, met his girlfriend and her parents, we had a cup of coffee and then we left to go to the station and all the stations were under water from the dams raid. All the platforms were under water. It was alright at Munster but some of the smaller ones were. Anyway, we had a compartment on our own and he took off his gun belt and threw it on the luggage rack and said, ‘We don’t need that today. We’re all friends.’
CB: You wouldn’t have known that the flooding was due to the dams raid.
RH: No. I didn’t -
CB: Obviously.
RH: Know about that.
CB: Did they mention why it was flooded?
RH: No.
CB: In any way.
RH: No. No. I didn’t find out till afterwards.
CB: Oh.
RH: I wondered what all the water was about, you know. But I mean people say, ‘Oh they didn’t do any good,’ you know. Believe you me they did. Anyway, we had to go down the Rhine and we had to change at Cologne. Change trains at Cologne and as we were changing, no before that, I won’t go too far ahead, when we got to Cologne we had to wait for the train so he took us into a restaurant and we had a meal in the restaurant. There was all German officers and that around. Nobody took any notice. No. Yeah. It was alright. I’d got my cap, no my gloves stuck in my epaulets. He said, ‘Would you mind taking them out? We don’t do that in Germany.’ He said, ‘It looks bad.’ So I stuffed it in my blouse you know. So after we’d had the meal he said, ‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘We’re going for a walk along the Rhine so I’ll take you in Cologne Cathedral. So we went into Cologne Cathedral and had photographs, well he took photographs of us together you know and we come back caught the train, well we got onto the platform and there was a little Canadian air gunner who were being escorted by a German Wehrmacht and he were knocking him about. So this pilot said, he said, ‘Look at him,’ he said ‘A hundred and fifty percent national socialist.’ So he weren’t for Hitler evidently.
CB: No. Well you were going through, you know you were travelling through Germany.
RH: Yeah.
CB: And we’d given it, particularly Cologne, quite a pasting.
RH: Yeah, this was, this was on –
CB: Did you see any of the devastation that –
RH: No. I didn’t.
CB: We’d caused.
RH: I can’t say as I did actually. No. I think we must have missed it. [laughs]
CB: [laughs] So the thousand bomber raid was a bit of a waste of time [laughs]
RH: I will admit that the nurses kept saying, ‘You don’t think they’ll bomb us again will you?’
CB: Ah.
RH: You know. I said, ‘No. I wouldn’t think so.’ They did though not long afterwards of course. Anyway, we had hours long down the Rhine and they kept pointing the different places out. We had a lovely time really. It was lovely.
CB: What was the food like? I mean they had poor rations themselves didn’t they? What food did they give you?
RH: I can’t remember.
CB: Well if it had been poor I think you’d have probably remembered
RH: Yeah. I don’t think it was. Yeah, it was quite good. Course the cinemas and places like that were closed, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It seemed funny to see people walking about though and -
Other: Passed on the right
RH: On the left.
Other: No right through dear.
RH: Right through on the Rhine.
[machine paused]
CB: Ok Ron. We’ve gone down the Rhine and we’ve arrived now at Dulag Luft
RH: Dulag Luft. We were just deposited at Dulag Luft and they put us in a six foot cell to try to get information. I was in that for about a week. Eventually they let you out and when I got out they lined me up at the end of the room, there were five or six more there. Then they brought another one out, another fella out, stood him at the side of me and he said, ‘I know you.’ I said, ‘Yes. I know you.’ I said, ‘It’s Mr Hands. You used to teach me mathematics didn’t you?’ It was my teacher.
CB: Oh good grief.
RH: Yeah. And we stuck together for the whole two years. Yeah. Yeah. That was interesting. Yeah. Anyway, we got into the main compound and there were Yanks in with us as well and from there on they sent us to Heydekrug but we did have normal coaches but they were wooden seats and I think we were about four days. Oh those seats were hard. I finished up in the luggage rack. More comfortable up there. So we got to Heydekrug and it was a fairly new camp actually at that time and had already brought some of Luft 3 in and gradually the camp filled up. Well, I was there for two years. Well not that one for two years but I was there for a year I suppose. It was quite interesting because we did, well I didn’t but they dug a tunnel and I think we got about thirty odd out and I think two or three got back and it was quite interesting really. We did hear. We got letters from them in code to say, you know, ‘We got back,’ sort of thing and then they took us to, we was in Poland. Thorn in Poland for a while. Can’t remember much about that and then from there we went to 357 and there was a lot of paratroops there because as far as the Germans was concerned paratroops were Luftwaffe.
CB: Yes.
RH: So we all got in together you know and they were from Arnhem. We had a lot of the Arnhem fellas in. But that was quite interesting.
CB: So this would be about September ‘44.
RH: Yeah. That’s right. And of course they moved us out of Heydekrug because the Russians were approaching. That’s why they moved us from there. Anyway, back to, Fallingbostel was 357. I have to think about this. They went out on the long march. Fortunately I didn’t have to go on that because I was in hospital at the time. I can’t remember what was wrong with me. So I got out of that one.
CB: So the conditions weren’t, you didn’t think they were too bad during this prisoner of war time.
RH: No. Not until about the last six months, nine months. Then of course we were coming in from one side and the Russians in from another squeezing them you know. We weren’t getting the parcels through. I mean at first we were getting nearly a parcel a week each but towards the end we weren’t getting much at all. All we were getting was potatoes and soup. Soup. Couldn’t call it soup really but we existed on it and got a parcel here and there from the Red Cross. Don’t know what we would have done without the Red Cross really.
CB: The escape from Stalag Luft 3 in March of ‘44 when the, and the fifty were eventually -
RH: Yeah.
CB: Captured and shot.
RH: Yeah.
CB: Was there anything, you know, recriminations or, you know how did you hear about it?
RH: I think the camp commandant told [pause] our leader. I’ve forgotten his name now.
CB: Shaw?
RH: No. Not Shaw. It weren’t Shaw.
CB: Oh.
RH: You’ve got that wrong. The footballer, well he wasn’t but we called him that for a bit.
CB: Oh Dixie Dean.
RH: Dixie Dean.
CB: Right.
RH: Dixie Dean. I think he told Dixie Dean and Dixie Dean said, ‘How many were just injured?’ Because they said they were trying to escape you see. They’d made a run and tried to escape.
CB: Yes.
RH: So he said, ‘How many were only wounded?’ ‘Oh none. They were all killed.’ He said, ‘That’s not possible.’ He said, ‘If you just fired like that,’ he said, ‘There would have been some that would have survived,’ and of course they couldn’t say anything about that.
CB: No.
RH: So the camp went mad. Took all the shutters off the windows, took them in the middle of the parade ground and set fire to them. That was our –
CB: Protest.
RH: Answer to it. You know. So that’s how we found about this. Of course a lot of the fellas that had come from Luft 3 knew all of these people. I didn’t and a lot of us didn’t but some did so –
CB: Was, was morale damaged or did you –
RH: Well we was pretty damned mad really.
CB: More angry than –
RH: Yeah. Yeah. More angry than anything. Anyway, as I say we got 357 and they went on the march and we were left behind fortunately and all I can think of now is this little armoured car came in the gates. One morning we woke up and there were no guards. Everybody had gone and this little armoured car come in. Of course everyone went mad. They crowded around this armoured car. Eventually some of the army came in as well you know and they were looking after us. The white bread was beautiful.
CB: What sort of thing did you do in the prisoner of war camp for entertainment and to, you know, pass the time?
RH: Well -
CB: What did you do?
RH: Of course, Heydekrug people were studying and you could do. It was all, it had been arranged that you could study and some, some people passed exams. So everybody got something to do if you wanted to and there was a good library. I started Polish. Learning Polish. I give it up. I couldn’t stand that. But people were studying all sorts.
CB: And the camp would put on theatre productions.
RH: Oh yeah well everybody got a bit of a hand in that.
CB: Yes. You didn’t take to the stage yourself.
RH: No. No thank you. No. No. And then we were doing things like making panels in the wall that took out so you could get to the next room. You see there were, the hut, there was like two huts like a semidetached house really and the door, the doors were side by side but you had to go up steps to go in one. Well we worked it out it took them so many seconds to come down the step, just walk across, go up the next steps in the next room so we took a panel out of the wall and made it so that you could, somebody’d slip through and back again and somebody in the next hut was one of the escapees so they took a panel off as the Germans went down the first lot of steps, took the panel off, I whipped through, jumped into his bed at the side, pulled the blanket over as though I was asleep and they’d come around counting you see. Well everybody was there but they weren’t. That were good fun. Yeah.
CB: Were there any tunnels that you knew of that were being dug?
RH: I know there was one from the, from the latrines and you know the latrines were actually about thirty holes so you had quite an interesting time when you went to the latrine. ‘Hello John how are you getting on? What are you doing?’ Are you doing so and so, you know. Everybody was talking [laughs] and so you’d go in there and instead of being there for five minutes you’d be there perhaps an hour talking to two or three other people, you know
CB: Did you ever fancy escaping yourself?
RH: No. I didn’t. I couldn’t get in a tunnel. Oh I couldn’t do that. No. I’d helped. I helped them. I helped. I did belong to tally ho as regards helping out with things. You know. Anyway, I thought it was more sensible to stay where you were. Don’t get shot so easily that way. Hopefully. Anyway, went in to the latrines one day and some bloke was standing there and said, ‘Don’t go in number one. They’re digging a tunnel down there.’ They were down there digging a tunnel. Of all the places to pick. But you see that was the closest to the wire. That’s why they went for that one and they did get about thirty odd out.
CB: Right.
RH: Yeah. I don’t know how they smelt but, I think, I bet the Germans picked them up easy [laughs] from their perfume. Oh dear.
CB: So -
RH: Do you know there were people even making model aircraft and flying them? And the only way you could get the glue, you know this sticky brown paper? We never threw, never threw anything away all that was boiled down and finished up as glue at the bottom of the pot you know. And silver paper, you can make things out of silver paper. It was all melted down but you, you needed a pile about half as big as this room to get a little bit of, and then they used to make a mould out of soap and pour it in and you got whatever you wanted so when they were making a German uniform they made the buckle out of silver paper that had been melted down, you know. ‘Cause I mean, we’d got people there that made uniforms and made clothes and all sorts of things because I mean the RAF uniform was almost the same as Luftwaffe. You couldn’t hardly tell the difference. So there was always somebody slaving away on something. Never a dull moment. I mean people, they would say, ‘Well didn’t you get bored?’ We never got bored. Too much to do. Yeah.
CB: Did you know what was happening in Europe war wise at this time?
RH: Oh yeah.
CB: Did you have a radio or -
RH: Yeah we had the radio. Every lunchtime this fella would come in, ‘Right chaps. Watch the windows,’ and somebody’d sit near the window, watching out the windows, see if there’s any moles about. ‘There’s one coming up.’ ‘Hang on a minute.’ ‘Oh sit down. We’ll wait till he’s gone.’ Everybody that walked into that camp, every German that walked in that camp was plotted all the way around. We knew where he was all the while from one mouth to another you know. So and sometimes somebody would say, ‘Ferret.’ We called them ferrets and you see the huts were about this high of the ground and they’d crawl under to make sure that there were no tunnels you see and somebody would say, ‘Ferret.’ ‘Where?’ About ten blokes would get together. They’d stand there, ‘Ready, steady go,’ and everybody would jump up and down. Well all the dirt used to fall like that you know and he’d come scurrying out the other end dirt all down [laughs] Oh we pulled their legs something horrible really. I mean when a, when a guard walked up and down with his rifle over his shoulder there would be about five blokes right on top behind him following him like this you know and then as soon as he turned around they just vanished. One, ‘cause as regards tunnels we had to shore them up with bed boards so eventually everybody had only got about three bed boards left. Head, bottom, feet, you know. Oh it was uncomfortable. And one day they came in, take, they took nearly all the bed boards away on this lorry and there were the German guards standing on top of them with a schmeiser, you know. So when he looking over that end someone were nicking them off the other end. As soon as he swung around they was nicking it off the other end. [Laughs] Whatsisname came around he said, ‘I’m afraid somebody is going to get shot.’ He said, ‘Why don’t they pack it in?’ He said, ‘They’ll get shot.’ Dixie Dean. He said, ‘I’m scared to death somebody’s going to get shot.’ Anyway, nobody ever was.
CB: I think you mentioned that the guards had a peculiar way of searching. They’d search for one thing one day and -
RH: Oh yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. They only took what they were looking for that day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: So if they were looking for scissors one day, the next day if they found some they weren’t bothered.
RH: No they weren’t bothered. No. Mad.
CB: What was the relationship between you and the guards? Did you -
RH: Well you got to know one or two of them yeah but don’t forget they were all old people. Not as old as me but they were, they were, some of them had been prisoners of war in England and you might get one that would talk to you, you know but there was always one or two of our people that spoke good German and they’d try and get things. You know. They were kept for getting and once, you know, they’d offer them something big or something that was not much at all but once you’d got him on, under your thumb the answer was well, I want so and so.’ Oh I can’t get that. I can’t get that.’ ‘Well you’d better or else you’ll be on the Eastern Front,’ ‘cause that was always their worry. Eastern front. You know. So they’d get it in the end. Bits for cameras and things like that. Yeah. But we did used to swap things with some of them. I mean I can remember when we were swapping tins of cocoa for a loaf of bread but I mean there was, it were full of sand with a bit of cocoa on the top. [laughs] Oh we were rotten. [laughs] Throwing it over the wire you know.
CB: Did you know when D-Day had happened?
RH: I was home on D-Day.
CB: Oh right.
RH: I was home about a week before D-Day.
CB: Oh.
RH: Yeah. Yeah fortunately because 357 was close to where they signed the -
CB: Oh the -
RH: Yeah.
CB: Armistice.
RH: Can’t remember where that was now but we were close to that. Yeah.
CB: So what was, what happened towards, you know the end of your captivity? How did it come about? The truck arrived. The, and was that the end? Did you -
RH: Yeah. Well they took us out in trucks to this aerodrome. I don’t know what aerodrome it was. I never did find out and we were there all day. There was thousands there you know and the army was in charge. There weren’t many RAF. Not at that moment. They were nearly all army and these Dakotas landed and Lancasters and Halifaxes. They’d pile the army in you know. Well we’d been there all day and one of our blokes said, he said, ‘I’ve had enough of this, they’re not taking all their men.’ He said, ‘We’re the ones, the RAF are taking us back and,’ he said, ‘We’re stuck here.’ He said, ‘I’m going to have a go at this.’ Anyway, the next Dakota came in and he ran across to it and when they put the ladder down he went up and had a word with the pilot, squadron leader somebody. So he said, ‘What’s your problem?’ So he said, ‘They’re taking all the army,’ he said, ‘And just leaving us.’ He said, ‘They’re not bothered about us.’ He said, ‘Well I’ve finished. This was my last flight,’ he said, ‘But I’ll take you. How many of you is there?’ So and so. ‘That’s a couple over what I should do,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘I’ll chance it if you will.’ He said, ‘All of you come across here,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you home.’ So he did an extra flight and brought us back. And when we got to the other end everybody had a WAAF each to look after us.
CB: This was at Cosford.
RH: At Cosford. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
RH: Yeah.
CB: What was your feelings when you landed?
RH: What?
CB: What were you feelings after, you know your captivity, all you’d been through?
RH: Well I can remember, I can remember passing and everybody was looking out the window saying, ‘Look the white cliffs of Dover. At last.’ You know. That was a lovely sight that was. And I don’t know where we landed. It wasn’t Cosford ‘cause we had to catch a train to Cosford.
CB: Oh right.
RH: But there was, on the train there was four of us to a compartment. We had the whole train to ourselves, you know.
CB: Did you ever think you weren’t, you wouldn’t make it back?
RH: No. I never thought about it. I thought we would eventually you know. I suppose we were lucky they didn’t shoot all of us really. Yeah.
CB: And you got to Cosford and then -
RH: We were there ‘til they kitted us out and I think I had six weeks leave. Everybody had about six weeks and back pay for two years.
CB: Wow.
RH: And all the Canadians and Americans were saying, every time they jumped out of bed, ‘Another pound in the bank.’ That were marvellous. I’d draw some money out and when you went back the next time there’d some more been put in. As fast as you drew it out they were putting some more in. I’ve never come across that since then though funnily enough. No. Lovely.
CB: So in your six, six weeks off or so and then what happened? Were you -
RH: Went back to Cosford and they didn’t know what to do with us really. We were going into towns where they were having these parties in the, street parties remember and they were taking us to these street parties and then they took us round Austin Motor Works to see that, all that. You know. It was all very interesting but really we were a dead loss to them really. Couldn’t do anything with us. Not many people stayed in. They asked you if you wanted to stay in. Of course my friend Ted did. He said, ‘Yes. I’ll stay’ and he got to squadron leader.
CB: And what did you do?
RH: Came out.
CB: Went home.
RH: I was a bit sorry. The last day I felt a bit sorry really. Still there we are.
CB: You had the camaraderie of your pals you know, even though -
RH: Yeah.
CB: Just for the four tours or whatever.
RH: Yeah.
CB: And then you had the friends you made in the camps and then it was just a sudden stop.
RH: Yeah and I mean we was all going to meet so and so and not many did.
CB: No.
RH: Once you got back into Civvy Street and you got into work again I suppose it all changed didn’t it really? Yeah.
CB: Perhaps some of them just didn’t want to remember what had happened.
RH: I don’t, I mean people say that. I don’t think we were very bothered any of us. I mean and others say they don’t like to talk about it. Well, all the ones I know don’t mind talking about it. Not really.
CB: What work did you do after the war?
RH: I went back to the Co-op.
CB: And you settled into that happily.
RH: Well only for about two years and then my stepfather was a sub postmaster and when he died I got it so I had the post office for thirty two years. Yeah. That was alright. That was a good job.
CB: Do you think your experiences in the war had any effect on you afterwards?
RH: I don’t know. I suppose in a way you got to the point you were frightened of anything anymore. Weren’t frightened of anything anymore. You know, you thought to yourself, ‘Well. I got through that I can get through anything.’ Yeah. I mean we had three raids at the post office.
CB: Oh crikey.
RH: We got rid, well we got rid of it. I didn’t get rid of one. The second one that come in. He pointed a gun at me and said, ‘Money.’ And my wife was in the corner. She said, ‘What’s he want?’ I said, ‘Money.’ She said, ‘Tell him where to go.’ I said, ‘I’m going to.’ I said, ‘Look. There’s the door. Get out of it.’ And then he turned around and walked out. Which was very lucky. I said to her afterwards, ‘He were pointing a ruddy gun at me not at you.’ [laughs]
CB: You never thought ‘Oh my God I’ve fought this war, I’ve been involved and then this happens.’
RH: It makes you wonder doesn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was another man that had been defrauding the post by ordering insurance stamps. Insurance stamps were worth a lot of money in those days and he’d order all these and they’d put them through and he’d say, ‘Oh just a minute. I’ve got a parcel in the car. I’ll go and fetch it.’ He never went back, he never went back with the money. I forget what they called him, they’d given him a name. Two years they tried to catch him and we caught him. He came in and did his usual, you know and the wife was in the corner and she went ‘psst’ you know so I didn’t, I didn’t put the stamps through. I kept them this side you know, he said, ‘Oh I’ve got a parcel. I’ll just go and fetch the parcel.’ I knew he was making a getaway really. He could see I wasn’t going to give and as he went out the postman came in the door and I said, ‘John, get the number of that car, that van for the person who’s just run out.’ ‘Where? Where?’ You know. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘You’re too late.’ I got straight on the phone to the, our policing department and the police put road stops up all around Peterborough and when they got to Stanground the woman on the counter of Stanground said, ‘Oh. I think I’ve just served him.’ Just like that you know. They see this bloke coming out the door, they grabbed him and it wasn’t him. [laughs] Anyway, he were further down the road and they caught him before he got in the car. But I think we got two hundred pound for that. Yeah. We had three lots of two hundred pound. Very useful. [laughs]
CB: Well Ron it’s been absolutely wonderful to hear you. Thank you very much for this interview.
RH: Oh it’s alright. You’re quite welcome.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Ron Hemsworth
Format
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01:14:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHemsworthR150729
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-29
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Ron joined the Royal Air Force in January 1941. Initially a wireless operator/air gunner, he failed morse code at Blackpool. He was posted to RAF Swinderby and worked in the stores and flying control. Air gunnery school followed at RAF Bridlington and RAF Morpeth. Ron went to an Operational Training Unit at RAF Honeybourne where he crewed up and flew in Whitleys. He went on to multi-engine aircraft near York and flew Halifaxes. Ron joined 76 Squadron at Linton-on-Ouse and flew four operations: Stettin, Duisburg, a mine laying operation and two trips which were not completed because of issues with the intercom.
Ron describes how his aircraft was hit on the starboard wing and what happened to the crew. He had problems with his parachute and landed on a house roof, dislocating his leg. He spent a month in a civilian hospital in Munster. He was transported by a kind German fighter pilot to Dulag Luft, near Frankfurt. Ron was sent to Stalag Luft 6. People could study, and there was a library and entertainment. Ron made model aircraft. Provisions became scarce in the latter months. A tunnel was dug near the latrines and 30 prisoners escaped. The guards abandoned the camp and Ron was taken to an aerodrome and flown home in a Dakota. He went to RAF Cosford, but, with little to do, he came out of the RAF.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Clare Bennett
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
Lithuania
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Duisburg
Lithuania--Šilutė
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
76 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
bombing
C-47
crewing up
Dulag Luft
escaping
fear
Halifax
military service conditions
mine laying
prisoner of war
RAF Bridlington
RAF Cosford
RAF Honeybourne
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Morpeth
RAF Swinderby
shot down
Stalag Luft 6
superstition
Whitley
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2217/MAllenDJ1880966-150702-210002.2.jpg
ed2cff101d4ffe99f78255b10083d546
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. 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
Allen, DJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Leslie L. Irvin
F.R.Ae.S., F.R.S.A.
Honorary Sec.
European Branch
c/o Irving Air Chute
of Great Britain Ltd.
Icknield Way
Letchworth, Herts
[symbol]
CATERPILLAR CLUB
January 29, 1945.
Sgt. D.J. Allen, 1880966,
Sgts. Mess,
R.A.F. Station,
WADDINGTON. . . . Nr. Lincoln.
Dear Sgt. Allen,
Many thanks for your letter received on the 1st inst., and I am terribly sorry that it has not been possible to reply sooner.
I am indeed glad that you were able to save your life with an Irvin chute, and have much pleasure in welcoming you as a member of the Club, and in sending you your membership card with our best wishes. Your Caterpillar Pin is on order, and will follow as soon as received.
In the meantime I should be grateful if you would let me know where you landed, and if you would send confirmation of your jump, so that we can keep our records complete.
Wishing you the best of Luck, and thanking you in anticipation, I am,
Yours sincerely,
Leslie Irvin
Leslie L. Irvin.
MEL.
Encl. Card.
[page break]
Leslie L. Irvin
F.R.Ae.S., F.R.S.A.
Honorary Sec.
European Branch
c/o Irving Air Chute
of Great Britain Ltd.
Icknield Way
Letchworth, Herts
[symbol]
CATERPILLAR CLUB
10th March, 1945.
Sgt. D.J. Allen, 1880966,
Sgts. Mess,
R.A.F. Station,
WADDINGTON,
Nr. Lincoln.
Dear Sgt. Allen,
I am terribly sorry for the delay in sending you your Caterpillar, but it has only just been received.
I have much pleasure in enclosing it herewith, with our compliments and the hope that it brings you Good Luck.
Yours sincerely,
Leslie Irvin
Leslie L. Irvin.
MEL.
Encl. Pin.
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
Letters to Derrick Allen from the Caterpillar Club
Description
An account of the resource
First letter is a reply to Derrick Allen acknowledging his request to join the Caterpillar Club, welcoming him to the club and asking for further confirmatory information. It also states his club pin will be sent as soon as it is available. The second letter accompanies the club pin.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-01-29
1945-03-10
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two one page letters
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MAllenDJ1880966-150702-21
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Caterpillar Club
bale out
Caterpillar Club
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2218/MAllenDJ1880966-150702-280001.1.jpg
16833c96c2e3ca82c5b795523780685e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2218/MAllenDJ1880966-150702-280002.1.jpg
0ced48610f6897514cd8f115f6406fe0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. 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
Allen, DJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Hand drawn maps of crash site
Description
An account of the resource
The first map shows the area of Vieux-Pre near Spa in Belgium and shows the locations of the main crash site, victim bodies, debris and supposed area of parachuter [sic]. The second map shows profile of supposed area of fall.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two hand drawn maps
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Text. Personal research
Text
Identifier
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MAllenDJ1880966-150702-28
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 Australian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Spa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
bale out
crash
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2220/MAllenDJ1880966-150702-300002.2.jpg
9a1f7b77f1cc64a0c5fc864fdac69ae3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. 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
Allen, DJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
467 Squadron RAAF Avro Lancaster sequence of landing
Description
An account of the resource
1:20,000 map of the area to the west of Spa, Belgium showing possible track of aircraft to crash site with parachutes indicating where each crew member bailed out and the location of bodies of crew who did not survive. Annotated with arrow to Dusseldorf at the top and date 1944-11002. The route in black is annotated 3rd solution. Captioned 'the eau rouge is deeper than the Meyerbeer river, 2nd solution, (the relief is very difficult between Fouol Cross and the plateau of Creppe, A: grass field of Barisart, F: grass filed of Geronster'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page map
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Text. Personal research
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MAllenDJ1880966-150702-300002
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 Australian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Spa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
467 Squadron
bale out
crash
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2229/MAllenDJ1880966-150901-07.1.pdf
478fbb17a918f9fc6a28d7472647bc9e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. 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
Allen, DJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
THE PILGRIMAGE OF AN ENGLISH AIRMAN [underlined]WHO IN 1944 CAME DOWN IN THE SPA REGION[/underlined]
A few months ago at the request of Rudi Simons an inhabitant of Tongres our newspaper published a request concerning an English aircraft which was supposed to have been brought down in the area on 2nd November 1944.
M. Simons, who was preparing a general work on this subject, is in contact with the Asssociation of Veterans, and had received by this channel the request of an airman, Mr. Derrick J. Allen. The latter would have liked to have found the place where his Lancaster had crashed and pay homage to his former crew members who had given their lives. Having been brought back to Spa after the success of his parachute drop, he thought that the point where he fell could not have been much further than 10 or 15kms from the town of d’Eau.
M. Simons received a certain amount of information from the readers but for the most part they were referring to the Lancaster which fell in Fagne de Berinzenne near la Petite Vecquee. This machine actually fell on 23rd 1944 and did not leave any survivors. Fortunately two letters were more encouraging. One came from M. Adelin Gueben of Le[sic] Reid, who at the time was living with his parents near a place called Vieus[sic] Pre and who saw an aircraft disintegrate in the air. The other one from a team made up of Lt. Co. Sablon and M. Louis Bedoret who had also identified the aircraft they were looking for as being linked with the small monument known as Vieux Pre, the former commune of La Reid, by the side of the road, which leads from Marteau to La Reid, passing by the memorial of the Maquisard. These last two people, besides having a good knowledge of the English language also had in their possession a lot of documents and access to certain sources. After a visit from M. Simons no doubt remained. So they gave up their time to researches in the field, to analysis of documents, and to many interviews in the area. A regular correspondence was established with Mr. Allen and finally they were able to reconstruct in all its detail the tragedy of this bomber and its crew.
[page break]
2
To put it back into its historical context let us first recall the military situation at the time. The landings in Normandy had begun on 6th June 1944. Belgium had been liberated without any particularly outstanding battles in a few days at the beginning of September. Spa in particular had been liberated on 10th September 1944 by the troops of the “First USArmy”. The German forces who had abandoned Belgium without too much resistance had rallied on the Belgium/German border and supported on the Westwall (the Siegfried line) now were putting up a determined resistance. The U.S. Forces didn’t manage to get through, their communication lines were inordinately long. It was only on 28th November that the first convoy was able to unload in the port of Antwerp. A continuous front followed approximately the Belgium border and Spa and because of this found itself yet again in the zone of combat.
On 25th October General Hodges had just installed there the Head Quarters of the first army. This Army had just seized Aix-la-Chapelle and in the forest of Hurgen on the Roer was leading one of the most violent battles that the allies had ever had. The greater part of Holland were still strongly held by the forces of the Reich in particular Zelande which controlled the estuary of the l’Estaut [sic] and it was only on 9th November and with very heavy losses, just the Canadians lost 27,633 men, that the allies managed to seize the banks of the l’Escaut. No one then imagined the possibility of an aggressive return by the Germans, as it happened with the harrowing offensive of the Ardennes which started on 16th December. The objectives at the time were the Ruhr and the Sarre because the great strategists thought that the loss of the great industrial zones would very quickly put an end to the Reich.
Having set the scene lets[sic] go back to our Lancaster.
It was a heavy bomber, number DV 396 which belonged to the 467th RAAF squadron based in England at Waddington in Lincolnshire. Contrary to what the plaque on the little monument claims in good faith, this aircraft was part of the Royal Australian Air Force, so the courageous airmen who lost their lives in the Spa region came from a very long way away.
[page break]
3
The inter allied High Command had actually spread its bombing missions according to the particular capacities of the fleets which they had. The day time missions to the Americans.They flew in compact formation at high altitude in quite comfortable machines with a large number of crew with a terrifying fire power in all directions, and they practiced carpet bombing, where you didn’t pick out any particular target. The night flights, much more risky, were given to the English and to the forces of their Empire. They flew at lower altitude in machines clearly less armed and uncomfortable, but the quality and the experience of their crew allied to the British tenacity and their scorn of risk allowed them to find and attack precise objectives. At the price certainly of great losses but with remarkable efficiency. When our Lancaster took off for it’s night bombing mission over Dusseldorf its crew was made up of 6 Australians, the pilot F/Officer Les Landridge, the navigator Doug Beverly, the bomb aimer Keith Woolaams, the radio operator Bill Denny, the onboard mechanic Jack Halstead. [sic] the rear gunner Bill Lemin, plus an Englishman who was mid-upper gunner Derrick Allen. Returning from his mission it was set on by German nigh[sic] fighters. A relatively slow and not very well armed machine, its chances were limited. Hit very seriously on the right rear tail fin it started to burn. An enormous hole opened between the hatch of the bomb hold and the tail. While the pilot stayed at the controls to try to bring the flaming aircraft above the allied lines, the rest of the crew gathered together on the right side between the two gaping openings. The aircraft was progressively loosing[sic] height and the pilot estimating that he had easily passed over the front line, they began to jump out. The courageous pilot still trying to control the aircraft to give a chance to his comrades.
The first to escape touched the ground on the highland of Creppe in a meadow situated not far from the road which was called the American Road. Others were scattered in the woods of Lebiolle and the last person remained hanging in the high trees situated on a small crest between the Villa du Vieux-Pre and the first bends in the road, safe and sound. He untangled himself on his own and ran across the meadow. Alas the rear gunner probably the last in the queue couldn't jump and was projected through one of the openings when the final explosion came. (Unless his parachute could not open as the height at that point was very low.) It is probably he who was found killed outright, half buried in the ground at the exact spot where today the monument stands.
[page break]
4
Many inhabitants of the region must remember having seen for a long long time the shape of his body imprinted on the earth of the Ardenne. As for the aircraft, it disintegrated before touching the ground in a great luminous explosion. The courageous pilot had finished his last mission sacrificing himself to save as many as possible of his crew. The disintegration happened at an altitude of 50-100mtrs. and the debris was scattered over a wide area, but without creating a localised crater. Some survivors were helped by the inhabitants of Creppe. Ms. Piette remembers that they prepared an enormous fricassee to build up one of them. An Australian not an Englishman.
In order to protect against aerial attack the Headquarters of the First Army 110th Battalion AA was on watch. Its gun battery, that had a still rather primitive radar and sound detector was billeted at the Villa Les Fawes. Having detected an aircraft and not knowing its nationality the Battery sent out patrols and were able to pick up fairly quickly the five survivors and take them to Spa. Amongst these was the gunner Derrick J. Allen. After questioning, medical visit and various checks he was put up for the night at the Hotel Etrangers in the rue du Marche (now the office of the Mutual). He did not have any time to stay in Spa because the following night, there he was already in Brussells, [sic] The Hotel Metropole, before flying off to England and being assigned immediately to a new crew and a new Lancaster. With this one he fortunately finished off the war.
So it was that hardly a few days after escaping a terrible death he was off again on a mission above Germany. He was just 20 years old in October 1944 and had signed on in the RAAF for the duration of the war.
Photo 1.
The crew with whom Mr. Allen finished the war with his new aircraft. He is crouched down, first row on the right.
Photo 2.
Hotton Military Cemetery
Photo 3.
Mr. Allen at the door of his old Lancaster which came down at La Reid.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Pilgrimage of an English airman who in 1944 came down in the Spa region
Description
An account of the resource
Recounts that Derrick Allen contacted a M Rudi Simon who lived in Tongess, Belgium through the Association of Veterans. M Simon was researching aircraft brought down in the local area. Derrick Allen had stated that he would like to visit the where his Lancaster crashed and he came down by parachute. M Simon and conducted research and discovered a small memorial to the crew and the location of the crash. There follows some historical scene setting of the ground situation and then an account of the last trip for Lancaster BV396 of 467 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force. The aircraft took off for Dusseldorf with 6 Australians: pilot Les Landridge, navigator Doug Baverly, bomb aimer Kiethe Woolaams, radio operator Bill Denny, on board mechanic Jack Halstead, Rear gunner Bill Leminand and one Englishman the mid-upper gunner Derrick Allen. Relates how aircraft was engaged by night-fighters and severely damaged. five of the crew managed to bail out but the rear gunner and the pilot did not escape. The aircraft exploded at 100 feet above ground scattering debris widely. Surviving crew were picked up by a United States Army anti-aircraft battery personnel who had seen aircraft on their radar but were not sure of nationality and were patrolling to find any crew. Surviving crew returned to England via Brussels.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four page typewritten document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MAllenDJ1880966-150901-07
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 Australian Air Force
Civilian
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Belgium--Spa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Debbie Record
David Bloomfield
467 Squadron
bale out
crash
killed in action
Lancaster
memorial
RAF Waddington
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2249/MCarrR[Ser -DoB]-150527-01.pdf
7c7d0da0e0660160260f2825d6f97592
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
Wright, Jim
J R Wright
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
2015-05-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Wright, J
Description
An account of the resource
93 items. The collection contains two oral history interviews with Jim Wright, letters, cuttings and photographs. It concerns James Roy Wright’s research into his father, Sergeant Arthur Charles Wright (1911 - 1943, 1149750 Royal Air Force) and an operation to Turin 12/13 July 1943 which caused 100 aircraft to violate Swiss airspace. Two aircraft were shot down or crashed in Switzerland. There are many photographs and details of the activities that night including reports by the Swiss authorities. The crews are identified with photographs and there are several photographs of the funerals at Vevey. Additional material includes aerial photograph of bomb damage in Germany and the logbook and airman's pay book of W G Anderson. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jim Wright and catalogued by Nigel Huckins, with descriptions of official Swiss documents provided Gilvray Williams. <br /><br />Additional information on Arthur Charles Wright is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126015/">IBCC Losses Database</a>. This collection also contains items concerning Hugh Burke Bolger and his crew. Additional information on Hugh Burke Bolger is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/102186/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
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100 SQN. 25 Feb 1944.
[UNDERLINED] RON CARR'S BALE-OUT. [/UNDERLINED]
On the night of February 25/26th [insert] 1944 [/insert] we were shot down on our way to Augsburg.
Our Course was close to Freiburg, heading for Switzerland, but before crossing the border, we were to do a sharp turn to port and on to Augsburg.
It was quiet at the time, then a heavy explosion. We dived away and there was a burst of shells at the height we had been. The damage had been done by the first shell.
One engine had to be feathered, due to overheating, the radiator was punctured and the controls and instruments were damaged.
The Bombardier was unconscious and Navigator hit in the face. The Pilot also had a wound in the head, but did not say so at the time. There was a discussion between the Pilot and Navigator and they realised we could not get home - they also found that we could not get rid of the bombs.
Smoke was coming from the bomb-bay and we were leaving a long trail across the sky. (I remember thinking "Hope a fighter does not see that, as we are a sitting duck") The Navigator said that we were about ten minutes from Switzerland if we stayed on course.
This we did, but after a few minutes the Pilot said that he could not hold her any longer and we had to go. The Navigator protested that we were not there yet, but the pilot said "You still have to go", and gave the order to bale out.
My last words were to the Navigator, asking which way to walk and say "Good Luck". The Bombardier was conscious by this time and the Engineer was able to successfully bale him out.
We all got down O.K. but the Bombardier was not found for three days and was dead. I was told later that we were in a long line of landing of about 20 miles.
I went out the main door after the Wireless Operator at about 19,000 feet. I remember pulling the parachute open, but then passed out and came to hanging in the air.
The Mid-Upper Gunner saw the aircraft explode in the air. I landed in a tree, but was unhurt. I decided to wait until daylight before making a move to find out in which Country I was.
When it was half-light, I moved down a track in the wood and could smell wood smoke. I came upon a cabin style house. I went around from tree to tree looking for some hint as to where I was but to get
[Page break]
-2-
close to the house I had to cross a clearing. I was just doing this, when the door opened an out came an old man, carrying a bucket. I do not know who had the biggest fright - him or me!!!
As he had seen me, there was no point in running away, at least until I found out in which Country I was.
I walked up to him and pointing to the ground said "Deutschland" - one of the few German words I knew. He replied "Nein" - "Schweitza" - to which I replied "Switzerland" and he said "Ya".
I then said "R.A.F." and was warmly shaken by the hand. He took me into the house, in which there were two ladies and two boys (both very excited) and they gave me food.
I showed them where the parachute was and they took me into a nice warm bedroom, where I took off my outer clothing and went to sleep.
I was awakened by someone wearing a grey uniform and a German style helmet, prodding me with the barrel of a rife! I thought I had been tricked, but having a second look I realised that it was a Swiss.
I was taken to the local Police Station at Hinwil - a room in the front of an ordinary house. He made me walk in front and he followed with his rifle at the ready and the two boys brought my gear and parachute on a sledge.
The guard was an elderly man and I think was really enjoying bringing in his prisoner. They sat me in a window-seat with the guard and there was some conversation, after which a lady approached me.
I stood up and brought my heels together and she turned to the guard and said "Deutsch?"I think I was too enthusiastic with my "attention"! She then brought me tea and cake when she knew I was R.A.F.
After about three quarters of an hour, a car arrived with two men in long black leather overcoats and wide-brimmed trilby hats (talk about Gestapo!!!) They questioned me and i took the only line I had been told.
I stood to attention and gave my name, rank and number and said that was all I could say. To my utter amazement, this brought forth cheers and claps from all in the room.
I did add that there was more than one man in the aircraft and that he was out there wounded. Another car then arrived and to my delight the Wireless Operator alighted.
[Page break]
-3-
They then took us to Zurich to an army barracks and fed us and asked us more questions about how we came into Switzerland. They seemed satisfied that we were flying a crippled aircraft.
We then moved again to the Swiss Air Force base Dubendorf, where we met up with our other crew members. Also there were a number of crews from the 8th Air Force.
During the say there had been a running fight over one of the lakes and some had to ditch or land. All very interesting, but I think it paid to watch what you said, as I felt the place was bugged.
After a day or so, they took the six of us to a Hotel [sic] on the outskirts of Bern, where we were to be in quarantine for three weeks. This did not turn out to be isolation, as we needed such things as shoes, toothpaste, etc., so we used to telephone the Legation and they would send an official and escort to take us to the shops.
The more the visits, the less the escorts! Eventually, only the official used to come and then after a few days some of the 8th joined us.
[Highlighted] (At this point I think I should tell you that an Internee in Switzerland had to wear uniform, but an Escapee [sic] must not). [/Highlighted]
As we were the only R.A.F. there in uniform, we caused quite a stir when in town.
After about a week, the funeral of our Bombardier was arranged at Vevey. A big occasion, but, of course, hard going for us. Air Commodore West took us to lunch.
It was decided that we should be interned at Adelboden in the Bernese Oberland with the Americans. Whilst there we were taught to ski, etc. - it was like a holiday.
Of course, it was not possible to escape, as it was an island in the middle of enemy territory. I did hear of two did, but they were both escapees, who had spent six months on the run in France before reaching Switzerland; they had learned to speak French and all the tricks, and they later escaped again and got to Spain and back home. This was very rare.
[Highlighted] A number of R.A.F. Bombers crashed in the mountains whilst we were there and being in uniform we had to do the funeral Guard of Honour on several occasions. Some of the Americans came to represent [deleted] your [/deleted] country. [/highlighted]
[PAGE BREAK]
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After the raid on Friedrichshafen by the R.A.F. we were joined by about another ten airmen. The American crews were coming in considerable numbers. I did not count them, but it was quite a few hundred.
This was due to the attacks on the Southern targets, being damaged and not having enough petrol to get back to base.
In May we were told that we were going home. The Swiss were arranging an exchange of R.A.F. and Germans, who had strayed into Switzerland. (It was rumoured that they were wanted for Court Martial back in Germany).
Visas were arranged and civilian clothes provided and we were taken to Basel and handed over to the Germans, with a Swiss Diplomatic Escort. Basel Railway Station was half in Germany and half in Switzerland, you stepped over a yellow line and were in enemy territory - a very strange feeling.
The German party was made up of one high-ranking officer and two guards and a corporal. This corporal spoke perfect English, had been educated at Oxford, and I took him to be an Intelligence Officer in a corporal's uniform.
From Basel we travelled to Baden-Baden, where we changed trains. We were taken from the Station [sic] to a restaurant for a meal. It was the first time I had ever seen a Nazi salute given - the Manager [sic] of the restaurant to our so called corporal.
The meal consisted of a large helping of fresh fish (Plaice) and wine, etc. - all very good. We then caught the Express [sic] to Paris, arriving mid-day next day. Had an air-raid warning on the station - another strange feeling:
Onto an army 'bus, [sic] complete with two armed guards. They seemed intent on guarding the 'bus [sic] from outside attack, rather than us. Our destination was an Army Mess for a meal with the Officers.
The French waiters seemed to know who we were and showed their pleasure by tapping the "V" sign and putting a large slug in the lettuce on the corporal's plate.
We continued out [sic] journey that evening, travelling all night towards Spain; when it became light we were able to see the guards, etc. spaced out along the Atlantic beaches.
Of all this we made mental notes for when we returned to England. We-reached [sic] the Spanish border during the
[PAGE BREAK]
=5- [SIC]
morning and parted from our German Escort - what a relief! The Swiss stayed with us on the train to Madrid.
Nice meal on the train - starting to feel free. We had four days in Madrid sightseeing and then the Swiss left us and a truck came up from Gibraltar to take us back.
[Insert] * [/insert] A few days there and then back to England on a schedule flight B.O.A.C.
The Air Force had someone waiting for us and took us to London to the Air Ministry for de-briefing - as much as we could tell them about bomb damage, troop movements on trains, etc. Then back home to good old "Brum" (Birmingham) and leave.
[Insert] * May 1944 [/insert]
Dublin Core
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Title
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Ron Carr's Bale-out
100 sqn 25 Feb 1944
Description
An account of the resource
The report describes how Ron Carr and his crew baled out over Switzerland after their aircraft was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire en route to Augsburg. He was arrested but eventually transported back to the UK via Paris, Madrid and Gibraltar.
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Ron Carr
Format
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Five typewritten sheets
Language
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eng
Type
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Text. Memoir
Text
Identifier
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MCarrR[Ser#-DoB]-150527-01
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany--Augsburg
Switzerland--Zurich
Switzerland--Dübendorf
Switzerland--Vevey
Switzerland--Adelboden (Bern)
Switzerland--Basel
Germany--Baden-Baden
France--Paris
Spain--Madrid
Gibraltar
Great Britain
England--London
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
Switzerland
Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau
Temporal Coverage
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1944-02-25
1944-02-26
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Laura Morgan
100 Squadron
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/176/2339/Frost, Bob.2.jpg
4a22fb6eb58e5c781be4f1ae44654285
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/176/2339/AFrostB150707.2.mp3
84e7a270c883b3ce4d4e13c188971538
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Frost, Bob
R Frost
Identifier
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Frost, B
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-07
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. Two oral history interviews with Robert Frost (1383682 Royal Air Force), and two photographs. Sergeant Bob frost flew as a rear gunner with 150 Squadron from RAF Snaith. Shot down on an operation to Essen, he was helped by the Resistance and evaded through the Netherlands and France to Spain. The story of his evasion is available in video form.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Bob Frost and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
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GC: Right here we go. My name’s Gemma Clapton. I’m the interviewer. I’m here with Sergeant Bob Frost. We’re doing an interview for the International Bomber Command in Lincoln. How about we start with how you joined the RAF and why? Your reasoning.
BF: Well to begin the story. I am Bob Frost. I was born in Camden Town, London, 1st January 1923. I grew up there. Went to the [Lyal Stanley?] Technical School. Took German. Went to Germany before the war and saw Hermann Goering arriving at Cologne Railway Station and scuffles in the streets between Germans for the Nazi party and the few who were opposed. When I got home I told my parents that I thought there would be trouble ahead and there was. The Second World War.
At that time, around about 1937 there was recruiting going on for the air raid precautions and the Auxiliary Fire Service. I joined the Auxiliary Fire Service as a messenger boy and went through the London Blitz operating from Camden town and across Holborn and that part of London. Coming home off watch one morning around about 5 o’clock I saw a man at Mornington Crescent digging at what had been his house, his mother was buried inside. He only had his bare hands, and I thought to myself helping to put fires out is one thing but it’s not stopping them and so I went and joined the Royal Air Force. My father had been in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and was back in the RAF in the Second World War.
I passed for all grades of air crew but was told that pilot training I’d have to wait at least eighteen months before starting on pilot training. I thought the war would be well and truly over by then and so I took the offer of becoming an air gunner and went into the air force just immediately after my eighteenth birthday.
It took a year before I went on my gunnery course but I learned a great deal about what really happens to keep an aeroplane flying in the air force. It was a jolly good lesson. I went to Chipping Warden Operational Training Unit and was crewed up there with Bill Randle, the pilot, Scotty Brazill the navigator, Walter Dreschler, bomb aimer — Canadian, and Norman Graham — Canadian, the wireless operator. Whilst on that course we crashed an aircraft, destroyed a barn and knew from the way the crew reacted that we could instantly rely upon each other as a complete unit. It really welded us together.
We were posted to 150 Squadron, Bomber Command at a place – Snaith, near Doncaster in Yorkshire and there on our twenty second trip over Germany when we were carrying one passenger, the second pilot – Del Mounts a United States citizen who’d joined the Canadian Air Force before the United States came in to the shooting war and he was flying with us on his first op to gain experience before taking his own crew.
Going in to the target which was Essen we were hit by heavy anti-aircraft fire that put the port engine out of action. The aircraft relied on that port engine for all the hydraulics and this meant that the turrets no longer worked or anything at all but we pressed on and dropped our bomb, we only had one, a four thousand pounder cookie, on the target area and then headed straight for home. But over Belgium the starboard engine packed up at about thirteen thousand feet and we had to jump out, bail out, and came down by parachute.
I landed in a field which seemed to come up and hit me. When I’d collected myself and my parachute I hid the parachute as best I could and set off in a south-westerly direction using the Pole Star as a guide hoping to head for Gibraltar. We had worked out what you did when you were shot down, not if you were shot down but when and heading for Gibraltar seemed to be the best option available.
In the early light of the morning I came to the outskirts of a small village Kapellen by Glabbeek in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, and I crept around the outside of the village, didn’t dare enter into the centre of it and I noticed a small farmhouse and for some reason that was the place for me. I went, knocked on the door hoping that an elderly lady would answer and I would be able to run away faster than she should she not prove friendly. But the door was opened by a burly young man. He spoke Flemish. It sounded to me something like the German I had learnt at school so I answered in my schoolboy German and the door was slammed in my face. I regarded that as a good sign, knocked again and eventually I’m in the kitchen of the house and there’s grandfather, grandmother, their daughter carrying a baby in her arms and this burly young man – her husband. They took me in and looked after me.
Whilst we were having a bit of a pantomime in their kitchen that morning a woman came along knocking at the door. This was round about 6 o’clock in the morning, to buy meat because the family were also the village butchers and she had seen me skulking around and made pretence of coming to buy meat at 6 o’clock in the morning. I discovered later that she was visited by the local resistance and told if she breathed any word of what had happened she would not breathe many more breaths. She kept quiet.
I stayed with that family for about a week and I was asked if I could ride a bicycle. Yes. And then I followed somebody on a bicycle to a small town Tienen or in French Tirlemont and was taken to the house of Manny and Marcel Renards [?]. Marcel was a stockbroker in Belgium and he gave me a suit. Now he was a big fellow and I was just a young lad of nineteen and the trousers came up under my armpits and I could easily look down and see [laughs] that the suit was really meant for a larger man but it served me well did that suit and I stayed with them for a while before being taken by train to, no it wasn’t a train it was tram to Brussels and lodged at a house of [Ashil Alieu] who lived on the outskirts of Brussels near to Laeken, near the royal palace there.
And whilst there I was taken into the centre of Brussels to the flat of two ladies, both Elisabeth and one of them came back from a shopping expedition and let her shopping bag fall across the table and out of that came a passport sized photograph and lo and behold it was Del Mounts - our passenger on that last trip. I recognised the photo and said ‘yes I know that fellow’, and the look of relief on the faces of those two girls was really good to see. They had queried Del’s story, they had queried my story. I was talking German. Del pretending, they thought, to be an American. The Germans knew that aircraft were coming down and crews were making escapes and so whenever an aircraft crashed they put in dummies on the ground pretending to be out of that aircraft. They would then enter into the underground network and when they got a list of names they would give them to the Germans and the whole line would be wiped out. That happened twice to the line I came through – the Comet Line, which succeeded in helping escape eight hundred and twenty allied air crew during the course of the war but at tremendous cost in lives to themselves.
From my [pause] safe house in Brussels I was taken to another place and there we met Bill Randle, our pilot who had succeeded also in finding his way in to the Comet Line and Del Mounts came along as well and we three were then taken from Paris to St Jean de Luz down in the south west corner of France by train in the company with three other escaping airmen by a young girl, Janine de Greef who was seventeen years of age. She made that journey from Paris to the south west corner of France twenty odd times during the war. So that meant forty trips in all. A real heroine that girl.
At St Jean de Luz I was taken with the other five members to a farmhouse on the outside of St Jean and there I met again Dedee de Jongh, the Belgian girl who had started the Comet Line going. She had been training as a nurse before the war. The war came she was doing her bit looking after the men who had not been able to escape at the time of Dunkirk. And they found that the cost of maintaining these men, because they had to buy all their rations and things on the black market, was prohibitive and they really needed to clear these men back to the United Kingdom and so they took a three Scottish highlanders down to the south west corner, got them over the Pyrenees through Spain, Gibraltar and back to England and that began the opening of the line to bring men back to this country.
From my position in Paris when Janine took us down to the southwest corner we travelled by train and the train was stopped at a frontier and we were taken into a hall, had to produce our identity papers which I had been provided with. I was now a Belgian seaman who had been stationed at Bordeaux and had travelled up to Brussels to his mother who lived there was elderly and not very well. Now I was now going back to re-join my ship down at Bordeaux so I had a reason for travelling. Had anybody examined the address on my papers the street existed but the number did not, so nobody would have had an unwelcome knock on their door from the German authorities seeking to know where this seaman Robert Seamoness [?] as I was known, had gone. They protected people from unnecessary adventure without any harm to anybody. They were a very thoughtful and well-arranged lot.
When I got to the Pyrenees I was taken with the six of us who had travelled from Paris over the Pyrenees by Florentino Goicoechea[?], a Spanish Basque smuggler. He was a professional smuggler and he guided men over the mountains to safe haven as we would thought in Spain. Whilst going over he led the group, Dedee de Jongh brought up the rear, I was the last of the six men and during the crossing I fell into a great pit, knocked all the wind out of me. Dedee saw what had happened and called Florentino back and he lifted me out of that pit like a drowned rat and dumped me on the ground at the side and all was well.
From time to time he would stop by a bush and bring out a bottle of Cognac which was passed around and how he knew one bush in all those hundreds I don’t know but he always found the right one. When we got to the other side of the frontier to cross the river Bidasoa we found that the river was in flood and we had to walk for another five hours to a bridge crossing in order to get on to the Spanish side. Climbing up towards the steep slopes on either side of that bridge there I was stopped looking at a little hut which had the Spanish Guard Seville members inside and one was outside smoking a cigarette. And I lay against the ground looking up at him in the darkness below thinking, ‘For goodness sake hurry up and finish your cigarette. I want to get to the other side.’ Well, eventually he moved off and I moved over and then we were greeted by a car with CD plates on the back and taken to St Sebastian and at that point Dedee left us and returned back to carry on her dangerous work through Belgium, France and up to the frontier. Florentino, he’d gone off and was then ready to bring the next group of airmen across.
In Spain we were taken to the British embassy in Madrid. It was the old Victorian building and the stables had been used there in the days of horse drawn traffic and that became the dormitory for we, the escapers, and there were quite a number of Poles there including the one who was in our group Teddy Frankowski. He wanted to get back to England and we thought he wanted to resume the fight against the enemy. It wasn’t really that. Back on station he had a motorbike and he didn’t want them to sell it before he returned. He thought a lot of that motorbike.
At Gibraltar we were housed quite comfortably but water was the great shortage. The lack of pure water was the great thing there and we were issued with soap. It would float in seawater and when you tried to wash with it was like using a piece of pumice stone. It scraped you clean.
But we were debriefed at Gib and then after almost a week there told to be ready to take off in an American Dakota of the United States 8th Army Air Corps and we were flown back to the United Kingdom. We flew right out over the Bay of Biscay to avoid the land and any fighter aircraft and landed at Portreath in Cornwall exactly five weeks and four days after taking off from Snaith in Yorkshire.
Nobody knew anything about us at all. We asked could we please have an overcoat because by now it was approaching Christmas time and it was jolly cold and we were provided with the proper air force winter uniform, given £5 which was a huge sum of money and a railway warrant up to London.
Bill went to his family. I went to see my mother who was working for the London Fire Brigade at that time at Shaftsbury Avenue and I walked into the place where she worked, she was a cook and said, ‘Hello mum,’ and we both stood and hugged each other. She hadn’t received anything other than the telegram saying that I was missing. She had called my father who was stationed at Chivenor in North Devon and they had both gone up to visit my brother David who was evacuated not far from Doncaster and then they went across to the squadron to see if there was any news of what had happened to me but there wasn’t any because I hadn’t been picked up by the Red Cross or anybody else. The shock of that telegram caused my father to become ill and he was admitted to Sheffield Military Hospital suffering phlebitis in his legs and unfortunately was not passed as medically fit for service anymore and was discharged from the air force. I’ve always regarded my father as one of the casualties of war.
I went back to where the squadron had, was or so I thought but when I got there I found it was no longer in this country. It was at [?] in North Africa. No, I didn’t want to go to North Africa thank you very much and so I was sent back to London and sent to RAF.
[pause]
And I was sent to RAF Uxbridge as a holding unit, I was put into a barrack room with a number of other aircrew NCOs of all aircrew trades and in the morning ordered on parade on the barrack square and was being marched up and down with these lads who I discovered had been sent to Uxbridge for court martial as lacking in moral fibre. They thought because I was wearing an air gunner’s brevet that I was one sent there for court martial. So I left the parade ground. A warrant officer standing on the side bellowed at me to get back on parade and I told him in two words what to do.
And then went to see the adjutant and explained to him that I had not returned back to this country in order to be marched about on his parade ground. He was most surprised and that evening I went home with an open leave pass in my pocket whilst they decided what on earth they were going to do with me. And the upshot of all that I was posted to the RAF Marine School at Coswall [?] in Scotland teaching the marine side of the air force what to do with such weaponry as they carried and tactics against enemy aircraft attacking them because a lot of them were engaged on air sea rescue in the North Sea and the best advice that could be given and the skippers of those north sea ASR boats agreed, was to leave the 303 machine guns wrapped up in oiled casings and not try firing them off against a Junkers 88 equipped with twenty millimetre canon. The best thing they could do was to shut down the engine, leave no wake and hope that the aircraft would start running out of fuel and leave them alone.
They did a jolly good job those chaps but I wanted to go back into the air force but not bombing this time but to go back supplying munitions to the underground movement and I succeeded in being posted to an operational training unit which would have led me on to 644 squadron flying Halifaxes, dropping supplies and also glider towing troops across the channel. But the air force stepped in and said no you’re not allowed back on ops anymore and none of our crew ever went back on operations again because if, we assumed we should come down again and were caught questions might be asked of us as to what had happened the first time around. Whether that be the case or not I’m not too sure but I finished my time in RAF Bridgnorth in Shropshire and there in the sergeant’s mess I met a young WAAF, a hospital steward, we were married two years later and we had fifty years and six months of happiness before eventually she succumbed to motor neurone disease.
Now I live in Sandwich. A daughter looks after me. She lives nearby and the friends I made during the war we’re on to the great-grandchildren. They have become our family. And to those people working in the resistance I really do accept them as the real heroes. If we were caught it was POW. If they were caught the whole family was caught and what happened to them I hate to think, in the concentration camps.
The stories I’ve heard from their relatives and the fact that when I went back to Paris to see Robert and Germaine who’d looked after me in ’42, Robert was no longer there. He’d been arrested in ’43 – executed in ’44. Germaine, they were going to send to forced labour for them. She refused to work for them and so was put in to Ravensbruck concentration camp. She survived, became aunt to my children and lived to be ninety years of age. Then she gave her body to the local hospital. I was given her two bibles. The old and new testaments in French and those bibles are now lodged in Canterbury Cathedral where they have a French chapel and a service in French every Sunday afternoon to the memory of a very brave person. That’s my story.
This is the Observer and Air Gunners Flying Log Book. And you had to get it signed every month as being accurate. This is to certify 1383682 LAC Frost R qualified as an air gunner with effect from the 23rd of January 1942. So I became an air gunner sergeant on the 23rd of January 1942. And that was Number 8 Air Gunnery School Evanton, Scotland, north of Inverness. Results of air gunnery course - exam mark ninety percent. Remarks – well above the average and then they made a ricket of the stamping here, well above the average. Should make an excellent air gunner. J Compton, Squadron Leader. I came top of the course.
That was why when I went eventually to the Operational Training Unit at Chipping Warden they put so many pilots, so many navigators, so many wireless operators and you were all in to a big hangar - sort yourselves out into crews. There were ten pilots, ten navigators and so on you see and that is what happened. This is my 12 OTU Operational Training Unit, the different flights, circuits and landings, circuits and landings, instrument flying, circuits and landings, cross country’s and all that kind of thing. That was the gunnery school and I came down from there as I say and they asked did I want to accept a commission or apply for a commission ‘cause I came top of the course and I said no thank you. I just want to be an air gunner. That’s all I’ve joined for.
And then we go to number, that was 12 OTU. That was in Oxfordshire and I’m crewed initially there. Let’s see if I can give you this. Evanton that’s there. Now here’s 12 OTU. Now look, date, hour, aircraft type, pilot and my first pilot and we’d sorted ourselves out in this big hangar – Sergeant Lock L O C K. I look down the list and his name never comes up again. What happened?
I’m near to Oxford at this Operational Training Unit. There’s a heavy air raid on London. I asked for a twenty four hour pass to go and see if my home was still ok. Remember I’d been through the London Blitz and knew what could happen. So they said yes you’ve got twenty four hours out and back so I took off, went home, everything was alright. I came back and one of the pilots there Sergeant Randle said to me, ‘Bob would you like to fly with me?’
I said, ‘No thank you I’m flying with Ginger. Ginger Lock.’ He said, ‘Ginger Lock’s not flying with anybody anymore.’ He had taken up a Wellington aircraft and sat in the back where I should have been sat was a chappy who was going to become a wireless operator air gunner. He’d done his wireless course and he was waiting for his gunnery course and the opportunity to fly in an aeroplane was too good to be missed. Ginger flew that aeroplane and the whole crew with him, a scratch crew, down to Henley on Thames where Ginger lived and they flew down over the River Thames up the hill on the other side straight into the trees at the top and he wrote the lot off. Had I not had that twenty four hour pass? And that was my introduction to what flying was all about? You see?
So I’m now flying with Sergeant Randle. And the first trip that we did together, you can’t imagine it, detail not carried out. Landed at Llanbedr. It was a cross country exercise. Navigation for the navigator. Remember we were an Operational Training Unit and the aircraft that were flying at these Operational Training Units, these OTUs, were all aircraft that were no longer fit for operational flying. They were clapped out. And so you got more crashes from these places than anywhere else because the aircraft as I say were clapped out. And the first trip that I did with Bill we landed because the aircraft was clapped out. That meant that it wasn’t working. Come home again.
That went on there and now I’ve got Randle, Randle, Randle, Randle, Randle all the way through until we come to the 21st of June 1942. We took off at 9:30 in the evening and we were going on a cross country navigational exercise. Crashed near Whitton, Whitton is in Lincolnshire, at 1:52 in the morning. We’re bowling along, I say bowling along in the air and the engines start playing up and Bill says get ready to bail out. Walter, our front gunner, bomb aimer said he didn’t think that was a good idea. We were too near the ground. So Bill said right take up crash positions and we crashed near Whitton. We hit a barn. I’ve got a picture of it somewhere.
[pause]
And when Bomber Command Museum was opened and we met together forty odd years after the war, the day after that we went to where we had crashed to see what it looked like and that was taken there and that’s was the farmer’s son who’s now grown and has replaced his father as farmer. They weren’t owner farmers they were tenant farmers and they’d had a new barn built – a brick one. The one we crashed into was a wooden one with a thatched roof and when Norman our wireless op, I’ll show you Norman [pause]. This one here, the Canadian wireless op. Now he would be sat about the middle of the aircraft and he came out through the thatched roof swearing what do the so and so British put on their houses ‘cause we didn’t know it was a barn at the time but he found Bill Randle the pilot unconscious in the crash so he dragged Bill out. I was in the rear turret and the gun sight that was right up in front of me came back, hit me on the head, I’ve still got the scar up there somewhere and it knocked me unconscious. Only for a little while, not for hours but just for a few seconds and I’ve got my turret turned sideways so that you could open the doors and drop out the back. That was how you got out of that particular one at that time and I opened the doors and there running alongside the aeroplane is this lad. Can you see the one right at the end, at this end, that’s it you’ve got this hand on it. That fella Scotty, the navigator. He was running down the side of the burning aircraft to get me out of the turret. When I say it was that crash that brought us together we realised that we would look after each other whatever happened and that really welded us together as a crew. If anybody in the crew said turn right we all turned right. You didn’t argue. The pilot was the one in charge but if anybody in the crew saw something that needed instant action and they said stand up, sit down, jump about, do anything, you did it. You didn’t say why, you just did it because you trusted each other. Now I’m the last one alive.
GC: Well we’ve got your voice on tape now.
BF: So -
GC: It won’t ever be lost again.
BF: You see, that’s these things. Now you’ve seen Daphne.
GC: Yes we have Daphne.
BF: As a young - when a fellow had seen her with her three stripes on -
GC: Ahum.
BF: Tell me when you’re ready. I met Daphne at RAF Bridgnorth in Shropshire in the sergeant’s mess. She had just been made a sergeant. She had a boyfriend before then who was an airman and she had been a corporal but when he saw Daphne with her three stripes on he turned tail and ran. But Daphne came into the mess and two years later we got married. Best thing I ever did.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bob Frost. One
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Frost recounts experiencing the London Blitz as a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force and trained at the Air Gunnery School at Evanton, Scotland. He was then posted to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Chipping Warden. He describes an aircraft crash in Lincolnshire while at Chipping Warden. His operational posting was to 150 Squadron at RAF Snaith. On an operation to Essen, two of the Lancaster’s engines were damaged and the crew bailed out over Belgium. Frost describes being taken in by a farming family and sheltered by the resistance. Reunited with his crew, they were passed along the Comet Line through Belgium and France, being accompanied from Paris to St Jean de Luz by Janine de Greef. They met Dedee de Jongh who, together with a Basque smuggler, accompanied them across the Pyrenees into Spain. From Madrid they were driven to Gibraltar and flown to the United Kingdom. Bob Frost did not undertake any further operational flying. He was eventually posted to RAF Bridgnorth, where he met his wife Daphne, who was in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.
Creator
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Gemma Clapton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-16
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:43:03 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFrostB150707
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England
France
Spain
England--Northamptonshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Essen
Pyrenees
Netherlands
Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
12 OTU
150 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
air sea rescue
aircrew
bale out
bombing
civil defence
crash
crewing up
de Jongh, Andree (1916 - 2007)
evading
faith
ground personnel
heirloom
Lancaster
military ethos
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Chipping Warden
RAF Evanton
RAF Snaith
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2343/PCaseyJ1502.2.jpg
790374717a8c299d0e524dc5ba1a49f4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2343/ACaseyJ-CaseyV150610.2.mp3
5624ad1aba7a4c0d31952163a10a8cc7
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
Casey, John
J Casey
John Casey
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Collection contains an oral history interview with Sergeant John Casey (- 2016, 2217470, Royal Air Force), an escape map, logbook, service documentation, a wallet and photographs. John Casey served as an air gunner on 61 Squadron in 1944-45.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Casey and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-10
2015-11-19
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
Casey, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JC: Right I’m John Casey. Member of 61 Squadron Bomber Command and my number is 2219470. I met my wife at RAF Coningsby, a farmer’s daughter and we still live on the camp outskirts and that’s about it I think.
I originally worked for Vickers Armstrong’s in civvy street in 1943, of course I was a bit fed up with the job. It was a reserved occupation and one day we had half a day off my friend who worked in the pits and me we went down to Durham City had a day off and had a few drinks and decided we wanted to join the Air Force – air crew. So we went to the recruiting office and as it happened one of the chaps in there was a station warrant officer what I met years later in the RAF. A warrant officer [Holliday]. And we signed on. Of course my friend he had a shift off he worked in the pits. He was refused. He wasn’t accepted but I was accepted and I did my training at Padgate near Manchester and I originally ended up at RAF Coningsby where I met my wife, a farmer’s daughter, at the sergeant’s mess, at a dance one night. And from RAF Coningsby I went on operations, Skellingthorpe near Lincoln and that was where I finished the war. And I was posted to Coningsby.
VC: Wittering.
JC: Wittering yeah. I used to write to my wife from Wittering. I eventually was posted to Coningsby here where I met my wife, a farmer’s daughter, at a sergeants mess ball one night.
VC: But you went lots of other.
JC: Hmmn?
VC: You went to lots of other aerodromes before.
JC: Yes.
VC: You came to Coningsby.
JC: Yes I went to Wittering.
VC: And where you did your flight from
JC: Wittering and where else?
VC: Where you went on your raids. Where you went on your raids. You weren’t at Coningsby then.
JC: No I was Skellingthorpe.
[Inaudible]
JC: On bombing raids. I didn’t quite quite finish a tour. I did two thirds of a tour when the war finished. And from there I was posted to Coningsby where I met my wife in a sergeant’s mess dance one night. She was a farmer’s daughter. And I ended up there at the end of the war. That was about it I think.
[unclear]
JC: Well I was posted to Wigsley on Stirlings, training on Stirlings and then on one of the trips we caught fire, crashed and I bailed out and four members of the crew was killed in it. And then when I got back I was posted to Skellingthorpe on Lancasters. And on one raid there we got shot up over a place called Giesen [?] and we had a navigator killed. We managed to get back with a bit of effort from the bomb aimer. His knowledge wasn’t too good about navigating but he managed to get us back and we landed at Woodbridge at Suffolk. We were there two or three weeks till they got the aircraft repaired. It had got damaged in the attack and we got back to Coningsby and later on I met my wife at a sergeants mess dance. Did I
VC: You did lots more raids before then.
JC: Oh I did a few raids before that.
MJ: Where did you do your training?
JC: Bruntingthorpe on Wellingtons. And I was on Ansons in Wales.
MJ: That’s where you did gunnery training?
JC: Yeah gunnery training in Wales and the OTU at Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire. From there, from Bruntingthorpe I went to Wigsley on Stirlings. I crashed in one of the Stirlings and I can remember the Caterpillar Club. I have a caterpillar.
Other: What is the Caterpillar Club?
JC: It’s a club for people who bailed out. Saved their lives when the bailed out
Other: Well people don’t know what the Caterpillar Club is so
JC: No.
Other: So that is?
JC: Yeah I’ll explain it.
Other: Yeah that would be good.
JC: It was for members that had bailed out of an aircraft and saved their lives.
MJ: You jumped out with – there was how many people were in the plane at the time?
JC: It was my memory fades. It was a full crew and the screen pilot, screen navigator and they were both killed and we -
MJ: Not all of you got out did you?
JC: Not all of us got out.
MJ: ‘Cause you were actually quite low weren’t you?
VC: You crashed near the Trent.
JC: Yeah.
VC: River Trent.
JC: River Trent. My memory fades.
Other : John you told me, told your grandson some stories. If you can remember some of them that’s great if you can’t don’t worry about it we’ll see what happens just say whatever you fancy.
JC: Well that raid we got shot up it was over Giesen [?] and we were attacked by a Messerschmitt 109 and he killed the navigator outright. We was corkscrewing but the shells coming in the side of the aircraft killed the navigator and from then on we had to rely on the bomb aimer navigating to get us back to this country.
Other : Did you manage to get the 109 or did you have to run out?
JC: We shot at the 109 but we claimed him as a probable, he never come back and we was crippled. We only had three engines. That’s why he attacked us in the first place.
Other: How did you lose the first engine?
JC: We lost an engine going out. We only had three engines. I suppose he thought we were a sitting duck. Anyway he attacked us and his aircraft shells came the side of the aircraft when we were corkscrewing and caught the navigator. Killed him outright. Missed me and the rigger turret which was very fortunate. And then from then onwards we managed to escape and we had to rely on the bomb aimer navigating us back home which he only had a minimum amount of navigation, the bomb aimer. But over the North Sea we were met by a Spitfire and he directed us in to Woodbridge in Suffolk where we landed straightaway and they well washed the aircraft out and repaired it and got back to Coningsby about ten days later.
MJ: The ground crew were amazed it was still flying weren’t they?
JC: Yeah cause the machine gun went through the main spar wing spar and we were lucky to get back and we was down there oh I don’t know ten days to a fortnight.
Other: And did you get any time off in that those ten days? Or did you have to do other things?
JC: Able to go to Ipswich. Used to go into Ipswich, walked there a lot. Hitchhiked. There was a lot of Americans around there and then they got the aircraft mended and washed out. The fire brigade I remember washing it out cause it was all blood. And then sent another crew down to pick it up to go back to
Other: So you didn’t fly your own plane back?
JC: No.
MJ: So how did you get back to base?
JC: We had a crew.
Other: Oh you.
JC: Flown down from Coningsby
Other: So the, I don’t know which plane flew you home?
VC: Wittering
JC: Where
VC: Wittering or
JC: No.
VC: Skellingthorpe.
JC: Skellingthorpe. Just outside Lincoln. That’s where we were stationed. That’s where the bombers were.
Other: So you had a separate crew bring you back.
JC: Yes. Had a crew Skellingthorpe come down to bring us back.
Other: So how long was it before you got back on operations again?
JC: Skellingthorpe. [pause] I don’t think we went
MJ: From when you landed at Woodbridge how long before you went on ops again?
JC: I was at Woodbridge about ten days I think and then this group come down from Skellingthorpe and flew us back.
MJ: And then you were you went back on ops again.
JC: Trying to remember?
VC: Yes you did because you had a new crew.
JC: Yes I went back on ops and I got a different crew. Different navigator. And then from there I was posted to Coningsby when the war finished, to train for the Japanese war. Tiger force they called it.
Other: So what is Tiger Force then?
JC: Tiger force. The RAF that was going out to Japan. Converting over to Lincolns, a bigger bomber than Lancasters. Converting to Lincolns
MJ: So did you actually go on Tiger Force?
JC: We didn’t actually go to Japan but we trained on the Lincolns at Coningsby here. It was Coningsby weren’t it? Lincolns.
VC: They did have Lincolns yeah.
JC: My memory fades I’m afraid.
Other: That’s quite all right when you got your Lancaster back. Or a new Lancaster
JC: Yeah
Other: With a separate crew obviously it takes time to get used to your crew is are there any ops you can remember that that you would like to recite or are you not ready for that yet?
JC: Yes we did. We did some more trips after Harry was killed ‘cause we had a new navigator.
MJ: You always enjoyed talking about Operation Exodus. In Italy.
JC: Oh to Italy.
Other: What is Operation Exodus?
JC: Bring the troops back from Italy for demob.
Other: Could you explain to me how you did that please?
JC: Well the whole of Bomber Command used to go out over to Italy after the war, when the war finished and the whole of Bomber Command would go out to to Maggliano airfield just outside of Naples and we’d stop there for maybe, well the second time we were there for about three weeks and then they brought all the army back in lorry loads. A lorry load to one aircraft and flew, flew them back to England for demob.
MJ: You had a good time in Italy didn’t you?
JC: Yes we had a good time in Italy. And I finished up meeting my wife in Coningsby and I was there the rest of the war wasn’t I?
VC: Yes, yes you were you were demobbed from Coningsby. No you weren’t
JC: Ahum
Other : Were you at Operation Manna?
JC: No
Other: You weren’t
JC: No dropping food to the Dutch. No. Our aircraft wasn’t on that one but the squadron was. You see after we were attacked I was a bit slow in doing the evasive action and that’s why the bullets went in the side of the aircraft and killed the navigator.
Other: Do you, I don’t think you should worry about how fast your actions are.
JC: Ahum
Other: I feel that you might think it was your reactions that took the navigator out. I wouldn’t worry about that.
JC: Yeah.
Other: It wasn’t your fault. It was the situation you were in. You, you rescued the rest of the crew.
JC: Yeah.
Other: So
JC: We managed, managed to get back to this country. Woodbridge.
Other: Yeah I I mean so I can say can don’t worry about that bit just put that to the back of your mind because you did far more than you realise and a lot of other people do so we’re not we’re not looking for you to worry about what you say.
JC: No.
Other: Ok. So you flew out in to Holland. Yes?
JC: Yes for my first operation just [unclear] island off the Dutch coast which was holding up the advance of the army.
Other: So what did that involve? Did you have to -
JC: We had to bomb the emplacements on the island itself. Yeah we lost one or two aircraft on that raid cause I could see them going down.
MJ: Was there a lot of enemy fighters or was there a lot of flak.
JC: A lot of flak.
Other: There was a lot of flak.
JC: There were no fighters at [unclear] just plenty of flack.
Other: How many aircraft went with you? Do you remember?
JC: It was just a 5 Group effort you know. Just one group. Two hundred aircraft that was all but we lost quite a few bombers.
MJ: Was it daytime or night time?
JC: Daytime. It was daylight.
MJ: Yeah. High level? Low level?
JC: No, high level, well medium. Yeah. Yeah I could see the shells exploding outside the turrets cause I had a clear vision. You know the panel was missing. And I could see the shells anti-aircraft bursting on the road. And the aircraft. I could see them going down either side.
MJ: Did you manage to get your bombs dropped on that mission or did you -?
JC: Yes we got our bombs dropped. Whether we hit the breakwater or not I don’t know ahum in fact it was my first operation. Was. Yeah.
[pause]
VC: Well I am John’s wife and I’ve lived around the aerodrome ever since it was built in 1939 and the first aircraft were Beaufort and it was a very short runway in those days going back to ’39. And then we had Mosquitos and then the Lancasters came well we had others in between then but I honestly can’t remember. The Lancasters came and then we had the American Flying Fortresses and they had to extend the runway then because they weren’t long enough so they took quite a bit of my father’s land to build, to do the runway longer and the Fortresses stayed and then we had Manchesters and then we had Lancasters and we finished up the war with the Lancasters still here and while they were here we unfortunately had one or two taking off and crashing. One crashed into one of our fields. Unfortunately all of the crew were killed which was very upsetting. And then later, just later and that on a Lancaster and didn’t gain height and crashed into the gasworks on the River Bain and unfortunately all the crew there were killed and it was most upsetting, and we lost quite a few of the Lincolns, Lancasters on bombing raids. We used to count them coming back cause they flew quite near to our house and we could lie there during the night. They would wake us when they started coming back but they didn’t all come back but well we just used to live the life and we had quite a lot of friendly airmen on the camp. They used to come down to the farm and.
JC: Work.
VC: They used to work on the potatoes and the harvest.
Other: So the airmen actually helped you with the farming as well?
VC: Yes they did Yes they were very good. That was usually the lads that worked in the flying control. They quite, you know, different lads came on different days when they weren’t on duty and yes they were very helpful, very helpful and well we got to know quite a few of the air force, the lads on the, they used to come down to the farm and well some were interested, very interested yes.
JC: Pay them with cigarettes.
VC: Sorry.
JC: Pay them with cigarettes and that, and money.
VC: No. No, my father wouldn’t have encouraged them to smoke.
JC: Well he did.
VC: No.
JC: He did. When I was there. Gave them cigarettes.
VC: Well I didn’t know that. He didn’t let me know that. [laughs] ‘cause we weren’t allowed to smoke [laughs] but no they used to usually get well as far as I know they got paid as they finished because they didn’t come every day. They came probably two or three days and then.
Other: Yeah did you manage to get out of the farm yourself or were you doing so much of the farm work on the land.
VC: Oh I was working alongside them that’s what I spent my life doing yeah.
Other: So you worked and you played hard as well.
VC: No well there wasn’t a lot to do really.
JC: One of our Nissen huts was on the land wasn’t it?
VC: Sorry
JC: A lot of the Nissen huts was next to the farm.
VC: Oh yes we had the aircrew billeted in Nissen huts on part of our field, you know, part of our land.
JC: [unclear]
VC: Yes we used to.
Other: So you never got rid of them?
VC: [laughs] No.
JC: They used to mess about at night when they come home drunk tipping all the crates over and
VC: Oh no they weren’t too bad. Just mischievous
Other: Were you mischievous?
VC: No [laughs] I guess I was yeah. It was a hard life but that was the life. You worked manually. There weren’t the machines. We had horses. We did eventually we did get our first tractor in 1963 but
Other: Did the aerodrome itself affect your farming in any way? Scare your horses or
VC: No not really no no
MJ: Just the fact that they concreted a lot of it.
VC: True yes.
JC: Had a mosquito taking off one day on the runway.
VC: Yes that’s right.
JC: Went Right through the tatie garden didn’t it? Old Mr North, old chap who used to lived with us could have put his hand out and touched it as it went past.
VC: Yes that was a little bit -
JC: We had mosquitos at the time.
Other: Mosquitos used to leave from this airfield as well?
VC: Yes they did. Oh yes.
JC: This was a little while after the war like.
VC: Oh yes we’ve had all kinds
JC: We had Washingtons here those big American ones here. We had them here. Washington aircraft
VC: We even had some Lysanders. Well two Lysanders once.
JC: Ahum
VC: This was at the beginning of the war, you know.
Other: So what happened there then?
VC: No they just used to fly around. I think they used to go over taking photos you know. Used to fly over Germany well not Germany but Holland and the coast there.
Other: So you never knew when they were going to drop in on you?
VC: [laughs] No, that’s quite right. No it was, well it had it’s good times and its bad times.
JC: The aircraft were super forts.
VC: Yeah.
VC: [unclear] weren’t they.
JC: Yes they were.
Other: Did they ever have parties or anything in the billets or did your dad not let them?
VC: Party in the village?
Other: No you said they were billeted on your farm. I wondered if they ever -
VC: Oh, yes – no, no. I mean well you lived that kind of life then.
MJ: What?
VC: I mean you knew they were going on a raid and didn’t know if they would come back so you just accepted that they had to live as
Other: Live fast.
VC: Yes
Other: Did you manage [unclear] with them as well?
VC: No we didn’t see them very much. They were night raiding. They would be sleeping during the day and they used to spend a lot of the time on the airfield because you know they’d got the NAAFI and the
Other: Sergeant’s Mess?
VC: The Sergeant’s mess and what have you was on the airfield and they would go there for their food and what have you and spend their time on the field, on the airfield when they weren’t, weren’t flying. Yeah. Yes I’d forgotten about the Nissan huts
Other: Are they still there or
VC: No no they were taken down years ago. No. Well after the war finished they took them down and worked the land again. It’s back into production. They used to use our land a lot because of the bomb dump was, they had a bomb dump.
Other: Oh what is a bomb dump then?
VC: They used to store bombs.
Other: That was on your land as well?
VC: No just on the edge of our land. Our land went up to it and they used to travel. Put a concrete road through our farm so that it was not mud tracks but they used to go into the airfield. When they’d lengthened the runways they made an exit and you know, into the airfield itself instead of, you know, coming through ours all the time. It was, it’s still there. Course they don’t use it any more.
Other: It’s still there?
VC: It is still there.
JC: Yeah. Bomb dump.
VC: I don’t think, I can’t think of anything else.
MJ: No. How did you meet grandad?
VC: At the sergeants mess dance. Us village girls used to go to the
MJ: So you’d go on the base?
VC: Yes.
JC: Yes she was with her sister and another young girl. A hairdresser. Weren’t you?
VC: Yes.
JC: Three of them.
VC: Yes a group of us used to go.
MJ: How often?
VC: I don’t know. About once a month. Something like that.
JC: Something like that.
MJ: Good parties?
VC: Sorry?
MJ: Good parties?
VC: It was just a dance.
JC: Sometimes they had a buffet didn’t they?
VC: If it was a special one?
JC: Aye. A special one
VC: Yeah but not very often. Not during the war anyway.
MJ: Much to drink?
VC: No. I don’t think there was a bar. I don’t know Tim ‘cause I never drank.
MJ: I bet Grandad did
JC: Aye grandad did.
VC: I wouldn’t have dared. Oh it’s still on.
MJ: Right let me on the behalf of The International Bomber Command Oral History Project thank Warrant Officer Casey and Vera Casey for their stories on the 10th June 2015. The project thanks you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John and Vera Casey
Interview with John Casey
Description
An account of the resource
Before the war, John Casey worked for Vickers Armstrong. He joined the Royal Air Force and completed his training as a warrant officer at RAF Padgate. He learned how to fly Stirling aircraft at RAF Wigsley, Wellington aircraft at RAF Bruntingthorpe and Anson aircraft in Wales. He served at RAF Coningsby where he was trained to fly Lincoln aircraft and was at RAF Skellingthorpe as a member of 61 Squadron. At RAF Skellingthorpe he flew Lancaster aircraft. He survived one air crash by bailing out. On a later occasion, the navigator on an operation was killed and they managed to land in Woodbridge, in a badly-damaged aircraft. He participated in Operation Dodge. John met Vera, a farmer’s daughter, at RAF Coningsby. She recalls life on the farm adjoining the station during the war years, how some of their land was used to extend the runway and how the aircrew used to help with the harvest.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mick Jeffery
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-10
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Heather Hughes
Format
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00:35:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ACaseyJ-CaseyV150610
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Cheshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
61 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bomb dump
bombing
Caterpillar Club
home front
killed in action
Lancaster
Lincoln
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Padgate
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Wigsley
RAF Woodbridge
runway
Stirling
Tiger force
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2348/SAllenDJ1880966v10003.2.jpg
c95cff407f182182118c2119d45377ca
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Allen, DJ
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
The last flight of Lancaster DV 369 (R ) on 2/3rd November
My memories of this trip now rather faded over the years started like most did on the modern gunnery section crew room with the cryptic message War tonight chalked on the board.
After briefing we learned the target was to be Dusseldorf which at that time was 50-60 miles from the American front line positions.
The met forecast some cloud cover enroute but clear over the target area. ETA was I believe about one hour after midnight.
We had a good trip out and bombed very successfully, with very little cloud, and had just turned off target area and set course for base at about 17,000ft when a gaping hole was shot in the under belly of out Lanc, about a yard away from the Mid upper gun position which I was of course occupying at the time.
A german [sic] night fighter had spotted our engine exhausts and fired cannon shells in to our one blind spot, the under belly of the fuselarge [sic].
A FWI90 then appeared on the port quarter and we exchanged shots with my rear gunner and myself both giving him the works, but in the battle we lost one of our tail fins and the port engine was also hit and on fire.
The night fighter broke off the attack, possibly damaged and we were left alone in a very badly damaged aircraft rapidly losing height.
Our skipper Les Landridge gave us the order to bale out, and as our bomb aimer/w operator Flight Engineer and Navigator prepared to jump, our rear gunner Bill Lemin shouted over the intercom that his turret doors were jammed, and the skipper asked me to go back and help him.
On getting out of my gun position I realised the extent of the damage to the fuselage and my parachute had dropped off the turret step when it always hung on the floor close to the hole.
Having clipped my chute on I made my way aft pausing to open the reef door escape hatch, and I then forced the turret doors and Bill was able to get out and we started to move towards the rear door.
All this time of course Les had been wrestling with the controls up front, the crew having baled out at high level.
At this point the old Lancaster went in to a spin, flattening both of us against the rear fuselage. Then she broke in half at the spot where the hole had been torn in her and about the last thing I remember is floating face down and watching a dark mass of earth and trees coming up to meeet [sic] me, and when I recovered my senses I was hanging in the branches of a tree.
The Lancaster was blazing away in the next field, I got out my harness and slipped down the tree trunk to be met by a herd of cattle and I beat a hasty retreat over a small hedge.
It was by this time about 2AM and bright moonlight, having no idea where we had crashed I thought best to get away from the blazing aircraft, so I headed for an old outbuil-ding [sic] at the bottom of the garden to a bungalow.
As I sat in the potting shed I could hear dogs barking and a lot of activity and shouting some of which I decided was American, so I then walked down to a bend in the road where I was pleased to give myself up to an American GI leaning over a gate I was then reunited with the rest of the crew and I then learned of the death of both Les Lendridge and Bill Lemin whose bodies were only a hundred yards from my tree.
As a matter of interest most aircrew were a superstitious lot, and the carrying of good luck charms on aircraft was very common, but taking on a spare crew man when some one was sick was really tempting fate.
Our rear gunner that night was a spare bod who had never flown with us before, our regular rear gunner Bert Davis being unfit, who has it happened was shot down himself a few weeks later flying with another crew and taken prisoner of war.
After we were flown back to London from Brussells I was passed medically fit again to fly and after 21 days leave I joined [undecipherable] D.F.C. crew to finish the war
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The last flight of Lancaster DV396(B)
Description
An account of the resource
Derrick Allen's account of being shot down 2/3 November 1944. After a successful attack on Dusseldorf, the Lancaster was severely damaged by a night fighter. Goes on to describe battle with FW 190 and and order to abandon aircraft. Before bailing out Derrick Allen goes to the rear to free rear gunner from jammed turret. Aircraft explodes and he finds himself on parachute in tree. Describes meeting rest of crew, learning that pilot and rear gunner have been killed. Remarks that taking spare bod rear gunner, who had never flown with crew before was considered bad luck.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Derrck J Allen
Format
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One typewritten page
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SAllenDJ1880966v10003
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
1944-11-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
467 Squadron
bale out
crash
Fw 190
Lancaster
shot down
superstition
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2355/SAllenDJ1880966v10009.2.jpg
7603d87ec90a390e938221bd6286ebe3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Allen, DJ
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Recognition of which recommended: C.G.M.
Appointment held: Air Gunner
Particulars of meritorious service for which recommendation is made:-
SGT. ALLEN was the mid-upper gunner of an aircraft detailed to attack DUSSELDORF on the night of the 2nd November 1944. Shortly after leaving the target his aircraft was attached by an enemy night fighter. SGT. ALLEN opened fire, damaging the enemy aircraft, but the enemy continued to close in and shot away more than half of the port fin and rudder as well as damaging the fuselage and control trims. As a result, the captain had great difficulty in controlling the aircraft. Some minutes later, the enemy fighter again attached the damaged bomber. SGT. ALLEN again opened fire, but the enemy fighter set fire to the port outer engine, and again hit the fuselage. The captain attempted to extinguish the fire in the flaming engine without avail. The aircraft lost height in an uncontrolled dive, and the captain ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft. The rear gunner however, was unable to open his doors, so SGT. ALLEN immediately went to the assistance of the rear gunner, and chopped away at the doors with an axe. The aircraft was blazing and rapidly losing height, but SGT. ALLEN gallantly continued to work freeing the rear gunner. In desperate circumstances SGT. ALLEN succeeded in freeing the rear gunner from his turret and moved forward to bale out. At this moment the aircraft broke in two, and SGT. ALLEN found himself in mid air, he immediately pulled his rip cord and very soon after landed. In this gallant and devotion to duty beyond praise and in keeping with the highest traditions of the Royal Air Force. In recognition of his outstanding heroism and extreme devotion to duty, I recommend that SGT. ALLEN receive an immediate award of the C.G.M.
Date: January 14th 1945.
[signed] D W F Bonham-Carter [/signed]
Group Captain, Commanding,
R.A.F. Station, Waddington
I consider the heroism and devotion to duty displayed by Sgt. Allen on this occasion to beyond praise. A fact not made clear in the citation is that the Captain ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft when it was at 17,000 feet. Four members of the crew left safely at this stage and Sgt. Allen might easily have done the same, but he continued his efforts to free the rear gunner until the aircraft broke up at about 2,000 feet. The three remaining occupants were thrown clear, but the pilot’s and rear gunner’s parachutes were not used and they were killed. By his determination to aid the rear gunner, Sgt. Allen almost forfeited his own life, and I do most strongly recommend that he be awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal (Flying).
Date:- 19th January, 1945.
[signed] A Hesketh [/signed]
Air Commodore, Commanding,
[under lined] No. 53 Base, Waddington. [/underlined]
[handwritten] I strongly recommend the Immediate Award of the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. [/handwritten]
Date:- [underlined] 22 Jan 45 [/underlined]
[signed] H A Constantine [/signed]
Air Vice Marshal, Commanding,
[under lined] No. 5 Group, Royal Air Force
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
Derrick Allen citation for Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
Description
An account of the resource
Account of night 2 November 1944. Sergeant Allen's Lancaster was attacked by night fighter after successful attack on Dusseldorf. Allen opened fire twice and damaged fighter but the Lancaster was badly damaged. Whilst Lancaster was in uncontrolled dive Allen went to the rear and in desperate circumstances released the rear gunner from jammed turret with an axe. The aircraft broke in two he successfully parachuted. Signed by station commander, base 53 commander and air officer commanding 5 group.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-01
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SAllenDJ1880966v10009
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
Germany
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-01
1944-11-02
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Angus Bustin
Format
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One-page typewritten document mounted on an album page
5 Group
bale out
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
RAF Waddington
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2357/SAllenDJ1880966v10011.1.jpg
3462862ec2a6819c883d442e7d95d86e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. 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
Allen, DJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] POSTAGRAM [/underlined]
Originator’s Reference Number:-
BC/S.23191/P.
To: 1880966 Sergeant D.J. ALLEN,
No. 467 Squadron,
R.A.F. Station, WADDINGTON.
Date:-
26th January, 1945.
From: The Commander-in-Chief, Bomber Command.
My warmest congratulations on the award of your Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
A.T. Harris
[underlined] Air Chief Marshal. [/underlined]
[inserted Paper Cutting]
Mr. D. J. ALLEN, R.A.F., the second son of The Council Houses, Stilton, volunteered for the R.A.F. and has been passed for flying crews. His many friends wish him the best of luck.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
SERGT. AIR GUNNER DERRICK ALLEN, R.A.F., now stationed at Waddington, Lincoln, has the immediate award of the Conspicuous Galantry [sic] Medal. He is the second son of Mr. J. S. Allen, of the Council Houses, Stilton. This is his second promotion.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
The Engagement is announced between Lavinia, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. Colbert, Ermine Lodge, Stilton, and Flt./Sergt. D. J. Allen, C.G.M., second son of the Late Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Allen, Stilton.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
COMING-OF-AGE
ALLEN. – Congratulations and best wishes to Derrick on attaining his majority, October 13th 1945. - Love, Lavinia.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
Gallantry in Blazing Plane.
Rescued Trapped Comrade
Local Airman Awarded C.G.M.
THIS is what happened to Sgt. Derrick J. Allen, R.A.F.V.R., 467 (R.A.A.F.) Squadron, of Peterborough, one night last November when he was mid-upper gunner aboard a bomber which attacked Dusseldorf.
During the operation the aircraft was attacked by a fighter and was hit by bursts of machine-gun fire. A second attack followed and again the aircraft was hit, the port outer engine catching fire. All efforts to extinguish the flames were unavailing and the machine dived out of control. The captain ordered his crew to “abandon aircraft.” but the rear gunner was unable to open his turret doors. Completely disregarding his own safety, Sgt. Allen promptly went to then assistance of his comrade. The aircraft was on fire and falling rapidly, nevertheless, Sgt. Allen hacked away with an axe at the turret doors and finally succeeded in freeing the rear gunner.
Just as Sgt. Allen got ready to jump the aircraft broke in two. He fell clear, pulled the rip-cord of his parachute and descended safely.
CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY MEDAL.
The full story of this exploit is told for the first time this week in an Air Ministry communication which reveals that Sgt. Allen has now been awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Metal. The citation describes him as a gallant airman who, in the face of extreme danger, displayed conduct in keeping with the best traditions of the Royal Air Force.
Sgt. Allen was born in 1924 at Peterborough and before enlisting in 1943 was a carpenter.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
Mid-Air Rescue In Blazing Plane
AN R.A.F.V.R. sergeant who freed a comrade trapped in the rear-gunner’s turret while their blazing aircraft was falling rapidly and jumped to safety just as the plane broke in two, has been awarded the conspicuous gallantry medal. He is Sergeant Derrick John Allen, whose home is near Peterborough.
Allen was the mid-upper gunner in an aircraft detailed to attach Dusseldorf. The plane was struck by a burst of machine-gun fire from an enemy aircraft and one of the engines caught fire.
The crew struggled to put out the flames but the plane lost height and dived out of control. As the position had become hopeless, the captain ordered his crew to abandon the aircraft.
The rear gunner was unable to open his turret doors and Allen, ignored the danger, hacked away at the doors with an axe and freed the gunner. Just as Allen got ready to jump, the plane broke in two, but he managed to make a safe descent.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
Plane On Fire, Saved Comrade
Award to Gunner
An R.A.F.V.R. sergeant who freed a comrade trapped in the rear-gunner’s turret while their blazing was falling rapidly and jumped to safety just as the plane broke in two has been awarded the Conspicuous Galantry [sic] Medal. He is Sgt. Derrick John Allen, whose home is near Peterborough.
Allen was the mid-upper gunner in an aircraft detailed to attack Dusseldorf. The plane was struck by a burst of machine-gun fire from an enemy aircraft and one of the engines caught fire.
The crew struggled to put out the flames, but the plane lost height and dived out of control. As the position had become hopeless, the captain ordered his crew to abandon the aircraft.
The rear-gunner was unable to open his turret doors and Allen, ignored the danger, hacked away at the turret doors with an axe and freed the gunner. Just as Allen got ready to jump, the plane broke in two, but he managed to make a safe descent.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
CITY AIRMAN’S C.G.M.
Sgt. Derrick J. Allen, R.A.F.V.R, of No. 467 (R.A.A.F.) Squadron, a former Peterborough carpenter, has been awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
He stayed behind in a blazing bomber to free a trapped comrade, and was still in the aircraft when it broke in two. He fell clear and landed by parachute. He fell clear and landed by parachute. He was mid-upper gunner aboard a bomber which attacked Dusseldorf one night in November, when the plane was attacked by an enemy fighter and set on fire.
With complete disregard for his own safety, Sgt. Allen promptly went to the assistance of a comrade. “The aircraft was now on fire and falling rapidly”, says the official report. “Nevertheless, this gallant airman hacked away at the turret doors with an axe and finally succeeded in freeing his comrade. Just as Sgt. Allen got ready to jump, the aircraft broke in two. He fell clear, however, pulled the rip cord of his parachute and descended safely. In the face of extreme danger this airman displayed conduct in keeping with the best traditions of the Royal Air Force.”
Sgt. Allen was born at Peterborough in 1924, and now lives in the district. He enlisted in the R.A.F. in 1943.
[inserted Paper Cutting]
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal (Flying)
Sgt. D. J. ALLEN, R.A.F.V.R. No. 467 (R.A.A.F.) Sqn. – This airman was the mid-upper gunner in an aircraft detailed to attack Dusseldorf one night in November, 1944. During the operation the aircraft was attacked by a fighter. Sgt. Allen opened fire, but the enemy aircraft closed in and the bomber was struck by a burst of machine gun fire which caused much damage. A second attack followed and again the aircraft was hit. The port outer engine caught fire. All efforts to extinguish the flames were unavailing. Later, the aircraft lost height and then dived out of control. The position became hopeless and the captain ordered his crew to abandon aircraft. The rear gunner was unable to open his turret doors and was trapped. With complete disregard for his own safety, Sgt. Allen promptly went to the assistance of his comrade. The aircraft was now on fire and falling rapidly. Nevertheless, this gallant airman hacked away at the turret doors with an axe and finally succeeded in freeing his comrade. Just as Sgt. Allen got ready to jump, the aircraft broke in two. He fell clear, however, pulled the rip cord of his parachute and descended safely. In the face of extreme danger this airman displaying conduct in keeping with the best traditions of the Royal Air Force.
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Title
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Accounts of actions leading to award of Conspicuous Gallantry medal and other congratulatory material
Description
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At the top a postagram congratulating Derrick Allen on his award of Conspicuous Gallantry Medal signed A T Harris. Six newspaper cuttings giving various accounts of actions in releasing rear gunner from jammed turret while Lancaster dives out of control. One cutting noting that Derrick Allen volunteered for the RAF and has been accepted for aircrew; another congratulating him on gaining his majority; a further cutting announces his engagement.
Date
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1945-01-26
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One telegram and nine newspaper cuttings mounted on an album page
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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SAllenDJ1880966v10011
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Temporal Coverage
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1945
1944-11-02
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Peterborough
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Steve Baldwin
467 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
crash
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
shot down
-
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Title
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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.
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Green, LW
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Title
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Interview with Langford William Green
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2016-04-28
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Julie Williams
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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01:23:26 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGreenLW160428
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Langford "Joe" Green was born in Wales but moved to Marlow, Buckinghamshire with his family when he was still a child. He worked in a factory from the age of 14 until he joined the Royal Air Force. After training he flew operations as an air gunner with 218 Squadron RAF Chedburgh. On a cross country training exercise, his aircraft suffered engine failure and the crew were told to bale out. Only the bomb aimer managed to exit the aircraft and the pilot landed with the rest of the crew on board. He also discusses the corkscrew manoeuvre.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Suffolk
Germany--Dresden
Germany
Temporal Coverage
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1945
Requires
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CB: Right. My name is Chris Brockbank and today we’re in Marlow and the date is the 28th of April 2016. We’re interviewing Langford Green known as Joe and we’re going to talk about his experiences as a wireless operator/air gunner particularly in 218 squadron. So, Joe, what was the earliest recollection you had of life and what did your parents do?
LJG: Well, we were poor. I remember that. It was just an ordinary life really. Yeah. I mean I had two brothers and a sister older than me and we lived in Wales and then when the job finished when I was four I think, we moved to Marlow. My father was working in [?] in Pontypridd working and the job was finishing so he got on his pushbike, cycled all the way to Marlow because I had an uncle living here on, he was a signalman on Great Western Railway and he put my father up for the night. He got a job and a house and cycled back again and we came back on the train ‘cause dad was only allowed one ticket a year. The posh people on the railway could get have than one but because he was a labourer we only had the one. And we moved to Marlow in 1927. I went to school at the Church of England school. Infant school in Oxford Road and then the big school and at fourteen I left school. Went to work in High Wycombe in a factory. Just an ordinary, everyday, like everyone else did. There wasn’t, there was very little employment in Marlow. I mean we had a brewery. And we had a few independent builders but they only employed a few people. They didn’t do many apprenticeships so my father got me a job as an apprentice in to marquetry and then of course in ‘39 the war started so that was the end of my working career. The war started when I was just over sixteen you see. The company went on to war work. They were doing the parts for aeroplanes I think. They were doing big bases anyway so and then I got fed up with that. I got away with it and joined the air force. Another experience.
CB: Why did you join the RAF and not the other?
LG: Well I thought it was the best one to do. I wanted to fly actually but I’m afraid my education wasn’t good enough to be a pilot or a navigator or anything like that but I went to Wycombe to try and join up and they said you’ve to go to Reading. I’d never been to Reading in my life. Didn’t even know how to get there. Then luckily I the sergeant who looked after, the police sergeant who looked after me when we was couriers he said, ‘Well get on a bus to Reading and ask the conductor where Broad Street is,’ and that’s where I went. I joined up that particular day. I had all my checks, exams and I come away with the kings shilling and I’d signed up for the air force as an air gunner. They said go home and we’ll send you a letter or a telegram to tell you where to go and that happened about two or three days later and there again I got this telegram report to Lords Cricket Ground. I mean I’d heard Lords Cricket Ground on the wireless but I didn’t, had no idea where it was. Hadn’t got the faintest. So back I went to see my police sergeant. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘No problem Joe,’ he said, ‘Get on the train at Marlow, you get off at Paddington and you’ll find a big red sign that says RTO, Rail Transport Officer. Go and ask him and he’ll tell you exactly how to get there. In fact,’ he said, ‘He might even send someone with you.’ So goes to Paddington, saw this officer and he put a squaddie with me. He said, ‘Take this gentleman down, show him how to get on, which train to get on to and where to get off.’ I finished up at Swiss Cottage which was the station nearest to Lords and I was there for about three weeks having all the injections, got my uniform. I lived in one of those big flats just outside Lords Cricket Ground. We had a room about three times the size of this, two of us. Lap of luxury. I thought this is great [laughs] but it soon changed. Yeah. Yeah I was there in London for about three weeks. Yes. Quite enjoyable. And then we were put on a train at Euston to Brignorth to have initial training. Then I, I was there for like five or six weeks I suppose. Waiting to come home and they said you’ll get a telegram report to gunnery school and there again had the same problem. You’ve got to go to Northern Ireland. How do I get to Northern Ireland? So when I got up to, I got the travel warrant. I went and saw this officer again. He said, ‘Oh that’s no problem. Euston station,’ he said, ‘And the train will be there.’ he said, ‘It takes you to Stranraer so you see, goes to Glasgow first and then goes back again,’ and off I went. Quite enjoyable it was too. I was a bit frightened at first. It was a long way away from home. Of course it wasn’t all that exciting but you do whatever they ask you, muck in and make the best of it. I quite enjoyed it in the end. I was there a few weeks and then I qualified, got my three stripes and my wing, came home and got another telegram to report to OTU at Peplow. That was a great bit that because you get there and you’ve got masses of people walking about. Pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless ops, air gunners trying to, joined up to make a crew. They weren’t getting at you, just try and find yourself people you like. I, I met one of the air gunners that I trained with in Northern Ireland. We walked around together and finished up with the crew that we got. It was great. Found it a bit strange because the navigator was a pilot officer. All the rest were sergeants. The pilot, skipper Alfie Kemp was a sergeant, the bomb aimer was a sergeant but Dickie. Dickie Ball, the navigator, was a flying officer, a pilot officer but we got on well. He was alright. And as I say we done our training there and we were posted to Sandtoft to convert from Wellingtons. Twin engines in to four engines. We started on Halifaxes actually. They were, you know, clapped out old planes that weren’t fit for service but were good enough for training but as I say we did have one hair raising experience if you want to hear about that. We were doing a cross county on a Halifax and we were diverted because of fog. It really was, really foggy and we were diverted to Stradishall, or Mildenhall, I can’t remember, and we were losing height. Two engines. One engine had gone and then another engine went and we got on to traffic control and said put it in [George] head for the North Sea and bale out. Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a Halifax, there is an escape hatch in the front by the, between the, in front of the pilot, behind the bomb aimer and of course everything in the air force is done in routine. Bomb aimer goes out first cause he’s in the front and he goes out first and he goes head first, and the navigator goes out but unfortunately to get open this hatch you have to lift up the navigators seat ‘cause he’s facing crossways and Dicky Ball goes out feet first but his harness catches on the seat so there he is hanging outside on his harness and the door shut and of course luckily the skipper called us up the two gunners have an escape hatch at the back. He says, ‘Don’t go. We’ve got a problem.’ So we managed to get Dickie back in alright and by that time we were down less than a thousand feet which is far too low to bailout and with a bit of luck we saw a Lancaster with the wheels down so we followed him in. Got told off mind you but we got down on the ground safe and sound but the bomb aimer was in the police station at Peterborough [laughs] trying to convince them that he wasn’t a spy, he’d baled out. ‘Where’s the rest of them?’ ‘Don’t know,’ he said. Quite exciting isn’t it? But there again we got through it. And then we converted on to Lancs which was a blessing as far as I was concerned ‘cause I didn’t like the Halifax at all. I didn’t like a Lanc with the radial engines but I did like the Lanc. Yeah. It was such a beautiful aeroplane to be in. It flew like a fighter, like a fighter plane. We enjoyed it. And we gradually graduated. We were posted to 218 squadron which had moved from Downham Market to Methwold and when we got there they had moved to Chedburgh and that was where we spent the rest of our, the war. I’d done my first op. Munchen Gladbach I think, 1st of May, 1st of February 1945. Done a few more till the war finished. We were a distinctive squadron because we were one of the first squadrons to do Operation Manna. That was on the 29th April. The week before the war was officially finished. Dropping food on Holland. That was quite cheering. The war was still on officially. The High Command gave us permission to fly. We had to fly a direct route. They told us which way to come in and I think it was Rotterdam the first one. We’d done quite a few. Three I think because we were due to go on leave but because of this we, it was postponed and so we did have our leave in the end. They call it a week’s leave but you travel on a Thursday and go back on a Wednesday which is seven days really but it’s only five days at home isn’t it? Even from Bury St Edmunds it was a long, a long day to get there, get home to Marlow. Get in to London, across to Paddington and hopefully you’d get a faster train but that wasn’t always the case and when we went back off leave we done what was called Operation Exodus bringing POWs back. Twenty four in the base of a Lanc, Sat on the floor with their legs apart. Two rows of twelve. Yeah. And that’s where I finished my flying career. Chedburgh.
CB: What did you do after the war? When were you demobbed?
LJG: 1947. May 1947
CB: So what did you do?
LJG: Pardon?
CB: Between, what did you do between the end of hostilities and being demobbed?
LJG: We were given an option what we could train and I decided I’d be a storekeeper. Nice quiet job. So I went to Blackpool. Done about a three month course I suppose and graduated from that I suppose they call it and went home and said report to North Weald and I flew out to Singapore via Karachi and I spent the rest of my service career in Singapore. RAF Seletar till May the 9th. I got home and was demobbed. Went to Blackpool to be demobbed. Yeah. Great.
CB: Then what?
LJG: Well then I had a job to settle down. It’s such a different world, you know, coming back in to the real world. You had everything done for you in the air force. In Singapore I was a flight sergeant then. Got reasonably well paid. Everything found. Come home. Tried to find a job anything like it but couldn’t you know. Eight or nine pound a week was a lot you could get. Then you had to travel to get it. I had loads of jobs but none of them, I went into Parker Knolls in Wycombe being a store keeper but it didn’t last long. I used to cycle to Slough and I got a job in [Citroen?] cars being a storekeeper there and I moved from there into repair work in the factory all the small [?] I used to have. Used to repair them. Odd jobs. Then 1960 and I was getting fed up with it anyway. It was a long cycle ride and it was, the bus fare took a lot out of the pay packet. So my wife was working at [Broomways?] in High Wycombe then when it was a big factory and she said there’s plenty of jobs going over there. Go and try and get a job there which I did and I was there sixteen, seventeen years. Then I found I was getting on in years and I worked in a heavy division in [Broomway?] big compressors. Twenty six, twenty seven inch pistons. Had a job to lift them in and I got a job, oh I went to a company in Cressex called [?] Spark as a fitter, a general fitter but I was only there three years and it was taken over by an American company and most of them were made redundant. Fortunately, my luck was with me again. My brother was a union man. He got me a job at Harrison’s which used to be the sand factory in Wycombe and that’s where I stayed until I retired in 1948. Yeah. And that is my career as such and since then I’ve done nothing really exciting.
CB: So what age did you retire?
LJG: 65.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: So not 1948.
LJG: Hmmn?
CB: Not 1948.
LJG: [laughs] No, 1988 sorry.
CB: ‘88.
LJG: Yeah sorry I apologise. Yeah 1988.
CB: Ok. What was your most memorable experience of flying in the war?
LJG: [laughs] well the most frightening was Dresden I think. It was such a long way. It was over nine hours and when you think flying don’t start until the wheels are off the ground. When the skipper says, ‘Undercarriage up.’ That’s when you start flying. That’s when the time starts but you could have been in the plane a half an hour. I mean you get in, make sure everything alright, taxi around, you could, that could take you ten minutes and the same coming back you know as soon as the navigator feels the wheels hit the ground then you stop flying but you’ve got a long way to go back to dispersal and sort things out.
CB: Right.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: So what was frightening about Dresden?
LJG: Well I think it was just tiredness you know and –
CB: What do you remember about the raid itself?
LJG: Well, that was, that seemed to be quite easy but we did have a scare. I suppose you know that the actions of a pilot if you’re attacked by a fighter is dive and corkscrew.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Right. Well, George, the rear gunner thought he saw a Messerschmitt so he said dive port so down we go but nobody’s ready for it you know so all the papers the navigator’s got – all over the place. And he brought us back by the stars which was great but other than that we had quite an uneventful, just a job really. Just get in, go over there, drop the bombs, and come home again, you know. Go and have a drink.
CB: On how many occasions did you shoot at another aircraft?
LJG: Never. I never fired my guns once.
CB: Why was that?
LJG: No need. We only have to defend. Not to attack. Try to get out of trouble if you could rather than look in to it you know.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: My skipper was married and he wanted to get home to his wife [laughs]. No chances. No.
CB: No.
LJG: No it really was –
CB: Did you get attacked and hit on any occasion?
LJG: We did have one which only affected me. I suppose other people will tell you towards the end of the war the Germans didn’t attack individual aircraft they had a barrage of anti-aircraft guns and they decided to lose, let the bullets explode at a certain height so you had to go through it. That’s why we staggered at different bombing heights. Halifaxes went in lower because they couldn’t manage the height and we went in higher but they’d alternate it. Hopefully we could get away with it you know and that and so the explosion on hitting you, an explosion at a certain height. Well I had one. An 88 and through the fuselage at the floor, between my legs, between the guns, out the top and never went off.
CB: Oh a complete shell.
LJG: A complete shell.
CB: Yeah. And how did you know it was an 88?
LJG: By the size of the hole.
CB: Right.
LJG: Well that’s what, I’m only going with what the ground staff said.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. So this is the flak box -
LJG: Yeah. Oh yeah.
CB: That you’re talking about.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: And their detonation is based on a time.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: At height.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: To hit the height. Yeah. So it went wrong.
LJG: Yeah I mean when you get a raid of six or seven hundred aeroplanes you probably have four or five different heights. The first one would go in at say twenty thousand feet. The next hundred would go in at eighteen thousand feet and I think we were one of the lucky ones. It went straight through and out the other end.
CB: Did the, you were in the dark so it’s difficult to see but could you see effectively when you were approaching a flak box?
LJG: No. No. Only if it was I mean because me as mid upper I was always circulating.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: You know. George the rear gunner done ahead and below. Not so much above because he had a job to see above so I had the bits above and then I could, sometimes you could see it but often or not it was below you.
CB: Did you ever get attacked by a fighter from underneath?
LJG: No. No this one that George saw coming back from Dresden it was way up, you know. And he seemed to think it was coming towards us and then it veered away but we got away with it.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Unfortunately a lot of them didn’t but we did.
CB: Yeah. And as a crew how did you get on?
LJG: Great. We had a great time ‘cause funnily enough George, the rear gunner, lived at Clare and if you know that area at all in Suffolk Clare’s only about seven miles from Chedburgh.
CB: Right.
LJG: And the skipper had an old Austin 7.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: And the bomb aimer, the er flight engineer didn’t drink. He’d have a half a shandy last him all night. So he would buy his half a shandy, sit in the mess near the phone and near the phone was where battle orders went up the following day for the following either morning or night so we was off, we’d go down to Clare. Six of us in an Austin Ruby. If the weather was bad you stood on the running board if it was foggy and go down to George’s local and then when battle orders went up if we were on Don would give us, give us a ring. We’d say we’ll be in The Globe tonight or be in The Cock in Clare so he’d ring up, ‘Oh you’re not on tonight,’ so we’d stay there till one or 2 o’clock in the morning but we did get caught out once. I can’t think where it was we were going but it was we had a phone call at 7 o’clock to say, ‘You’re not on, there’s a raid, a daylight raid, take-off is at 6 o’clock but you’re not on it, we’re not on it.’ He rings up at 11 o’clock to say, ‘We are on it,’ so we had to get back, try and have a shower, sober yourself up and do a trip at about 6 o’clock the following morning. But that was life you know.
CB: When the battle orders went up how did the briefing work?
LJG: Hmmn?
CB: When the battle orders went up how did your briefing work?
LJG: Well -
CB: Because some of the crew were briefed differently -
LJG: Yeah.
CB: From the others. So how did that work?
LJG: Oh you were woken up by one of the people on guard, you signed a book to say you had, you’d been woken up. You had your breakfast. Then go to briefing. Then you get dressed afterwards. I mean the, it was only the two gunners really that had to get dressed as such. We wore a kapok suit with electric wires down it, and slippers with electric wires in it and gloves, the same. All connected up in your boots and, but the others they just wore the uniform.
CB: So the, how did the electric system work? You plugged it in how? ‘Cause you’re the mid upper. How did you plug that in?
LJG: Well each engine done something. I can’t remember which one was which.
CB: Right.
LJG: One done the electrics. One done the hydraulics but it was great because it wasn’t very comfortable in the mid upper turret. It wasn’t a very big comfortable seat. I mean George was alright in the rear turret. He had quite a cushy, and all this but my seat it reminded me of a child’s swing and that’s about what it was. A piece about so big. Fifteen by eighteen by six padded and you dropped it down off the hook to get in and you stood up and you hooked it back up again and got on it but it wasn’t very comfortable. Especially a trip like Dresden. Nine hours or something. No. But there we go. We got it.
CB: Just going back to the briefing. The pilot and the navigator would be briefed together would they? And how -
LJG: We’d all be briefed together.
CB: All briefed together.
LJG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
LJG: Well in my day anyway.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: So you come out, you go into a large room.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Where the initial briefing is carried out. Is that right?
LJG: Yeah. The -
CB: All the crews go in.
LJG: At the end of the hall it would be a big map.
CB: Right.
LJG: With the route.
CB: The route marked on it.
LJG: The route from Chedburgh to where we’re going to bomb.
CB: Right.
LJG: And then, I mean the squadron commander which in my case was warrant officer er Wing Commander Smith. He would tell you which way you were going and which way you were coming back and he’d ask then for questions from experienced pilots that was it, was anything going to be made better or easier. All we do is get there. I mean some places flak was quite heavy. Some it was quite light you know so it was, and then of course the weather man would get up and have a chat but he was never very good [laughs]. Our weather was more predictable from George’s parents. They had a small holding in Clare and he would tell you, you know what it was going to be tomorrow. Over here anyway and he was never wrong but sometimes the weather man got it wrong but you just accepted it didn’t you?
CB: What sort of mistakes would he make?
LJG: Well I mean he would tell you you were going to have clear skies and no cloud at all and when you got there you couldn’t see a thing but of course you must remember that in ‘45 a lot of bombing was done on flares and bombs with colours.
CB: Markers. The markers.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
LJG: So it didn’t really matter much about the weather being bad. You could, you could see a yellow marker at twenty thousand feet even if it was foggy you know so you had a good idea and of course towards the middle of April, February, March and April H2S was coming in which was another godsend. That was the, helpful for the bomb aimer wasn’t it? Yeah.
CB: Ok. Now you said you did three sorties in Operation Manna which was supplying food to the Dutch civilians. Yeah.
LJG: That’s right.
CB: Because they were starving.
LJG: I’m sure -
CB: So what, what how did that work? Initially, as you said there was no agreement with the Germans so how did it work over here? In other words what was the briefing for that because there was no agreement?
LJG: Well the, it was packed in sacks in the bomb bay and we were given a special route and a height and a speed so, we, it was quite an easy route really. I think the first one -
CB: I wonder, I wonder what you expected because if the Germans hadn’t given the ok at that point what was the crew’s reaction to the lack of authority to do it?
LJG: Well, they were, I think most of them were concerned because as I say never trust a German anyway but I think one or two did shoot at us but it never affected us. No. But we were only at about five hundred feet I think or probably a bit lower. It was quite low and I know the Lanc is quite good but it wasn’t designed for low level bombing. I mean, I know they done the Dambusters but that was exceptional. You couldn’t do that all the time.
CB: No.
LJG: I don’t think. They were really a high level bombing aircraft. Yeah.
CB: Now. What sort of height were you dropping?
LJG: Where?
CB: When you were dropping the food.
LJG: Manna. Manna.
CB: Manna. What sort of height were you flying?
LJG: Anything under five hundred feet.
CB: And do you know what speed you were flying at?
LJG: Speed?
CB: Ahum.
LJG: Just above stalling speed. About a hundred miles an hour.
CB: Oh really.
LJG: Yeah. Well we weren’t sure whether, what damage we could do ‘cause most of it was loose stuff you know. Flour and things like that. Potatoes. I think there was some canned stuff but they were concerned about it. Yeah. That was my first one. May the, April 29th I’m sure it was.
CB: So you did three of those? To different places were they or -
LJG: Yeah.
CB: The same place?
LJG: Yeah well I have got them down here somewhere. Here we are. Two to The Hague and one to Rotterdam. The first one was Rotterdam. It’s only just over three hours there and back.
CB: Ok. Now you then talked about Exodus which was the repatriation of prisoners of war.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Where did you pick those prisoners up?
LJG: Juvincourt.
CB: Where’s that?
LJG: In France.
CB: Right.
LJG: That’s the only airport or aerodrome capable of taking the Lanc.
CB: Whereabouts is that in France?
LJG: I’ve no idea. No idea.
CB: No.
LJG: But I’m sure it was Juvincourt.
[pause]
CB: I’ll just stop the tape a mo and we can take a look.
[machine paused]
CB: Right.
LJG: Westcott.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Dunsfold.
CB: Yeah. So can we just, go over that? When you were doing the Exodus you you flew each time into Juvincourt.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: In France.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: And then you flew where? What were the places you flew to?
LJG: That was it.
CB: So -
LJG: Tangmere was the first one.
CB: Ok.
LJG: Ford.
CB: Which was -
LJG: On the south coast.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: As well, well they were all on the south coast weren’t they? Ford was the third one. Westcott was the fourth one.
CB: Near Aylesbury.
LJG: Dunsfold.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: And Oakley.
CB: Yeah. Ok. North of Oxford. Yes.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: And how many, how many prisoners were they and what type of prisoners did you take each time?
LJG: Well they were all in fairly good condition. Well they had to be, you know, fit. Really. Well not really fit but they had to be reasonable to take the flight you know.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: We didn’t have oxygen masks for everybody so we had to keep under eight thousand feet anyway so we used to come back at about three or four thousand feet.
CB: Would there be several aircraft together doing that or –
LJG: Pardon?
CB: Would you be with several other aircraft?
LJG: Oh yeah.
CB: At the same time.
LJG: Yeah there would be -
CB: So you’d fly a stream would you?
LJG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
LJG: Quiet a stream of them actually. You had to be careful though because they were so keen, these POWs, to get home which was understandable and they used to wander about a bit and you know you can wander about too far in a Lancaster because we didn’t stop the engines.
CB: Right.
LJG: They were just ticking over but you could walk in to the prop and not know it you know and because it was my responsibility as, because I was the last one in you know.
CB: So what was your responsibility in that case?
LJG: Well, yeah.
CB: Was it, you’re responsible for loading up?
LJG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Ok. How many in the aircraft?
LJG: Twenty four.
CB: Ok.
LJG: Two rows of twelve
CB: Yeah. Just sitting on what?
LJG: They sat on the floor, legs apart so they got two rows together. Yeah.
CB: And how long were the flights?
LJG: Well -
CB: Roughly.
LJG: An hour and a half.
CB: Right. Ok.
LJG: Two hours.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Nothing much. That was getting there and coming back was that much.
CB: So when you got in did you get up in to your turret or where did you go?
LJG: I was stood by the door.
CB: Right.
LJG: You know, to stop them, to stop them well walking about really. Had to be there. An aeroplane can be dangerous.
CB: LJG: Yeah.
So, yeah Ford and Tangmere. Tangmere was four hours there and back. Well from base to Juvincourt
CB: So the engines were running and you just, they climbed in while you were stationery.
LJG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: With the engines running.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: I was the only one that got out.
CB: Were there any cases of accidents in that?
LJG: Not to my knowledge. No. No.
CB: Right.
LJG: As I say all the rest of the crew just stayed where they were you know. The marshall who was organising it used to bring them over in twenty fours and hand them over to me, you know.
CB: Right. Ok. We’ll stop there for a bit.
[machine pause]
CB: Right my witness today is Vic Truesdale and I’m just going to ask him whether he has any questions to put to Joe. Vic -
VT: I was just wondering what it was like, what difference there might have been for you between the daylight raids and the night time raids? I mean was it very routine and just the same more or less or -
LJG: Well I think we just took it in our stride you know. We looked on it mostly as a job. Yeah. A job that we wanted to do but I mean we were all volunteers and I didn’t mind daylights actually although we done as many nights as we did daylights although it was a daylight squadron. It was formed for that reason really. Well moved down to Suffolk because it had been all over the place hadn’t it? I think Woolford Lodge was a place it went to.
CB: Woolfox Lodge.
LJG: And -
CB: In Rutland.
LJG: Hmmn?
CB: Woolfox Lodge.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: In Rutland. Yeah.
LJG: Downham Market. They found Methwold a bit small I think.
CB: Did they?
LJG: Well even Chedburgh, I mean one of the runway was quite short really and it, you had to get really get back on the fence at the end of the runway to make sure you got off alright.
CB: Did you?
LJG: Yeah. There’s a lot weight. Especially if you’re going to the Ruhr. Happy Valley everybody called it. I mean probably have fourteen thousand pounds of bombs. A cookie. Four thousand pounder and ten one thousand pounders. I mean you couldn’t bring them back. You had to drop them somewhere. But I didn’t mind daylights actually.
VT: Forgive my ignorance but did you have an escort on the daylight raids?
LJG: No.
VT: No.
LJG: No. No. Only had each other.
VT: Yeah. And how much time you were actually up in the mid gun position when you were on a typical trip shall we say?
LJG: Well er-
VT: When did you go up and come down and things like that?
LJG: When did I get in?
VT: Yeah.
LJG: I was always the last one in the aeroplane. You got in an aeroplane in order. The bomb aimer went in first because his position was right in the front. Then the skipper. Then the flight engineer. Navigator. And wireless operator and he closed the bulkhead doors. That’s why they could wear their uniforms. That was the bit that was heated.
VT: Right.
LJG: Then George got in. Then I got in and then they would shut the door and take the ladder away but I always had to make sure the door was shut. Well I did anyway.
VT: The last one in.
LJG: And then you’d be sat in there and as I say well you’d be in there before the doors shut, the flight sergeant in charge of the aeroplane, to make sure it was alright had to sign the 600.
CB: Form 600.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: To say that everything was ok and the skipper was pleased with it and then, then you had to wait for permission to taxi although the engine was still going but they weren’t revving they were just ticking over. You were told to taxi around and the same coming back. I was always the first out then [laughs], it was, yeah.
CB: So when you were taxiing there would normally be a plane in front and another behind would there?
LJG: Oh yeah.
CB: And how long would it take to get from your dispersal to the end of the runway?
LJG: Well depends which runway you were using.
CB: Right, but on balance -
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Did you always park at the same place?
LJG: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: So -
LJG: Each aircraft had its own dispersal.
CB: Right.
LJG: You might not fly in the same aircraft as you can see by that it is R-Roger was our favourite but you had others as well and you took them back where you got them from. Then you’d wait then for the crew bus to take you back to debriefing.
CB: Afterwards.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Just quickly. That’s an interesting point. Why would one plane be more popular, your favourite, R-Roger than the others?
LJG: It was just one of those things I think. You know. You just felt, just felt good with it. I mean nobody like flying Q-Queenie and I don’t think it ever done a full op. There was always trouble with it but nobody could find out why. It was weird you know. You get used to an aeroplane. Plus we had it quite new anyway which was a blessing. R-Roger was very good. So -
VT: And would you like to say a bit more about the, I think you mentioned two targets including the mercy missions. Three or four targets. I just thought you might like to mention a few more.
LJG: I’m sorry I’ve got a problem with my hearing.
CB: Ok. Ok.
VT: Chris will relay -
CB: You did, when went on raids you went to different places so what were the targets that you hit? What are, what are the ones you’ve got there?
LJG: Oh yes.
[pause]
CB: Just looking in the logbook.
LJG: Yes.
[pause]
CB: That’s it.
LJG: As I said Munchen Gladbach was the first one.
CB: Yes.
LJG: That was a daylight. Then operation two was at Wiesbaden, a night drop. Operation three was Dortmund. That was a night drop. Then we done Dresden. Oh no we done one before. It was a daylight. [?]. Then we done Dresden which was nine and a half hours and the following night we done Chemnitz.
CB: Oh did you. Along the road.
LJG: That was nine hours.
CB: Nine hours as well.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Right. They were the two -
LJG: And then we done Dortmund. Another night one. Then we done Geilenkirchen. The next op we didn’t do because we got halfway there and we had engine trouble so we came back. Then the next one was a daylight to Dortmund on the sixth, in February. Datteln was another daylight raid. Geilenkirchen again. Dortmund again. Datteln again. Geilenkirchen again. [?] and that was the end of my bombing career. Oh no. Kirsburg and Kiel. Kiel was our last one. That was a day er a night trip.
CB: Kiel. Kiel was a major one at the end wasn’t it?
LJG: Yeah. Yeah that’s when they sunk the Gneisenau.
CB: Yeah. You mentioned Chemnitz. So that’s the same distance as going to -
LJG: Dresden.
CB: Dresden and they’re relatively close.
LJG: Well it’s in the same area.
CB: Exactly.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: So what was that one, how different was that from going to Dresden? Was it any different? Or -
LJG: No actually I think it was a better raid. We didn’t have any problems at all. Quite a nice raid actually. If you can call a bombing raid great.
CB: Well there were some experiences easier than others weren’t they?
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Why were some of the operations in daylight?
LJG: Well I think that’s what the war command wanted you know. I mean the Ruhr was very popular wasn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Yeah. I mean which was the -
CB: Major place.
LJG: Major -
CB: Of military production.
LJG: Yeah. Yeah. We stopped that.
CB: Ok.
LJG: Kiel was a nice one.
CB: Yeah. But when you were in your daylight raids were there many fighters around?
LJG: We never ever saw one.
CB: No.
LJG: No. It wasn’t until almost at the end of the war we did, we saw a 262.
CB: Jet yes.
LJG: That was, I think that was in April.
CB: That was in daylight.
LJG: In daylight.
CB: LJG: Yeah.
LJG: But he was going the other way.
CB: Oh.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: And did he, did you see him shoot at anybody?
LJG: No. No. He was, he was above us actually but he was quite a long way away. As a matter of fact I wasn’t sure what it was and then George said, ‘Well that’s a, funny,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know they had a twin engine,’ he said, ‘But they got no propellers on it.’ He said, ‘It’s weird.’ And when we got back we reported it, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘That’s a jet engine.’ But no.
CB: What were the levels of losses like in your time? What was the rate of loss of aircraft in your time?
LJG: Very good. Very good. In my, as I say we got there, we got there on January 1st actually but we didn’t start bombing until February the 1st and our last raid was in April. We had three losses I think. That was all.
CB: Right.
LJG: Yeah. Unfortunately, it was one that we’d done towards the end of the war experienced pilots and experienced crews which we were considered to be after we’d done a dozen ops or so if a new crew came onto the squadron we’d often take the pilot with us and we took this new pilot –
CB: Just the pilot.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Just to give them some experience you know and the following day we was on a daylight and we lost him.
CB: Oh.
LJG: That was his only op but we don’t know what happened to him ‘cause one minute he’s there, the next minute, ‘cause once you’re on the bombing run you’re interested in yourself, not anyone else and as I say my job is to scan the sky above us.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Or in front of us and when we got back he was reported missing. And we had one which was lucky in one respect. He had an engine cut out, port inner, course he veered over and he landed in a field between the WAAF quarters and the airmen’s mess. Well he crashed in a field but only the rear gunner got out.
CB: Oh.
LJG: When it blew up it shattered off the rear turret and he was found a few yards away. He had a lot of broken bones but he was still alive and I think he was still alive when I left the squadron but that’s the only two I can remember.
CB: Right.
[machine pause]
CB: Now we haven’t talked much about your wife so where did you meet your wife? Under what circumstances and when?
LJG: I walked her home from the pictures when I was on leave one day. But I didn’t see her then until after the war.
CB: Oh.
LJG: No. I had, well I don’t know, I had lots of girlfriends but I didn’t think it was wise, being in the job I was on, you know, survival rate was very bad wasn’t it? So I didn’t want to put her through -. It was after the war, one of the jobs I tried to do I worked for the War Graves Commission and she worked there in the office and we met from then, you know. That was in 1947 ‘48. I didn’t stay there long because although it was civil service it had lots of perks but didn’t have a very high salary.
CB: Now you mentioned very briefly about the police so when you left school then you worked in the daytime but you also did another job for the police. What was that?
LJG: Yeah. We was, well sort of couriers they were in case the phones broke down and they wanted to contact other people in the area we would cycle along with the messages.
CB: Right.
LJG: So we stayed in the police station two nights a week. There was quite a few of us.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: And we stayed there overnight in case. This was, well, the beginning of the war of course. Yeah. It was alright. Yeah.
CB: It gave you something to do that was useful.
LJG: Slept in the cells.
CB: I was just going to ask you that. Yeah.
LJG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Good. Just tell us about please about air gunnery. So when you were learning air gunnery how did that work? So from the beginning of being at Bishop’s Court what did you do. When you arrived, then what did you do?
LJG: Well our first training was with a twelve bore shotgun and -
CB: Yeah.
LJG: What do they call them?
VT: Clay -
CB: Clay pigeon.
LJG: Yeah. We had a few days of that and we had, I was very good at this, I could strip a Browning machine gun with my eyes shut and put it back together. Not everybody could do that and it was, I’d been there oh two or three weeks before we started flying you know and they flew, we had all Ansons to fly in, you know with a mid upper turret.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: And another aircraft would fly a drogue and there was usually four of us in there with, and we’d have a couple of hundred bullets all painted different colours so if you hit the drogue your colour would show up. Blue, yellow, greens and clear you’d all fire a couple of hundred rounds and come back, come back down again.
CB: Ok.
LJG: And they had, we also had cinecameras with, for fighter affiliation. Instead of -
CB: Ok.
LJG: Bullets you had a cinecamera.
CB: How did the fighter affiliation work? Who did what?
LJG: Well you had, you went into the turret with this special gun with adapted, with a film in it and it was usually an old Hurricane they had at Bishop’s Court attack you and you’d film it as if you were shooting it, you know.
CB: How did you get on with that?
LJG: Reasonable. It wasn’t until Peplow I think that I really got used to guns ‘cause we had Wellingtons there and George and I, the other gunner would take turns to be in the turret and then we had fighter affiliation, fighter affiliation there and I got better as the day went on, you know.
CB: In the fighter affiliation what exactly did the fighter do?
LJG: Well he would try and shoot you down. He would attack you as if he was going to shoot you down and you had to -
CB: So what angles would he come in at?
LJG: Hmmn?
CB: At what angles would he come in at?
LJG: All angles. All angles. Usually he’d try and get you in the sun but if you had a good skipper it didn’t matter but of course that was the most dangerous place isn’t it? In the sun.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: You don’t see them. Although we had sun, sun goggles you could put down it wasn’t the same.
CB: Did you have sun glasses or just sun goggles?
LJG: Well they were tinted goggles.
CB: Right.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Ok. Now when you’re flying as a gunner then you talked earlier about corkscrew which was getting the aircraft out of a jam, who would be calling the corkscrew normally?
LJG: Well, whichever gunner saw, saw something, you know.
CB: You said everybody was caught unawares by the rear gunner would they, would normally there would there be some kind of warning would they when it was far away?
LJG: Well -
CB: How would that work?
LJG: Well, it all depends on what you saw and when you saw it, you know. As I say we didn’t go looking for trouble. We tried to avoid it -
CB: Yeah.
LJG: If we could you know. I think that’s what George. I think he saw something and he wasn’t sure what it was and although he seemed to be going towards you from, but at an angle he decided he would corkscrew.
CB: Right.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: And how did the corkscrew work?
LJG: Well you turned in, you dived in to the direction that he was coming.
CB: Oh did you?
LJG: So if he was coming from the port quarter you would corkscrew port, roll, corkscrew starboard roll climb port climb starboard.
CB: Back on to where you were.
LJG: Back on to there. Hopefully you get back on the same course you know but we were fortunate we had a good navigator. He always got us there on time, always got us back on time.
VT: Did the Germans know that the corkscrew was a manoeuvre? A standard manoeuvre.
LJG: Oh yeah. Yeah. It was for a Lancaster. Yeah. I don’t know whether it would apply to a Halifax ‘cause they’re so different to fly. In fact my skipper reckoned the Lanc acted like a fighter pilot it was that easy to fly. Had lovely lines didn’t it?
CB: Brilliant. What was the combination of crew? Were they all British or –
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Where? Did you have a mixture?
LJG: Alfie Kemp was the skipper. He came from Bradford. Vic [Giles?] was the bomb aimer. He was an East Ender. Don Pryor was the flight engineer. He came from Peterborough. Dicky Ball, navigator. He came from Newton Abbott. Len Garnett, the wireless operator, he came from Leeds. I came from Marlow and George came from Clare. George Green, the rear gunner, came from Clare. As I say the six of us got on well. Well we got on alright with Don but he just –
CB: George Green did you say?
LJG: George Green. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: No relation [laughs].
CB: No. What was the engineer’s name?
LJG: Engineer?
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Donald Pryor.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Donald Pryor.
CB: Yeah. Ok. On the social side Joe the crew all gelled together very well professionally.
LJG: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
CB: And on the social side but one of the crew was an officer so -
LJG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: How did he fit in with all the sergeants?
LJG: Yeah. He fitted in quite well. Yeah. Well I think he realised he had to rough it like the rest of us if he wanted to get on. And he did. He was great. Dickie. Yeah.
CB: Were you all sergeants or flight sergeants or what were you?
LJG: We were all sergeants, the six of us, when we joined 218. Now Alfie got his flight sergeant [pause] Yes. When we joined Sandtoft Heavy Conversion Unit.
CB: Yeah he became -
LJG: He became a flight sergeant.
CB: A flight sergeant. That’s the pilot.
LJG: And he got his commission -
CB: Yeah. Oh.
LJG: Towards the end of the war. April I think or March. March I think.
CB: Ok. Now after the war Joe how did, did they crew keep in contact or what happened?
LJG: Richard, or Dickie as we always called him, we kept in touch for a few years. He was the best man at my wedding actually.
CB: Was he?
LJG: But in the end they all married and gone to different places. George moved to Lincoln, Vic moved to Ipswich. I don’t know what happened to the skipper. I think I’m the only one alive. It’s, it’s only Dickie, the navigator.
CB: Navigator.
LJG: I’m not sure of -
CB: Yeah. Ok.
LJG: But the skipper is gone.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: The bomb aimer is gone. The bomb aimer went quite young. The wireless op’s gone. Don’s gone, Don Pryor went when he was in his forties. George died last year.
CB: Right. Ok. What was the greatest achievement do you think when you were in the RAF? What made you feel really proud?
LJG: Just thinking that we won. Yeah. And being part of it. Yeah. I enjoyed it. I think I went in with the right attitude that it’s a job I wanted to do. I wanted to fly and I think that that was my achievement you know.
CB: How do you feel about the, not having the opportunity of shooting down anything?
LJG: Well, not really. No. I didn’t think it mattered. As long as we’d done what we had to do.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Which was get there, drop the bombs, come home again ready for the next lot. I don’t think it mattered. Chasing after them wouldn’t have made any difference. The risks were too great. I mean that was their job wasn’t it?
CB: Yeah.
LJG: We had, we had an aeroplane full of bombs and we were told to take it somewhere drop them.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: And that’s what we done.
CB: Your job was to defend the aircraft. Not to shoot down other -
LJG: Well yeah.
CB: Planes. Yeah.
LJG: Avoid it if possible. I mean if you shoot down a Messerschmitt you’ve only killed one man in an aeroplane. If a Messerschmitt shoots down a Lancaster he’s killed seven people. You know. I think the odds were too great to go looking after trouble.
CB: Yeah.
VT: Did some crew go and look for trouble?
LJG: Yeah.
VT: Yeah.
LJG: Oh yeah.
VT: Can you tell us a bit about that?
LJG: Well I mean it’s only hearsay.
VT: Alright. What’s the hearsay then?
LJG: That they would look for trouble.
VT: So what would they do?
LJG: If they saw an aeroplane which they thought was a German they’d go after it or fly in that direction but I mean it was too dangerous for the rest of the crew because we went in a stream. I mean we weren’t like the Yanks. The Yanks made a formed a squadron pattern here in England and they all went out together. We would form a stream on the way out -
VT: Right.
LJG: You wouldn’t catch up in an aeroplane until you got to Brighton. So we didn’t look for trouble. If you stayed where you were supposed to be -
VT: Yeah.
LJG: You would bomb at the height you were supposed to be and there was always the risk that if you were on the lower tier someone up above would drop one on you but that’s the risk you had to take and that was my job you know. If there was one above me, dead above me, I would tell the skipper, you know. ‘There’s a Lanc above us skipper.’ ‘Which way do you want to go?’ He’d decide. I would tell him where it was and he was the skipper. He was the governor. You done what you were told. You tell him what’s happening and he, he’d solve the problem. Either move port or move starboard you know. It depends on where the stream was and what position you were in the stream. I mean we weren’t wing tip to wing tip. I mean we could be a mile wide and gradually move in to the target as we got closer to it. I mean it was, you were an individual really although you were part of a stream.
VT: Yeah.
CB: How much of the time could you see other bombers?
LJG: Hmmn?
CB: How much of the time could you see other bombers?
LJG: At night. Never see one at all.
CB: Right.
LJG: Very very rare unless it was a good moon but of course in daylight you would see them quite a lot.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Because you could be, depends on where you are in the stream they could be all around you.
CB: So just as a, why was it that Bomber Command flew in a stream and not in formation?
LJG: I’ve no idea.
CB: I would suggest it’s because it’s impossible to fly and it’s dangerous to try and fly in formation.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: In the dark.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: So the bomber stream is simply everybody’s going the same way.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: But the danger is as you just said ‘cause you can’t see anybody else -
LJG: The secret of that was you had to be at the right place at the right time.
CB: Right.
LJG: I mean if we went to the Ruhr from Chedburgh it would be base, Reading, Brighton and across the channel from there and then the course would be variable depending on hot spots.
CB: Why did, why did, why did the bomber stream not go straight out across from Chedburgh across Holland?
LJG: Well -
CB: In to Germany.
LJG: There were hot spots that were heavily defended. Very heavily defended. Others not so heavily defended.
CB: With anti-aircraft guns.
LJG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
LJG: So we, they tried to pick the safest route for us and the same the way back so you if you all went the same way and turned at the same time everything would be in the right place and you, the chance of having a collision were remote but you had to do what you were told to do.
CB: Yeah. Now on the bombing run the aircraft has to be stabilised.
LJG: Yeah. Yeah. Two minutes.
CB: So how, two minutes before was it?
LJG: Two minutes yeah.
CB: And then how many minutes after bombs gone did you keep straight and level?
LJG: As soon as you could. Get back in to the stream.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: ‘Cause you had, you to had to hold on for a while to do the photoflash.
LJG: Do the photograph.
CB: Right.
LJG: Yeah. It was only a few seconds really. About fifteen, twenty seconds. As soon as the skipper said, ‘Bomb doors closed,’ that was the sign to get moving.
CB: Right.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: You mentioned earlier about H2S radar system. Was that used very much?
LJG: Well, it was, it was used more at night than it was at daylight. You only used it at daylight I think if the weather was bad but we did use it once or twice yeah and got quite good results apparently. I mean I don’t know. I’m not a technician. The briefers, debriefers would sort that out, you know.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Another question. You carried a bomb load of how much normally? What sort of weight of bombs?
LJG: Depends where you went. I mean the aircraft was only safe with a certain weight in it so the more petrol you had the less bombs you had. At Dresden I don’t think was only six or seven thousand. I don’t, I don’t really know about the bomb load but it was a long way.
CB: Right.
LJG: So you had, I think you had twenty two, fifty gallons of petrol so that means the bomb load is displaced but Happy Valley say, you’d have fourteen thousand, fifteen thousand pounds of bombs and less tanks.
CB: So you talked about the cookie so could you describe what was the cookie?
LJG: Pardon?
CB: CB: What was -
LJG: Cookie.
CB: A cookie. Can you describe it?
LJG: A four thousand pounder.
CB: Yeah well what was in it?
LJG: Well that would depend on what the target was and what they wanted to do. There were devising one that exploded a thousand feet above the ground full of incendiaries and you only dropped high explosives, splatter it all over and a cookie would set fire to it. It was like an oil drum really.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: It was. Not a very attractive looking bomb but there again it mattered it was only going down. It wasn’t going anywhere else.
CB: It didn’t have any fins on it did it?
LJG: No. No. No.
CB: It was just like a big barrel.
LJG: Just like a forty gallon oil drum or a bit longer than that actually. Yeah.
CB: Ok.
[machine pause]
LJG: I think it was about four pound a week on the squadron.
CB: So the pay was in two parts was it? There was a basic pay and then a flying pay.
LJG: No. They just -
CB: Or just a basic -
LJG: Just a single pay.
CB: Ok and how much was that?
LJG: I think it was about four pound a week.
CB: And what was that in relation to what other people were getting?
LJG: Well I think we were reasonably well paid considering. I don’t know what other people were getting. No idea.
CB: In civilian life I mean. In civilian life -
LJG: Well –
CB: Was it better than or worse?
LJG: Well I don’t think there was much in it really. I know my elder brother he was an apprentice cabinet maker and he finished his apprenticeship as the war started but you see he was a lot older than me and I remember him coming home he had four pound and sixpence and he gave me the sixpence. Yeah.
CB: Because it bought a lot in those days.
LJG: Well yeah I mean three pounds was a good wage.
CB: Yeah that’s what I meant you see.
LJG: But then again things were that cheap anyway weren’t they you know. I mean I remember Tesco opening in Wycombe when it was a small shop then and my wife and I were both working at [minimum wage?] and if she spent three pounds on groceries in a week she’d had a bad week [laughs] but now -
CB: This is a company called [Broomway] making compressors.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: We were just talking about when we, when you in the latter days you were in Singapore.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: And then you were ready for demob so what happened?
LJG: They just told us to pack up our clothes and they put us on a boat. Actually I was on the boat the day before because I was mess deck sergeant on the way home and when we got to Southampton unfortunately, well fortunately we were the first ones off because we had the farthest to go. We had to go from Southampton to Blackpool and we got in to Southampton quite early in the morning. Seven or 8 o’clock. Got on the train, got to Blackpool and we got out civvy kit. I got home at midnight that night. Yeah.
CB: All day travelling.
LJG: All day travelling yeah. I’d been travelling for three weeks.
CB: Amazing.
LJG: Well we, at that particular time they were, India was getting independence and we were evacuating in troops and we had a load of band boys we had to divert from Singapore to Bombay to pick up these band boys and they stuck them right down at the front. The lowest deck of all. And as we come out of Bombay a day out hit a typhoon and we had to heave to for a day and the boat was doing this.
VT: Yeah.
CB: Frightening.
LJG: They was, they was sick and sick and sick terrible but as I say we got out of it.
CB: How many people on the boat?
LJG: A couple of hundred I suppose.
CB: And what was the liner called?
LJG: HMS Otranto. Otranto yeah. I think it rocked when it was in port, in dock. Not very exciting.
CB: So then you had your demob. What was the most, you said it was difficult to settle. What was the thing that made it so difficult -
LJG: Well it’s such a change -
CB: To settle?
LJG: Wasn’t it? Such a change you know. I mean in Singapore it was the lap of luxury. I mean, fortunately I didn’t do any work. It was in ‘45 when the Singapore RAF were on strike.
CB: Oh.
LJG: All junior ranks it was. Senior ranks weren’t allowed to go on strike. And although I had a double rank you see I was flight sergeant AC2.
CB: Yeah
LJG: Anyway the -
CB: Because you were reserve?
LJG: Yeah
CB: Volunteer reserve.
LJG: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
LJG: And well Air Chief Marshall Sir Keith Park was in charge and Singapore was a pre-war station. We had lovely barrack blocks. Of course the Japs had used them so they were using.
CB: Right.
LJG: The swimming pool they used as an oil dump and everybody else, well [they had been?] on strike and this Mr Park he went to Australia I think and Group Captain Beamish became CO and he was sport mad. If you could play sport you were alright so I decided that I would play sport.
CB: What was your specialty then?
LJG: I was goalkeeper. I played for 389 MU. I played for the station once but if you were on guard duty and you were playing for the station you came off guard duty and went and played football.
CB: Oh right. Yeah.
LJG: And he got things going you know. He had football pitches marked out, he had a cinema cleaned out and working order. It was great.
CB: Right.
218 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
briefing
crewing up
demobilisation
Halifax
Lancaster
military service conditions
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Sandtoft
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2444/AAllenFam150830.1.mp3
ce07037bb8d36ffda5d4554b7041cdb7
Dublin Core
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Title
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Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-30
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Allen, DJ
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JA: Just say Lavinia Allen. My name -
JA: My name is -
MH: Ok. Good afternoon to the persons listening to the tape. The tape today is going to be an interesting one for everybody to listen to. The date today is the 30th of August 2015. I’m Mark Hunt. I’m one of the volunteers that works for the International Bomber Command Centre at Lincoln. I’m here interviewing a family. I’m going to get them in a second to introduce themselves but just for the tape’s purpose the time now is 1408 hours. And that’s my bit done so I’m going to hand it over to the family now.
LA: Right. My name is Lavinia Allen. I am the wife of Derrick Allen and I first met him when I worked in Timothy Whites and Taylors at Peterborough. He was in the RAF. He called in at the shop and that was when I first met him and then every six weeks he had leave and then he used to come in and always buy toothbrush, toothpaste, and a shaving cream and of course it was quite a joke because the girls, the rest of the girls all used to have a good laugh and say, ‘Here he comes,’ but anyway that was how I first met him and then later on I used to go to the village dance at Stilton and I went to this particular dance not knowing but he arrived at the dance and he was very chatty with some other girl that was there but I happened to be there as well and that was our first meeting and from then on, well, it was a case of we just carried on meeting each other and gradually we got engaged and then we were married and then we had our family.
MH: And for the tape’s purpose now the children from that marriage are going to all introduce themselves. I’m going to walk this around just to make sure that we can pick up the signal.
JA: Sandra Allen. Derrick Allen’s daughter.
JA: I’m Judith Allen and I’m his youngest daughter.
DA: This is David Allen. Dad’s son and the oldest child in the family.
MH: Great. Thank you very much. I’m going to turn the tape on over now to the family to give their recollections of Mr Derrick Allen.
JA: Yeah I was just thinking about when you were saying about obviously you met dad but at the time the war was going on so I was just thinking of what happened then as well.
LA: Yeah well when, when my husband came on leave he then said when he went back he would write to me but I did not receive a letter and I, at the time I thought, ‘Oh another one of them,’ ‘cause that’s what young men used to say, ‘I’ll write to you when I go back,’ but unfortunately that is when the plane crashed and so I didn’t hear from him because he had crashed and he was out in Belton. Eventually he came back and of course he had, I can’t remember how long but he had a small leave and then he went back again and he went flying again but that’s all I can remember.
MH: Ok. Ok.
JA: And also the story that he would have told you at the time of what might have happened at the crash. Why it happened. With his -
LA: Well -
JA: Colleagues in Spa.
DA: When did you get married? When did you get married mother? Was that during the war or it was after the war, wasn’t it?
LA: Yeah.
JA: Yeah. 1946 wasn’t it? September the 26th
LA: Yes we were married in 1946. But -
JA: And he didn’t really talk -
LA: But –
JA: Did he? About -
LA: He did not -
JA: Certainly not to us as children.
LA: Talk about that crash to anyone really and for quite a number of years he did not talk about it at all.
DA: Wasn’t the story printed in the papers at that time ‘cause you did, it did go, you did go, he did receive the CGM because of his actions at that time.
LA: He was awarded -
DA: We knew about that so -
LA: He was awarded CGM, yes.
DA: And when did he go for -
LA: Which is -
DA: The investiture.
LA: Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
DA: Yeah. What year was that? He went to Buckingham palace.
JA: It was March ‘46.
DA: Before you were married.
LA: Yes. I wasn’t married but I did go to the palace with him.
DA: Yeah.
LA: To receive it.
DA: Yeah.
LA: And –
DA: And his brother.
LA: Him and his brother yes. And -
JA: All three.
LA: Of course it wasn’t like going to the palace now. It was a very very cold day in November that we went and I always remember how cold it was and when we came out there was only a few people that had been decorated. It wasn’t like the decoration now.
DA: And that was the medal was given by the King.
LA: King George the fifth, the Queen’s father, presented him with the medal and I sat in the audience.
DA: Yeah.
LA: And watched the whole ceremony.
DA: Fantastic.
LA: That’s all.
JA: And we didn’t know about that as children. I mean I don’t, didn’t know, growing up.
LA: Not many people even knew about it.
JA: No.
DA: And from then on we went to the musters in London and we used to spend the weekend up in London because each year they had a muster at different places and we went to the Chelsea Barracks and different places.
But he didn’t actually stay in the RAF after the war at all. He was demobbed and -
LA: Well he was later demobbed and that was when we got married. That September.
SA: He became a carpenter.
LA: Hmmn?
SA: He became a carpenter.
JA: His first work after that.
SA: Carpentry was it?
DA: He came back to his building trade.
SA: Yeah.
LA: Yeah. Which he loved and we are now living in the house, I am living in the house which we have been in sixty, over sixty years.
DA: Which he had a hand in building didn’t he?
LA: He did help.
DA: As a young man.
LA: He did help.
DA: You told me as a young man, this row of properties that we’re in now he was, he built the rooves on these properties. He did the timber work. He was a carpenter and joiner.
LA: Yeah.
DA: And his skills were tremendous in building rooves and he did that -
LA: He loves housebuilding.
DA: Yeah.
LA: Yeah.
DA: And that was in the days before electricity and no pre-constructed roofing joists. He just had planks of, planks of timber on site and your hand tools, your hand saws and bradawls and braces and bits and you had to go up on top of the brick work and build a roof out of timbers so he spent a lot of his life balancing on nine inch brick work. Hopping about.
LA: And -
SA: He did fall through didn’t he?
LA: He carried on -
SA: He did fall through didn’t he?
LA: Building work.
DA: Yeah.
LA: And in the end he went and retired. He was working for the NHBC.
SA: Yeah.
JA: That was before he retired. Yeah, he worked for the NHBC but he also when he was working he was obviously bringing up three young children and he worked, I remember having to go back out to work in the evenings and he then set up, with a group of other likeminded men of the village they set up an ex-servicemen’s club which was, he was a founder member which you obviously had a lot to do with mum didn’t you?
DA: That was about ‘63 I think. ‘62/’63?
JA: ’64 it was.
SA: ’64.
JA: When it first opened anyway.
SA: It was fifty years last year. Since it opened.
JA: And you had a lot to do with that didn’t you?
DA: From what I remember of him.
SA: [There was twelve men?]
DA: He was a man of duty. He considered his duty to his family first and then his duty to his work which supported his family and then to the community within the village where he lived and then to ex-servicemen and also to supporting the RAF which he was instrumental in becoming a member of the Royal Observer Corps in the ‘50s until I think the Royal Observer Corps was disbanded and from then on he went to -
LA: ATs.
DA: On to become a leader in the village for the Air Training Corps. Now that lasted several years. But he was always involved in community work.
LA: It was always voluntary. It was always -
DA: It was voluntary. Yeah.
SA: Yeah. It wasn’t paid.
DA: Yeah.
LA: He was a standard bearer for the -
DA: For the British Legion.
LA: British Legion.
DA: Standard bearer. Yes. Yeah.
JA: For many years.
SA: He also helped people in the village through the British Legion. He would go and help them. He helped a gentleman get a phone who was in dire straits financially didn’t he?
DA: Yeah.
SA: He was always helping people.
JA: And also he did the, you know over the years and when he was getting older he was actually in voluntary services. He was on doorsteps.
SA: Yeah.
JA: You know service, Meals on Wheels.
SA: Yeah.
JA: He always was having to help somebody you know and obviously once the family had grown up and he didn’t have, you know, wasn’t have so much I suppose to do with them then he was always looking for other things to do to help people really.
SA: Once his grandchildren had grown up. I mean when he had his grandchildren small he was too be found outside in the paddling pool with them or whatever was necessary. My son particularly loved to mow the grass with him and he was only about two and he would hold on to the motor mower and we would watch as dad would go down to the bottom of the garden, turn and lift the mower and my son used to go up with it ‘cause he would never let go and then come down when he put it back down again. We used to be hysterical because wasn’t it funny to watch? They all loved grandad.
JA: The first time that I ever heard anything about his exploits really was in 1977 by which time I was married with a two year old and I think he probably, he used to pop in as a, as a grandparent on his way around from work and come and see his grandson but I think he probably did feel then that, you know it all came back to him really I think just from what he had got not just from myself but by being saved and that sadly his pilot and rear gunner tragically died in the crash in 1944 and he always, obviously it was always carried with him that –
DA: Yeah.
JA: Yeah, memory and the gratitude he had and I think it was at a point when both my brother and sister had got grandchildren. I was the last one to have, you know, a grandchild for him and I think he really started to think about just what he had got and what these men had lost at that time and on that particular day he, he came around for his cup of tea and we sat and chatted and really I don’t know how we got around to it but suddenly he was telling me about what happened and how on that particular fateful night when he came back from the raid that they got shot down. The pilot was saying, ‘Get the crew out.’ You know, ‘You can all go, get out,’ sort of thing and so they all did but at that point dad, who was the mid upper gunner was actually getting down to get his parachute on because of the position you couldn’t wear it so he found in fact there was a gaping hole and it was just teetering on the edge of that so that was obviously pretty horrific I’m sure, at the time, but he did get his parachute on and then he heard, he actually he told me, which he found very sad, that he heard the rear gunner screaming that he was stuck and so, so dad, the pilot sorry, the pilot said to dad, you know, ‘Help him, you go back and help him,’ which he obviously did and he did get the rear gunner out and at that point they were like, ‘Oh gosh,’ you know, ‘I think, I think we’re going to be ok,’ but sadly the plane went into a spin so they were all caught and they thought that’s it, we’ve had it now. And then miraculously that plane did break apart and they all fell to the ground as such, pulling their, obviously pulling their cords and they were really so close to the ground that in effect they all really didn’t have a chance and by some, you know, miracle, fate, whatever it was he, his parachute got caught in a tree and it saved his life and obviously the two, other two there was, you know, it was just straight down to the ground and that, that was it. They died sadly and it’s always been obviously I didn’t know up until that point but I knew from the telling of it how much it meant and how sad he was for the lives that these, these young boys haven’t had which actually inspired me to write a poem at that, on that occasion. Can I just read it for you? So, because it was in Belgium and we didn’t really know where, well which, a tree you know something saved his life but we know it was near to Spa. It was in the [Laride?] area and I called it A Tree Somewhere in Belgium. So it goes -
‘There were many fine airmen of the war
Many were lost forever more
But one in particular concerns me
A survivor because of the Belgian tree
A young lad he was, aged seventeen
Tall, and handsome smart and keen
To do service for his country, like many more
He joined the air force and so the war
That fateful night with a start he awoke
Time to scramble, no time to smoke
The sirens were blaring, the battle was on
Just five seconds more and his squadron was gone.
They were flying high and flying fast
Soon land and trees, all were passed
And over the sea to foreign land
They were a brave and courageous band.
The shout went out, ‘enemy ahead,’
A sudden flash, the sky went red
Relief shone through on every face,
For they had scored another ace
But high above at 12 o’clock
The enemy prepared to give them a shock
The plane was spotted but it was too late
They had been hit, it was their fate
The plane lost height, they were knocked about
All but three of the crew baled out
While the pilot fought to keep the plane steady
Our lad rescued his mate and got ready
To jump.
But suddenly the plane began to spin
They couldn’t move, the force kept them in
Then miraculously the plane broke apart
They pulled their ripcords fear in every heart.
They fell to the ground, there was a loud thud
Two laid dead where they fell in the mud
But our lad was lucky, he was caught in a tree
And lived to tell his tale to me
Oh where would I be were it not for that tree?’
Signed his daughter.
DA: And if I could add to that on a subsequent visit of eighty years to visit this part of the Ardennes near Spa we, we found the Memorial which was placed above the spot where one of them died and with the gathering of people from the area they asked father, having known his, heard this story where, which tree is it that saved you and I remember him, we walked across this field, this pasture, towards a group of trees and he’d got his walking stick with him at the time and and he said to me quietly he said, he said, ‘When I came down it was midnight. I don’t know what tree I hit,’ he says, ‘Because all I heard was what I thought loud running footsteps of the enemy coming for me, which I subsequently heard or realised that were a herd of cattle running away from the burning Lancaster in the meadow,’ and so he said, ‘I don’t know which tree it is.’ I said, ‘Look. Just pick a big one,’ I said. He said right and he picked his walking stick up, looked knowingly across the woods and said, ‘That’s the tree,’ and everybody was satisfied that we’d got a tree there and on that now is a plaque commemorating where the incident happened and it’s, it’s there as a Memorial too. That time of the crash and the landing, his landing, he ran away in the woods and hid in a building and that, after a few minutes lights and noise were heard coming across towards the aeroplane that was burning and he heard American voices which told him that he’d landed on the allied side and so he kind of pronounced himself there and there from there they took him back into Spa and in Spa he was kept overnight and checked out medically and then he was then transported to Brussels and back to England. This being November. And he was given some leave as mother said earlier. He was given some leave and then he had to go and join another crew because he hadn’t finished his operations and he joined another crew and then continued flying to finish his sortie.
JA: Actually the only other thing I can think well subsequent to that having in later years found his logbook then obviously he, as you say had to keep flying but it came to a particular date in the book and he has just written in, “No more war.” Which was, you know -
DA: Yeah.
JA: Said so much. It was, you know something that they went out and had to do but -
DA: Yeah. I know in conversations subsequently I said to father, ‘Look why don’t you, do you want to go on holiday abroad? Do you want to fly somewhere?’ He said, ‘I never want to get in an aeroplane ever again.’
JA: No. Never.
SA: He didn’t.
LA: He never did.
DA: He never did. He never set foot in an aeroplane again. It was so, so traumatic for him and just as an aside I often wondered where in his day to day work when I was with him on building sites when he may have, something may have unexpectedly happened and he was never a person who swore. He did not use bad language ever. The strongest term I ever heard him use was strewth and I thought well that’s not Lincolnshire or Cambridgeshire and I realised that’s an Australian slang word and it took me a little while to figure that out but I figured it out now and so, so -
JA: He flew with the Australians.
DA: As he was an aviator with the Royal Australian Air Force that’s where it all come from.
[pause]
LA: We ended up going to Belgium.
JA: Yes, I mean we, we’ve been back.
LA: We all went to Belgium.
JA: Yes.
LA: And -
DA: I think father’s interest or his ability to recall the past and be more open came about maybe when he was in to his sixties because it was beginning, the trauma had subsided but the history of it was, began to take on an importance to him that what he’d been through and what his colleagues had been through it became important and it coincided with a letter he received from a young Belgian man who was interested in surveying, researching allied aircraft crashes in Belgium and he had found details of this, father’s plane that had crashed in the Ardennes and wrote to father to say are you, you know, ‘Are you one the crew?’ That was the start of his, his resurgent interest in the history and from then on that was back in the nineteen -
JA: 1990 wasn’t it?
1990 roughly.
JA: Yeah. Yeah.
DA: And that was the start of many visits we’ve had as a family to Spa and the site where the monument is. We, we’ve been totally surprised over the years to receive warm welcomes from the people of Belgium and particularly that area. We’ve been overwhelmed with kindness and their fondness for, you know, the British aviators. They suffered a lot and they have Memorials to their own resistance fighters throughout the Ardennes and they understand, you know the terror of being occupied and the work and the lives that were lost by the allies in saving them and every visit is quite heart-warming.
JA: It’s so appreciated. Yeah.
DA: And he was appreciated and his memory is still appreciated.
JA: But mum you actually went over didn’t you that first time?
LA: Yeah.
JA: Because you, again with obviously yourself and dad you’ve never flown. It had been something that dad had never wanted to do and you, so it just never happened but obviously with the ferries but then with the channel tunnel it all actually improved didn’t it and again meant you could travel over there and you were there, it would have been the, well you were certainly out there in 2004 weren’t you which was the sixty year anniversary and we all went as a family didn’t we?
LA: Yeah.
JA: Do you remember that?
LA: Yes.
SA: We had a lovely meal they gave us didn’t they? And they presented dad with a -
LA: Gave us a great reception, yeah.
JA: Do you remember that they -
LA: And the school children.
JA: Made the Lancaster.
LA: If you remember, all made aeroplanes, you know.
SA: The Lancaster.
JA: Lancasters.
SA: Made Lancasters.
LA: Lancasters.
JA: Yeah.
LA: And dad had to pick one.
JA: Yeah, that’s right.
DA: That he liked out of all these children’s -
JA: And they were so grateful.
DA: The whole school.
LA: And all the whole school went to the monument.
JA: They did yeah.
LA: Didn’t they?
JA: Yeah they were part of that.
LA: And then it was -
JA: And it was filmed as well wasn’t it?
LA: Oh yeah.
JA: By Australian, the Australian TV were there weren’t they?
SA: Yeah.
JA: On that particular occasion because -
LA: Yes. Yes.
DA: The embassy attaché, the Australian Embassy attaché.
JA: He come from Brussels, was there.
DA: From Brussels.
LA: He had a meal with us didn’t he?
DA: Came because it was the sixtieth anniversary of father’s crash and as it was a memory of the Royal Australian Air Force it was deemed appropriate.
JA: We were there on the day weren’t we? Which was lovely. Very good and of course we, another person we had who became a very close friends was François [Barotte?] and his family and you had -
DA: [?]
JA: Over the years you know he was somebody who also was interested in the history of the, through the wars and everything.
SA: Well he was an architect anyway -
JA: Yes, that’s right.
SA: Wasn’t he?
JA: But that was his sort of hobby and we even had, well you had didn’t you, what about when you had [Valerie?].
LA: The children came over here.
JA: Yeah. Yeah.
LA: I had their children over here.
DA: Come to stay here.
LA: For a fortnight’s holiday and we have become good friends and you all went over -
JA: Yes.
LA: For your dad’s ninetieth birthday.
JA: Yes what would have been his ninetieth birthday?
LA: It would have been his ninetieth birthday.
JA: Last year we -
LA: And -
JA: Us, yeah the children went again didn’t they and yes every time we go over we always make sure we see them.
LA: Always make sure, I mean obviously like us they’re all getting older.
DA: There was one thing that puzzled me was why father who was an Englishman was in the Royal Australian Air Force. I couldn’t understand that until one day he explained that I said, ‘How did this happen?’ He said, well when you were selected, at that time when you selected a crew you all, all the various crew members mixed in a big hangar at Waddington for instance and they all got, had a drink of beer with them, you know, a glass of beer and they would all talk among themselves and they knew, you know, they all had their different trades you call it air gunners, navigators, pilots, bomb aimers, engineers and it would seem to me that a pilot would probably start this ball rolling and say talk to different members and they would form their crews out of just socialising, you know, maybe of an evening within this environment.
LA: Yes.
DA: Which I thought was quite strange but that’s how it was so you know, after father’s crash and his return to Waddington that would, he would have gone through this same route again in that he would be, they were all pushed, they all met together in a large group and make another, make another flight crew in that way.
JA: But you and you do see that they actually ended up with two or three same names again because they obviously had a bond.
DA: Yeah.
JA: And so.
DA: Yeah.
JA: There was that started to happen obviously over the different sorties that -
DA: Yeah.
JA: You know there’d be three or four -
DA: Yeah.
JA: Were, had been together at the last one.
DA: Yeah.
JA: And they kept on.
DA: He said you lived together in a nissen hut as a group but you were friends but you couldn’t be too friendly because too many times coming back after a raid you would go back to your quarters and find that one or two of the beds were empty and it was someone who you’d been speaking to the night before and they were no longer there and then new faces arrived so there was a certain amount of friend, there was a friendliness and bonding but not too strong. They daren’t become too strong in their bonding.
JA: He did have one very good friend didn’t he, who you would have known at the time, Bob Harvey.
LA: Bob Harvey.
JA: And they both, obviously Bob did survive the war as well and -
LA: He did. Yeah.
JA: You -
LA: And we visited Bob who lived next, near Blackpool and we went to the house and visited him and his wife and he had two children as well but many years later, I can’t remember what Derrick was reading, some paper or some book, and he said, ‘Oh my goodness.’ What was his name? Up the road -
SA: Terry.
DA: Terry.
LA: No.
SA: Are we talking about Richardson?
LA: Oh dear.
SA: You found someone else. Bob. No. No, not Bob? What was it?
LA: The one who went to Belgium with you.
SA: Oh we’ve all got to think now. This is what age does to you.
DA: Jack.
SA: Jack. Yes.
LA: Jack Halstead.
DA: Jack Halstead.
LA: Yes.
DA: He was his colleague.
LA: And he had been flying with that man.
DA: On that mission yeah. Jack was with father on that particular mission.
LA: Yes. Yeah.
JA: On the crash.
DA: He was a engineer I believe.
LA: Yeah.
DA: And he was told to bale out before the plane got into serious difficulty.
LA: And he went. Yeah.
DA: Yeah.
LA: He was ok.
DA: Yeah.
LA: But he only lived near Grantham.
DA: Yeah.
LA: And Derrick, I can’t remember what he read it in but anyway he got in touch with him and we all went up near Grantham and met at a pub.
DA: Yeah.
LA: And that was.
DA: He reunited with his old comrade wasn’t he?
LA: Yeah.
JA: And Jack came over at one point on one of the trips.
LA: Yes.
JA: With myself and my brother with dad and he actually came and saw, to the site which was the first time.
LA: But he –
He had seen it since obviously been over since then.
DA: Yeah, he left the air force. When he was demobbed he joined the police and he was in the Metropolitan Police in London for most of his career.
LA: That’s right. Yeah.
DA: I think he was a detective but -
LA: He died before dad.
JA: But it was lovely that he actually and also, I can’t remember, what was his first name? Richardson.
LA: Yeah.
JA: He was also one on the crew wasn’t he?
LA: No.
JA: No. He wasn’t on that crew.
LA: He wasn’t on the crew.
JA: Not his one.
LA: And Terry Bradley.
JA: Terry Bradley was.
LA: He was.
DA: The second crew.
LA: He was in the RAF.
JA: Yeah that’s right.
LA: He wasn’t with dad but they all knew each other and he was the mayor of Grantham.
JA: So I mean in later years you know you all were meeting up. You were having reunions regularly weren’t you?
LA: We, yes because every year they have Anzac day he’d go to –
SA: RAF Waddington.
LA: Waddington. They fly the Lancaster which Judith has carried on doing. And they fly the Lancaster over the monument in Waddington.
JA: But we used to go didn’t we and go to the sergeants mess and he’d go on the camp and -
LA: Yeah we used to do all that.
JA: It was nice. That’s right. You did it for as long as you could didn’t you and that was part of it as well.
DA: After the war, father, as we say became a carpenter and joiner didn’t he and worked for building companies in -
JA: Fryman’s.
DA: In Peterborough for his life and -
LA: Fryman’s
JA: That’s what I said.
DA: For most of his life until he became a site foreman and there’s many, there are many properties and schools that have built in Cambridgeshire. St Peter’s school in Huntingdon was one that he was site foreman for and assorted schools.
LA: St Peter’s, yeah.
DA: And he did one or two private jobs for the local headmaster.
LA: He built a bungalow.
JA: In Glatton.
LA: Well he didn’t build it but he got -
DA: The site. The project.
LA: He organised it.
DA: Yeah.
LA: At Glatton and he was always interested. He used to go to work all day, come home, have his -
DA: Tea.
LA: Meal and then he’d go to Glatton to work but then those days he needed the money.
JA: And then in later years you, Sandra were part of the club weren’t you?
SA: Yeah.
JA: That dad founded in 1964.
SA: Yeah. I did seventeen years as a stewardess in the club and because it was my interest as well as his.
DA: His name’s up there isn’t it?
SA: Yes, yeah my name’s up there on the wall as well.
JA: And dad was the president wasn’t he?
SA: Yes, he was. Yeah.
JA: For many years.
SA: Yeah he did everything there through the years right down to the last time he was able to work there was my first time there and he did all the building control maintenance. Every time anything happened a bulb or anything I would say to him so and so and he would deal with it. He always -
LA: But in those days you did it voluntary.
SA: Yes it was all voluntary, yeah.
LA: But I think that’s -
JA: Then another thing that obviously happened and luckily it was talked about before dad passed away that he because of the connection obviously with Spa and the men he had put his wishes down that he wanted his ashes to be taken to that Memorial site. And so -
SA: And we did.
JA: And we actually did that.
SA: We all went.
LA: They all went and I didn’t go ‘cause I, well I can’t walk.
JA: The journey would have been a bit much wasn’t it? That was 2009 wasn’t it?
LA: They all went onto there and I’ve got the picture.
JA: Yeah. Yes, and again -
SA: [Took him?] back.
JA: The [Barottes] you know François and Rudy who was the historian.
SA: Yeah.
JA: And researcher and all these people came yet again.
LA: Yeah.
JA: Because they so respected -
LA: It was very nice really.
JA: They respected very much, you know, what he and all the men did over those years and then obviously as I say last year we went again just in a memory on actually on dads birthday that time because he would have been -
SA: Ninety
JA: Ninety on the 13th of October and it was just something that as a family that we, but again these people came and showed their respect as well didn’t they? So -
LA: Yeah. It’s marvellous really.
JA: But it’s also opened up such a lot, brought so much also into his life because of that tragedy but these, all these people he would never have known. He wouldn’t, you know, there wouldn’t have been a connection with someone in Belgium when dad anyway was no going to get on a plane again you know. So, but it just brought it all, it brought a lot of people into his life and he did a lot for a lot of people didn’t he, so -
SA: I think I’m one of the few people that’s been up a Belgian motorway the wrong way.
JA: Yes I remember that.
SA: Yes. With a Frenchman driving. It was -
JA: A Belgian.
SA: Yes with a Belgian. It was very scary because he suddenly decided to, that he’d gone the wrong way so he turned around and went back up the same motorway. Luckily we didn’t meet any traffic. We were very lucky to live that but they all said the look on my face was quite something as I drove past, went past them all with horror on my face. They were all, they all stopped they didn’t follow us thankfully but -
JA: He was leading the way originally.
SA: He was leading the way so they could have done but they didn’t luckily and they suddenly realised what he’d done and he turned around again. It was quite hairy though. It was a motorway. It wasn’t just a little country lane. It was -
JA: And that was [Adelaine?] was driving who was -
SA: Yeah.
JA: The young man, had been the young boy who had seen the plane come down.
SA: From the farmhouse that he lived in. He was hiding in the cellar.
JA: And so again he was another, another contact there.
SA: It was quite hairy.
JA: Yeah so but again he was lovely because he actually gave us parts.
DA: Memorabilia.
JA: Yeah, to bring home from the plane. Things that we could get, you know in our cases or whatever so we’ve obviously got those now and -
DA: Yeah on one trip [Adelaine?] showed us in Belgium in the farm buildings. Near the farm buildings near the Memorial site in some rough ground of nettles, laying amongst the nettles were two of the original Lancaster suspension legs, oleo legs I think they’re called and we were amazed to see them there and they’re very long and very heavy and, but he was willing to offer them to us as mementoes to take to bring back with us in our car to England. This was a kind gesture but totally impractical because we only had a small car and there was already four people in that car. Subsequently, they’ve been cleaned and preserved and mounted next to the original monument wearing the brass plate on each suspension leg with the names of the two aviators who died. It’s -
JA: It’s Bill Lemin.
DA: Bill Lemin.
JA: And Les. Les Landridge.
DA: Les Landridge. Sorry, I don’t remember what their title is.
JA: Well the pilot and -
DA: Yeah, pilot.
JA: And one was the rear gunner basically, wasn’t it?
DA: Pilot and rear gunner. Yeah.
SA: But the rear gunner shouldn’t have been there that day because he was a replacement -
JA: Yeah.
SA: For the man who was, should have been, who was off sick.
DA: That’s right.
SA: And he died. So, very sad.
JA: And in fact we’ve had a letter in or obviously dad did and I hadn’t actually seen that in fairness you know until after he died but we’ve come across a letter from another one of the Australians who in fact said when the rear gunner had gone, the one they were going to have, had gone sick there were actually two Australians and one, I can’t remember his name, Don, I can’t remember his surname but he was a rear gunner and the rear gunner that they had, they got, they had chosen in the end he was actually a mid-upper gunner and they said in this letter it sort of says that although Don was the obvious person to have it was something to do with the crew and the newness of the crew, I don’t quite understand, you know, the background of that but he in fact then was also spared if you like because in fact the mid upper gunner took that position because he wasn’t able to so also, you know that’s somebody else who was sort of saved on that day, in a sense, by fate really.
MH: What’s nice is though through one tragic spot of history families, connections etcetera have all flourished.
JA: Absolutely. Yes.
MH: Which is lovely.
JA: Yes. Yeah. That’s it. I mean, you know, there were, there were letters from, was it Bill Lemin’s sister or Les?
LA: Yes yeah she was [eighty] -
JA: That’s right you know so -
LA: And she wrote to Derrick because she’d found out he was on the crash and she wanted him would he tell her exactly what happened to her brother and so he answered it. I’ve still got that letter.
JA: That’s right.
LA: And he did. He answered it.
JA: ‘Cause he -
LA: But I mean she was eighty years ago so -
JA: But I remember in the letter it was saying because that was way back when that first one was sent and she was concerned that she had got the girlfriend there of the, you know, Australian and they were just like well has he really died because you can imagine all those miles and thousands of miles away it’s like hopefully they’re wrong you know so they actually said, would you tell us? You know, did you see this happen or do you really know this has happened or, which he obviously did and they were again just very grateful for the information and put their minds at rest that sadly it, you know had happened.
MH: That was posted that if you if you couldn’t be accounted for that you’d be put on the missing list, presumed killed in action or whatever for three months. Then after that brief short period you were declared dead. If, because you had the British Red Cross, sorry not the British Red Cross but the European Swiss Red Cross.
JA: Right.
MH: Used to go to the prisoner of war camps noting down who had been taken prisoner of war and of course with dog tags on and everything of the air crew.
JA: Yes.
MH: That they were able to name who you know if they found guys in the wreckage and whatnot. So they were able to complete a fairly good list of who, you know and who but because of wartime it took time of course because you were in a non-computerised age and everything was recorded paper wise and everything and letters not emails and that sort of thing.
LA: Yeah.
MH: But he was a young man when he met you then. Seventeen. A very young dapper chap.
JA: Yes, yes about, I think he was probably eighteen to nineteen wasn’t he by the time you met him. I think he was about nineteen when he met you. Dad. About nineteen.
JA: Yeah.
JA: Yeah, I think he was because then he -
LA: Yeah ‘cause we were, I got married on the Saturday. I was nineteen on the Wednesday. I was twenty on the Wednesday.
JA: Oh right.
LA: I was twenty.
JA: Just twenty. And you managed to get a wedding dress.
SA: Yes she did. Yeah
JA: So close after the war you had a lovely wedding dress, yeah, didn’t you? Beautiful.
LA: Down the arcade at Peterborough. No fuss. No.
SA: Borrowed the veil.
LA: And he was wearing his demob suit because the suit he was having wasn’t ready so he was wearing his demob suit.
DA: How did he afford that car? ‘Cause I know I know was born in 1948 and I remember you had an Austin Ruby and I remember him telling me, I said, ‘Did you have lessons?’ or did, have you, ‘Did you get a license?’ and he said, ‘No. We didn’t have driving licences.’
LA: No. Didn’t then.
DA: No. That’s it. He just went out. So did he use his demob money to buy this Ruby.
LA: Yes. You’re right.
DA: Austin Ruby.
LA: You’re right.
DA: Yeah now there’s another, there’s another story there. I remember you telling me, or us.
SA: All of us, yeah, I heard that story.
DA: In Peterborough, in Bridge Street
LA: Yeah.
SA: Yeah I know.
DA: In this Austin Ruby. Now the Austin Ruby motor car has forward opening front doors and the handles, the door handles.
LA: The handles.
DA: Point forward and I remember him telling us that -
LA: He did [?]
DA: That he was at the traffic lights.
LA: Yeah. A chap -
DA: Looking at the traffic lights.
LA: Yeah.
DA: And then, and then while he was at the lights two people, two men were having a conversation on the nearside pavement and chattering away and as the lights turned to green he went to move off. They finished their conversation. One of the gentlemen stepped off the pavement and the handle of the door, the passenger door, slid into his trouser pocket.
LA: It did.
DA: And took off one whole leg of his trousers as he, as father moved away.
LA: It don’t sound possible but it happened.
DA: And that’s a true story.
SA: And the policeman stood there in shock.
DA: And there’s a one of his work colleagues at the time did a sketch of this story and I think that’s gone now. Another incident I remember is that he told me that, again in Peterborough is turning right and the wheel fell off and as a carpenter he didn’t really have a lot of mechanical knowledge but when he looked under the wing he noticed a pin had dropped out, a king pin, and he looked at it and he thought I know what and he got a punch, a big punch and he used this punch to substitute for the king pin and he whacked it into place in the stub axel and carried on.
LA: But the point was -
DA: And one more story, one more story about the Ruby, down on grandfather’s farm. They needed -
LA: Yeah.
DA: To move, my grandfather at the time had a pig, his own pig and as a young pig that needed to be moved and I don’t remember to where but the only means of transport was the Austin Ruby to move this pig.
JA: Were you in it then mum? Were you in it?
LA: No.
JA: You weren’t in it.
DA: And I remember, I remember.
LA: I know about it.
DA: That pig was put on the back seat and held in held steady in the back street while they moved it from one farm to another. So they were very resourceful in those days.
LA: Our Tilly.
DA: Yeah. Father never had a driving lesson did he? And he never, I don’t think he ever had a licence.
SA: He didn’t have to. No.
LA: Well you didn’t have driving licence.
DA: You didn’t have to have a driving licence in those days. It was that period of time that it didn’t matter.
LA: I drove around during that wartime when you could drive anyway. Then I had to go back and have lessons and –
DA: Yeah.
JA: And you well late thirties I think when you passed your test weren’t you?
SA: I remember you taking the test.
DA: How long did you keep your Austin Ruby for then? Was it till the 1950s?
LA: I can’t remember.
DA: Yeah. Well I don’t you know I remember that but it must have been after the 1953 Queen’s coronation because -
Oh we had some -
DA: Because I remember that in the High Street in our village when you hung out the Union Jack and strung it between the two top bedroom windows on a piece of string and decorated the house and in the, there was lots of these cardboard cut-outs of the royal coach and horses and we were busy making all those things. As a five year old I was busy making these little coaches out of cardboard and I remember the coronation. That’s about my biggest most vivid memory really.
JA: But you remember don’t you. Your first home up the street.
LA: Yes.
JA: What was that like?
LA: Well when we first, that’s how we got a home because the baker offered it and -
DA: In the high street.
LA: A little cottage in the high street but it wanted doing up and he said to Derrick, ‘If you do it up you can have it.’ So that’s how we got our first home.
SA: But what was it like inside though? What about the toilet? That’s -
LA: Oh don’t. The drain was right near the back door. We had a good flood and it went straight through the house and out the front door.
SA: At least it didn’t stop it did it?
JA: And the thunder box in the back garden.
DA: It had been -
JA: Yes. Of course it had. That’s what they were.
LA: Oh don’t.
JA: Well that’s what it was in those days wasn’t it? Zinc baths.
LA: Anyway, we managed to get through to our diamond wedding
JA: Yeah.
LA: So it couldn’t have been too bad could it?
SA: And you told us about when dad was young. How he used to ride a bike and deliver and because he wasn’t a very big person the wheel used to [laughs] used to -
JA: Once it was loaded.
SA: Loaded the back wheel used to go up in the air because it wasn’t heavy.
LA: He worked for Mander Brothers of Peterborough.
DA: This is, this is as a young teenager just out of school at fourteen wasn’t he?
LA: Yeah.
DA: He had a delivery round in Peterborough.
SA: Not a very big person.
DA: From a paint and decorating company.
SA: Yeah.
DA: And his job was to deliver paint and wallpaper to -
LA: Yeah.
DA: Customers around the village, around Peterborough and he was very light and the basket on the front when it was loaded.
SA: It was so heavy.
DA: Was very heavy and it would tip up unless he sat up on the saddle and he had to keep on the saddle all the time otherwise the paint fell off. So his knowledge of Peterborough was very thorough.
LA: So that’s -
MH: I’ve seen in the collection that you’ve lent the Memorial etcetera there’s a picture. I think it might be by the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham palace with three -
JA: Yeah that’s the one. That’s the coronation isn’t it?
MH: What day was that? Do you remember that being taken?
DA: The investiture.
MH: ‘Cause, there were three, yeah. There were three of you.
JA: Yeah, there was you, dad -
DA: The medal.
SA: You, dad and Aubrey.
DA: Dad’s brother.
JA: Do you remember mum? Do you remember that? Going.
LA: Yes.
JA: Do you remember that picture?
LA: Yes.
MH: Was that something that the palace organised or was that something that just ad hoc as such?
LA: Oh no it’s not organised. Not the photography part. No. Well the photographers are there. They know it’s going on and obviously they’re outside taking people ‘cause obviously he wasn’t the only one to be decorated but we just came out and they just took you. I mean it wasn’t like it is -
MH: It’s a very fine photo. It’s a lovely photograph.
JA: Yes it is.
LA: I think I was eighteen there.
MH: Standing in the middle.
JA: Yeah.
LA: Saying something.
MH: Well you had two men on your arm.
JA: Yeah.
MH: So you had your pick.
DA: Can you imagine at eighteen. Did you go by train?
LA: I had, I had an aunt who lived in Croydon.
DA: Yeah.
LA: And we stayed, I stayed there.
DA: Yeah.
LA: I do remember going from Croydon to, Kings Cross I presume. I don’t know now.
DA: Yeah.
LA: I’ve forgotten. And he was at one, wherever it was, he was at one station and I was at another and he was supposed to be meeting me so we didn’t meet and I thought well what do I do now ‘cause I mean we didn’t travel about like they do now and I got on the bus, rode all the way back to Croydon because I didn’t know what else to do.
He had to come to find you, did he?
LA: He came to Croydon and found -
SA: Well I suppose he was resilient. It shows he wanted to you to be there and he was determined wasn’t he?
LA: Oh dear.
DA: You weren’t late then for the -
LA: No. No.
DA: Meeting at the palace.
LA: The next day I think.
DA: Yeah. Good.
LA: But that’s so long ago I really -
DA: Yeah.
LA: Can’t remember.
MH: I gain the impression from the memories of your dad and your husband that he was a very committed individual and what I mean by that is through riding his bike and doing wheelies if he didn’t sit on it correctly, through to his time in the air force, through to his time when he became a joiner and then moved on to become eventually a foreman and then through his retirement where he became club work and the observation and everything he strikes me as a very devoted man as you rightly pointed out right at the start. Very committed and devoted man.
DA: He had, he had clear views on life and I think it was reinforced with his war experiences that he had a strong sense of morality and help for people worse off than himself and but it was all done in a very quiet and unassuming way.
LA: Oh you never heard him shout about.
DA: No. I mean I worked, when I was sixteen, out of school, in holidays working with him on school holidays working with him on building sites where he’s been the site foreman he’s had, he’s been able to handle all kinds of building trades which includes lots of big strong angry, sometimes angry men.
LA: Irishmen.
DA: And he could handle all those, all those kinds of personalities very very comfortably and he didn’t have an ego in such a way that he was trying to be top dog. What he did was he let, he allowed, he was so, he had such a self-confidence, self-belief that he would allow others to be in the limelight knowing that he knew the answers as it were. I’ve seen it demonstrated. He knew the answers to the problem but he would get the other, he would drop hints so that the other person would find the answer and say and then would shout from the rooftops how clever they were and he would know that it was his word helped them and then the magical thing is those, those, especially on those building sites those tough guys would realise after maybe a few hours or two days what had happened and they would look at him with respect because they’d realise that he’d helped them and they’d been shouting, you know and they’d done their job successfully because of him and they turned and they found him, they relied on father and so it has happened all through his life.
SA: Well he’s always had respect hasn’t he?
DA: People have relied on him.
JA: Respected him.
DA: After knowing him. The initial meeting, you know well this is a very quiet chap but later on when people really knew him.
LA: He was strong.
SA: Yeah.
LA: Very strong.
SA: I can say that the Sawtry Club Committee definitely knew he was there. He -
LA: Yeah.
SA: He definitely ruled.
LA: He, but he was quiet.
SA: But he was quiet.
LA: He never, he never what I would call shouted the odds, you know.
JA: No. He was very fair so he -
SA: Oh yeah.
JA: And he would see both sides and he wouldn’t influence that if it was a situation where he didn’t need to he would actually, he could always listen to both sides.
SA: Oh yeah and put them straight.
JA: He wouldn’t fall out with anyone but if he had to be strong and if he had to be, ‘Well sorry it has to be like this or,’ you know he would be firm but I really don’t think anyone ever actually fell out with him. They -
DA: No.
JA: They –
SA: No.
JA: Respected him at the end. So he could, he could tell them if he needed to.
DA: Well mother you always had knocks on the front door when situations arose at the club or in the village, or buildings, ‘Is Derrick there? I need his guidance,’ you know but that would happen quite regularly over the years asking for his guidance and he’d just take them in to the other room and listen and say, well, he’d never say, ‘You will do this,’ or, ‘You will do that,’ he would just say, ‘I think maybe if you try this it might help.’ It was all couched in gentle words so that you would take that advice because it wasn’t pushed at you. You would listen and I’ve learnt from that personally and I’ve used that in my life in situations in my workplace and I found it, you know.
JA: Well he had [?] didn’t he?
DA: My father’s with me all the time in recent times when I’ve done renovation work on my own property I’ve come up against situations at making some people decide something and I just think look at it and I think, ‘How would dad tackle that?’ And then I’d think oh yeah he’d probably do it like this and that’s what I do. I do that now. I think I try to think how he would think because he always got it right, you know.
JA: Because he was so helpful the thing that he always would do, you could always rely on him to help you and of course because of his carpentry skills and things he was always the person to turn to to get your door hanged, you know, hang the doors. All these little things.
SA: I was going to say about that.
JA: And he just revelled in it. So he loved it so he wanted always to help. I mean he and he did for as long as he could.
SA: We all got him in for doors.
JA: As long as he was able.
JA: Yeah.
SA: Swollen doors was his thing. Definitely. You’d fetch him in.
DA: Chelsea.
JA: Oh yes that was something he did as well. We, my husband was part of the Chelsea Flower Show and working for them and he had a design of designing a garden and they had, you know a particular it was a verandah was it?
DA: Yeah, the design of -
JA: It was a greenhouse and a verandah and it was a big construction anyway and so it was all designed but then they needed someone to make it.
DA: [?]
JA: And, of course what they, what they did, Ian said, ‘My father in law’s good at carpentry,’ etcetera etcetera and he literally did make it here.
LA: Made it out the back.
JA: Out here at this house out at the back and he built it up into sections ‘cause it was really massive. I mean I don’t know what the length of it is it’s -
DA: Thirty foot.
JA: Thirty odd feet yeah you know so I mean we had big big lorries coming in with just pieces of wood and he made that into this absolutely and it was at the Chelsea Flower Show and it was produced wasn’t it, taken -
DA: Yeah.
JA: There, put up and it was -
DA: Yeah, well again.
JA: But he loved it.
DA: Father built it in the back garden so it could be knocked down. It was bolted together, all this timber construction and come the day, the week before the show a lorry arrived to take all the parts away and deliver it to site and then father and I went down on the Monday, I took a day off work and we went down and found the location for the site for our construction and we spent the day putting it together and it was amazing because there was father, a retired carpenter, his eyesight was going a little bit and myself not a carpenter, let’s leave it at that and near us were famous names. Garden centre names and newspaper names were there.
JA: [?]
DA: With the construction workers in matching uniforms and jumpers and things and just father and I doing ours and we spent all day building this and then when we drove away at night I thought, ‘No, this isn’t smart,’ you know, ‘This doesn’t look right,’ and, you know, ‘It’s not as smart as those people over there,’ you know this is but it was designed to be an old verandah that had been that was supposed to have been an old tin with a corrugated tin roof that was supposed to have been there for fifty, sixty years and it kind of looked like that but then when we went back, I went back a week later just to help with some planting and finishing touches I actually drove past it because I didn’t recognise it because it was so fabulous. The designer’s work with the planting and the finish painted finish it was an absolutely a brilliant exhibition.
JA: It’s just wonderful that it all started here and –
DA: Yeah.
JA: His enthusiasm and he’s able to put his, into practice what he had done all his life. You know the carpentry and everything so and again all his own time. He just, you know he would help everyone.
DA: He did get the silver gilt medal. It didn’t get gold.
JA: No it didn’t get gold.
DA: It got the silver gilt and the royal family were on that verandah.
JA: Yes.
DA: Briefly.
JA: Dad was really proud of it. I mean he really felt and again it was an achievement. It was something again that he had done and so there were little things through life that you know, he enjoyed doing it didn’t he? Always helping.
MH: What did he think of the way Bomber Command were treated after the war? The way the veterans were treated. Did he have any views on it?
[Pause]
LA: Well it’s quite good isn’t it really? I mean they’re constantly doing things aren’t they?
JA: Oh that’s, I don’t think he actually, I don’t remember ever hearing anything about what he thought about -
DA: I think he kept those thoughts quiet, I think, you know. I think, you know I know that we now know that there are there are some thoughts about how terrible it might have been that we, we carried out this bombing but we can’t talk because we are not in the context of the time.
LA: No.
DA: And when you’re trying to second guess that we’re out of context now. It’s only those -
JA: But he was a man doing, he was just a man doing his job.
DA: It was only those during the environment of that time can answer that and, you know.
JA: I don’t think, I don’t think, you know, I don’t know because he hasn’t said but from how he was to me it was there was a job to be done. He went and did it and they had to do, you know, what they did and whatever the environment they were in was was it at that time. And I think, I think it’s the only thing I probably, I do vaguely think, remember him sort of talking a bit about the fact that of them not having the recognition so I think that was something and yet now that is starting to be sort of redressed and I’m trying to think when did they do the London?
DA: Well I know that if he was here now -
JA: Memorial.
DA: He’d be very pleased.
JA: He’d be -
DA: With what’s going on.
JA: Yeah.
DA: With the Memorial.
JA: Yeah, he would.
DA: Absolutely chuffed to bits.
JA: Definitely. Yeah.
DA: He was very proud of
SA: What they did.
LA: He was real
DA: His colleagues. Very proud.
JA: Really proud.
LA: Yeah he was a real RAF man really.
DA: Personally very proud. Yeah.
MH: Good.
JA: Definitely.
DA: Good. I’m pleased.
JA: Yeah, he would love, and I mean he went to the, well I took him a couple of times I think to that, The Arboretum. You know the one over -
MH: Oh the one over at Staffordshire.
JA: Yeah.
MH: Yeah.
JA: And we went over to there and I mean all of that always meant an awful lot to him so although he obviously didn’t know about this.
LA: That was when they started it wasn’t it?
JA: Well we went right at the start yeah but he, so you know that anything anyone is doing to sort of you know say what these men did and he would have approved.
MH: Good.
JA: A hundred fold.
DA: I think.
JA: You know.
DA: You can point it up by the number of visits we subsequently made to Belgium to the people of Belgium and their welcoming and their recognition because they were in the middle of a terrible situation and because of their recognition he found that their respect for him was the answer to it all. That was -
LA: When -
DA: That gave him, that gave him, you know some kind of peace to know that, that what we suffered, what my colleagues did was worth it, it which is not looked for or even had in the UK because he didn’t look for it because he wouldn’t but no one ever since 1945 has come to, come and said and done things that they do in, they do in Europe for you. I’ve heard stories about the Dutch were the same. Those who were really really at the wrong end of the stick appreciate what we did. I mean we’ve had terrible times in England of course during the World War 2 but we probably, we probably haven’t, well we haven’t suffered, well we haven’t suffered as much as the Europeans.
LA: We haven’t, we didn’t suffer.
DA: No.
LA: As much as -
DA: Yeah.
LA: The [Barotte’s] suffered.
DA: Yeah.
JA: No. [The Belgians there?].
LA: No way.
SA: [Mr Barotte].
LA: You wouldn’t have thought, when we went over there, you wouldn’t have thought anybody else was in the RAF. Only us.
JA: Dad, dad actually won it all didn’t he? Dad won the war.
LA: He’d done the lot.
JA: He did. Yes, he was singlehandedly.
LA: By the way, their reaction.
DA: Their appreciation.
LA: To him I mean.
JA: Yeah.
MH: Sure.
LA: I mean you wouldn’t have thought anybody else was in it. But -
JA: But Mr [Barotte’s], so that -
DA: Which was a big surprise to us all wasn’t it?
JA: Yeah. It was.
DA: It was marvellous, you know.
LA: Yeah.
SA: It must have been very pleasing and obviously was for dad, you know so -
MH: That he’d had due recognition.
SA: Yes. Definitely.
MH: From the very people.
LA: It really was, yeah.
SA: And in fact it was more important because it was from the people in the sense that you know you can have too much celebrity can’t you.
MH: There was no, there was no twist on it. As such.
DA: It was just wholehearted.
SA: Pure and honest and it was.
DA: Even to the point -
SA: Respect what you do.
DA: Do you remember in that restaurant after one visit we were having a meal and there was a young teenage lad who was waiting on us and he realised that we were a group of English people and he said what are you here for because their English is no problem and we said well father here has come back to see, to the cemetery where his two airmen had died.
LA: Yeah.
DA: And were buried and he said, you know, we said you know we said he was in the RAF and the young Belgian knew the history immediately and his attitude changed and he was only maybe fifteen, sixteen his attitude and respect went up a couple of notches and I thought that’s quite significant the way that the history is taught and understood and passed down and that was, that was a nice moment. Yeah. A very low key moment but a very nice moment which we noticed.
MH: Whose idea was the Memorial at the site? The lovely Memorial that has been. Whose idea was that?
DA: Theirs. The people in Belgium. In Spar.
JA: Yeah what was there originally was the site was where, this is where the pilot landed. This is well -
LA: [all over Belgium?]
JA: It’s about the size of this room -.
MH: Right.
JA: Really isn’t it?
DA: Yeah.
JA: And there’s a tree at the back and, but it was all, it was just really there wasn’t a lot there at all when we first were going over there.
DA: No but do you remember seeing the photograph [the Barottes] whether the [Barottes] got it or someone. I’ve seen a photograph and in, in of that moment just after the next few days after that crash there is -
JA: Yeah but -
DA: An imprint -
JA: Yes. That’s in -
DA: Of a body in the ground.
JA: Yes.
MH: Right.
DA: And it’s that spot that’s been chosen for the -
As I say that’s the pilot’s, that’s where he -
DA: I don’t know, was it the gunner?
JA: No. it was the pilot.
DA: Ok.
JA: Where he landed.
DA: So there’s an imprint and literally on that spot.
But they’ve now put those, what I call -
DA: Yeah.
JA: The legs on that, you know.
MH: Right. Yeah.
And they had a tree. I think they did ask dad about the tree didn’t they and anyway they’ve got the tree growing there.
LA: I mean it’s all planted. Well on that picture it is isn’t it?
DA: Yeah.
JA: Yes I mean well obviously when we go back we usually are taking some wreaths from the Legion.
LA: I know we take our wreaths and things like that.
SA: We did last year.
LA: But it’s planted.
SA: With the Legion.
LA: I mean it’s all in the middle of a meadow.
MH: Right. Yeah.
LA: But I mean and it’s looked after.
JA: They put that piece of stone there originally.
MH: Right. Oh wow. Oh that’s lovely.
JA: So of course, so it’s sort of built up from that slightly but it’s still, it’s still very sort of basic. It’s not fussy and fancy it is just -
LA: Yeah.
MH: I will say one thing about your dad in this one. He never put on any weight did he?
JA: No. No. Not at all.
SA: No he didn’t.
MH: ‘Cause I’ve seen the photographs of when he was young.
SA: Yes. Yeah.
MH: He’s very slim.
JA: Yes.
MH: Very slender built.
JA: Yeah definitely.
MH: He’s carried that for -
JA: Yes, yeah.
MH: I wish I could say the same I must admit.
JA: Yes exactly. And that’s actually the site where his ashes were.
SA: Yeah. He’s scattered around the back.
JA: Actually on -
MH: Well it’s lovely.
DA: He insisted that his ashes were laid there which we did in 2009.
MH: But what’s interesting in that photograph is that he’s stood by the Memorial but he’s not there. If you look at his face. His thoughts -
JA: Oh yes.
MH: In the photograph.
JA: Yeah.
MH: Are back -
JA: Absolutely.
MH: Back to nineteen -
SA: Yes.
MH: That’s what that photograph -
SA: Yes. Yes.
MH: Conveys to me. That his thoughts -
SA: Oh yeah.
MH: You know.
JA: It always meant -
MH: Which is lovely.
JA: Yeah. Meant that to him.
MH: And there’s his -
SA: Tree.
MH: Duly pointed out tree.
SA: Yeah.
MH: With the target on it. That’s a bit –
SA: Yeah
JA: Oh right, yeah.
MH: Someone’s put a RAF roundel above it.
JA: They did didn’t they? And then we -
MH: It’s lovely that they all come out.
JA: Yes they did. It was lovely.
LA: Oh it’s unbelievable.
MH: And young children there as well.
LA: Oh yeah.
MH: Which is good.
JA: The whole school.
LA: The whole school.
MH: Which is right.
JA: Yeah and of course we always when we go then we like to go across to the cemetery where the two are laid to rest so there’s you know where the pilot and rear gunner are. That’s at Hotton, Hotton Cemetery.
SA: And they’re mainly all twenty year olds. There were very few that are older.
JA: Well that’s it. We walk up and down.
SA: Very few. Occasionally there’s the odd one in his thirties or something but mainly twenties.
JA: That’s right.
MH: And the gentlemen are laid side by side which is nice.
DA: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: ‘Cause I did a personal trip earlier in the year as I said, going across to visit the dams and where the dams crews are laid and some of the dams crews aren’t laid together.
JA: Oh.
MH: There’s you know some of them are [it’s a picked spot?]
JA: Yeah.
MH: As such in a cemetery but it’s nice when I think the Commonwealth War Graves haven’t done that deliberately. That’s just what’s occurred.
JA: Yes. Yeah.
MH: When the bodies have come from other cemeteries and whatnot and that’s where the thing -
DA: [?]
MH: Has occurred there.
JA: They’ve actually -
MH: But it’s nice where they do have -
JA: Absolutely. Yes.
MH: The crews together ‘cause they lived each other’s lives as you rightly pointed out and they were in nissen huts, you know, normally nine times out of ten two crews per hut living side by side as you rightly pointed out so that you know one day they could come back and effects would be being loaded up by the warrant officer and you could have had a conversation with, you know, whoever, the day before and it’s just I don’t think it’s a fact that a lot of young people today could grasp. I think they would struggle to grasp that fact that you could have a conversation with somebody because if you said to them, ‘Ah, you know, your friend, tomorrow is going to, you know, not going to be there.’
JA: Yeah, they can’t really.
MH: They’d go well, no, you know
JA: No.
MH: They wouldn’t comprehend that.
JA: Not at all.
MH: That the people you lived -
JA: That was every day.
MH: Lived side by side.
MH: It happened didn’t it?
LA: Yes.
MH: Side by side.
JA: It was –
MH: You socialised side by side.
LA: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: You were literally -
JA: It was going to happen.
MH: You were hand in glove the whole time.
JA: That’s right.
MH: And I don’t think today that that it’s only sort of corresponding -
No.
MH: Sort of scenario really.
LA: I think that’s what he found. He was one of their, the group and when they had a leave I mean before my time they’d go to London but they’d all go together.
JA: Did he do anything naughty at all?
LA: Well I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
MH: Not naughty in that way. Naughty as in have a few jars and get up to some hijinks as such.
LA: Well, I don’t know. They used to go to the palladium I think but that’s all.
DA: Am I right in thinking that when he was being demobbed he had to go, he went for training as a telephonist. He went -
LA: No I -
JA: That was before, before the -
DA: When he went to London.
JA: Wasn’t it?
DA: On a skills training course to learn how to use -
LA: To be a telephonist.
DA: The switchboard system.
LA: They did all them sort of things but -
DA: What, what I always found must have been a tough thing to do for him and for well all air crews in that you’re in, at home you could be off base celebrating and in perfect safety and in a few hours you were in maximum danger. Now that is unique. Other armed forces had their terrible times too so that’s not to decry any other out of the armed forces ‘cause it’s each had their own horrors but to actually be safe psychologically to be safe and then have to step forward and get in to a machine that’s going to take you somewhere unknown and you probably won’t come back. That takes a heck of a kind of bravery to do that. To accept that you know and to not just turn away and say sorry I can’t do it, you know.
LA: You have to go.
DA: It’s a unique -
LA: Whether you wanted to go or not.
DA: Yeah it’s a unique bravery to go from safety to certain, well not certain death but it’s there and then back again and that’s now, we’ve completed that journey. Once is enough. We got away with it we’ve got to go back again. You do that. Oh got away with it and got to go back again and keep repeating that night after night weather permitting.
MH: I think, I think you’re right in saying that the RAF were unique.
DA: I find that very difficult.
MH: In that position with both with Fighter Command and with Bomber Command in that you could, he could have been visiting you and getting his toothpaste and his shaving stick but then said that he had to be back -
LA: No he have to have Morny cream.
MH: Oh. Oh. Sorry.
LA: You don’t have an ordinary shaving stick. Not when you’re in the RAF.
MH: But you could go from that, you could go from that and go back to base.
LA: Yeah.
MH: Done briefing.
DA: Yeah.
MH: Had his egg and bacon.
DA: Yeah.
MH: And as you rightly say, within a few hours, be flying -
DA: Yeah.
MH: Above Germany.
DA: Yeah.
MH: With the unknown knowledge of course -
DA: Yeah.
MH: Whether -
LA: You don’t know.
If you’d be returning.
MH: Whereas with the navy etcetera the wives and sweethearts used to say most probably, goodbye to them at the docks.
DA: Yeah for -
MH: And the vessel would, after a day or so depart.
DA: Yeah.
MH: And with the army you were either away or you were home.
DA: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: But the RAF, I think, in those
DA: Yeah.
MH: In those sort of circumstance was quite unique.
DA: Well I think that’s a maximum stress you could get isn’t to be safe, not safe -
MH: To go from a peaceful life into ultimate stress.
DA: Yeah.
MH: And have to flick between the two.
DA: I think it’s been underestimated.
LA: Yeah but what you’re not working out you’re young -
DA: Yeah.
LA: Seventeen, eighteen you don’t think like you are thinking today.
DA: Yeah.
JA: That’s true. It’s just -
MH: But having, I must admit I have spoken to a number of people. I know a number of people -
LA: Yeah.
MH: That are of that age group that we’re talking about. Late teens to early twenties and if you said to them by the way seven of you are going to go in a plane tomorrow and you’re going to fly it technically over Germany and they’re going to be throwing eighty eight millimetre flak shells up at you where if one absolutely you know gets a good shot and comes through –
JA: That’s it –
MH: Your bomb bay -
JA: Game over.
MH: And you’ve got a four thousand bomb cookie on board, sorry that’s, sorry, kiss you’re backside goodbye.
JA: That’s exactly, yeah.
MH: You know if you said that to your average late teen, twenty year old he’d say, no thanks, I’m not doing that.
No. No.
JA: That’s right. They would.
MH: You know I think that’s what makes the people of your generation a different, totally different breed.
DA: Oh yeah.
MH: To today. You had ethics, morality, courage -
DA: Yeah.
MH: By the spade load.
DA: Yeah.
MH: Today. Nah. Do it on a video game where I can’t get hurt.
DA: Yeah.
MH: I can do that.
That’s right.
MH: But if you actually asked them to put, I think to put -
SA: Put themselves on the line.
SA: No.
MH: They wouldn’t do it.
SA: No.
MH: So that I’d take my hat off if I was wearing one.
DA: Yeah.
MH: I’d take my hat off to your generation because that’s what you went through.
DA: You see father’s birthday is October the 13th and he was nine, he went from nineteen to twenty on October the 13th, November the 2nd he was shot down.
MH: Yeah.
DA: So that’s just into his twenties.
MH: Yeah.
DA: And the pilot was twenty one, twenty two.
MH: He was twenty.
SA: Yeah. Twenty one then.
MH: He was twenty.
LA: They were -
JA: They all were weren’t they?
LA: They were all that age weren’t they?
MH: Yeah.
DA: Can you imagine the skills needed to actually fly, how about the navigating, the skills needed to navigate?
MH: They went through lot. A phenomenal amount.
LA: Have we had our three hours?
SA: No, I wouldn’t, no.
MH: I hope I haven’t bored you.
SA: Not at all. I’ll get you another cup of tea.
MH: If you would wish anything. If, say this was a normal project to specifically define your husband and your dad what do you think he would want you to say about him? What do you think? How would you sum him up?
LA: I think he’d be really quite honoured really to think so much was being done now after all those years. I mean it’s all so long ago isn’t it?
MH: In some ways, my personal feeling, it’s too long ago as in it it should have been done a lot earlier.
LA: Yeah.
MH: Because then the very people we are commemorating.
LA: I would have like him to have been here today.
MH: I’d have loved it.
JA: Oh yes.
MH: If I could have met him, I really would -
LA: Yeah.
MH: And I know he is here. He is here because the building that we are sat in he he had, you know, so, and you three, you are him.
SA: Oh yeah.
MH: So, you know, you are part made up from your mum but you’re part made up from your dad as well so you know you are him. So he is here.
SA: Oh yeah.
JA: Always.
MH: He is here with you because –
LA: Yeah.
MH: You had all that time with him.
LA: Oh yeah.
MH: So -
LA: Yeah.
MH: And, you know, I think it’s lovely. I do really.
DA: I think -
MH: Because I think this is important. People should how know families etcetera, you know.
LA: Well life is incompletely different isn’t it I mean I’m [I’m?] aren’t I?
JA: Yeah.
LA: Oh -
MH: No.
JA: Carry on.
MH: One thing I forgot to say to you, ok, is these are non PC interviews, ok. If you say something and you want it to be on there it stays on there because this is, you know -
DA: Yeah. Our -
MH: We’re not up to airy fairy -
DA: Yeah.
MH: Up and down sort of politics etcetera because this was this was one thing I asked right at the start when I was being taught, you know, how to do the oral histories, how PC did we have to be? And I said -
DA: How correct.
MH: I hope, I hope it’s not that way because -
DA: Yeah.
MH: People will say things on tape and they’ll call a spade a spade and they’ll call a banana a banana, you know. Let them just talk. Sorry. And I interrupted you there.
LA: No it’s alright. I was going to say life is completely, well I can see life completely different and the friends I’ve got that are my age, there’s only a few of us left but we think the way the young ones are going on now -
SA: They have no respect.
LA: Is terrible. The children from the playschool which is over here. They only live around the village but they’re coming in great big cars where I used to I don’t know whether along the road there is a garage.
[distant voice?]
LA: I lived at a farm just beyond that and I used to bike to Peterborough every day.
MH: Of course.
LA: To work, work all day and bike home again but I mean now they have to have a car to get them from just up the road.
SA: Well I worked obviously in an environment where I had to deal with -
LA: Oh you -
SA: Drink and young people and -
MH: Don’t mix.
SA: And their behaviour is disgraceful but I always saw myself as a headmistress they never had and they got it and I got great respect because I had boundaries and they weren’t allowed to cross them and they didn’t because -
MH: Comes from your dad.
SA: Yeah I’m very much like him.
MH: That’s one thing he very much instilled in you then.
SA: Very much. Yeah.
DA: Yeah.
SA: When, I mean, I mean what I say and he did and -
DA: I think father’s influence travelled far. I think he’d be proud that his influence has travelled far and wide in the family and in the community. His thinking –
MH: And overseas.
SA: Yeah.
MH: And overseas.
SA: Yeah.
MH: And overseas.
DA: Yeah, his influence and it’s been a settling -
LA: Well he didn’t have to make a fuss.
DA: No. No. I mean.
SA: No.
LA: He would give a look.
SA: I know
MH: Yeah. By his -
SA: I’ve had that look.
MH: And you knew about it.
SA: I’ve had it lots of times.
LA: No, but the look was enough. He didn’t have to -
SA: No he didn’t have to do anything. He just used to look at me and I used to, I used to be like behave but now they don’t.
MH: No.
SA: The young ones don’t have any respect.
LA: It’s terrible. Schools are terrible.
MH: Thank you very much. Thank you.
SA: The language and -
LA: I think schools are terrible but -
DA: Yeah. I think his legacy is his influence. His, his definite morality. Knowing right from wrong and we get to much fuzziness nowadays about what’s right and wrong, what’s wrong and this is we’ve not talked about it but he was not a religious person in the sense that we know religion as in a church goer but I know from the work he did with people he was totally committed to helping people in a no fuss way which would, could put him amongst the best of any religious genuine Christian person.
MH: Help they neighbour.
DA: Could have put him there but he chose not to go there. His selflessness you know was, was there.
MH: Didn’t need to be a practicing person to actually just hold those thoughts.
DA: Yeah.
MH: And those moralities.
DA: Yeah. He kept those thoughts to himself about his religion. Religious beliefs.
SA: But I don’t think any of us are but we’re very respectful of others and so we’re very like him in that way. We all know how to behave. Unfortunately, most of them don’t now.
MH: The generations continue.
LA: But now I mean children run riot don’t they?
DA: Oh I don’t know I think you find that teenagers always have. You know. To a certain extent. You know there’s always a wild moment in any young person’s life otherwise they’re not pushing the boundaries.
JA: Oh but -
SA: No. It’s worse.
DA: You get to the stage where we all pushed the boundaries.
SA: It’s worse now. Sorry.
DA: Which was another thing about -
JA: You know as a policeman don’t you? It’s worse.
SA: It’s worse. I mean how many drugs did we used to push down our throats? I’ve never taken one in my life. Not that kind of thing. You know, I mean paracetamols.
JA: The worst of that is that they don’t mind -
LA: Oh I’ve got piles there.
JA: Doing things. They don’t respect. Now, I wouldn’t have done things because I would think oh if my dad saw me doing that.
SA: Yeah, exactly. Or the village policeman.
JA: They don’t think that anymore because we’ve seen all these things on telly where the parents see these children brought their children doing things home or whatever.
SA: Exactly.
JA: And there’s no respect anymore for themselves.
DA: Yeah you’re right, you’re right because as a teenager.
SA: Wouldn’t have dared. Wouldn’t dare.
JA: You still wouldn’t want your dad to know.
DA: I had many temptations.
JA: That, you know, right if you -
DA: Yeah.
JA: Went off and you were drinking and you shouldn’t be or whatever, you know -
SA: I would not have dared.
MH: Your dad’s influence is conveyed through you.
JA: Absolutely.
SA: Yeah.
JA: Yeah.
MH: And through you -
JA: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: To your children.
JA: We have yeah, yeah.
MH: So his influence is just like the ripple on the pond.
DA: Yeah.
MH: It will reach out and out and out and will continue.
JA: Yes.
DA: Like I said early when I’m doing DIY stuff and I’m working with wood and I think, what do I do now? He’s my reference point but that applies to some of the morality questions and some of the logical thinking that I’ve had to do in my life.
MH: Yeah.
DA: With my family and have him included in those thoughts because I know that I can’t go too far wrong. It’s like a back stop. You know -
LA: That’s why -
DA: It’s a safe rock to come back to, well, ‘What would dad do?’ Well I’ll default to that. You know, maybe we’ll use that as a rock and spread out and do something more exciting but that’s always a backstop.
LA: That’s why when your dad died you bought him a saw. I haven’t forgotten that.
DA: What? The wreath?
JA: The wreath.
LA: A wreath was made in a saw and you said, ‘I’ve got a saw of my own now, dad,’ because dad’s saw was important and he didn’t let him mess around with it.
SA: No. No. None of us touched any of his tools. They were precious weren’t they?
DA: I’ve kept them. I’ve got them all.
JA: Yeah.
DA: I’ve kept them.
SA: I’m no good anyway I can’t DIY. Well I have just wall papered for the first time but only my bedroom so nobody knows.
DA: Sometimes I look, I kept his tool roll with his tool roll with his brace and bit and sometimes I look at it and I think, ‘How on earth did you,’ like you say he’s not a terribly big person, ‘How on earth did you use this, balancing.’ you know on somewhere on some brickwork to build a roof, you know, manually using a drill. No electricity and get some momentum, you know to –
MH: He must have had a good sense of balance.
DA: Except for once.
MH: Because of his position in the aircraft he was in.
DA: Yeah.
MH: Where he was sat in the aircraft wouldn’t have been, I mean, yeah, you would have been sat there on a [slung?] seat.
DA: Yeah.
MH: But he’d have still been, he’d have been like a [?]
DA: Yeah.
MH: He would have been like a baby’s rattle.
DA: Yeah.
MH: Because -
DA: All the movement.
MH: I mean even with his flying kit on.
DA: Yeah.
MH: Due to his build being slight he’d have still been able to be moved around in the turret.
DA: Yeah.
MH: As such.
DA: Yeah.
MH: So -
SA: It was very cold. Very cold. Even with the suits on.
LA: Very cold.
SA: He used to say how cold.
LA: He said how the icicles used to hang down his face, you know.
DA: There was, there is a rule.
SA: Very cold.
LA: Well he was up in that -
MH: Yeah.
LA: Top.
MH: Yeah.
DA: Yeah if you remember mother that there’s a rule he said there’s a notice somewhere in the aircraft or it’s in their rulebook, it was in their rulebook that it’s a punishable offence to grow icicles on the oxygen mask through the hours that you flew without any action an icicle from your breath will start to form.
LA: Yeah.
DA: And they were tempted to have a competition, you know, to grow a long icicle. He said there is an actual a rule you shouldn’t do that, you know. You’ll be punished, you know, should you be found.
LA: Snap it off.
DA: Yeah.
MH: Well it’s understandable.
DA: Yeah.
MH: As I said I had the good fortune to talking with Syd Marshall the other day who was a flight engineer on Lancasters and he was explaining that up at high altitudes twenty, twenty five thousand feet certain bits used to freeze and things like that.
DA: Yeah.
MH: You know and I’ve certainly read about, from the air gunner’s side of things when they were chipping ice off the inside of the Perspex.
DA: Yeah.
MH: You know, and try and see the enemy fighter let alone shoot it down. To try and see it first.
DA: Yeah.
MH: You know, and it was a very cold period of time.
DA: Yeah. Always night flying.
MH: Especially during the winter ops as well and things like that as well.
DA: Yeah. Always night flying there’s no there’s no sun, heat from the sun.
MH: No. No, you’ve got no thermal heat as such but, no. But I will ask anybody now.
LA: Is that Judy?
DA: Yeah.
MH: Is there anything else anybody would like to add regarding your late husband and your late dad that you’d like people to know about him?
DA: Well I think it would be useful if we all were to say that we owe, we owe him a big debt for our lives. There’s a certain tree in Belgium that we owe our lives to. Without that we wouldn’t be here.
JA: No, that’s for sure.
DA: And he was, you know a very sincere, quiet, strong, brave man.
LA: He was certainly strong.
SA: A very special man.
LA: But not, he wasn’t -
SA: In a quiet way.
LA: [an ebullient person?].
SA: No. He was quiet.
LA: He was quiet but he was strong but we’re both strong.
MH: Yeah.
SA: And so are we.
JA: I think we -
LA: And they’re strong.
JA: I think we he lived his life the way he wanted to live it.
LA: Yeah.
JA: I think he lived it to the full. He did all the things that he wanted to do.
LA: Yeah.
JA: You know he had his own limitation on flying.
SA: Yeah he didn’t like -
JA: But that was from an experience, obviously that was the experience during the war.
SA: That is, we can’t -
JA: But I think he, you know, did good.
SA: Yeah. Yeah.
JA: Really.
MH: He seems to have lived life to the full.
SA: Yeah.
MH: Following the second chance with the tree.
JA: Absolutely.
SA: That’s right.
JA: And that was -
MH: The tree.
SA: The tree saved his life.
MH: That’s when the tree said –
SA: Yeah.
MH: I’m giving you your life back.
SA: Yeah.
JA: Exactly.
SA: Oh yeah.
MH: Go and, you know, do -
JA: He had to do something with it because, you know -
MH: I think he gained strength from that tree. You know, you know so trees -
JA: Yeah.
MH: Trees are invariably strong but -
SA: Yeah.
JA: Yeah.
MH: You know, possibly that you could say, you know, in that tree saving him -
LA: Well, it definitely -
JA: It gave him another sixty three years of life.
MH: Yeah.
LA: I mean you just wonder, why did his parachute catch in the tree, don’t you?
SA: Well, it was just fate.
LA: Yeah.
JA: All down to the, literally, timing.
MH: Somebody rolled the dice.
SA: Yeah.
JA: Exactly.
MH: And the dice came up for him that day.
SA: One lived. Two died.
MH: Yeah.
LA: But he certainly didn’t get over that.
SA: No.
LA: Well you have to live on don’t you?
JA: That’s it and it coloured his life and it made him probably a better person.
SA: Yeah.
MH: Made him. Yeah he gained strength from it.
JA: Exactly, you know.
MH: Albeit, as I say, in that photograph, where he stood.
JA: Yeah.
MH: You can clearly see he’s not there.
JA: No.
MH: He’s physically there as I say but -
JA: Yeah but -
MH: His mind, his mind is elsewhere -
JA: He’s back with the boys.
MH: He’s back with his boys.
JA: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
MH: Yeah.
JA: And that’s the pinnacle of all of it really.
LA: Well he made that decision that he wanted to go back there didn’t he?
SA: Yeah.
JA: Oh yes with his ashes.
SA: Ashes, yeah.
MH: I think, yeah.
LA: Which -
JA: He had to, yeah.
MH: I think that, yeah.
JA: Yeah.
SA: He wanted to be there with them again. That’s really, he wanted to be back with them.
LA: Yeah. Which again -
SA: The only way he could.
JA: ‘Cause he would always have felt really sad that they didn’t get that life that he’s had, you know.
SA: Yeah.
JA: But they’re the things you have to live I suppose on those sorts of occasions aren’t they?
SA: Yeah.
JA: Those things that happen.
SA: Many, many did.
MH: In some ways you could say as well that in him being saved he then lived a life for them.
JA: Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah.
MH: And in memory of them as well you know it happens quite often where you’ve got crew members they lose crew members and things like that because the many times and unfortunately your dad’s position in the aircraft was right above where the roundel was so it was like giving the German night fighter a target to aim at.
SA: Oh yeah.
JA: Absolutely.
MH: Just aim for the roundel.
JA: I’m here.
MH: ‘Cause there’s a man there.
JA: Yeah. Absolutely.
MH: And tail end Charlies of course, you know -
JA: Gosh.
MH: Being lonely at the back and, you know, detached.
LA: Oh yeah.
MH: From, you know, from the rest of the crew.
LA: You are.
MH: Connected by intercom you know and having to sit in the turret.
LA: Yeah.
MH: Open the back doors behind you to extricate your parachute from there and then re-shut and turn it around and open them again.
JA: Yeah. That’s right. And then when they don’t open.
MH: The aircraft doing, you know, did an almighty spin because a lot of them used to spin because of the damage etcetera but -
LA: You’re clearly on your own aren’t you?
MH: Very isolated. But you -
LA: But I think when you went up in the top, not knowing but I think you were alone really and you’re very in line of a shot.
SA: I’ve watched all the old war films and –
MH: Yeah.
LA: Someone else.
SA: It’s really, I mean I know they’re only films but they are very good and they show you, you know what happened and I -
MH: What I would recommend to you if you haven’t seen it is basically Bomber Command station commander at RAF Hemswell videoed, not video, they didn’t have video then but he cinecamera’d.
SA: Yeah.
It’s the only colour film they have of Bomber Command during the war and it’s, as I say, RAF Hemswell prior to them doing a raid and it takes you through all the stages where the briefing and the pilot comes in. He’s got his little dog there and everything.
SA: Yeah.
And it takes you all the way through but it’s the only documentary that you can see and that’s on YouTube so it’s well worth having a look at because it really will put you in the seat you know because this particular crew ended up completing their raid but they were late out and then late back and by the time they were coming back fog had descended on their home airfield.
SA: Oh no and they –
MH: So they then had to try and find another one because they’d had some damage caused to the aircraft and then they had to find one with what they used to call FIDO which was of course the burning off of all the petrol to try and lift the fog.
SA: Oh right.
MH: And they ended up landing on a FIDO field as such but it’s well worth, well worth having a look, you know and it will give you an insight.
JA: Yeah.
MH: To what, you know your dad had gone through and everything.
JA: That’s right. He did actually go back in a Lancaster fifteen years ago.
MH: Right.
JA: Where it goes from. Is it East Kirkby?
MH: Oh he went for a taxi ride.
JA: Down the taxi -
MH: Yeah.
JA: Because I -
MH: Yeah.
JA: It happened to be my son’s, it was his twenty fifth birthday and we all went for that so that is myself and my husband and dad and, but anyway we, you know got him in there. He was in there and he went right through to the front and sat in the pilot’s seat and everything and, I mean, you know, like he said from when he was a young lad in there I mean there isn’t much room in them.
MH: No.
JA: They are so tiny.
MH: Very tiny. Yeah.
SA: He didn’t want to be a big person.
JA: He didn’t at all, you know and I stayed in the mid upper gunner position, sort of thing because there’s nothing there but you just stand and you can look out, sort of thing. I think my daughter was the rear gunner, you know. We just, yeah taxied up and down. That was the first time he’d gone back in.
MH: How did he feel when he came out?
JA: He was -
LA: He also wanted -
JA: Thrilled. He loved it. He was absolutely, yeah, just really pleased that he’d done it. He also spoke to the pilot. They obviously, you know ‘cause it was a very special day for dad and everything and they, he’s got a picture somewhere with him and he was yeah he couldn’t believe in a way I think how it had sort of shrunk because of course you know that sort of happens doesn’t it? When you -
MH: Yeah.
JA: You forget how small it -
MH: I always relate -
JA: How tight it all is.
MH: Relate things to Wagon Wheels.
Yeah [laughs] Yes, they’ve shrunk haven’t they?
MH: They were bigger. I’m sure they were bigger.
JA: Yeah they have.
MH: They’ve definitely gone in for a shrink but you were going to say sorry.
JA: Yes.
MH: You were going to say.
JA: What were you going to say?
LA: Well I was going to say his picture and bits and pieces went to Elvington. Do you know Elvington?
MH: Yes. Yes.
LA: In Yorkshire. We used to go there because we had a good friend who was in charge of the gunnery room. I’ve forgotten now what but he put some things in there and he put some things in -
JA: East Kirkby.
LA: East Kirkby. Bits and pieces.
JA: Yeah the air gunners room. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
LA: Yeah.
JA: In the air gunner’s room.
LA: That right.
JA: But, yeah there’s some artefacts there really as well which -
LA: Yeah but I mean that’s we’re going back -
JA: Years ago.
LA: A long way. Anyway -
MH: Right. Got this. Ok. Before I turn this tape off then is there anything anybody would like to add?
[Pause]
JA: No.
SA: No.
LA: No.
MH: Ok the time is now 1555 and I’m going to turn the tape off.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
interview with Derrick Allen's family
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mark Hunt
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
2015-08-30
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:47:44 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
AAllenFam150830
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Derrick Allen was the mid-upper gunner on a Lancaster that crashed near Spa in Belgium. He had been making his way to bale out when the pilot asked him to help the rear gunner who was trapped in his turret. He managed to do this but the plane broke apart giving them no time to escape. Three members of the crew had already successfully baled out, the pilot and rear gunner died but Derrick Allen fell into a tree and survived. He went on to marry and have a family but only told his daughter about this incident in the 1970s. He later visited the site of the crash and found that the local people had created a memorial and he became close friends with many locals. His family describe the quality of his post-war life and praise their father for his courage.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Great Britain
Belgium--Spa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
467 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
bale out
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
crash
memorial
military service conditions
RAF Waddington
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2445/LAllenDJ1880966v1.1.pdf
9e5a668d1c670d39cf4e1ba2b8204224
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen, Derrick
Derrick Allen
D J Allen
Description
An account of the resource
75 items. The collection covers the career of Flight Sergeant Derrick John Allen (1880966 Royal Air Force) who was a mid-upper gunner on 467 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron at RAF Waddington in 1944-45. Collection contains his logbook, Royal Air Force documentation, notes on air gunners course and photographs of various aircrew. Collection also contains maps and photographs covering the loss of his Lancaster near Spa in Belgium from which he successfully bailed out on 2 November 1944. There is also an oral history interview with his family.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Judy Hodgson 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
2015-08-30
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. 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
Allen, DJ
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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
Derrick Allen's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners, flight engineers
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LAllenDJ1880966v1
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
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
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunner’s and flight engineer’s flying log book for Flight Sergeant Derrick Allen air gunner, covering the period from 11 February 1944 to 25 April 1945. Detailing training and operations flown. He was stationed at London, RAF Bridlington, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Pembrey, RAF Silverstone, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Waddington, RAF Strubby, RAF Blyton, RAF Cardington, RAF St. Athan and RAF Spanhoe. Aircraft flown were, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and C-47. He flew a total of 19 operations with 467 Squadron, 6 daylight and 13 night, his aircraft was shot down on his ninth operation to Dusseldorf, when Pilot and Rear Gunner were killed, he abandoned aircraft. Targets were, Kaiserslautern, Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Walcheren, Brunswick, Homberg, Dusseldorf, Ladbergen, Politz, Dresden, Chemnitz, Dortmund-Emms Canal, Sassnitz, Harburg, Essen, Komotau and Tonsberg. His pilots on operations were pilot Officer Landridge, Flight Lieutenant Evans and Flying Officer Rodinson.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Sassnitz
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Norway--Tønsberg
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-11
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-30
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-11
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-04-25
1945-04-26
1654 HCU
17 OTU
467 Squadron
619 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
C-47
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Operational Training Unit
RAF Blyton
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Cardington
RAF Pembrey
RAF Silverstone
RAF Spanhoe
RAF St Athan
RAF Strubby
RAF Syerston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
shot down
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2494/PCaseyJ15170001.1.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Casey, John
J Casey
John Casey
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Collection contains an oral history interview with Sergeant John Casey (- 2016, 2217470, Royal Air Force), an escape map, logbook, service documentation, a wallet and photographs. John Casey served as an air gunner on 61 Squadron in 1944-45.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Casey 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
2015-06-10
2015-11-19
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
Casey, J
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
This photo along with the wallet was salvaged from the Stirling we bailed out of. Five of us bailed out, five lost their lives. St crashed at Normanton- on- Trent; on the 29-7-1944. Sat night at 6.45.
Rose was an Irish nurse at Selly Oak Hospital. She lived in the same digs as me in Birmingham 1941
R Kearemy
8.11.41
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
Wallet, photograph and story
Description
An account of the resource
John Casey's wallet salvaged from a Stirling that he bailed out of near Normanton-on-Trent while training on 29 July 1944. Photograph of Rose who was an Irish woman who lived in the same digs as John Casey in Birmingham in 1941.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One leather wallet, one photograph and one page document.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical object
Photograph
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCaseyJ15170001, PCaseyJ15170002, PCaseyJ15170003, PCaseyJ15170004, PCaseyJ1503, PCaseyJ1504
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Newark (Nottinghamshire)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07-29
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
1944-07-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
bale out
crash
heirloom
killed in action
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/200/3335/PBaconSG1601.1.jpg
70945e1921ef54e6d100ad826375db35
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Title
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Bacon, Stephen Granville
Stephen Bacon
Stephen Granville Bacon
Stephen G Bacon
S Bacon
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Stephen Granville Bacon (1921 - 2023, 1351298 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 12 Squadron before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-02-19
2016-02-16
2016-01-18
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Bacon, SG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Sergeant Stephen Granville Bacon at his home in Burnley on Tuesday 16th of February at twenty past two. Start us off -
SB: Err, excuse me a minute -
BW: Go on.
SB: Warrant Officer Bacon.
BW: I beg your pardon.
BW: Warrant Officer Bacon.
Other: Is that different?
BW: They only gave me your rank as sergeant.
SB: That’s what I finished up as. A -
BW: That’s fine.
SB: Warrant officer
Other: Is that higher than a sergeant? I don’t know.
BW: It is. Yes.
Other: Oh right. Warrant Officer
BW: That that was all they gave me, sergeant. So, Warrant Officer Stephen Granville Bacon can you just confirm for me please your service number and your date of birth.
SB: 1351298 as I already told you. That’s my service number and my date of birth is 2 3 21. 2nd of the 3rd 21.
BW: 2nd of March 1921.
SB: Yeah.
BW: And you were born in Barton on Humberside. Is that right?
SB: Yes.
BW: And what was your, you say you were from, your family was you had eight siblings. Is that right? You were one of eight.
SB: I’m one of eight.
BW: I see and -
SB: I had five brothers and two sisters.
BW: And were you the eldest?
SB: No.
BW: Eldest brother?
SB: I was the youngest bar one.
BW: And what was your home life like in the 20s and 30s? What would you describe it as?
SB: Strict. And that’s all I can say. I mean we used to have a time to be in at night before dark. Anything like that. We strictly adhered to that. So it was really strict.
BW: And where did you go to school?
SB: Pardon?
BW: Where did you go to school?
SB: I went to school at Queen Street School, Barton upon Humber which was a church school in actual fact.
BW: Were you a religious family?
SB: Pardon?
BW: Were you a religious family?
SB: No.
Other: You were quite poor I think. Am I right?
SB: Mind your own business.
BW: And so what age did you leave school?
SB: Fourteen.
BW: Which was I think standard at that that time wasn’t it?
SB: It was standard age at that time. And that was -
BW: Did you leave with qualifications or anything or not?
SB: No. I finished up in a class of my own x7 and WH Aubrey was the headmaster and I’d go to school and there was only me in this x7 and he’d just say Stephen just pop along and see if Mrs Aubrey wants anything. Any errands running or anything. And that was my last year at school.
BW: Yeah. Just running errands for -
SB: Oh yeah. There was no point in me being there on my own. It just wasn’t the class, the only one in the class I think and it was quite pointless. I did go to school as soon as I joined the air force.
BW: And what, what age were you when you joined up?
SB: Eighteen I think. Eighteen. Nineteen. I forget which. Eighteen I think. Was I?
BW: And what, what prompted your decision to join the RAF? Why? Why the RAF and not the other services?
SB: I had an ambition to fly but it didn’t work out that way. I joined when I went to enlist in Hull at Kingston I, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘I’d like to be flying in the air force.’ ‘Very good. But you can’t. You’ll have to join up as a AC plonk’ as they called it. AC2. ‘and then you’ll, you’ll have to put a remuster application in.’ Well, after several remuster applications I eventually was accepted to go to Weston Super Mare in front of a selection board and I think there was eight of us at that time. I didn’t see any more but I got a recall after seeing, being in front of this selection board to tell me I’d been accepted. From there I had to go to St Johns Wood in London for a deep medical.
BW: Ahum.
SB: And then from there I went to Craven Hill and then I went to Dalcross and that’s when I started flying.
BW: Whereabouts is Dalcross?
SB: Scotland. And there were Boulton Paul Defiant aircraft, we, which was a single engine plane with a turret on and the pilots, I think the majority of them were Polish. Quite nice chaps. A bit haywire when they got in the air. In fact, I remember the pilot who was flying, I was flying with we landed and he said, ‘I can’t give this in Steve.’ That was the, there were drogue, drogues towed and we used to fire at the drogues. He said, ‘You’ve got too many bloody holes in this drogue.’ I said, ‘Well you took me too bloody near’ and that was the attitude. Free and easy. Aye. But enjoyable. Oh aye.
BW: And so while you were there you were training as a gunner. Is that right?
SB: Yeah. That was all we did we used to fly over the North Sea, follow the drogue and fire at the drogues and that was our training.
BW: How successful do you think you were at that?
SB: I seemed to be fairly successful. I finished up with taking ten of us down into England and dropping them off here and there and I think it was because my name was first on the alphabet. More or less B. I seem to get all these things and in actual fact I was posted to India when I was stationed in Blackpool. The only fault was I wasn’t in Blackpool. I was in Burnley [laughs] and of course I had to go for the high jump and another, in front of another board and I explained what was going on and funnily enough I got in charge of the party going to Mold, I think, in North Wales and this party was eventually India on the, and though we didn’t fly we sailed on the Mauritania.
BW: On the Mauritania?
SB: Ahum I think it was its last trip.
BW: I see.
SB: In actual fact and the largest boat to go through the Suez Canal but they were quite pleasant at being a warrant officer. I had advantages. We’d waiter service at the table. We were on A deck and we used to look down at the motley crew on the other deck. Oh aye. My job was check the armoury so I used to go down into the bowels of the ship every morning, casually check and that was my day. The rest of it was deck quoits and all sorts of entertainment. Oh aye.
BW: You say you were already a warrant officer at that point.
SB: No. I was only a sergeant.
No. Are you -
SB: Oh at that point, going to India
BW: Yes.
Other: That was after the war isn’t it?
BW: Yeah.
SB: Yes. Aye
BW: So that was some time after your service in the war then when you went to India. Is that right?
SB: Yeah.
BW: Ok.
SB: There was no vacancies for flying. So -
BW: Ok.
SB: I took going to India which was quite an education.
BW: So coming back then to the early part of the war and your career. You said you went to school in the RAF and so you -
SB: Yeah.
BW: Was this before your gunnery training or after or part of it?
SB: It was before. I passed flying exams on Thorney Island which is not far from Portsmouth and the flying officer there he said, ‘I’ll set you an exam Steve. The equivalent to the flying job.’ And he did and that’s how I come to go to Weston Super Mare. He recommended me and I finished up in front of this board at, selection board in Super Mare.
BW: And was your intention when you joined up to be air crew air gunner or did you actually want to fly or navigate? Was your ambition higher than to be gunner or were you -
SB: My ambition was to fly. I remustered for a pilot but I didn’t get, it didn’t happen while I was vacant. I was otherwise engaged in Germany. [laughs]
BW: I see. I see.
SB: I was there two years in Germany.
BW: Ok. So you had your initial time in England as, as sergeant and you were trained on Boulton Paul Defiants as air gunner.
SB: Yeah.
BW: What happened after that? What was the next stage of training for you?
SB: That was it.
BW: Did you go to a conversion unit or an operational training unit?
SB: I went from Dalcross which was Boulton Paul Defiants. I went from there to Wickenby which was 12 squadron.
BW: And what period in the war was this? What sort of year was this?
SB: 1942.
BW: Ok so you finished training at Dalcross which I’m guessing would be summer ‘42. And you went to Wickenby to continue flying as a gunner. On, on what aircraft? What were you posted on to?
SB: Lancasters.
BW: Lancaster. So this would be a new squadron for you and a new squadron entirely because 12 squadron was only formed in September ‘42.
SB: [?]
BW: Or thereabouts.
SB: It was a very basic place were Wickenby. Very basic. Nissen huts.
BW: And did you live in the nissen huts with all your crew or was there another crew with you?
SB: No. We, in the nissen hut I was in we were all gunners.
BW: So you were all on different aircraft but you were all the same trade.
SB: Yeah.
BW: Ok. That’s interesting. Some, some huts were occupied by crews and so there’d be two crews in there but in your case you were just billeted with other gunners -
SB: Oh yeah.
BW: Entirely.
SB: Oh yes. In actual fact during my stay in Germany I, at the, where was it? I don’t know where it was somewhere down in the interrogation place it was and they give me papers to look at and I noticed one of the chaps who was with me in this nissen hut he’d drowned. It was at the side of his name - drowned. It was all propaganda them showing us these things.
BW: So when you were at Wickenby and you joined this new squadron how did you meet the rest of your crew?
SB: I haven’t a ruddy clue [laughs]. I’ve no idea whatsoever. My crew was three Australians, two Canadians, and myself and a fellow from Tadcaster and I was the youngest.
BW: Do you recall their names and what they did?
SB: Now then. Now then.
BW: I believe your pilot was Featherstone. Is that right?
SB: Bob Featherstone. The -
Other: There was the piece of paper that we thought were your crew but we weren’t sure. Have you got your glasses?
SB: Oh aye. Well I’ll tell you what they were.
Other: Oh right.
SB: There was Bob Featherstone the pilot. Laurie. Laurie Hickson, navigator. No, Laurie was the radio operator. Jack [Ebblestone?] was the navigator. Tommy Fouracres was the bomb aimer. My friend, the other gunner, I’ve no idea what his name was. All I knew him as was Robbie.
BW: And would he be Canadian?
SB: Robbie was a Canadian. And he wasn’t in the billet with me, with the other -
BW: What-
SB: With the other gunners. Robbie.
BW: Was he a mid-upper gunner or a front?
SB: Who?
BW: Robbie.
SB: Robbie was rear gunner.
Other: Yeah. Steve wasn’t a rear gunner.
BW: Ok and there was one other. A guy called Cooper.
SB: Engineer. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know because I couldn’t see him climbing on the bloody wings if anything went wrong with an engine. Quite surplus to requirements in my opinion was the engineer but we had to put up with it.
BW: And his name was Freddie you say?
SB: Harry.
BW: Harry, beg your pardon.
SB: Harry Cooper
Other: F H Cooper.
SB: He was a director of John Smith’s. Not John. There’s two of them. John -
Other: Sam Smith’s.
SB: John Smith’s
Other: John Smith’s Brewery.
BW: I see. And how did you all get on as a crew?
SB: Very well. Bob. Bob Featherstone, he was a very reserved sort of a person. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t drink. I remember being in the mess one time and I said, ‘Would you like a drink Bob?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘What would you like?’ He said, ‘A glass of milk.’ And I got him a glass of milk. [laughs] but the rest of the crew were, me being from Barton on Humber I didn’t spend much spare time other than Barton on Humber like according to what the Germans told me the aerodrome was eighteen kilometres northeast of Lincoln. I didn’t know that.
BW: That’s right. That’s absolutely right.
SB: They like, we used to get before flight we used to have a briefing all the crews all together and we used to get lectured and what have you and one of the things was, ‘Now if you have the misfortune to be shot down and captured during your interrogation a little old fellow will come and he’s a member of the International Red Cross. He isn’t.’ And lo and behold I think it was in Frankfurt where this interrogation camp was and lo and behold eventually this little old chap came and he said, ‘I’m from the International Red Cross,’ and I said, ‘Don’t kid me.’ I said, ‘You’re not. I got that told that before I left England.’ ‘Oh. Oh.’ And that finished that and he give up trying to convince me he was the International Red Cross fella.
BW: So coming back just to Wickenby itself you were quite a mixed crew as you say two Canadians and three Australians and two British.
SB: Yeah.
BW: But you didn’t mix a lot on the base. You said you went back to Barton on Humber quite a bit.
SB: Well I -
BW: Is that right? To see your family.
SB: They used to be workmen and there was a workman’s bus went from Wickenby to Barton upon Humber which was rather convenient when, when I was available.
BW: And so you spent your free time mainly at home.
SB: More or less. Yeah.
BW: Did you get to socialise on the base with the crew before missions or after missions
SB: No not to any degree I think. No. I remember after the war I was on a course in Tadcaster and I found out my engineer’s telephone number was and I rang him and I said, ‘Hello Harry.’ I said, ‘This is Steve. I’d like to ask you and your wife to lunch with me. I’m at John Smith’s.’ ‘Oh. Oh well, well I’m helping my son to do some decorating.’ I thought oh. So I didn’t hear any more of it.
BW: But you still had to fly together in the -
SB: Oh yeah.
BW: In the aircraft.
SB: Oh yes. Oh yeah well I mean you don’t fly together. I mean, I was very remote on top of it. Robbie was remote at the tail of it and the others were at the front.
BW: So -
SB: We were two isolated persons other than RT.
BW: So your position in the Lancaster was a mid upper then was it?
SB: Yeah.
BW: I see,
SB: Three hundred and sixty degrees viewing. In actual fact I was walking, I’d been cleaning my guns and I’m walking along the aerodrome and I saw a fella on top of a Lancaster and I thought, ‘What the bloody hell is he doing?’ So I give a shout and I said, ‘What the hell are you doing up there?’ ‘I’m cleaning guns.’ I said, ‘You what?’ He said, ‘I’m cleaning my guns.’ I said, ‘Hold it. Hold it’ I said, ‘Stay where you are,’ and I went in the plane and through the main there was a cover some, behind the turret or front of the turret I don’t know which it was and he didn’t know you could rotate your guns manually and always park them over the tail and he was trying to climb over the bloody turret to clean his guns and he was a commissioned air gunner. He was a pilot officer. I couldn’t, I couldn’t believe a pilot officer didn’t even know how to rotate the bloody turret and was going to climb over it. I mean if he’d fallen off I mean it’s quite high up is a turret gun when it’s on the deck. Aye a pilot officer. How the hell he became a [governor/gunner?] I don’t know.
Other: [You’ve only told this to protect the innocent?]
SB: Oh yes it, another incident I might recall was, I don’t know why we were on [Denham?] Golf Course and we were intermingled with the army on dive bombing. This was not flying and there were, what was the popular twin engine plane? I forget. Anyway, they were dive bombing and this plane’s coming down and there’s four people walking across the aerodrome. They should not have been there and as the plane took off knocked a fellas head off.
BW: Wow.
SB: There was just a red flash and he was gone.
Other: I didn’t know they got that close to the ground.
SB: And as far as I can remember it was Sir Christopher de Bath. I think that was his name but he shouldn’t have been where he was. They just let the pilot fly a bit and then they brought him back and he was ok but that was not in my agenda as a -
BW: No.
SB: As a gunner. I mean we all gunners were all trained on the same things. Turrets and guns and that’s it.
Other: What was the golf course?
SB: Hmm?
Other: Was the golf course, did the golf course go across the aerodrome or something?
SB: No. I don’t, no. No. I don’t know during the war I don’t know if it was permissible the golf course no it was -
Other: [It was…?]
SB: They were using the golf course obviously for, to be a plane without any obstruction. No buildings or anything.
Other: Oh I see. He was probably looking for his ball.
SB: But I do remember that fella getting his head knocked off.
Other: Oh God. I didn’t realise they flew that close to the ground.
BW: So you’re on operations now at Wickenby and what sort of routine would you follow for missions? What sort of preparations would you make for a mission if you were on roster to -
SB: Well obviously -
BW: Conduct a raid?
SB: We had to look to our guns to start with. Then we all who were flying collected together for a briefing on where we were going, what height we were flying, what we expected to come across. Other than that we just clambered into the aircraft and away but it was very boring I should think just sitting there and not many, I mean, I never fired my guns in anger and neither did Robbie and as I say it was rather boring sitting there and no, no fighter aircraft or anything.
Other: Not much fun.
SB: Like Ruhr Valley. Well that was rather lively anti-aircraft gun and Berlin when we crashed and whatever the hell happened to us I don’t know. That was different. I can’t remember much anti-aircraft so whether there was flying, planes flying, fighters I don’t know but according to information I got from someone in Lincoln there was also another three -
Other: Oh yes.
SB: Lancasters went with no survivors.
Other: Yeah that’s right.
SB: So whether it was because of that I didn’t recognise any anti-aircraft fire and they were shot down by aircraft I don’t I don’t know but we were fortunate we were straight down and very, I only met Bob Featherstone, I only met him for a few minutes because we were separated. We were stripped naked and separated, put into different, separate cells and he said, ‘We just touched over five hundred mile an hour, Steve. In a Lancaster bomber.’ And I remember I sat there and I thought, ‘Bloody hell this is it.’ And nothing I could do. I just sat there. Initially I thought he’d put the nose down to get out and home but it wasn’t. They pulled the plane out of this dive and I thought I was going to go straight through the ruddy bottom with the pressure and and that’s what Bob said. He said we reached over five hundred mile and hour and then after we pulled out we seemed to be flying straight and level and Bob came on the RT, ‘Bale out. Bale out.’ So I said, ‘Just a minute, Bob.’ He said, ‘What’s that.’ I said, ‘Can’t we reach Sweden?’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh that’s just too bad then,’ and we, course getting in and out of a mid-upper wasn’t very easy and by the time I got to the back door Robbie, the rear gunner at that time, he was sat on the doorstep. The door had gone. He’d got an axe to it and opened it with an axe and he was sat there and as I got there he climbed back in and I said, ‘What’s to do Robbie?’ ‘I can’t get out.’ And I said, ‘Have another try.’ I thought I had to do something here and he got back sitting on the doorstep and I gave him a bit of encouragement and he went. But I sat on the doorstep and I rolled out and I didn’t find any problems whatsoever. Why, whether he’d lost his nerve or what I don’t know.
Other: He probably didn’t fancy landing in Germany.
BW: And you don’t recall how the aircraft was hit.
SB: No I don’t know whether it was hit-
BW: Whether it was fighters or flak.
SB: Gun whether it had been hit with a fighter or anti-aircraft I’ve no idea whatever. All I know is the plane crashed. I know it crashed because I saw the ruddy thing crash. I was hanging about up there. And but I’ve no idea and I’ve only heard that our plane crashed. I’ve no idea why it crashed or what caused it to crash but -
BW: And do you recall this was on your fourth sortie. There were two previous trips to Essen and one to Berlin. This was a second trip to Berlin.
SB: Ahum.
BW: And it seems this was the last time that the squadron visited Berlin through the rest of their tour but do you recall what it was like on the approach to the target. You say as a mid- upper you had a good view. Were you looking around -
SB: No problems whatsoever.
BW: For fighters? Could you see the target ahead?
SB: As we, I don’t know which it, whether it was so but you’re talking about the target. Towards the end of, or when I was flying the Mosquitos came into action and the Mosquitos used to drop flares and we used to bomb the flares but the Mosquitos used to pick the target, drop these flares and we’d bomb on the flares.
BW: You didn’t see much of Berlin at this stage below. Sometimes crews report seeing targets on fire or explosions on the ground.
SB: No. No. I can’t recollect seeing anything. No. I mean as we were approaching targets Bob used to corkscrew to upset the ground crews and that sort of thing.
BW: And were you picked out by searchlights at all?
SB: Only once. We got searchlight and went straight, Bob went straight down it and pulled out. Other than that we weren’t bothered with searchlights. Not like the pilots are today. Have you read in the papers about this -
Other: Laser.
SB: Oh dear.
BW: Yeah ridiculous isn’t it? Do you, do you recall the earlier trips at all over Essen?
SB: No. I mean I remember one time we were on low level practice and old Bell , Squadron Leader Bell got in touch with, ‘Mr Featherstone. You’re on low level not a bloody altitude.’ Well that upset Bob and of course I can see all this. We went down, we went down and we went down and there was as I say there was workmen on the Wickenby and there was a steamroller there and our, the people on that steam roller had never moved so bloody fast [laughs] when Bob went down and they must have thought he was going to hit it. I did as well. [laughs]
BW: And in general how did you find it? Flying in a Lancaster?
Other: [What did you call it?]
SB: It was what I’d always wanted. I mean going like a cross country over this country, Ireland very nice oh very oh yes very exciting. Not exciting. No. It wasn’t exciting but it was what I always had wanted.
Other: Cold.
SB: Oh we had four pairs of gloves on. A pair of silk, a pair of woollen, gauntlets and electric and we’d an electric waistcoat and electric slippers. Course at the back of the plane there was no heating whatsoever. Forty degrees wasn’t abnormal. You couldn’t touch your guns with bare hands or you just stuck to them. Oh it was very cold but [I had?] my fun here. I enjoyed it.
BW: And did you take hot drinks with you or anything like that?
SB: Pardon?
BW: Did you take hot drinks with you during the flights to keep warm?
SB: All we got flying was chewing gum and a small can of orange juice. A small can of orange juice by ten thousand feet was solid ice so were not much help really. Oh no it’s, I mean, I couldn’t move anyway. I mean I was just stuck in a turret on the top of the ruddy plane and that was it.
BW: Up there in the cold.
SB: Oh yeah.
BW: And this time of the year is the end of ‘42 and the squadron only became operational on the 27th of December so your early trips were in January ‘43 so it would be particularly -
SB: New.
BW: Cold at that time.
SB: It was cold. Damned cold. Oh yeah.
BW: It was cold at the best of times.
SB: In actual fact –
BW: At altitude.
SB: I landed in a field with several inches of snow and of course being in air force dark, darkish coloured I’m burying my chute and I looked up and there’s two fellas there. Both with guns. I suppose they were kind of home guard and we weren’t allowed to, we were advised not to take guns because if you did like the position I’d been, I was in they would have shot me because they thought I had a gun but we didn’t and these two chaps took me to a house and they must have rung the police or something. Anyhow, a guy, I remember he had a brown uniform which I don’t know what that was and he interrogated me. He says, ‘What, what, how many were in your aircraft?’ I said, ‘Only me.’ ‘Oh.’ I thought he doesn’t know much about this. He says, ‘What do you mean only you? I said, ‘We jettisoned tanks on the aircraft.’ I said, ‘There was only me.’ ‘Ah gudt gudt gudt. Here you are,’ and he gave me a twenty packet of Gold Flake cigarettes. I light up and he toddles off. A few minutes later he dashes in to the room, ‘You lied to me.’ [laughs] ‘I find another man.’ Well he found seven eventually but it was funny being given Gold Flake cigarettes but I lost them of course. When he found the second man he took my cigarettes off me but it was a bit of a comic. But we went to, I think it was an air force camp and that’s when they stripped us completely, put us in separate cells and eventually they transported us down south to, I think it was Frankfurt, I’m not sure about, that to an interrogation camp. There were quite a lot of people in it. Mostly air force of course and that’s when the little chap from the International Red Cross came up but and then of course we were taken to a Stalag 8b. Because of something happening with the Canadians who raided Dieppe, something about them tying prisoners of war hands handcuffed and the Germans wanted to have reprisals but they hadn’t enough Canadians to suit their purposes so they drafted the air force. There was about three hundred of us and we were in handcuffs. They were put on. They were decent about it. They put them on in the morning and took them off at night and of course it’s amazing what people get up to. They soon found out how to manipulate the locks on them and if the guards had been decent we’d just throw them in the box. If they hadn’t they had to undo every, every one. And, and they used to be radio reports put up in the billet. In the billet I say they were proper huts. No windows in. There were windows but they’d no glass. Very little water, just a dribble. No chance of getting washed. We were dirty. We stunk. Must have done. And lousy. Me and Harry Cooper the engineer who was, there were three high bunks in this place and er and initially they’d started with boards but the prisoners found a better use for the boards which was making a fire to get a brew and as time went on we got Red Cross parcels that usually a parcel between two but they were all tied with string and we collected this string and we made nets to replace the boards on the beds. At the finish I shouldn’t think there was a bed with boards on it. Only Red Cross string. And [pause] you must excuse me I’m looking for a handkerchief. I’ve just found one. Oh yes and we used to get tenth of a loaf a day which were about that much.
BW: About an inch and a half.
SB: Aye. Identity disc was just a tenth of a loaf and some used to, you could cut it. The bread was so like a solid mass and you could cut it so ruddy thin and some of the chaps used to cut and spread it out over the day. I used to do the same but I used to eat it and hope for the best and we used to get, they used to bring a dustbin thing in occasionally and that was supposed to be soup. I remember one soup what we called bedboard soup. It just tasted like sawdust. We were hungry but nobody could eat it. The toilets were forty seaters. Four banks of ten so you could have a chat while you were [laughs] aye. Four banks of ten and during the summertime if we got Red Cross parcels they used to stab all the tins so we couldn’t save them for making escape purposes. So, if we couldn’t consume them we used to throw them over to the next compound which was the Russians and they were very grateful to a point. I remember when they decided to move us from Lamsdorf which was on the Polish border and they set off, sent us all off marching, hundreds of us. I don’t know how many was in the camp at the time but I think it was, there was twenty five thousand in and attached. Most of them were on working parties. There were, ‘cause it was an army camp. They decided that they were going to move us away from the Russians. I don’t know why. And this was in January. A little bit of snow and what not and we started marching and I remember the first stop was at a brick works and I got bedded down on some blocks of clay and we’d, we’d all got a [?] blanket and eventually the blanket became too heavy and too much of a damned nuisance but we just, we were like bloody zombies walking in the snow and very little or nothing to eat. I remember one time that we were walking along and there was a potato clamp. Are you with me? You should be.
BW: Ahum.
SB: One of the lads took a dive for the potato clamp and he was shot through his shot through his face and that’s how desperate we were. I mean sometimes we were just laid in an open field. A derelict factory. Course no bedding. No cloth. No -
BW: No provisions of any kind.
SB: We’d no washing facilities whatsoever so we never got undressed for about three months and we must have smelled a bit ripe [laughs] but it was all part of it and it was war.
BW: And this period of time would have been January ‘45 is that right? This would have been January ‘45 or thereabouts when you were marched out of the camp.
SB: ‘44 ‘45 I forget which.
Other: [It would be towards the end of the war wouldn’t it?]
SB: Like another point as I said we used to get Red Cross, Red Cross parcels. Maybe two. Occasionally and they used to stab it and we used to throw it to the Russians and of course the Russians they were marched with us on this walk and they were separated from us in so far as we were in a compound and they were in the next compound and we were in a huge marquee and on the floor was small branches off fir trees and that was it and we’d no water but the Russians had a tap and when we went to the Russians and asked for water. ‘Cigarette’ and ‘cigarettes.’ Well, they knew damn well we’d no cigarettes. We didn’t get no water. That was the gratitude for giving them the parcels.
BW: I was going to say yet you’d been throwing parcels over the wire to them.
SB: Yeah and er -
BW: And they wouldn’t let you have water.
SB: Eventually we got, the Germans left us. The guards left us. We were in a camp with nothing and me, and I got friendly with an Australian soldier and we decided to have a walk and we were walking around the countryside. We saw a house with a light in it and we went and knocked on the door and there were a lot of mumbling and grumbling and I said, ‘What’s to do, Joe?’ He says, ‘I don’t know.’ Anyhow, Joe could speak French. He started talking in French. Eventually we got in this house. There was eight Madagascans and they’d got a set boiler, you know, a boiler with a fire underneath it full of meat and they give us as much as we wanted but nothing else but meat. No bread, no veg, no, just meat but by heck that meat was good and that was, I never met Joe again. The Americans came and at that point my legs were tight in my trousers. Beri beri I think they said it was and I went and found a medical, an American medical chap and he said, ‘Sorry I can’t give you anything.’ He said. ‘All I have is two or three aspirins,’ he says. ‘I’ve used everything I had.’ He says, ‘It’ll wear off eventually when you start eating.’ [laughs] And then we got in some clapped out Dakotas aeroplanes and they flew us back to Cosford which is near Wolverhampton I think.
BW: That’s right
SB: And there we were stripped again and deloused and treated like royalty. Oh yeah. They couldn’t do enough for us and then we were despatched home and then after I think I had four weeks leave and then I got sent to India and that was the end of the war for me. I I in actual fact I was in India in Delhi and I thought there’s all these bloody people getting relieved and they were conscripts. They’d completed their two years [and they would be ?]. So I got in touch with the officers and I said, ‘What’s my position?’ I said, ‘I’m an RAF volunteer reserve I suppose,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Oh we’ll see what we can do with you,’ and the next day I was on a train to Bombay. And there they were very obliging again, ‘Well we haven’t a place cabin-wise for you. You can go on this ship or you can wait till there’s a cabin available on another ship.’ Oh I said we’ll get the [excuse ?] let me get on it and I think it was the Scythia if I can remember right and I came back home and I, I was in a bit of a state. I’d no qualifications. I was a machinist before the war in a cycle works and I daren’t say I was a machinist or I would have been reserved occupation so I just said I’m a labourer. Anyhow, as I say I came back here and I got sent to Blackpool. I spent a lot of time in Blackpool and I met my wife. [back then?] as she was a young woman and we got married and I’d no qualifications whatsoever and of course going to Burnley it was either went to Burnley or Barton. Well, naturally I’d no, no say in the matter. It was Burton and I thought well I had to find something. I went as a coal miner. Had a few months in a coal mine and I got dermatitis and so I had to come out and my wife said, I used to see these in the paper, situations vacant and there used to be overlookers wanted. Overlookers wanted. I said to me wife, ‘What’s this overlookers?’ She said, ‘Oh you’ve no need to bother about that. You won’t be one.’ I said, ‘Its hard luck then.’ Anyhow, I took a job at just over three pound a week. Three pound a week and I thought well it’ll keep me going cash wise and I got in to the, this job three pound a week was at the end of the war and before the war the mills used to get large amount of coal on the canals but after the war it was delivered in three ton trucks and my job was wheeling it over the ruddy boiler and tipping over for the fire beater and I’m shovelling this coal one day and a fellow walking down the yard and he stopped. He said, ‘What are you doing?’ I politely told him [laughs] it was running off my nose was the sweat and ‘Aye all right.’ And he toddled off and a couple of hours later, ‘You’re wanted in the office, Steve.’ Oh I’ve got set for being rude with that fella and it was this same fella wanted to see me. He said, ‘How about coming working for me?’ ‘And who are you?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I look after this mill. I look after four in Blackburn, one in Morecambe, outside Morecambe, Whiteland. ’ I said, ‘Right. What’s the reward?’ He said, ‘Oh you’ll be a lot better than what you are now,’ he said ‘And I’ve a van you can use,’ And I got into the textile trade then through this fellow Harry [Makenson] I’ll always remember his name. He looked after me. He made me an overlooker as they called it, was a maintenance engineer on looms and I I seemed to cotton on to it and I finished up manager of a weaving mill. I mean initially I didn’t know one end of a bloody shuttle to another and that’s how I finished. George Street Mill closed down and it’s gone now. It’s been knocked down. I retired and I’ve been retired thirty odd year.
BW: Ahum.
SB: But er no my war experiences was, this march oh that was grim was that. Oh bloody hell. I I ate raw chicken and raw rabbit what they if the people had left them, forgotten them, we didn’t forget them. Oh I think I weighed seven stone something when I and they sent me on four weeks holiday. I went back and, ‘Right. Get on the scales,’ and I did. ‘Get on the scales again.’ I did. ‘Something wrong here.’ I says, ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘You’ve put on thirty odd pound in forty eight days. What have you been doing?’ ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I must confess.’ I says, ‘I’ve been drinking Guinness.’ I said, ‘I’ve been drinking about an average of about fifteen bottles of Guinness a day. ‘
Other: Good grief.
SB: He says, ‘You what?’ I said, ‘Oh yes.’ That’s where my money went and I got back to my ten and a half stone and now I languish at twelve stone. [And you must excuse me ‘cause I must go to the toilet.]
BW: No problem.
[pause]
SB: My escaping [laughs].
BW: I was going, I was going to ask you actually -
SB: Which was rather farcical.
BW: I believe you made a number of escape attempts.
SB: I er, in actual fact I never escaped. I was always someone else. The first effort was I swapped identities with a fella. An old, well to me an old fella. He would be about forty He was a member of the Pioneer Corp which was a non-combatant unit and I swapped identities with him and eventually I got drafted to a working party on an aerodrome and our job was looking after the grounds but it didn’t work out very well. It was alleged that someone had managed to dodge the guards, got in an aeroplane, couldn’t read the ruddy things and jettisoned the petrol out of it. We were straight back to the camp. All lot of us. That was number one. I reverted back to my position in the air force and its surprising there wasn’t a lot more people doing the same as me but anyhow, eventually I got another one. I got friendly with one in the army camp and he was fed up of working. I mean they’d no option. They had to work.
BW: So you were, rather than being, let’s say, given protection because of your rank and aircrew you were actually put to work. You were in labour gangs were you?
SB: At my rank no. My rank I couldn’t go to work. I wasn’t allowed to work. The soldiers were compelled to work so the only thing we had to, well I had to do was change my identity and as I say I changed with this guy. He was a Pioneer Corp and we got drafted back to the camp because of this misdemeanour, this alleged ditching the juice from the aircraft but whether that was true or not I don’t know but that was the reason I heard and eventually I got fed up and I got this other fella. I can’t remember his name. I know we were doing some work in [Gliwice] and I decided I’d had enough and I got hidden away and the guards were a bit slop happy and I was left and I had a couple of three days and that was it. I had nothing to eat so I got picked up.
BW: So you manged to give them the slip and spend three days away.
SB: Oh yeah.
BW: Two or three days.
SB: Oh yeah. Course I used to walk at night and hide in bushes and whatever during the day and oh that was the second time I think there was a field with a kind of a basin in it full of bushes. Ideal for sleeping. Only trouble was I was prodded in the ribs and it was a fella with a rifle. He could speak, he spoke very good English. And he says, ‘Come on. Come with me.’ And he was a farmer and he took me to his house, rung the local police and he was talking and he said, ‘I’ve come from America.’ He says, ‘It’s the worse bloody days’ work I ever did. He says, ‘Coming back here’ he said, ‘But you know the feeling. It’s your country. Well come and,’ he said ‘It’s the worse bloody thing I ever did in my life.’ He says, ‘I daren’t do anything but ring the police.’ And a policeman came on a two stroke motorbike. He made me push his motorbike and he walked on and I had a night in jail and the guards came from the camp to take me back and I settled back again and then I got the urge again so I picked on a fella going as an air force man. Aye, I often remember his name. They called him Bill Major from Liverpool. Only fault was Bill got fed up with being in the bloody camp. He was so used to going out to work so he changed his identity so when I eventually, where was it oh I was at a brick works and I was there one day working and I saw a spanner and I thought bloody hell that looks like the bolts on windows. It was a little, it had been a little school where we were billeted in, on this brickwork and this spanner it fitted the nuts so I got, pulled them out one side and got out and I was a gentleman I put them back and screwed them back and the lads who I’d got friendly with they came back and they said, ‘You left us in the real bloody muck,’ he said. ‘They didn’t know how you’d escaped.’ He said, ‘How did you escape?’ I said, ‘I found a spanner and I opened the bars and I walked out.’ There again I got caught again and of course every time I got caught I used to be sentenced to solitary confinement and it was solitary. 5 o’clock in the morning, fill a pail with water, scrub your deck out, stand your bed up. The bed was a few pieces of wood with rope across but you had to stand it up so you couldn’t sit on it and if you didn’t do it in their time they just used to kick the bloody bucket over and your cell was swimming in water but we put up with it. And there was one fella there one time I was in solitary and the padre used to come every day to see him. He was a New Zealander and it seems he’d been on a working party and he’d seen a chain on the ground and so he just picked it up and threw it into a machine and it was dodgy whether he was going to be shot or not and this padre used to come every day to see him and after the war I saw his photograph in the paper. He’d been awarded the BME is it?
BW: Um could be MBE.
SB: MBE aye. And so obviously he didn’t get shot and he got back home. Oh yeah. Aye. But I’m surprised there wasn’t a lot more of them swapping identities with soldiers who, well some of them had done four years. I’d a brother. My brother, he was a marine. He was taken prisoner on, [pause] where?
Other: Crete.
SB: Island.
Other: Crete.
SB: Crete. Oh Crete aye and one time I’m in in solitary and they used to take us out. Geneva Conventions again. They used to take us out and we used to walk around in a little circle. We had to get this exercise in and one day one, the fella said, ‘How long have you been here?’ I said, ‘I’m just doing fourteen days.’ ‘Well how did you get from Crete er from Germany er Italy?’ I said, ‘What you are talking about?’ He says, ‘Haven’t you just left Italy?’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Were you a marine?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘That’s my brother.’ What happened he’d met my brother in Italy. But no there was some comical things happened. Oh yeah. Oh aye.
Other: [Not?] very comical.
BW: But you didn’t have to have your escape attempts approved as might be the case with others in some camps. You acted on your own initiative to try and escape.
SB: Oh I just went. I just went. Oh I wouldn’t. No. No I knew I couldn’t go anywhere because I couldn’t speak German but I thought well I’ve got to do something and as I say it became something of a, like I changed the third one Bill Major who got fed up of being in the camp because he’d always been used to working so he swapped identities with another fella so when I got back I had to find out who Steve Bacon was. [laughs] Quite funny really but oh no they -
BW: How were you picked up each time? I know you mentioned a farmer found you sleeping under a bush at one point. How were you picked up other times? Were you, when you were out of the camp were you not afraid of being picked up by the army or handed over to the Gestapo or something like that?
SB: I can’t remember to be quite honest. I’m just trying to think. I had that farmer and then we were sent back because of someone ditching the ruddy petrol out the aeroplane and then the third time I went Bill Major, Bill Major, Bill Major. I can’t remember how I got caught that time but I got caught and that time it was a bit of a nuisance. I got caught and of course I got sentenced to fourteen days, well it was twenty one days then. It had gone up. But I had to go to a straflager which was a part of the camp reserved for potential what not, isolation and in there, there were mostly soldiers messing about there because of the women and I remember one chap he was, he had to go to civilian court and he went and he came back and he said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘Right, here you are.’ He’d taken all the lightbulbs out the ruddy waiting room of the court he’d been to. Oh there was some humorous ruddy things. Oh yeah aye oh aye but as I say I never escaped because I was never me. I was this Pioneer Corp chap. I belonged, I belonged the Pioneer Corp and I was a gunner and then I was an ordinary soldier with Bill Major and I’m talking I got back I’d done my solitary and I got back to the camp and back to the air force compound and I’m walking around one day. ‘How are you going on mate?’ I looked around, ‘I’m alright. Why?’ ‘You don’t know me do you?’ No it’s surprising what they got up to. I said, ‘No. I don’t know you.’ And he said, ‘I was in straflager with you,’ he said, ‘But I’ve escaped.’ He’d escaped into the camp. [laughs] what happened to him I don’t know but they used to get up to all sorts of ruddy tricks. They used to put this radio bulletin up every morning and of course the Germans, ‘They must have a radio.’ They cleared all everybody out. The camp was on a moor, moorland in actual fact as I previously said with a forty seater toilet where they used to pump it out and they used to spread it around the camp to stop digging tunnels and what not and, what was I going to say? I’ve forgotten. But they emptied the camp completely. They’d dogs in and all sorts in looking for the radios that wasn’t there but we had bitterly cold on this moor but we, we did it and, oh aye. And another time they used to, we used to have roll calls of course in fives and one day we were out nearly eight hours. They couldn’t figure out how we’d missed, they’d missed somebody and every time they went five, ten, fifteen. There were three hundred of us and somebody had bent down to tie, reckon to tie their shoelace. One missing. And they’d go again and they’d get it right. That’s right. And they were so bloody stupid. That’s right. Aye aye. ‘We’d better have another check,’ and so they’d check again and somebody had bent down and it would be the same again. One missing. And they’d dogs and they’d officers of all bloody sorts in the camp that day in our compound and they never found the one who was missing but it was our discomfort but we used to put up with it and that was it. It was part of the gang kind of thing but as I say I never escaped because I as never me.
BW: What were relations like with the guards? If people are managing to build rudimentary radio sets they must get the components from somewhere. What were relations like with the guards? Did you, were you able to bribe them or -
SB: Oh, no. They, they -
BW: Persuade them to do things for you?
SB: They didn’t like it. No, no. I know there was one, I did see one fella shot. He was being marched through the camp, past our compound with a guard, a guard with a rifle and all of a sudden he had his coat over his arm and he just threw it over the guard’s head and galloped. He didn’t gallop fast enough. They shot him. They shot him and he was dead. Aye.
BW: Just coming back to, I’m interested in the point where you talked about getting out of the aircraft and you took to your parachute. How were you then picked up? You landed in a field of snow and then -
SB: Picked up with two, two like home guard. I don’t know -
BW: Ok.
SB: They’d guns. That’s all I know and they took us to a house and there was a young boy in this house in actual fact and I had my escape kit with me. I thought, well there was chocolate in it. He wouldn’t eat it. He wouldn’t touch it. No. We had an escape kit. The chocolate and vitamin tablets and what have you and money but not German money. I don’t know. I think it was franks. I don’t know but -
Other: I think you thought it was the home guard didn’t you?
BW: And so they reported to the police that they’d picked you up and presumably the police came for you.
SB: Oh yeah.
BW: What, were you taken to a civilian jail? Or were you -
SB: Oh yes.
BW: Passed to the Gestapo? Or were you -
SB: Oh yes I had a night in the jail and the guards came from the camp, a couple of guards take me back. Kept them occupied. But oh no it had its humorous side.
BW: And news of your aircraft being lost must have reached home. There’s a letter here which is a reply from the wing commander at 12 squadron to your mum, ‘In response to your letter.’ She was asking about getting your personal effects sent back. When you got back to your family do you recall what had happened from their point of view? Were they told by the squadron you’d been lost? Did they know you were in a prison camp or what was their take on events?
SB: Well they initially telegram.
Other: Yeah that’s the other one Brian. That’s the telegram from to say he was missing in action or something.
SB: Your son is reported missing and then another one was something about Lord Haw Haw. You wouldn’t know that would you?
BW: William Joyce yeah.
SB: William Joyce, yeah. He broadcast my name as a prisoner of war and they sent my mother another telegram stating that take it with a pinch of salt.
BW: Yeah there’s an official telegram here that says, ‘Regret to inform you that your son Sergeant Stephen Granville Bacon is missing as a result of air operation 17th, 18th Jan 1943. Letter follows. Any further information will be immediately communicated to you. And that’s from, that would be air ministry I think but it’s, it’s er named from, I think Wickenby but so they’ve been informed by telegram. How, how did you end up on Haw Haw’s broadcast? Was this a regular thing to name POWs? Or was it -
SB: I’ve no idea. I haven’t a clue. I didn’t know until after I got back.
BW: Yeah.
SB: That it had happened.
Other: Yeah. I think they’d already had a memorial service for him in the [Barton?] church I believe.
SB: Oh aye. It was a long after the war I, my nephew sent me a paper cutting and it was from the local paper, Hull Times I think it was. And there was a list of names, ‘Would anyone who knew these people get in touch with us.’ They’re all, these people who had been killed during the war and Stephen Granville Bacon was one of them. I’m still here [laughs]
BW: Well it’s like when you were in the prison camp. You didn’t escape. That was somebody else. Somebody else was killed, it wasn’t you.
SB: Yeah it was. I was amazed when I got that paper cutting. I think I have it somewhere.
Other: That’s quite recent isn’t it?
SB: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
SB: Aye.
Other: Yeah.
SB: Anyone know anything about these people who were killed during the war.
Other: Well I think it was something like -
SB: I knew a lot about him [laughs]
Other: Something like six months or so after that initial letter and Lord Haw Haw and his mother had to go around the village then apologising to everybody for -
BW: Right.
SB: Oh aye. Well er -
Other: Having a service for him.
SB: Like what was it now?
Other: I don’t know if she was more embarrassed [?] or what [laughs]
SB: Oh it was old Tom Everett. He was one of our neighbours. He must have been listening to Haw Haw and he heard this and of course he dashed out and went out to my mother’s, knocked on the door, ‘Your Steve’s a prisoner of war.’ [laughs] It must have been a shock for the old lady but aye that was Tom Everett.
BW: So you, just coming back to the point when you’re first captured were you in, did you meet up with the other members of the crew. Were you fairly close together when you were picked up? Or, I mean, was there any chance of escaping? Or making your own -
SB: We were all picked up at separate times.
BW: Right.
SB: And they must have got in touch with these, this I’m sure it was an air force camp that we were taken to where they stripped us and I mean they were looking for compasses and such like things and compasses used to be all over the ruddy place. I had it in the lapel of my coat. Bob Featherstone, I know he had one in his pipe. He didn’t smoke but he had a compass in the bottom if this pipe but the Germans knew all, all these things. They knew where to look. When we got our clothes back they were torn where they’d looked in the seams and what have you but oh no it’s surprising how much they knew about us as we knew about them aye.
BW: And you were handed over from civilian police straight to the camp. So there was, was there any formal interrogation that took place?
SB: No, not at that point. No, no, it was, as I say I think it was Frankfurt this camp we went to which was just an interrogation centre and it was very populated but they used to be in separate cells and they’d turn the heat up, heat up on us in the cell and it used to get bloody hot and then they’d switch it off altogether and it would just go just the opposite just to cool, just to loosen you off a bit. Aye. Oh aye.
BW: How long were in the interrogation camp at Frankfurt?
SB: I’ve no idea.
BW: Roughly.
SB: Eventually we were put on a train with no shoes. Nobody had any shoes on and we were taken to Lamsdorf on the Polish border. I remember the train it was it was luxury I mean there were seats in it but they were wooden seats but er and that’s how I got to Lamsdorf by train.
BW: Were there guards on the train?
SB: Oh yes. Oh aye. Aye, there were plenty of guards on the train and of course when you’ve no shoes it’s a big handicap.
BW: Did you get your shoes back or any shoes when you got to Lamsdorf?
SB: Any shoes, clogs, all sorts, wooden clogs. Not, not like what we used to wear. Not the proper clogs, wooden clogs. Most bloody uncomfortable.
BW: Lamsdorf had a reputation for being a tough camp. It was apparently notorious for poor conditions of construction, sanitation and overcrowding and had the highest number of British POWs there by the time of 1944 but you mentioned the sanitation conditions. Were the barracks that you were kept in were they, were they overcrowded at all or did you feel like you had enough room?
SB: Well I suppose we were overcrowded but it was all three tier, three tier bunk things and sanitation oh we’d, we’d as I say we had this forty seater, four banks of ten which used to be pumped out regularly and spread around the area to give it a bit -
Other: Pleasant.
SB: Of perfume but other than that there was no bathing facilities whatsoever. Oh no. As I say we were, we were lousy. Me and Harry, our engineer, I got friendly with him and we used to put out a blanket each and we used to have a bit of a line and we used to go and we used to stop at forty bugs.
Other: [?]
SB: I remember my mother must have had a brainstorm. She sent me a pair of pyjamas. Now, how the hell I got them I don’t know but I put them on and on the first night I’d, or the first morning when I took them off they were just polka dotted where I’d been bitten. I didn’t use them anymore. Oh no the sanitation was nil other than toilets but there was no, no shower. We’d a big trough thing with a pipe on top and water used to dribble out of it but you couldn’t have a wash. No.
BW: I’d just like to show you some pictures of a camp and just see if you think they reflect conditions or construction similar. The first, the first set show open type huts if you like. Purpose built long barracks and these aren’t the same camp as yours but do they -
Other: I think we took some pictures. There’s some stuff on the internet somewhere cause my son typed in Stalag 8b one day and came up with, oh and he instantly recognised the latrines I think. ‘Oh I remember that.’
BW: Yeah.
SB: I can’t recognise these at all. What is it?
BW: They’re, it’s a different camp but -
SB: Ah. Oh no.
BW: It’s -
SB: Totally different. That’s more like -
BW: It’s shown close to a town.
SB: I was going to say that’s more like ours. They were -
BW: Yeah.
SB: Proper barracks.
BW: Yeah.
SB: But they’d no windows ‘cause I suppose the previous tenants had bashed the bloody things out. Oh no. That, that is Stalag 8b of course. I mean, Bob -
BW: Were you -
SB: Bob Featherstone, our pilot, I mean we never saw him. He was a commissioned officer. He went to an Offlag.
BW: Ahum
Other: [?]
SB: So we didn’t see Bob again until, well I did see him again after the war. He was a, he was on the immigration situation going to Australia. Persuading people to go to Australia and persuaded me but my wife said no and that was it. Oh yes. Oh aye
BW: Were you close to a town or was, you said Lamsdorf was up on a moor.
SB: Oh it was isolated.
BW: Were you in reach of a town or just -
SB: Oh no, no it was -
BW: Middle of the country.
SB: Completely isolated. There was, what it doesn’t indicate there used to be turrets on stilts kind of thing on each corner of the camp.
BW: Similar to that.
SB: Oh there we are. Yes. There we are.
BW: These are pictures of guard towers and –
SB: Oh aye
BW: Barbed wire.
SB: And there used to be barbed wire and about six or ten feet from the barbed wire there used to be a single wire and if you went past that you were asking for trouble from that.
BW: You would be shot presumably.
SB: Oh yeah.
BW: It was like, like a trip wire I guess. And so there was plenty of barbed wire on the outer fences shown there. Were there two or three layers of barbed wire?
SB: Oh it was a fair depth of barbed wire. Oh yes. I never fancied this tunnelling business. Oh no. That didn’t appeal to me at all. I took it that changing identities was a lot easier.
BW: What put you off digging?
SB: Hmmn?
BW: What put you off digging or tunnelling?
SB: Well a bit claustrophobic I should think. And that Dulag Luft that’s an air force camp.
BW: Ahum.
SB: Well they didn’t have the opportunities like we had for swapping identities with soldiers going out to work because they were all senior NCOs and they weren’t allowed to go to work so they had an advantage but it was a disadvantage as well.
BW: It’s interesting that you took the opportunity to join a working party and go outside the camp. Was it the opportunity to get away from the camp a little bit that appealed or was it the idea of just having something to do?
SB: I think it was something to do. As I say I’d no ambitions about escaping completely because I couldn’t speak ruddy German and it was keeping the Germans occupied as well as anything else but er -
Other: If it’s alright I’m going to leave you to it.
BW: Do you want to, sorry?
SB: A grand lad. He looks after me with bills and -
BW: Yeah.
SB: He explains what, my heating, I haven’t a clue about it. I just had him on it this morning. He used to be in charge of a soft drinks factory and he used to drink like a fish but not soft drinks. It used to be beer.
BW: And this was your dad who was in charge. So, and that would, he would have died only shortly after you joined up then, presumably.
SB: In actual fact I didn’t get my first leave and I got a telegram to say he was dangerously ill and so I put an application in and I got a weekend and I always remember I was in, where was I? Duxford. And I went to see the station warrant officer and explained to him and he just calmly said, ‘And how many times is this your father’s died?’ I said, ‘As far as I know it’s only the first time.’ And I had a fortnight, a weekend, and he died before I got there. And when I went back I made an appointment to see the station warrant officer, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Now then. What can I do for you?’ I said, ‘You can’t do anything for me.’ I said, ‘I’m going to give you some information.’ He said, ‘What’s that? I said, ‘My father died for the first bloody time,’ I said, ‘And you remember what your remarks you made.’ He didn’t say anything. Oh aye. I had a brother in the navy for twenty years. One of my brothers was on mine sweepers. One of my brothers was a fireman and the other one, who was taken prisoner on Crete, he was a steeplejack and that’s the thing I can’t stand is bloody heights.
BW: And yet there you were in the mid upper position on a Lancaster.
SB: Oh that didn’t seem not the same feeling. I don’t know. It’s something different. I mean I had no qualms about jumping out. Well you don’t jump out. Well I didn’t. I rolled out but I never thought about it but Stan, my brother, who was a steeplejack I was talking to one of his workmen and they said, ‘Well he’s a bit of a son of a bitch.’ I said, ‘Is he?’ Hey said, ‘Yeah but there’s one thing about him. He wouldn’t ask you to so anything he wouldn’t do.’ But I said, ‘He’s different to me. I would be scared to bloody death.’ Oh yes. He died. Stanley died. He wasn’t ill. In fact Stuart came and knocked at my door. I answered it. ‘Yes Stuart. What’s the matter then?’ He says, ‘Stan’s died’. I said, ‘You what?’ He said, ‘Stan’s died.’ ‘My brother?’ he said, ‘Yeah.’ He was three years older than me and we used to fight like bloody hell as kids. I remember oh aye. He used to collect birds eggs. And I, and the brother in the navy he brought us a football and a pair of football boots each and of course we used to fight like hell who was going to have the ball. Is it your gang or is it mine? And he used to keep his eggs I think with a bowl on top in the bedroom and he, we’d had an argument about who was going to have the ball and I thought, ‘Right.’ So I went and took the drawer out and boom boom boom broke all of his eggs up and we used to have gangs of us and if they thought about it they’d just get us upset and say, ‘Who broke Stanley’s eggs?’ [laughs] And we, in those days we used to make our own enjoyment. I mean we had a three valve tel, three valve radio but for that we’d no nothing and we used to split up a couple of gangs and, Fox and Hounds and we’d have limits of where we could go. We’d go hide in trees and all. It was a totally different world to now. We never used to be in the house. No. And if we were, if I went home with my shoes wet. [Boing.] So I used to, I used to have socks on of course so I’d rub my bloody shoes up my socks so I wouldn’t get that bloody slap back from my mother. My father never touched us but my mother made up for it. Oh aye. Those were the days oh yes. And as I say I was, I was starting work at fourteen because well the money was seven and six a week then.
BW: And so you were working from the age of about fourteen when you left school up until the point, as you say you joined the RAF and you were a machinist at that point.
SB: Yeah. Like I, Elswick Hopper Cycle Works and I used to be in the machine shop. I was foreman’s stooge I think. The stooge was a fella called Tup Franklin and he said, ‘You’ve no need to mess about with turning Steve. Just do whatever wants doing. Put belts on and sharpen tools,’ and he says ‘Just sharpen drills’ he says and I got on very well with him and not being tied to a bench or anything like that it was just the job I wanted. And er -
BW: And then when war broke out you say you felt -
SB: Oh well.
BW: It was your duty to join up.
SB: Oh me and a fella called Donald Cook who was a pal of mine we were sat on, there used to be a drain goes past our houses and into the country and there used to be a [form sitting ?] where the road went over it and we were sitting one day and I said to Donald Cook, I said, ‘Right, Don. I’m going to join up.’ He said, ‘Right, Steve. I’ll join up with you.’ So we got on the train and the ferry. I think it was six pence and we joined up in Kingston upon Hull. Aye the old paddle steamer and the bar, of course we weren’t old enough really for drinking we didn’t drink but the bar opened up as soon as they cast the ropes off the pier. The bar opened and it used to close as soon as it got to the other side. Twenty, twenty minutes normally but as I was reading somewhere, I don’t know where, something about the estuary the Humber being very dangerous. Sandbanks. And I remember the sandbanks. If you got the ferry at low tide oh it’d take ages to get back. Only a, you could spit across nearly from Hull to New Holland and I had a friend, Noel, Noel Stamp. He was a shop assistant in Hull and the times he used to be late coming home. Two or three hours oh aye oh yeah but were no worse for it. We, we did very well. All my family did fair. As I say I met my wife in Blackpool. She was on a fortnight’s holiday when there used to be wakes weeks and Burnley used to have a fortnight followed immediately by Blackburn and there were her and a couple of cousins and I’m stood outside a pub waiting for it to open. A shortage of beer at that time and I got talking to a sergeant and an Irishman, a soldier, in, while I were in the queue and when the pub opened we dashed in and we got sat at the same table as three young ladies. One of them of course happened to be my wife. And she died though. She’s been dead forty odd years. A grand lass but it had to be, but it’s funny how things work out. I mean no one would have expected me to be finish up a manager of a ruddy weaving mill. I couldn’t, I never, I was never a weaver but I had to be a weaver to be an overlooker but Harry [Makenson], this guy who stopped and asked me what I was doing when I was shovelling bloody coal, he, he put me in to be an apprentice overlooker in [Burnley] and my wife was correct. They turned me down. I wasn’t local. My family didn’t work in the mills or anything like that so as my wife forecast they turned me down. So I saw old [Makenson] and I said, ‘Oh Harry I got turned down.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I know. Don’t worry about it. Come to Blackburn.’ He said, ‘I’ll get you in.’ I went to Blackburn. I went to the front of the committee and oh yes, oh yes and I was in and I was an apprentice. Harry [Makenson], he looked after me. He was a bit crude at times. I was his apprentice overlooker which I’d never been a weaver yet. Totally foreign to me and he said, ‘Right, Steve,’ he says, ‘Them boxes there.’ He says, ‘There’s machines in them, I want them running.’ He says, ‘You’ve got a bricklayer there to do anything you want him to.’ I opened these boxes and they were automatic [widening?] frames in them and with faults and mistakes I got them all running. He said, ‘Right, you’re coming up to [Longsham?] Mill.’ He said, ‘You’re going to be an overlooker.’ I said, ‘At last?’ He says, ‘Yeah.’ I was there about six months and I got called into the office and me and a fellow called Jack Sowerby, he was in the same position as me and Harry [Makenson’s] there. He says, ‘Now then,’ he says, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ He said, ‘I’m asking,’ I forget his name, Jimmy or Harry or whatever. He says, ‘I’m going to ask you do you want to go down to Highfield Mill and it’s shift work and this Harry said no. ‘Right. Steve, you’re going.’ [laughs] I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He says, ‘You’re going to be an overlooker.’ I said, ‘I know I am. I’m an apprentice.’ He says, ‘You’re not. Not anymore.’ He said, ‘I’ve one finished. A foreigner.’ He said, ‘He’s finished down at Highfield Mill. You’re going there’ And they were Japanese looms and I used to spend the first few days looking to see what happened and I got on very well. I had maybe good luck and good judgement I don’t know but I was immediately an overlooker and then he opened another mill. He said, ‘I’m opening a mill Steve. You’re going to look after it.’ ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘Christ almighty what next?’ But that mill it closed down through slump and then I came back to Burnley. I was in Blackburn for twelve years and I came back to Burnley and that’s where I still am. I don’t regret anything.
BW: No.
SB: No. I’ve had a, I’ve been a coal miner, I’ve been a ironstone miner at Stanton at Scunthorpe, I’ve been an industrial painter. I’ve, I’ve tried everything until I got settled in textiles. Aye.
BW: Interesting that you had a couple of jobs as a miner and yet when you were in the prison camp you didn’t fancy tunnelling.
SB: No.
BW: Did you ever feel claustrophobic as a miner?
SB: No but I, that, that, that totally different. A coal mine is six to eight feet high.
BW: Ahum.
SB: Other than the actual face and as they move the face along they move this passageway and rails so it was a different atmosphere. In the ironstone mine that was what they called room and pillar system and they’d go that way and go that way and leave a diamond shape to support the roof. That was the room and pillar and I was a a pipe fitter strangely enough but the, I forget, I think they called them eggs. I’m not sure only the pipes were made with a lip on and you put this adaptor in and it was airtight. It was all compressed air was the machinery fans and drills and everything and so I finished up as a pipe fitter but that was thirty foot high and it’s all, I think it’s closed now. Not, not because I left it but [laughs] it’s amazing what you can do when you have to do, oh aye.
BW: And were you aware of other tunnellers in the, in the camp? Were other activities going on like that?
SB: No. I don’t know of any. No but I did hear say that if they found any they’d, instead of pumping the toilet on the field they’d pump it into the tunnel. That would be a deterrent of course [laughs] but I never heard of any but as I say I was surprised I didn’t know any air force fella do the same as I did but I don’t know why. I mean to sit there and play bloody cards all day long there, Oh no it’s, you’ve got to get moving and of course there was always the chance of being shot I suppose. I don’t know.
BW: Some of the other activities here that went on in some of the other camps I’ll just show you were there similar things going on in other in Lamsdorf at all or not. They show a meal at one Christmas and they show a sports team -
SB: Oh yes.
BW: And amateur dramatics.
SB: There was. Oh we’d ladies. [pause] Oh yeah. Oh yes there used to be baseball and as I say ladies. They were fellas dressed as ladies and I knew one and the last time I heard of him he’d died on the isle of Ibiza. What did he die of? Aids. He was a queer. Denholm Elliot. And the first time I I saw him after the war I was, we were in the Odean cinema in Burnley and before the programme there used to be a screen come down with adverts on and lo and behold Denny, Denny Elliot was there advertising cocoa. But it didn’t, he was, he was definitely feminine. Oh his attitude and he was one of the main actors or actresses whatever you might call them and they used get organised and they would give a concert occasionally, oh yes.
BW: Did you sense any of that with the other guys who maybe dressed up?
SB: I didn’t meet any. Denny was the only one I met. Oh no he was a nice, nice lad. Very inclined to be a bit delicate but nature’s a queer thing. I never criticised Denny. I mean he lived his own life. He was seventy odd I think when he died but he died of aids on Ibiza.
BW: And was he in, he was in the same camp as you then.
SB: Yes.
BW: At that point.
SB: Oh yes.
BW: That’s where you met him first.
SB: Aye. No, I mean, in between times I mean we used to play cards. We knew cards inside out. Bridge. Bridge was the main game of cards and I used to, we used to cheat like hell. Like not really cheating but you might, I don’t know if you know bridge at all.
BW: I don’t know the rules of bridge to be honest.
SB: Well, it’s a case you make bids. I’ll bid one club. Well I’ll be the diamond which was over a club and then bid the heart and then the spade was the top card and we’d, we used to have, we had two packs of cards and we used to use we used to get thirteen cards each if I remember right and we’d start bidding. Well me and my partner we worked it out that I’ll bid a diamond or a diamond you missed the [?] out and of course that told your partner something about we were about a real system of cheating but there was nothing at stake. I mean it was just friendly. Well to a point it was friendly. But oh no but I suppose it was a hard life.
BW: Were there opportunities for sport?
SB: Pardon?
BW: Were there opportunities for sport?
SB: Oh, no. You were, you were pinned into your own compound. They were kicking the ball about but as a team no there wasn’t ‘cause I mean it was a transit camp. Here today and gone tomorrow working parties.
BW: Did you get to see much of the commandant?
SB: No. Oh no.
BW: Did you ever see him when you were brought back to camp having tried to escape? Were you taken to him?
SB: No. I went -
BW: For punishment or -
SB: I only saw his underlings. Aye. But no it was a fixed effort. You got seven days, you got fourteen days, you got twenty one days depending on how often you went there. I got to twenty one but er -
BW: Twenty one days in solitary.
SB: Yeah and it was solitary. They, they, you could figure out you could sit somehow and get comfortable and the guards would creep down but it was a concrete floor and they had jackboots on and it used to crackle so they gave themselves away. We’d stand up then immediately we heard this crackling. Oh yeah.
BW: And what sort of size of cell were you in?
SB: Pardon?
BW: What sort of size of cell were you in in solitary? What sort of size of room were you in?
SB: Oh only a little room. A width of a bed and another bed. About that maybe.
BW: So maybe six foot across most.
SB: Yeah six or eight foot maybe. We’d a high window and we’d hear a frog [croakus?] at night. Oh aye, the frogs kept us company at night. Oh yeah.
BW: And so was the window high up. Was it open?
SB: No. No it wouldn’t open.
BW: Oh.
SB: No.
BW: But even then you could hear the frogs outside.
SB: Oh yes. oh yes there was twelve solitary confinement cells but as I say it was solitary apart from this quarter of an hour we used to have walking around this circle which was one of the Geneva Convention rules that they had to have exercise.
BW: And do you think they treated you fairly in the camp in respect of the Geneva Convention or were there things that they should have done that they didn’t or -
SB: I think they were fair in so far as it wasn’t everybody who could have white bread. It was the sick and infirm who got white bread and this brown bread that we got which soldiers got as well it was bloody awful. It was so packed it was like clay and you could cut it as thin as a newspaper but we only got a tenth of a loaf so it didn’t really trouble us a lot [laughs] Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: And you mentioned getting the Red Cross parcels. Were they regular or did you -
SB: Oh no -
BW: Sense that they had kept -
SB: Intermittent.
BW: They were intermittent. Did you sense -
SB: Now and again and as I say two to one parcel.
BW: Do you think they were keeping those parcels behind for their own good?
SB: I don’t know. I’ve no idea. No. I never give it a thought.
BW: Yeah.
SB: No. But no I can’t say we were ill-treated they just hadn’t anything to give us. I mean, as I say, white bread was very unusual. You had to be ill or something. That was for ordinary people not us prisoners of war. No. I think, like they say, the Germans prisoners of war who we took got a lot better treatment. They got better treatment ‘cause it was available.
BW: Did you feel that you were treated differently to the Russians? You say they were in the compound next to them. The Germans had quite a different view of the Russians. Do you feel that or did you get an idea that -
SB: No I -
BW: They were treated more harshly than you?
SB: I didn’t, I didn’t have any idea to compare. I’ve no idea how they treated them. I mean funnily enough I was on the, oh Ibiza and I used to go drinking and my, I was favourite in a bar run by Germans.
BW: So many years after the war you went to a bar in Ibiza that was run by Germans.
SB: Yeah. Oh yeah. I got on very well with the Germans and they got on very well with me I suppose but no it was all over and done with and hope it never happens again.
BW: And in the years following how, how has it been when you’ve seen public response to Bomber Command and the, let’s say the commemoration of them? How have you, have you seen a change over the years that people from Bomber Command have been treated?
SB: Pardon?
BW: How do you feel the veterans of Bomber Command have been treated after the war? They’re, do you feel there’s been a change in attitudes since.
SB: Well I think just a nucleus of people forgotten. It’s one of those things that happened and that was it. I mean Bob Featherstone, an Australian. I mean he came from Australia. He was a school master and then he finished as a rep for the immigration authorities persuading people to go to Australia and I’d been mean I was working in Blackburn at the time and I went home, and my wife said ‘There’s been a man to see you Steve.’ I said, ‘Who was it?’ She said, ‘I don’t know.’ I thought. ‘You’ve to go down to the Labour Exchange at 8 o’clock tonight.’ I says, ‘Why? I don’t know that I applied for any position in anywhere.’ Anyway I went down and there’s Bob Featherstone sat. ‘Come and sit at the side of me Steve.’ And he was talking to people and he was telling them the truth. He said well, the whole point is you’ll get accommodation and you’ll have to, after three months you’ll have to find your own accommodation and different things and I was talking to him afterwards and I says, ‘What about me going Bob?’ ‘Oh you can go anytime’ He said, ‘I can find you a job. I’ve two houses. I’ve one in Geelong and I’ve one in Sydney.’ He says, ‘You can one for as long as you want.’ Oh I thought, ‘Bloody good.’ Anyhow, of course he was only in Burnley for a day and he came to our house and had a meal with us and then he went of course on his travels. He said, ‘Keep in touch, Steve.’ He says, ‘You can fly or you can go by sea.’ He says, ‘Let me know.’ And I was talking to the wife and I said, ‘Alice,’ I said, ‘You’ve got to think one thing.’ I said, ‘You might never see your parents again.’ I said, ‘It’s twelve thousand mile away, ‘I said and you won’t be able to pop over at weekends.’ ‘I don’t want to go Steve.’ I said ‘Ok.’ So I rung Bob and I said, ‘Bob,’ I said ‘it’s off. The wife says no.’ I often wonder what I would have done in Australia.
BW: Yeah.
SB: And Laurie. He was, he was another Australian. He worked on the railways. And Tommy Fouracre. He died. He was the first to die I think. He were a farmer in [?] or some such ruddy place. And the Canadians I don’t know what the Canadians were. I have no idea.
BW: It’s interesting that on that raid as you said before all of you escaped from the Lancaster as it was shot down and yet the three other aircraft that were lost on the same raid over Berlin all the crews were killed.
SB: That’s amazing. I’m wondering if it was as I say I didn’t think or I couldn’t remember ackack. I wonder if the ackack was kept off and the air fighters came in. I mean -
BW: And none of the other crew in your aircraft indicated to you what had happened even when you met up with them afterwards.
SB: No. All I know the plane crashed. Whether it, what it was hit, where it was hit, if it was hit I don’t know and as I say Bob only a few minutes with us and then he was off to an Offlag so I couldn’t get to know off Bob.
BW: And were you all, I don’t recall this being mentioned before and it’s only just occurred to me were you all kept together in the same camp apart from Bob who was taken off to an Offlag were the other six of you kept together? Or did you -
SB: In Stalag 8b?
BW: Yeah.
SB: We were. Oh yes we were held together. We used to play cards with one another and we used to, but nobody wanted to do what I did. I don’t know why. We all have our own funny ways.
BW: So the other guys although they’d all been taken prisoner and all detained in the same camp didn’t try to escape like you did.
SB: No. I mean the, to get out of the camp itself was impossible because there was such a depth of barbed wire and these towers on corners with machine guns. I mean it was hopeless. So there was only one way. Changing identities with somebody who got fed up with working.
BW: And when the camp was emptied and you were walking presumably westwards at what stage were you technically liberated? I mean were you taken to another camp and held there or were you -
SB: We were, I don’t know how long we were on the march. We were like bloody zombies and we finished up in this camp. There was Frenchmen in it in actual fact. There was four Frenchmen killed by a French aeroplane who mistook the camp and and we went to this camp and as I say there was a bloody great big marquee and branches on the floor for us to sleep on and in actual fact there was a young fella younger than me he got frostbite and it had -
BW: Infected his leg.
SB: Aye. He died. He died. He was only twenty one and we were there for maybe a couple of days and then the Americans came. The Germans had gone. There was nobody in the camp only us prisoners and then as I say the old Dakota came along and took us to Cosford and -
BW: And then you were back in this country.
SB: Yep. I was back to work. [laughs] Aye. I enjoyed being in India. I was in Bombay. I was in Madras and I was in Delhi and of course being a warrant officer I had a bit of a [sway?] and some of the lads they all, they always called me Red. I had red hair. If anybody was around it was sir but otherwise it was, ‘Hey Red, just a minute.’ ‘Oh Red. How about getting us on to the race, Guindi racecourse.’ I said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ And I’d get the big, I forget what they called them, bloody thing, the big van thing with windows and we’d go to the races at the weekend. Oh aye. It was useful being a warrant officer [laughs].
BW: Rank has its privileges.
SB: Oh yes. And like if I put my raincoat on and the cap badge or the same as officers and they’d salute me and I’d salute them back the silly buggers. I remember going, going to, oh I was going from Blackpool to Barton. I changed, I was travelling by coach and I changed coach at Leeds and as I got on the coach, ‘Oh very good. Right. Ok now.’ They’d been waiting for an air force officer and mistook me for him and the ruddy coach had been waiting for this fellow and it was convenient. It took me to Hull.
BW: Very good. I think that is all the questions I have for you. So -
SB: Well it is nice talking about it again.
BW: Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much. It’s been great talking to you.
SB: It was an experience.
BW: It was a good one I hope. It was for me.
SB: Oh yeah.
BW: So thank you very much for your time Mr Bacon. Thank you.
SB: It’s been a pleasure.
Dublin Core
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ABaconSG160216
Title
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Interview with Stephen Granville Bacon
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:21:47 audio recording
Creator
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Brian Wright
Date
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2016-02-16
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen joined the Royal Air Force in Kingston upon Hull. He wanted to be a pilot but became a mid-air gunner instead. He started at RAF Dalcross where he trained on Boulton Paul Defiant aircraft and went to 12 Squadron at Wickenby on Lancasters.
Stephen describes the preparations for missions, the cold and how the pilot would corkscrew as he approached targets. Following two trips to Essen and on his second trip to Berlin, his aircraft crashed. Another three Lancasters went down with no survivors. Upon landing in the snow he was captured by the German home guard and sent to an interrogation camp at Frankfurt. A person, claiming to be from the Red Cross tried to interview him but Stephen had been warned of this ruse and refused to answer any questions.
He and the other crew members were taken to Stalag VIII-B in Lamsdorf, near the Polish border. The conditions were very difficult with very little water and food. They burnt bed boards from their three-tier bunks to make tea and replaced them with string from Red Cross food parcels. The sanitary conditions were poor. Stephen, however, felt they were treated fairly.
He describes in detail the deplorable conditions in the camp. During his stay he escaped three times by exchanging identities with a member of a working party but was recaptured every time and punished by solitary confinement. He knew he had little chance of escaping as he couldn't speak German but wanted to keep the Germans occupied. He discusses some of the amusing incidents which occurred and outlines the entertainment activities in the camp. Stephen’s mother was informed he was missing, and his name read out as a prisoner of war by Lord Haw-Haw [William Joyce].
In 1945, he embarked on a gruelling march to escape from the approaching Russian army, often resorting to eating raw chicken and rabbit. Eventually the guards disappeared and he was picked up and looked after by the Americans and flown back to England for medical treatment. Stephen developed beriberi, weighing only seven stone. He was flown back to RAF Cosford in a C-47. After treatment he was sent to India as there were no flying post available in England. After the war ended, he was sent home to Blackpool for demob and worked in the coal mines, as a coal handler in the mills, a maintenance engineer and finally as a mill manager.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
Poland--Łambinowice
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Terry Holmes
Sally Coulter
12 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
bombing
Defiant
Dulag Luft
escaping
military service conditions
Nissen hut
prisoner of war
RAF Dalcross
RAF Wickenby
sanitation
shot down
Stalag 8B
the long march