2
25
666
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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
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
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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
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
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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
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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/165/2252/MWrightJ[Ser -DoB]-150527-070001.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2252/MWrightJ[Ser -DoB]-150527-070002.jpg
46b3f910e42cc3089aea991ecdf70dd8
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
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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>.
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
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Title
A name given to the resource
Aerial violation of Swiss airspace
Description
An account of the resource
Report form the Commander, District 1, Land Division regarding violations of Swiss airspace on night of 12/13 July 1943 when all areas covered by the Territorial Inspectorate of District 1 received alerts which began at 00.06 and continued until 02.09. Large numbers of aircraft were seen overflying this whole area, sometimes at a lower altitude than seen in previous sorties.
The report consists of five sections:
1. Details of bombs which fell in and around Praratoud and action taken.
M. Gauthier, Chief of Police of the Fribourg Canton, had received reports of bombs falling on Praratoud, Oudisfeld and Ueberstorf. He went to Praratoud immediately and confirmed that the above reports were true – 5 bombs had fallen but not exploded. With the help of the local constabulary, he took steps to establish order and ensure the evacuation of one farm especially at risk. The Federal Military Police requested that M. Gauthier, remain in Praratoud to investigate the possible destruction of the bombs or their removal. A Military Service Order was put in place and would remain until the bombs were removed or destroyed. In the locality of Oudisfeld only one bomb fell and exploded: however, it was claimed that there was serious damage to crops and to the rooves of apartment blocks over a radius of 400 – 800 m.
2. Details of bomb which fell on Le Bouveret and action taken.
Information, coming into District 1 from different directions, suggested that a bomb fell in the vicinity of Le Bouveret. A detachment of Fusiliers from the Border Force was immediately sent out to investigate. It was thus established that a 4-engined aircraft had come down in this area. 5 bodies were found and searches continued. Major Corboz of District 10 got in touch with M. Gauthier shortly before 08.00 and requested instructions concerning the collection of the bodies. From 08.00 onwards detachments from District 10 and Border Force Fusiliers continued with the formalities.
3. Details of bomb which fell near Sion. Difficulties encountered and action taken.
Details had come in from various directions regarding the fall of an aircraft in the vicinity of Sion but problems were encountered when trying to contact and obtain reliable information from the relevant authorities during the hours of darkness. In spite of these difficulties, the reports received were eventually thought to be correct and the Inspector of District 1 was able to send the order to District 10 to ask the neighbouring constabularies to proceed with the necessary enquiries. An aircraft was finally located at the end of the road leading to Viryon.
4. Details regarding incendiary bombs.
During the morning, various places were located where the incendiary bombs had fallen, – mainly in the area above Lausanne in the region of Savigny, Normiers and their environs. Steps were taken in each case to proceed with the destruction of the unexploded incendiary bombs. These bombs do not appear to have caused widespread damage.
5. Other bodies contacted and informed regarding the above events.
Various other imprecise observations were confirmed as correct in the early part of the morning by Districts 2 and 11 and the Inspectorate of District 1 was immediately informed. As soon as the facts were sufficiently clarified, each piece of information regarding the 2 afore-mentioned aircraft was also communicated to the Army High Command, Land Division; the Intelligence Service; the Anti-Aircraft Division and the Press Office of District 1. He also requested that all authorities under the control of District 1 participate in the destruction of the incendiary bombs – or, for any other incident, to send in a detailed report.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07-14
Format
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Two typewritten sheets
Language
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fra
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWrightJ[Ser#-DoB]-150527-07
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 Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Switzerland
Switzerland--Bouveret
Switzerland--Fribourg
Switzerland--Lausanne
Switzerland--Savigny
Switzerland--Sion
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07-12
1943-07-13
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Switzerland. Armée
bombing
crash
incendiary device
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2253/MWrightJ[Ser -DoB]-150527-080003.jpg
0cfbf4ce791216282b261dc125872ca5
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>.
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
Telegram No. 787 from the Swiss Government to the Swiss Legation in London
Description
An account of the resource
Telegram No. 787 from the Swiss Government to the Swiss Legation in London (A. 3080), concerning the violation of Swiss airspace on 13/14 July 1943, between 12.04am – 01.00am. Over 100 British aircraft flew over southern Switzerland, covering the area between Porrentruy, Le Brassus, Lake Leman and Chiasso. One aircraft came down at Le Bouveret, one near Sion. Bombs and incendiaries were dropped, and damage caused at Hauts-Geneveys, Gubelfeld, Flamatt, and Praratoud. Includes instructions for strongly worded protest and requirement for reparation for damages caused to be sent to the British Government.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Switzerland
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07-13
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One telegram
Language
A language of the resource
fra
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWrightJ[Ser#-DoB]-150527-08
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.
Switzerland
Europe--Lake Geneva
Switzerland--Bouveret
Switzerland--Chiasso
Switzerland--Porrentruy
Switzerland--Sion
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07-12
1943-07-13
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
bombing
crash
incendiary device
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2256/MWrightJ[Ser -DoB]-150527-11.pdf
f5184ff46672a53d7297a45fb343812a
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>.
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
EXTRACTS FROM. “NOUVELLISTE VALAISAN” NUMBERS 161 - 164
14 July 1943
[underlined] THE SIRENS RESOUNDED ON MONDAY NIGHT
Waves of planes
A bomber crashes on the slopes of Mount Gramont
5 Dead [/underlined]
After a few months of happy [inserted] un [/inserted] interruption, the sirens hooted warning against aircraft on Tuesday, 9 minutes after midnight. It ended at 01.52.
A little before 1 o’clock a violent explosion was heard in the area of Bouveret. Witnesses say that shop windows and panes were broken. A fire broke out near Ternay but quickly went out.
The scene can easily be described as a tremendous rumble.
The cause of it was thought to be a bomber crashing on the mountain with its murderous burden. Investigations, immediately undertaken, confirmed this hypothesis.
[inserted] M. CURDY AND HIS TEAM. 1 1/2 HRS CLIMB. [/inserted]
Straighteway, [sic] firemen in collaboration with soldiers repaired to the spot of the accident.
Of the aircraft only charred debris remained. It seems that airmen attempted to bail out, for some of the parachutes have been found hanging down the trees very close to the point of impact.
In the village of Bouveret, as we have said above, panes of numerous buildings, particularly those of [deleted] numerous buildings [/deleted] the station, of the pisciculture, of some hotels and restaurants, of private houses were shattered. The aircraft had fallen into the forest, by the quarry of Bussien, about 500m from this place.
The public relation of the authority in charge of the district officially declares on the telephone : In the night of the 12th July at 0.55 h [inserted] AN [/inserted] English four-engined aeroplane struck the slopes of Mount Grammont at about 500m. south [sic] of Bouveret. The military chief of this area and the Bouveret firemen went to the spot where they found at 0.50 h 5 corpses of airmen. Two have not been found yet.
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A second aircraft crashes on “Les Mayens de Sion : Six dead.
From midnight to 1 o’clock, the Sion population was kept awake by British bombers flying at low altitude and in compact waves.
[inserted] AUSTRALIAN SQN. AIRCRAFT. [/inserted]
A formidable explosion was suddenly heard and a huge red flame could be seen rising from “Les Mayens de Sion”
A British bomber had engine troubles. It flew at very low altitude above “Les Mayens de Sion” vainly attempting to go up. Just as it was about to fly over the meadows of Thyon touched a high voltage line and crashed down. Its six passengers were burnt as it exploded.
Competent military authorities went to the spot and began an inquiry.
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A call from Sion :
The plane which [deleted] bumped] [/deleted] [inserted] CRASHED [/inserted] into the high voltage line which carries electricity to “La Dixence” crashed in flames near the water-tower not far from Nendaz Valley. The people of Vex, Nendaz and Veysonnaz as well as a great many families spending their holidays in this country were suddenly awakened.
First on the spot were [deleted] man [/deleted] [inserted] men [/inserted] of the local guards and Gendarme Genoud from Basse Nendaz [inserted] When [/inserted] one got to Thyon, a dreadful sight awaited us. A pungent smell came from the charred corpses of the unfortunate airmen. Six or seven unrecognisable bodies. Only one escaped the fire but he is lifeless. He is a sergeant gunner. His name, Bolgar is written on his flying suit. Nothing remains, as it were, of the charred aeroplane. One can notice machine guns and bombs which have not yet exploded. An engine can be found further than 500 m. from the point of impact. The soldiers are on the spot and the inquiry has begun with competent military authorities. Experts are [deleted] being [/deleted] unloading the bomber.
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[deleted] Wher [/deleted] [inserted] Where [/inserted] the victims will be buried
It is stated that the English Legation in Berne has given instructions to have the victims’ corpses taken to Vevey. This town has a (Church of England) church with a private graveyard.
The funeral service of the English airmen killed at Bouveret and at Thyon sur Sion last Tuesday night will be held in Vevey church on Thursday afternoon.
The [deleted] soldiers [/deleted] [inserted] AIRMEN [/inserted] will be lying in the part of the graveyard reserved to
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the British in the First World War. The services will be performed by a protestant and a catholic chaplain. The Air Force attaché of the British Legation in Berne is dealing with the ceremony. Three hearses left Lausanne [deleted] on [/deleted] [inserted] ON [/inserted] Tuesday morning to collect the corpses but two are still missing.
The airmen will be buried in crews.
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Bombs falling in Vaud, Freiburg, Neauchâtel and Berne cantons
It is said officially :
In the night of the 13th of July about 100 foreign planes entered Switzerland 3,000 m. high from 0.04 h. until 0.51 h. between Porentruy and Le Brassus. The planes left Switzerland in the area of Geneva Lake and the Tessin. Some of them flew over the frontier.
Bombs have been [deleted] launchednear [/deleted] [inserted] DROPPED NEAR [/inserted] Riggisley (canton of Berne), near Flammat (canton of Freiburg), in the area of Maennlichen (Oberland Bernois) as well.
One house was destroyed and another one caught fire. No victims for the moment. In Flammat the explosion has made havoc in cultivations and houses around 800 m. The nearest house of the falling place (about 150 m.) [deleted] has pretty important [/deleted] [inserted] SUBSTANTIAL [/inserted] damage. The roofing tiles have been blown off on a corner of the roof. The roofs of other houses in the distance have damage as well.
All the windows panes [sic] have been smashed into bits. It seems it might be one of the biggest missiles.
Near Saligny, exactly in Mollie-Margot, a lot of incendiary bombs fell down the fields around the hamlet making big explosions and opening craters in the earth. Some of them did not explode. Most of the others burst up setting the village in a flutter. There [deleted] is [/deleted] [inserted] are [/inserted] no victims. [deleted] Nons [/deleted] [inserted] UN [/inserted] exploded [deleted] instruments [/deleted] [inserted] BOMBS [/inserted] have been neutralized.
A bomb fell on Geneveys sur Coffrane named place Les Hotèts (Neuchâtel). The deflagration was quite mighty driving the population of all of the area scared ; a thick cloud of smoke hung over the station.
The projectile fell in forest within 50 m. from Mr. A Nydegger’s farm. This one has [deleted] important [/deleted] [inserted] SEVERE [/inserted] damage : a roof smashed open, doors and windows [deleted] pulled [/deleted] [inserted] BLOWN [/inserted] out. An animal has been injured on the grazing ground. Damages are also [deleted] important [/deleted] [inserted] SEVERE [/inserted] in the forest. A 2,000 kg. bomb is likely to have fallen from one of the planes.
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LOCAL NEWS
The funeral of the English airmen tragically killed in Thyon and Le Bouveret
The funeral of the 14 English airmen tragically killed at Le Bouveret and Alpes de Thyon have been celebrated on Tuesday - 16.30 h. , in Vevey British graveyard. Then Followed then [sic] by a manifestation of compassion in which Vevey’s people have taken part some lovely wreaths had been sent from every part of Switzerland from all British corporations. It could noticed [sic] those from the British Legation in Berne, Royal Air Force, and the British Legion, English interned people, Greek, Belgian, Dutch, Yugoslavian colonies, from United-States, from Palestinians S.E. the Minister of Great-Britain in Berne, Sir Clifford Norton, [deleted] the [/deleted] Air-Commodores West, Air Attaché, allied military attachés, the representatives of several legations from several consulates attended ; so did Major Boissier, a representative of H.Q. , the legation of interned English airmen, Agan Khan, M.E. Denereaz, Vevey syndic etc… The crowd was extensive, kept in check be a body of [inserted] those [/inserted] responsible for order.
The official suite left Saint Martin’s terrace at 16.20 h. in order to get to the English graveyard where two grave had been dug out for the 14 coffins ; a brass band played the Funeral March by Beethoven. Then a religious service was held by Reverends Legg from Vevey, Maywood from Clarens, Middleton from Lausanne and Vicar Kurfürst from Vevey who had already held one twenty five years ago when the first interned British interned were buried in this graveyard. After “God Save The King”, some English and Swiss soldiers lowered the coffins down the grave ; blessing and absolution were given. H.E.M. Clifford Norton put the British colours wreathes down the grave, Air Commodore [inserted] WEST [/inserted] another, followed [inserted] [ by [/inserted] allied military attachés’ wreathes and United States’. The brass band beat the tattoo and sounded the reveille. Regular salvoes were shot and official guests withdrew whereas the impressed crowd was queueing up along the graves.
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[inserted] [underlined] Legg. C of E. [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] A TRAGIC NIGHT [/underlined]
Two British Four-Engined Bombers Crash
Into Valaisan Mountains
To inform our readers quickly about the events that occurred in the night of Monday we stuck up the following news on Tuesday morning in Station Avenue on Publicitas offices shop window :
[underlined] On the slopes of Mount Grammont [/underlined]
The competent territorial district public relation chief announces :
In the night of July 12th at 00.55 h. An English four-engined plane crashed on the slopes of Mount Grammont at about 500 m. south of Bouveret, 900 m. up. A big detonation was heard and high flames rose up from the plane. The Military major of the district and the chief of the firebrigade [sic] got to the place where it could be found at 5. o’clock A.M. 5 airmen’s corpses. Two others have not been found yet.
[underlined] On the ridges of Thyon [/underlined]
Sion, during the night of Monday 13th [inserted] 12/13 [/inserted] July knew a few thrilling moments. For more one [sic] hour and a half between midnight and 1 a.m. a lot of British bombers squadrons flew over Berne and Valaisan Alps by using a route right over the town. The flow of heavy and mighty four-engined machines lasted unendingly at relatively low altitude judging by the intensity of the noise of the propellers.
The time it lasted to fly over our sky is the longest ever. A sultry and threatening atmosphere hung over the town. Many shutters could be seen opening. Observers scanning the sky vainly. Between the clouds rather low, a few stars sparkled now and then but no planes could be seen. Besides, in order to get their route, several squadrons sent up yellow and red flares. They burst in the same way as short flashes of lightning. Near the end of their passage, when when the noise began to fade away, in the dark sky, another sound of planes was suddenly heard. It was flying lower than the others and its engine had characteristic misfires.. At the very time when this plane flew over Thyon ridges all of a sudden an enormous yellow glimmer lighted up the sky. At the same time time [sic] an explosion reflected back in the echoes of the valley.
The plane had crashed into a mountain and exploded. Then, another reddish glimmer rose up with a second explosion. This tragic drama concluded in the saddest way the [deleted] smbre [/deleted] [inserted] SOMBRE [/inserted] forebodings that had kept inhabitants in suspense through the grim development of the passage of the innumerable bomber squadrons.
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With the four-engined bomber that [inserted] CRASHED [/inserted] into the slopes of Mount Grammont, south of Bouveret 900 m. up, the British lost two planes in Valais during their air raid.
A military column left during the night to the place of the catastrophe. It was back on Tuesday at 1 p.m.
[underlined] A [deleted] Thrilling [/deleted] [inserted] CHILLING [/inserted] Sight [/underlined]
On Tuesday morning, at half past 6 the wreck of the four-engined bomber that crashed into Thyon ridges 20 m. below the J.O.C. hut were still burning. As soon as the first arrivals came a terrible sight was shown to them. Eight corpses among which seven are completely charred are found in the machine. The plane has been completely destroyed. An engine had cast off and lies some 100 m. lower Which [sic] allows us to think that the plane was already on fire when it crashed into the ground.
Just around the wrecks of the majestuous U.D. bomber : non exploded bombs, equipment, a rubber boat. Only one of the corpses can have been identified, English Sergeant Bolger’s.
Two machine guns and ammunitions, lots of them, are scattered round the wrecks as well. It is most likely [deleted] taht [/deleted] [inserted] that [/inserted] the plane was shot [inserted] at [/inserted] while flying over the Alps, by an incendiary A.A. shell. It’s not fitting to say that it is because of a high voltage line. Let’s remember that a few minutes after the catastrophe which we witnessed from the distance, a violent storm had burst. It is also likely that the plane had to land because of magnetic effects on the engines that might have suffered a lack of power, fatal to the airmen.
The present investigation will solve these questions.
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[underlined] EXTRACT FROM THE VEVEY ‘FEUILLE d’AVIS [/underlined] [inserted] No 78 [/inserted]
Extract 1. Dated 13 July 1943.
[underlined] A STRONG EXPLOSION [/underlined]
About one o’clock, a lot of people noticed, in the direction of Bouveret, a bright light, similar to that produced by a flare, which seemed to be coming down from a black cloud bank. (A storm was blowing at the time). The light flashed to the ground and suddenly tall flames rose up in the forest, some 400 to 500 metres above the western end of Bouveret. A terrible explosion followed. It could be seen as far as Vevey and district, awakening a fair number of inhabitants and shaking the windows.
The fire above Bouveret quickly faded in intensity; but for more than an hour it was possible, both by the naked eye and field-glasses, to make out numerous pockets of fire spread out within a fairly short radium, suggesting that a bomber had come down at this spot. It is possible, as there was a storm at the time, that the plane may have been struck by lightning.
This morning, using powerful glasses, one can make out the traces of the disaster, in the middle of which can be seen some whitish objects, probably debris.
On this subject we have received the following official communique:
[underlined] BOMBER CRASH
Five Bodies Recovered [/underlined]
The responsible press-chief of the district informs us:
During the night of the 12/13 July, at 0.55 hours, an English four engined plane crashed into the Grammont slopes about 500 metres from Bouveret, at a height of 900 metres. An enormous explosion was heard and huge flames rose up from the machine.
The sector-commander and the fire-chief from Bouveret went to where the five bodies were found.
Two of the crew have not yet been found.
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The force of the explosion was such that several windows and window-panes were blown out in Bouveret.
At Vevey itself, three big windows of the Hotel des 3 Couronnes were shattered. One of the hotel guests, the Aga Khan, was hit on the head by flying glass which caused no damage, however.
[underlined A SECOND BOMBER THOUGHT TO HAVE COME DOWN AT VALAIS [/underlined]
We are informed from Sion that, on this night, about one hour, an explosion occurred on the Thyon alp, grazing ground above Sion, at a height of about 2,000 metres. The high-tension wire (10,000 volts) of Dixene appears to have been cut. In this case too, there are good reasons for supposing that a bomber had come down.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT ONE [/underlined]
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Concerning the plane which fell at Thyon, above Mayens de Sion, we are informed that there would appear to have been eight victims whose bodies were hard to recover, scattered as they were amongst the debris spread over an area 150 metres in diameter. The bomber crashed against a hill-side.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT TWO [/underlined]
[inserted] Next [/inserted]
The Dixence ‘chateau’ (country house) with water some 100 metres from the artificial channel.
Amongst the still smouldering debris on Tuesday morning at six o’clock a large quantity of un-exploded bombe were found, along with broken flying instruments, a pneumatic canoe with its unflating [sic] bottle and two machine guns. Only one body could be identified - that of the English Sergeant Bolger. It is confirmed that the plane did not touch the high-tension cable but that it must have come down in flames.
An engine from the plane broke off and is lying in the field, about 100 metres lower down. This is probably the reason why the plane crashed but it is not impossible that it may have been hit by a shell from our Ack-ack.
A high calibre bomb fell above Heremence village into the rock in which it produced a crater five metres deep and 15 metres in diameter. Several flares were dropped by the pilots. On falling, the flares caused small fires.
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The English four engine plane crashed against two sides of le Grammont near Bussien quarries above le Bouveret. It came down right in the middle of forest which was destroyed over an area of 150/200 metres. On hitting the ground, the plane broke up into a thousand pieces and produced a crater ending in a gully filled with debris and loose rock which rolled to the foot of the hill.
Incendiary bombs were found in several places. It is not yet known whether the full bomb-load exploded after the crash. The only certainty is that no (bomb) pieces have been recovered.
The rush of flames was so fierce (obviously from an exploded bomb) that several windows were broken, in le Bouveret of course and in the surrounding district. The paper ‘Revue’ points out that at Montreux a big mirror 3.50 metres long and 2.50 metres high., [sic] seven millimetres thick, was shattered in the hall of the Hotel Eden. A window was blown in under the ‘Palace’.
[underlined] SWISS PROTEST IN LONDON [/underlined]
The Swiss legation in London was immediately told to protest with the greatest firmness against this new and serious violation of Swiss neutrality committed by many English planes during the night of 12/13 July to demand reparation for damage caused in various places by the bombs dropped on Swiss territory.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT THREE [/underlined]
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[underlined] Extract 2. Dated 14 July 1943
AFTER THE LAST FLY-OVER OF BRITISH PLANES [/underlined]
The following communeque [sic] concerning the massive fly-over of our air space during the night of the 12 to the 13 July.
In all, two English four-engine bombers crashed to the ground, the first as already indicated near Bouveret and the second to the south of Sion. The enquiry, still in progress, has not yet established whether the crash was caused by the defensive fire of our Ack-ack or if it was the result of the bad weather.
From different places, notably from the Fribourg district, came reports of incendiary and explosion bombs having been dropped: some of them caused considerable material damage. Propaganda sheets, aimed at the Italian population, were also dropped.
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[underlined] RIGGISBERG: [/underlined] 13th. An incendiary, bomb fell in the middle of the village of Riggisberg on a house situated between the “Adler” restaurant and the post-office building. The bomb crashed through the roof and set fire to the house occupied by four people. The house is completely burned out but fortunately its occupants were able to reach safety. The adjoining building was equally gutted. In this case, too, the occupants were not harmed. Almost all the windows in the village were smashed. Numerous rooves [sic] were more or less torn off by the rush of air. An explosive bomb also fell in the district of Riggisberg. A house situated at about 200 metres from the village was so damaged that its walls now lean at an angle and will have to be completely demolished. Here too, no-one was hurt. On the other hand, the damage caused was considerable.
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[underlined] FLAMMAT: [/underlined] 13th. During Tuesday night, a bomb dropped by a plane exploded near some huses of the “Bergli” hamlet in the parish of Ueberstrof. The explosion caused damage to crops and houses over a radius of 800 metres. The house nearest to where the bomb fell (about 150 metres) suffered considerable damage. The windows of all the houses were shattered. It appears to have been a higher-powered bomb than normal. There were no casualties.
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[underlined] FRIBOURG: [/underlined] 13th. During Tuesday night bombs were dropped on the hamlet of Praratout, attached to the Fribourg enclose of Surpierre, three kilometres from Lucens.
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During the night of Tuesday, a bomb fell over “Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane (Val de Ruz). It fell in the forest, about 50 metres from the farm of M.A. Nydegger which suffered considerable damage. In thee fields one animal was hurt.
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[underlined] Extract 5. Dated 16 July 1943.
THE FUNERAL OF 14 BRITISH AIRMEN [/underlined]
As was to be expected a very big crowd flocked to the St. Martins Cemetery yesterday afternoon, to be present at the funeral of the British airmen, victims of implacable fate/duty, who had on Tuesday night come down above Bouveret and on the Alp de Thyon (Valais).
Those responsible for the control of the public, a task well organised by the police under command of M. Carrel, did not have and [sic] easy task and it was only with difficulty that they could curb the enthusiasm of the crowd once they were allowed free entry.
It was a splendid afternoon and bright sunlight shone down on the St. Martins Cemetery where the slight cypress trees, as upright and straight as candles, offer intermitent [sic] shade.
At 15.00 hours, already, a great crowd was thronging on the St.Martin terrace where the official funeral procession was to form up. Behind the British cemetery the final preparations were being completed. Innumerable and splendid wreaths - perhaps a hundred - were set out on trestles, producing a guard of flowers for the coffins. They had been sent from every part of Switzerland, from every British community. Notably present were representatives from the British legation in Berne, the R.A.F., the British Legion, English internees, Greek, Belgium, Dutch, Yugoslavia colonies, the U.S.A., Palestine, etc.
About 16.20 hours, a battalion brass band plays Beethoven’s Funeral March. A moving moment. The official personalities and delegations arrive. The procession is headed by the representatives of the British Legation in Berne, amongst others, His Excellency Mr. Clifford J. Norton, C.M.G., C.V.P., envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary minister, Air Commodore F.M.F. West, V.C., M.C., Air Attache Colonel H.A. Cartwright, M.C., Military Attache, Major H.N. Fryer, assistant Military Attache. They are follow by representatives from the U.N. diplomatic corps, military attaches in full uniform, the Verney municipal representative, Officers from our Army, headed by Major Bossier of the 10th Territorial ‘arrondissement’ commanded by Colonel Carrupt, plus representatives of Air Defence are present.
The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of 80 million Musulmans, [sic] staying at the Hotel des 3 Couronnes is also present. A fine wreath from him had been sent beforehand. There are no speeches. Only the church officials speak; they are the English priests Legg (Vevey) Heywood (Clarens) Middleton (Lausanne), Williams (Geneva) and Father Kurfurat (Vevey. They all wear surplice.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT FIVE [/underlined]
Before the reading of the Gospels, English soldiers (interned) [deleted] as aviations [/deleted] and Swiss soldiers took their places at the foot and head of the 14 coffins. They are at attention. The band plays ‘God Save The King’; the slab supporting the coffins are lifted, the soldiers slowly let them down on ropes to the bottom of the communal graves. The Absolution is given by Father Kurfurst, then Mr. Legg and the British minister perform the symbolic gesture of throwing handfuls of earth onto the coffins. Three salvos fired by a Swiss military detachment frighten the birds and small children (whom one might have wished to have been elsewhere than at a cemetery), trumpets sound, and the ceremony ends with the laying of magnificent wreaths by the British minister at Berne and the R.A.F. representative. These wreaths were brought by 4 English soldiers. They placed them against the posts previously set up in front of the graves.
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Impressed by so much simplicity coupled with an absence of words which said much more than a thousand speeches, the crowd slowly withdraws as the military attaches come and bow before the graves where a quantity of flowers, simple bunches, are piled up on the ground an expression of the warmth of feeling felt towards the victims of the war.
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[underlined] -Extract Four
Dateline 14th July 1943 [/underlined]
The funeral the British aircrew killed on active service at Bouveret and Alpe de Thyon on Tuesday morning, will take place at Vevey on Thursday at 1630 hours: the burial arrangements are being made by the Air Attache of the Great Britain Legation in Berne.
3 hearses from Lausanne undertakers left on Tuesday at 1300 hours to collect the bodies, one to Bouveret and two to Sion; 7 bodies have already been brought in and the coffins are in the Crematorium: the others will arrive today.
Already in Vevey cemetery are the graves of British soldiers who died in internment during the last war. The airmen will be buried in groups. The ceremony will be led by Protestant and English Catholic Chaplains.
The Airmens [sic] last resting places are ready, close to the British cemetery.
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[underlined] Dateline 15th July 1943.
Funeral of British Airmen [/underlined]
Yesterday, M. Curchod and his assistants dug 2 big graves behind the St.Martin British Cemetery. In each one 7 coffins will be placed.
This afternoon’s ceremony will certainly be followed by a great number of people. In view of the very limited amount of space available around the open graves, and common courtesy which demands that officers and British colony be in the front, special measures have had to be taken.
The cemetery will be closed to the public from 12 noon to allow the coffins to be put in place. After the British Officers, U.N. representatives (Diplomatic corps, consulates etc) Swiss authorities, members of the British colony (on production of the appropriate authority) have entered the garden of rest, the general public too will be able to follow the ceremony from outside the ropes set up the authorities.
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The ceremony will retain a strictly military character. There will be no speeches. It will be none the less impressive for that.
A battalion band and a group of Swiss soldiers will pay the last honours to their comrades in arms, fallen on active service.
Beethoven’s funeral march will open the ceremony during which representatives of the Protestant and Catholic faiths will take part. His Excellency, the Minister for Great Britain in Switzerland, Mr. Clifford Norton will lay a wreath on behalf of his country, then the regulation salutes will be fired.
The ceremony, interspersed with a few pieces of military music, will last half and hour at the most. The funeral procession (officials and delegations) will leave the St. Martins terrace at 16.20 hours for the cemetery.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT FOUR [/underlined]
Seven coffins have so far been laid out in the crematorium. They are covered with the English flag and wreaths. The other coffins are expected this morning.
Sentinels are mounting the guard.
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[underlined] THE STATEMENTS OF A PILOT [/underlined]
One of the pilots who took part in the raid at Turin disclosed a detail which allows us to understand better the reason why the airmen were looking for a landing strip.
He stated to Exchange agency: “This venture has probably been the most risky of those in which I took part. When we had flown several hundreds of km, we arrived in an electric storm which, further on, changed into a violent tempest. Because of the electric tempest, some apparatus didn’t work normally and several pilots lost their direction. We tried to escort the planes in trouble and to show them the route to follow”.
The planes, if one includes their way back, have flown 2,000 miles.
[underlined] DAMAGES AT LE BOUVERET [/underlined]
Nearly all the houses in Le Bouveret had a large number of panes and windows broken. At the Cooperative, large mirrors worth about 2,000 f., some others in Hotel Bellevue worth several hundred f. have been shattered down. Shutters have been blown off. The church has not been spared. On its floor fragments of gypsum have been found and two others of the stained glass windows have been broken.
[underlined] THE TRAGIC RAID AT TURIN [/underlined]
Thirteen 4-engined planes have not come back from this air raid. The Italian communiqué says that the centre of Turin underwent considerable damage. There 101 [sic] dead and 203 wounded.
At the R.A.F. H.Q. it is stated : during Thursday night, strong formations of bombers attacked the industrial Italian town of Turin, which has a great importance not only by its industrial output, but also as a railway junction. The British bombers arrived over Turin by a very propitious weather and moonlight made it easier for them to reconnoitre the targets. Thousands of incendiary and explosive bombs were launched, causing vast fires and heavy damages. On their way there and back [deleted] a craft [/deleted] [inserted] the aircraft [/inserted] met with heavy storms which originated several crashes.
[underlined] SWISS PROTEST IN LONDON [/underlined]
A Swiss Legation in London was immediately told to protest with the utmost vigour against the latest serious violation of the Swiss neutrality, caused by many British planes in the night of the 12th. July and to claim reparation of the damages caused by the bombs which had fallen on several spots of the Swiss territory.
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The force of the explosion was such that several windows and window-panes were blown out in Bouveret.
At Vevey itself, three big windows of the Hotel des 3 Couronnes were shattered. One of the hotel guests, the Aga Khan, was hit on the head by flying glass which caused no damage however.
[underlined A SECOND BOMBER THOUGHT TO HAVE COME DOWN AT VALAIS [/underlined]
We are informed from Sion that, on this night, about one hour, an explosion occurred on the Thyon alp, grazine [sic] ground above Sion, at a height of about 2,000 metres. The high-tension wire (10,000 volts) of Dixene appears to have been cut. In this case too, there are good reasons for supposing that a bomber had come down.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT ONE [/underlined]
[underlined] Extract 2. Dated 14 July 1943.
AFTER THE LAST FLY-OVER OF BRITISH PLANES [/underlined]
The following communique concerning the massive fly-over of our air space during the night of the 12 to the 13 July.
In all, two English four-engine bombers crashed to the ground, the first as already indicated near Bouveret and the second to the south of Sion. The enquiry, st6ill [sic] in progress, has not yet established whether the crash was caused by the defensive fire of our Ack-ack or if it was the result of the bad weather.
From different places, notably from the Fribourg district, came reports of incendiary and explosion bombs having been dropped: some of them caused considerable material damage. Propaganda sheets, aimed at the Italian population, were also dropped.
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[underlined] RIGGISBERG: [/underlined] 13th. An incendiary, bomb fell in the middle of the village of Riggisberg on a house situated between the “Adler” restaurant and the post-office building. The bomb crashed through the roof and set fire to the house occupied by four people. The house is completely burned out but fortunately its occupants were able to reach safety. The adjoining building was equally gutted. In this case too the occupants were not harmed. Almost all the windows in the village were smashed. Numerous roofs were more or less torn off by the rush of air. An explosive bomb also fell in the district of Riggisberg. A house situated at about 200 metres from the village was so damaged that its walls now lean at an angle and will have to be completely demolished. Here too, no-one was hurt. On the other hand, the damage caused was considerable.
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[underlined] EXTRACT FROM THE VEVEY ‘FEUILLE d’AVIS No. 78
Extract 1. Dated 13th July 1943
A STRONG EXPLOSION [/underlined]
About one o’clock, a lot of people noticed, in the direction of Bouveret, a bright light, similar to that produced by a flare, which seemed to be coming down from a black cloud bank. (A storm was blowing at the time). The light flashed to the ground and suddenly tall flames rose up in the forest, some 400 to 500 metres above the western end of Bouveret. A terrible explosion followed. It could be seen as far as Vevey and district, awakening a fair number of inhabitants and shaking the windows.
The fire above Bouveret quickly faded in intensity; but for more than an hour it was possible, both by the naked eye and field-glasses, to make out numerous pockets of fire spread out within a fairly short radium, suggesting that a bomber had come down at this spot. It is possible, as there was a storm at the time, that the plane may have been struck by lightning.
This morning, using powerful glasses, one can make out the traces of the disaster, in the middle of which can be seen some whitish objects, probably debris.
On this subject we have received the following official communique:
[underlined] BOMBER CRASH
Five Bodies Recovered [/underlined]
The responsible press-chief of the district informs us:
During the night of the 12/13 July, at 0.55 hours, an English four engined plane crashed into the Grammont slopes about 500 metres from Bouveret, at a height of 900 metres. An enormous explosion was heard and huge flames rose up from the machine.
The sector-commander and the fire-chief from Bouveret went to where the five bodies were found.
Two of the crew have not yet been found.
[page break]
[underlined] 15TH JULY 1943.
FUNERAL OF BRITISH AIRMEN [/underlined]
Yesterday, M. Curchod and his assistants dug 2 big graves behind the St. Martin British Cemetery. In each one 7 coffins will be placed.
This afternoons ceremony will certainly be followed by a great number of people. In view of the very limited amount of space available around the open graves and common courtesy which demands that officers and British colony be in the front, special measures have had to be taken.
The cemetery will be closed to the public from 12 noon to allow the coffins to be put in place. After the British Officers, U.N. representatives (Diplomatic corps, consulates, etc) Swiss authorities, members of the British colony (on production of the appropriate authority) have entered the garden of rest, the general public too will be able to follow the ceremony from outside the ropes set up the authorities.
[three underlined * across the middle of the page]
The ceremony will retain a strictly military character. There will be no speeches. It will be none the less impressive for that.
A battalion band and a group of Swiss soldiers will pay the last honours to their comrades in arms, fallen on active service.
Beethoven’s funeral march will open the ceremony during which representatives of the Protestant and Catholic faiths will take part. His Excellency, the Minister for Great Britain in Switzerland, Mr. Clifford Norton will lay a wreath on behalf of his country, then the regulation salutes will be fired.
The ceremony, interspersed with a few pieces of military music, will last half and hour at the most. The funeral procession (officials and delegations) will leave the St. Martins terrace at 16.20 hours for the cemetery.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT FOUR [/underlined]
Seven coffins have so far been laid out in the crematorium. They are covered with the English flag and wreaths. The other coffins are expected this morning.
Sentinels are mounting the guard.
[page break]
[underlined] A second Aircraft crashes on “Les Mayens de Sion : Six dead. [/underlined]
From midnight to 1 o’clock, the Sion population was kept awake by British bombers flying at low altitude and in compact waves. A formidable explosion was suddenly heard and a huge red flame could be seen rising from “Les Mayens de Sion”. A British bomber had engine troubles. It flew at very low altitude above “Les Mayens de Sion” vainly attempting to go up. Just as it was about to fly over the meadows of Thyon touched a high voltage line and crashed down. Its six passengers were burnt as it exploded.
Competent military authorities went to the spot and began an inquiry.
[three underlined * across the middle of the page]
A call from Sion :
The plane which crashed into the high voltage line which carries electricity to “La Dixence” crashed in flames near the water-tower not far from Nendaz Valley. The people of Vex, Nendaz and Veysonnaz, as well as a great many families spending their holidays in this country, were suddenly awakened.
First on the spot were men of the local guards and Gendarme Genoud from Basse Nendaz. When one got to Thyon, a dreadful sight awaited us. A pungent smell came from the charred corpses of the unfortunate airmen. Six or seven unrecognisable bodies. Only one escaped the fire but he is lifeless. He is a sergeant gunner. His name, Bolgar is written on his flying suit. Nothing remains, as it were, of the charred aeroplane. One can notice machine guns and bombs which have not yet exploded. An engine can be found further than 500 metres from the point of impact. The soldiers are on spot and the inquiry has begun with competent military authorities. Experts are unloading the bomber.
[three * across the middle of the page]
Where the victims will be buried:
It is stated that the English Legation in Berne has given instructions to have the victims’ corpses taken to Vevey. This town has a (Church of England) church with a private graveyard. The funeral service of the English airmen killed at Bouveret and at.Thyon our Sion last Tuesday night will be held in Vevey church on Thursday afternoon.
The airmen will be lying in the part of the graveyard reserved to the British in the First World War. The services will be performed by a protestant and a catholic chaplain. The Air Force attache of the British Legation in Berne is dealing with the ceremony. Three hearses left Lausanne on Tuesday morning to collect the corpses but two are still missing.
The airmen will be buried in crews.
[page break]
[underlined] Bombs falling in Vaud, Freiburg, Neauchatel and Berne Cantons [/underlined]
It is said officially :
In the night of the 13th of July about 100 foreign planes entered Switzerland 3000 metres high from 0.04 hours until 0.51 hours between Porentruy and Le Brassus. The planes left Switzerland in the area of Geneva Lake and the Tessin. Some of them flew over the frontier.
Bombs have been dropped near Riggisley (canton of Berne), near Flammat (canton of Freiburg), in the area of Maennlichen (Oberland Bernois) as well. One house was destroyed and another one caught fire. No victims for the moment. In Flammat the explosion has made havoc in cultivations and houses around 800 metres. The nearest house of the falling place (about 150 metres) has substantial damage. The roofing tiles have been flown [sic] off on a corner of the roof. The roofs of other houses in the distance have damage as well. All the window panes have been smashed into bits. It seems it might be one of the biggest missiles.
Near Saligny, exactly in Mollie-Margot, a lot of incendiary bombs fell down the fields around the hamlet making big explosions and opening craters in the earth. Some of them did not explode. Most of the others burst up setting the village in a flutter. There are no victims. Unexploded bombs have been neutralised.
A bomb fell on Geneveys sur Coffrane named place Les Hotets (Neuchatel). The deflaration [sic] was quite mighty scaring all the areas population. A thick cloud of smoke hung over the station.
The projectile fell in forest within 50 metres from Mr. A. Nydeggers’ farm. This one has severe damage: a roof smashed open, doors and windows blown out. An animal has been injured on the grazing ground. Damages are also severe in the forest. A 2000 kg. bomb is likely to have fallen from one of the planes.
[three underlined * across the middle of the page]
[page break]
Before the reading of the Gospels, English soldiers (interned) and Swiss soldiers took their places at the foot and head of the 14 coffins. They are at attention. The band plays ‘God Save The King’; the slab supporting the coffins are lifted, the soldiers slowly let them down on ropes to the bottom of the communal graves. The Absolution is given by Father Kurfurst, then Mr. Legg and the British Minister perform the symbolic gesture of throwing handfuls of earth onto the coffins. Three salvos fired by a Swiss miliary [sic] detachment frighten the birds and small children (whom one might have wished to have been elsewhere than at a cemetery), trumpets sound and the ceremony ends with the laying of magnificent wereaths [sic] by the British Minister at Berne and the R.A.F. representative. These wreaths were brought by 4 English soldiers. They placed them against the posts previously set up in front of the graves.
Impressed by so much simplicity coupled with an absence of words which said much more than a thousand speeches, the crowd slowly withdraws as the military attaches come and bow before the graves where a quantity of flowers simple bunches, are piled up on the ground, an expression of the warmth of feeling felt towards the victims of the war.
[page break]
[underlined] Extract 5. Dated 16 July, 1943
THE FUNERAL OF 14 BRITISH AIRMEN [/underlined]
As was the be expected a very big crowd flocked to the St. Martins Cemetery yesterday afternoon to be present at the funeral of the British airmen, victims of implacable fate/duty, who had on Tuesday night come down above Bouveret and on the Alp de Thyond (Valais).
Those responsible for the control of the public, a task well organised by the police under command of M. Carrel, did not have an easy task and it was only with difficulty that they could curb the enthusiasm of the crowd once they were allowed free entry.
It was a splendid afternoon and bright sunlight shone down on the St. Martins cemetery where the slight cypress trees, as upright and straight as candles, offer intermittent shade.
At 15.00 hours, already a great crowd was thronging on the St.Martin terrace where the official funeral procession was to form up. Behind the British cemetery the final preparations were being completed. Innumerable and splendid wreaths - perhaps a hundred - were set out on trestles, producing a guard of flowers for the coffins. They had been sent from every part of Switzerland, from every British community. Notably present were representatives from the British legation in Berne, the R.A.F., the British Legion, English internees, Greek, Belgium, Dutch, Yugoslavia colonies, the U.S.A., Palestine, etc.
About 16.20 hours, a battalion brass band plays Beethoven’s Funeral March. A moving moment. The official personalities and delegations arrive. The procession is headed by the representatives of the British Legation in Berne, amonst [sic] others, His Excellency Mr. Clifford J. Norton, C.M.G., C.V.P., envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary minister, Air Commodore F.M.F. West, V.C., MC., Air Attache Colonel H.A. Cartwright, M.C., Military Attache, Major H.N. Fryer, assistant Military Attache. They are follow by representatives from the U.N. diplomatic corps, military attaches in full uniform, the Verney municipal representative, Officers from our Army, headed by Major Bossier of the 10th Territorial ‘arrondissement’ commanded by Colonel Carrupt, plus representatives of Air Defence are present.
The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of 80 million Muslems, [sic] staying at the Hotel des 3 Couronnes is also present. A fine wreath from him had been sent beforehand. There are no speeches. Only the church officials speak; they are the English priests Legg (Vevey), Heywood (Clarens), Middleton (Lausanne), Williams (Geneva) and Father Kurfurat (Vevey). They all wear surplice.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT FIVE [/underlined]
[page break]
The English four engine plane crashed against two sides of le Grammont near Bussien quarries above le Bouveret. It came down right in the middle of forest which was destroyed over an area of 150/200 metres. On hitting the ground, the plane broke up into a thousand pieces and produced a crater ending in a gully filled with debris and loose rock which rolled to the foot of the hill.
Incendiary bombs were found in several places. It is not yet known whether the full bomb load exploded after the crash. The only certainty is that no (bomb) pieces have been recovered.
The rush of flames was so fierce (obviously from an exploded bomb) that several windows were broken in le Bouveret of course and in the surrounding district. The paper ‘Revue’ points out that at Montreux a big mirror 3.50 metres long and 2.50 metres hight, [sic] seven millimetres thick, was shattered in the hall of the Hotel Eden. A window was blown in under the ‘Palace’.
[underlined] SWISS PROTEST IN LONDON [/underlined]
The Swiss legation in London was immediately told to protest with the greatest firmness against this new and serious violation of Swiss neutrality committed by many English planes during the night of 12/13 July to demand reparation for damage caused in various places by the bombs dropped on Swiss territory.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT THREE
Extract 4. Dated 14 July 1943. [/underlined]
The funeral the British aircrew killed on active service at Bouveret and Alpe de Thyon on Tuesday morning will take place at Vevey on Thursday at 1630 hours, the burial arrangements are being made by the Air Attache of the Great Britain Legation in Berne.
3 hearses from Lausanne undertakers left on Tuesday at 1300 hours to collect the bodies, one to Bouveret and two to Sion; 7 bodies have already been brought in and the coffins are in the Crematorium: the others will arrive today.
Already in Vevey cemetery are the graves of British soldiers who died in internment during the last war. The airmen will be buried in groups. The ceremony will be led by Protestant and English Catholic Chaplains.
The Airmens’ [sic] last resting places are ready, close to the British cemetery.
[three underlined * across the middle of the page]
[page break]
[underlined] FLAMMAT: [/underlined] 13th. During Tuesday night a bomb dropped by a plane exploded near some hours [sic] of the “Bergli” hamlet in the parish of Ueberstrof. The explosion caused damage to crops and houses over a radius of 800 metres. The house nearest to where the bomb fell (about 150 metres) suffered considerable damage. The windows of all the houses were shattered. It appears to have been a higher powered bomb than normal. There were no casualties.
[short line across middle of the page]
[underlined] FRIBOURG: 13th. [/underlined] During Tuesday night bombs were dropped on the hamlet of Praratout, attached to the Friourg [sic] enclose of Surpierre, three kilometres from Lucens.
[short line across middle of the page]
During the night of Tuesday, a bomb fell over “Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane (Val de Ruz). It fell in the forest about 50 metres from the farm of M.A. Nydegger which suffered considerable damage. In the fields one animal was hurt.
[three underlined * across the middle if the page]
Concerning the plane which fell at Thyon above Mayens de Sion, we are informed that there would appear to have been eight victims who [sic] bodies were hard to recover, scattered as they were amongst the debris spread over an area 150 metres in diameter. The bomber crahsed [sic] against a hillside.
[underlined] END OF EXTRACT TWO [/underlined]
The Dixence “chateau” (country house) with water some 100 metres from the artificial channel.
Amonst [sic] the still smouldering debris on Tuesday morning at six o’clock a large quantity of unexploded bombs were found, along with broken flying instruments, a pneumatic canoe with its unflating [sic] bottle and two machine guns. Only one body could be identified - that of the English Sergeant Bolger. It is confirmed that the plane did not touch the high-tension cable but that it must have come down in flames.
An engine from the plane broke off and is lying in the field, about 100 metres lower down. This is probably the reason why the plane crashed but it is not impossible that it may have been hit by a shell from our Ack-Ack.
A high calibre bomb fell above Heremence village into the rock in which it produced a crater five metres deep and 15 metres in diameter. Several flares were dropped by the pilots. On falling the flares caused small fires.
[three underlined * across the middle if the page]
[page break]
[underlined] A POWERFUL BOMB DROPPED OVER HEMERENCE [/underlined]
By carrying out esearches, [sic] it has been possible to establish the cause of the first explosion that was heard. A 4000 lb. bomb fell near Hemerence , not far from the hamlet of Riod between the former 5 gate of the flow pipe and the pastures of Thyon. It dug out a fifteen foot deep and 45 foot wide funnel into the rock.
In the village, every pane was shattered and the shutters blown off. Around the funnel a large field of rhododentrons [sic] was seen to be been mown down level with the ground, as if by a scythe.
Official investigations only got there around 5am after many a vain search. Yesterday afternoon, amongst officials one could see M. Le. Conseiller d’Etat (State Counsellor), Mr. Fama and Gendarme Theiller. Some readers objected: How was it that the occupants did not have time to bale out? We have answered by this arithmetic demonstration:
A bomber flies at 400km. an hour. That is 200km. per 30 minutes, 100km. per 15 miles [sic] or 10km. per 90 seconds; 10km. is the distance between Sanetsch and Les Mayens de Sion.
If the engine has been touched by by an A.A. shell (as it seems likely) in the region of Sanetsch, the crew had only 90 seconds left to rid of the heavy weights, bomb, burning engine, and find if possible a landing strip in the midst of the storm gathering its opaque clouds over Thyon. 90 seconds, that’s very little.
[underlined] THE PLANE HAD TAKEN AWAY THE HIGH VOLTAGE LINE [/underlined]
Let’s remember that the Lancaster weighs between 30 and 40 tons.
The proportions of the wrecks have deceived even the witnesses. Several have, in good faith, believed that the tail of the plane has disappeared. It is a mistake. What they mistook for the body of the craft is the tail, which bears the gunner’s turret. The forepart has been burnt out, has vanished.
On the other hand, contrary to the first information, the plane has fallen onto high voltage line, which caused s short circuit and perhaps set fire to the craft, as well. At Benson, in the tunnel being built, this short circuit switched off the light and the electric pumps so that the water rose immediately. The miners had to run out of the emergency exits to escape the flood.
[page break]
[underlined] THE STATEMENTS OF A PILOT [/underlined]
One of the pilots who took part in the raid at Turin disclosed a detail which allows up [sic] to understand better the reason why the airmen were looking for a landing strip.
He stated to Exchange agency: “This venture has probably been the most risky of those in which I took part. when [sic] we had flown several hundreds of kilometres, we arrived in an electric storm which, further on, changed into a violent tempest. Because of the electric tempest, some apparatus didn’t work normally and several pilots lost their direction. We tried to escort the planes in trouble and to show them the route to follow”.
The planes, if one includes their way back, have flown 2000 miles.
[underlined] DAMAGES AT LE BOUVERET [/underlined]
Nearly all the houses in Le Bouveret had a large number of panes and windows broken. At the Co-operative, large mirrors worth about 2000 F. some others in Hotel Bellevue worth several hundred francs, have been shattered. Shutters have been blown off. The church has not been spared. On its floor fragments of gypsum have been found and two others of the stained glass windows have been broken.
[underlined] THE TRAGIC RAID AT TURIN [/underlined]
Thirteen 4-engined planes have not come back from this air raid. The Italian communique says that the centre of Turin underwent considerable damage. There are 101 dead and 203 wounded.
At the R.A.F. H.Q. it is stated : during Thursday night, strong formations of bombers attacked the industrial Italian town of Turin, which has a great importance not only by its industrial output, but also as a railway junction. The British bombers arrived over Turin in very propitious weather and moonlight made it easier for them to reconnoitre the targets. Thousands of incendiary and explosive bombs were launched, causing vast fires and heavy damages. On their way there and back the aircraft met with heavy storms which originated several crashes.
[underlined] SWISS PROTEST IN LONDON [/underlined]
A Swiss Legation in London was immediately told to protest with the utmost vigour against the latest serius [sic] violation of the Swiss neutrality, caused by many British planes in the night of the 12th July and to claim reparation of the damages caused by the bombs which had fallen on several spots of the Swiss territory.
[page break]
[underlined] A Chilling Sight [/underlined]
On Tuesday morning, at half past six, the wreck of the four-engined bomber that crashed into Thyon ridges 20 metres below the J.O.C. hut were still burning. As soon as the first arrivals came, a terrible sight was shown to them. Eight corpses among which seven are completely charred are found in the machine. The plane has been completely destroyed. an [sic] engine had cast off and lies some 100 metres lower, which allows us to think that the plane was already on fire when it crashed into the ground.
Just around the wrecks of the majestuous U.E. bomber, non exploded bombs, equipment, a rubber boat. Only one of the corpses can have been identified, English Sergeant Bolger’s.
Two machine guns and ammunitions, lots of them, are scattered around the wrecks as well. It is most likely that the plan [sic] was shot at while flying over the Alps, by an incendiary A.A. shell. It’s not fitting to say that it is because of a high voltage line. Let’s remember that a few minutes after the catastrophe which we witnessed from a distance, a violent storm had burst. It is also likely that the plane had to land because of magnetic effects on the engines that might have suffered a lack of power, fatal to the airmen.
The present investigations will solve these questions.
[page break]
[underlined] A WITNESS’s RELATION [/underlined]
The first car coming ton the area of Petit Vallon near the hut of the Collons arrived at the top of Mayens of Thyon 20 minutes after the crash.
Some passengers of the car related the sight. About 20 shepherds, most of them with shirts on ran about briskly around the burning machine, petrified with terror, once the petrol had exploded. Apart from the rear gun turret gunner who was thrown out of his seat, the [deleted] seven [/deleted] [inserted] six [/inserted] other [inserted] CONTORTED [/inserted] assengers [sic] crumpled up packed in the pit. Only remains can be seen. Further the gunner lying [underlined] contored [sic] [/underlined] wears his big airman overall. He’s still wearing his headphones. The plane turned up on a wing. The other one has been pulled out.
In the night it is a gloomy scene. Flames rise up into the sky, as black as ink, where the storm rumbles. They light up the cows which are grazing a few yards away from the charred wrecks. They look at the sight with placidity. Whereas the white silhouettes of the terrified humans shout and gesticulate, powerless around glowing and crackling scraps of iron.
The funerals will take place in Vevey after the corpses have been taken to the valley. Two funeral hearses from Vevey waited this morning at Planta Square in Sion for the grave diggers to be back. Vevey City owns a church of England with its private graveyard. They unfortunate airmen will be lying in crews in the part of the graveyard reserved to the interned British people during World War 1.
Military experts went this morning to the pastures of Thyon in order to make the official enquiry going on. The wreck of the plane is leaning on the Mount of the water tower of Dixens electric plant. It covers a large area. The span of the wings has been measured, they are 40 metres long.
The two four engined machines that have had such a tragic end on. Valaisan ground belonged to the Flights which bombed Turin on the dawn of Tuesday.
[page break]
[underlined] A Chilling Sight [/underlined]
On Tuesday morning, at half past six, the wreck of the four-engined bomber that crashed into Thyon ridges 20 metres below the J.O.C. hut were still burning. As soon as the first arrivals came, a terrible sight was shown to them. Eight corpses among which seven are completely charred are found in the machine. The plane has been completely destroyed. an [sic] engine had cast off and lies some 100 metres lower, which allows us to think that the plane was already on fire when it crashed into the ground.
Just around the wrecks of the majestuous U.E. bomber, non exploded bombs, equipment, a rubber boat. Only one of the corpses can have been identified, English Sergeant Bolger’s.
Two machine guns and ammunitions, lots of them, are scattered around the wrecks as well. It is most likely that the plan [sic] was shot at while flying over the Alps, by an incendiary A.A. shell. It’s not fitting to say that it is because of a high voltage line. Let’s remember that a few minutes after the catastrophe which we witnessed from a distance, a violent storm had burst. It is also likely that the plane had to land because of magnetic effects on the engines that might have suffered a lack of power, fatal to the airmen.
The present investigations will solve these questions.
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Title
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Extracts from 'Nouvelliste Valaisan'
The Sirens Resounded on Monday Night
Description
An account of the resource
27 pages transcribed from a local newspaper covering the night 100 bombers overflew Switzerland leading to two being shot down. Bombs were dropped on Swiss territory.
14 airmen were buried at Vevey and the funeral is described. There is repetition of documents and accounts.
Date
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1943-07-14
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
Format
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27 typewritten sheets
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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MWrightJ[Ser#-DoB]-150527-11
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy
Switzerland
Switzerland--Bouveret
Switzerland--Sion
Switzerland--Vevey
Italy--Turin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07-12
1943-07-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Alan Pinchbeck
David Bloomfield
bombing
crash
final resting place
killed in action
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2267/SWrightAC1149750v20118.1.jpg
ee04f16fcec6e669a5502660687e687c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2267/SWrightAC1149750v20119.1.jpg
7f2b4070c12a61877c9c6367e69020d4
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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Wright, Jim
J R Wright
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-05-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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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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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
Crashed Lancaster rudder
Description
An account of the resource
A rudder recovered from a crash site. It is annotated with dimensions in millimetres. It is largely intact but shows rippling. On the reverse ' Rudder, Lanc. Sion/CH 12/13.7.1943 via Roger Anthoine ex-pl.470'.
Format
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One b/w photograph
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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SWrightAC1149750v20118,SWrightAC1149750v20119
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Switzerland
Switzerland--Sion
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07-12
1943-07-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07-12
1943-07-13
bombing
crash
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2299/SWrightAC1149750v20163.1.jpg
0be4f192b11771e3b140a7c01bd88435
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>.
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
Lancaster wreckage on a Swiss hillside
Description
An account of the resource
The wreckage of Lancaster ED412Q at Bouvertet Switzerland shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Switzerland 12 July 1943. The pilot was Pilot Officer Horace Badge.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWrightAC1149750v20163
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.
Switzerland
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
anti-aircraft fire
crash
Lancaster
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2314/PAllenDJ1532-0026.2.jpg
12c6ee0ba2843e48fdc60f661debd2fb
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2314/PAllenDJ1532-0027.2.jpg
9ba73bf279f9cbe4e48346380b1f5a8f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2314/PAllenDJ1532-0028.1.jpg
d3ef6c6d3bea2796452acbb94c460912
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2314/PAllenDJ1532-0029.1.jpg
b84e960c5b0d16f0ed187ea316521dcd
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
Lancaster DV396 crash site
Description
An account of the resource
In both photographs a pile of aircraft wreckage lying in the middle of an open field. To its left a notice on a pole. In the background a forest. On the reverse of the first photograph '2-11-44 Lancaster B DV396, Ops Dusseldorf crash site at La Reid, Belgium'. On the reverse of the second photograph '[.....], Gun turret wreckage, 303 machine gun [.....], machine gun from turret in the fore ground'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAllenDJ1532-0026, PAllenDJ1532-0027, PAllenDJ1532-0028, PAllenDJ1532-0029
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-11-02
467 Squadron
crash
Lancaster
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2317/PAllenDJ1532-0030.1.jpg
c97c14ca6bdb4403851ff65a3745a5d4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2317/PAllenDJ1532-0031.1.jpg
b513b6d8b3c0f440a60ae312eddd8d12
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
Lancaster DV396 crash site
Description
An account of the resource
Part of the fuselage of a Lancaster lying in a field. On the reverse '2-11-44, Lancaster B DV396, Operation Dusseldorf, crash site at La Reid, Belgium'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAllenDJ1532-0030, PAllenDJ1532-0031
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-11-02
467 Squadron
crash
Lancaster
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2323/PAllenDJ1532-0040.1.jpg
6ae0b8bb2eef61563caa92095e0dac28
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2323/PAllenDJ1532-0041.1.jpg
0a6a3f218a433ab514454e4434794d94
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
Aircraft wreckage
Description
An account of the resource
Aircraft wreckage in the edge of a wood. behind the wreckage a field and road with a vehicle. Captioned 'on the road a US GMC'. In the background wooded hills. On the reverse 'F. Bourotte- Spa, Vieux-Pré, Photo:1'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAllenDJ1532-0040, PAllenDJ1532-0041
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
crash
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2324/PAllenDJ1532-0042.2.jpg
f4f24d8072d6420c9a08355388af7730
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2324/PAllenDJ1532-0043.2.jpg
b77345e3a4cbd09d20e155f9612127a6
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
Aircraft wreckage in field
Description
An account of the resource
Part of the fuselage of an aircraft with roundel visible and unidentified letter annotated '8 or B or g'. On the reverse 'F Bourotte -Spa, Vieus-Pré?, Photo 3'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAllenDJ1532-0042, PAllenDJ1532-0043
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
crash
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2325/PAllenDJ1532-0044.2.jpg
2d7d73154fc4eaaf2e6d70274689a9d2
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2325/PAllenDJ1532-0045.2.jpg
e3063aa7aa225c1a5440fb1f457da1e2
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
Aircraft wreckage in field
Description
An account of the resource
A pile of aircraft wreckage in the middle of a field. The left a notice on a pole. In the background a hedge and forest. On the reverse 'F. Bourotte - Spa, Vieux-Pré, Photo 2', No 273'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAllenDJ1532-0044, PAllenDJ1532-0045
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
crash
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2326/PAllenDJ1532-0046.1.jpg
6d4668ce98a9771868dc00a55bd2824b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2326/PAllenDJ1532-0047.1.jpg
266408b512245c99c5fbfea31cfcfe04
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
Lancaster DV396 crash site
Description
An account of the resource
Aircraft wreckage in the edge of a woods. Behind is a field and a road with a vehicle. In the background wooded hills. On the reverse '2-11-44, Lancaster B DV396, Ops Dusseldorf crash site at La Reid, Belgium'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PAllenDJ1532-0046, PAllenDJ1532-0047
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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1944-11-02
467 Squadron
crash
Lancaster
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2331/PAllenDJ1532-0056.1.jpg
1ee2a08995eaa042a131847fcfca98dd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2331/PAllenDJ1532-0057.1.jpg
d2389e2d9203eac14ac4b732f1a1b302
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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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
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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
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Aircraft wreckage
Description
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A pile of aircraft wreckage at the edge of a woods. Behind a field and a road with a vehicle. In the background wooded hills. On the reverse 'Burnt out wreckage at crash site 1944'.
Format
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One b/w photograph
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PAllenDJ1532-0056, PAllenDJ1532-0057
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Belgium--Spa
Belgium
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
467 Squadron
crash
Lancaster
-
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
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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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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
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00:43:03 audio recording
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eng
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Sound
Identifier
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AFrostB150707
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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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
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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
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/177/2340/ABattyPH161014.1.mp3
5c4ac0fc187b4591d3ca4948980d7baf
Dublin Core
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Title
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Batty, Philip
Phil Batty
P Batty
Description
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19 Items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with Philip Batty (b. 1925). He discusses the death of his older brother Dennis early in the Second World War, his wartime service with 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate as a wireless operator/ air gunner, and his long post war career. The collection also includes a number of group photographs of airmen after training, photographs of aircraft in southern Africa, his log book and propaganda material.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-14
Identifier
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Batty, P
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CH: Right, this interview is taking place at Phil Batty’s home in Wellingore, Lincolnshire on the 14th of October 2016, it’s being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. The interviewer is Cathie Hewitt, also present are Guilia Sanzone, Ann Batty and Chris Aram. Okay Phil, if you’d like to give me this information of your date and place of birth and your early childhood.
PB: Right, well, I was born on the 7th of March 1925, at a small village in Yorkshire. Er, my parents, my father was, actually in the Flying Corps in World War One, and he, he stayed in after the war and married my mother in 1918, but mother didn’t care for the Air Force, they were stationed at Castle Bromwich, and father decided that they would leave and he got himself a job as a draughtsman at Rolls Royce in Derby, but unfortunately came the depression and he was laid off, the only job that he could find was in the mines up in Yorkshire, which is where we went, but mother hated that even more, she was determined that we were not going to stay there [laughs] and er, we emigrated back to the West Midlands where father got a job with Walsall Town Council as a roads foreman, and, that’s where I was brought up and educated, at Elmore Green Central School. Mother didn’t care for that either [laughs] I went to sit the entrance examination for I think it was the King Edward Grammar School in Birmingham, I passed it but unfortunately Walsall refused to pay the fees. So, I was stuck in Walsall and went to Elmore Green for my secondary education. I was quite happy there, and, I stayed there until of course war broke out in 1939 when I was fourteen, I was just about to leave school anyway, I’d got a job at the town council myself in the transport department as a clerk, and, there I sat, waiting for things to happen. My brother Dennis, of course was a fully qualified wireless operator air gunner [indistinct], he was with 226 Squadron and once the army got themselves organised they all deployed over to France as the advanced air striking force with the British Expeditionary Force. They were equipped with Fairey Battles, a single engine light bomber, utterly unequipped to face the Luftwaffe, but there they are, and there we sat and waited. Dug a big hole in the back garden, built ourselves an Anderson shelter [laughs] and that sort of thing and waited for the real war to start, which eventually, it did, with a bang, crash, wallop, and, er, Dennis came home when the army retreated, they suffered horrendous losses. He kept a little diary while he was in France of his — of his friends who didn’t come back, because the Messerschmitts knocked them out of the sky like fly swatting really, er, but he came home eventually with his kit bag full of champagne and [laughs] and stayed with us for about a week and then went back, and his squadron reformed with Blenheims and were based at Wattisham, and there they started to bomb the Channel ports where the Germans were then assembling an invasion fleet. It was on bombing, there was bombing raids they went in, inland to bomb an airfield, and they were attacked by some Messerschmitts, the pilot was hit, in the neck, but Dennis shot one Messerschmitt down and that put them off, they left them alone and they got back to base safely and that's where all three of them were awarded the DFM. And, Dennis came home to celebrate. Unfortunately he was posted up to Scotland, I think he was going on the gunnery leaders’ course, but this is a week later and he was killed in a flying accident [pause]. This was my first [pause] real [pause] [cries].
CH: Would you like to take a break?
[interview paused]
CH: Okay?
PB: And er, of course, that’s the last thing my mother wanted [laughs] she said, ‘No, no way, you’ll never pass the medical’, ‘cause I’d had an ear operation, she said, ‘You won’t pass’, [interference] anyway, she said, ‘You’re not going until you’re called up’, and of course eventually I was [laughs]. Passed the medical, went for aircrew, went to Birmingham to the attestation centre, er, which was where they gave you a little exam to make sure you could read and write a little essay and that sort of thing, and, then they did [indistinct] a little test with a little machine keeping a dot in the centre, and they said, ‘Oh, what do you want to be?’, and I said, 'Well I want to be a wireless operator air gunner’, they said, ‘Oh you, no we’re, what about pilot, navigator, you know?'. I said er, ‘Well, how long’s that take?’. He said, ‘Well, you’ll be put on a list and we’ll call you when we want you’, but I said, ‘Will I be quicker being a WOP AG’, he said ‘Yeah a bit’, I said, ‘I’ll have it’ [laughs] and er, that was it then, er, course mother was dead against it, but I said, ‘I’ll be alright’, [emphasis] you know it’s, I hadn’t the faintest idea of course that the losses were mounting for bomber crews at the time but, anyway eventually I got this paper asking me to report to Lords cricket ground, I thought, whatever, funny place for the Air Force, but off I go and they were playing at the time, I think it was the West Indies, I’m not sure, but that’s where you got issued with uniform, numbers, 2220759, ha, ha [laughs] you never forget it [laughs] and er, all the stuff you needed, and put your civilian clothes in a suitcase and send ‘em home, and, we were accommodated in London, in flats at the time being, for a little while, and then put on a train to Bridlington. Bridlington by the sea, yes, and there we were taught to march, yes, and I thought oh God, if this is aircrew, you know, I thought we were going to fly [emphasis] but no, we were marching up and down the promenade and [laughs] and er, learning the Morse code and that sort of thing, signalling by lamp and all the rest of it, and er, we were there for about , I suppose about four to six weeks and then I was posted down to the radio school at Madley to be taught the real skills of being a wireless operator air gunner and, there started the real training really. Er, I was there, I suppose about eight months, passed out, but that was the real jump [indistinct] because when you got your brevet, you got immediate promotion to sergeant, and now this is a big lump, a big jump really, er, and I was posted at the same time over to a place called Staverton, just outside Gloucester. They had a sergeants’ mess, we had sheets [emphasis] on the bed [emphasis] [laughs] fantastic, and we had knives and forks set out in the mess, we thought, you know, we’ve started to live, yeh. Er, the other funny thing was that we were briefed secrecy, you will see an aeroplane here, which you’ve never seen in all your life because it hadn’t got a propeller, it just whistles, and of course it was the jet, the very first, and it did seem very odd I must admit. Er, and we were there for six weeks flying an Anson and that’s where I first met up with my navigator, John, and we flew together for some time, and I think it was when we finished at, there, we went off up north to Dumfries and by God it was cold, [emphasis] we were living in Nissen huts and they were freezing [emphasis] oh, one stove in the middle that everyone tried to huddle round and how it is, but, once again it was just about six weeks, and then we went to, down to the OTU, that was just outside Leicester, where we upgraded to Wellingtons and that’s where we got that leaflet, the operational crews were diverted in one night, and I must admit they all looked clapped out [laughs] very tired, but er, I think that, we went, OTU was where we first started to fly as a crew, we picked up a pilot, a co-pilot, er, I still flew with John Tidmarsh, we’d been flying together then for six, seven months or so, so we de-, decided we’d stick together and the rest of the crew could join us [laughs] which is what we did, as you do, a little band of men. And, we did, I think it was a couple of months on Wellingtons, flying round the countryside practising navigation, bombing, and waiting to march onwards which we did eventually. We were posted to a Lancaster conversion unit, and I think I went to the one just outside Newark, er, it’s in my log book somewhere, and that was the, yes [pause]. Chris’ll find it in there [pause].
CA: Winthorpe.
CH: Winthorpe.
PB: After I, after we’d finished at the, I remember looking at the, where we were, 'cause it had big chimneys at the end of the runway, and I said to the pilot, he's a bloke called Ford, Henry, I said, ‘I hope you can manage to get a Lancaster over the top of those chimneys’, Henry [laughs] ‘they look pretty ominous to me’, he said, ‘Don’t you worry Phil’ [laughs]. Anyway, we passed and eventually 'cause we are coming to right to the end of the war now, and I didn’t, didn’t think we were going to make it before VE Day, we just about did it, we would have done, but not quite. We were posted to a squadron, posted to 50 Squadron at Sturgate and, off we went, and we’d just done the, squadron commander flew with us and pronounced us fit to join his squadron and, but I think it was a week later that we had VE Day, that was it, the war was over. So, we came into the briefing room one morning and saw [unclear] the squadron commander and said ‘Well fellas, well done’, he said, ‘It’s over’, he said, ‘We are now part of the Northern Striking Force', he said, 'Who we’re going to strike I don’t know but that's who we are’, he said, ‘5 Group are going out with Tiger Force to the Far East to fight the Japanese, but we’re staying here, but I’ve got some good news for you’, he said, ‘You can draw some khaki drill’, he said, ‘'Cause we are off to Italy on Monday’, [laughs] he said, ‘What we’re going to do’, he said, he said, ‘We’re going to pick up some prisoners of war up and bring 'em home’, he said, ‘Everyone, yes’, he said, ‘Our [emphasis] prisoners of war [laughs] not theirs’, he says 'We’ll paint twenty circles on the floor’, he said, ‘You put twenty passengers each and off you go’. 'And it’s like an operation, there’ll be sixty or so aeroplanes and some are going to Pomigliano and some to Bari, but we’re going to [unclear]’, he says, ‘Now there’s three things, one, do not try and change your money on the black market, none of that, don’t go down to Naples and get drunk on the local vino, right, and make sure you look after the soldiers [laughs] 'cause they won’t have flown’ [laughs]. But of course they hadn’t, but they were very pleased to jump on board the Lanc, er of course it took a long time, I think it was seven or eight hours trip each way but they didn’t care. Is that what you’re looking at Chris? Yes, they called it Operation Dodge, yes and we did one or two of those and, that was how the — the war virtually ended for me.
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back with you?
PB: Yeah.
CA: I don't think he heard you.
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back on the trips in the Lancasters?
PB: Pardon?
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back from Italy?
PB: Yes, yes, yes, and we landed in the UK at, Polebrook, yes, I don’t know how many times oh, er, eight was it, I don't know. Chris, I think is looking now [unclear]?
CA: Yes, at least eighty.
PB: I did several trips, anyway, yes, I remember that we went to see the ruins of Pompeii, John Tid — Tidmarsh and I, yes. While we were there we thought we might as well, yeah, yes, but, very interesting actually, yes, we did behave ourselves and we did realise that the best things to take out were cigarettes and coffee for trading, and er, we could hand those in and bring back jewellery and that sort of stuff, yes, from the Italians, yes, er, quite enjoyable. Chris is looking now in my logbook, which will be scanned presumably? Yes. The length of the time that the trips took, yeah, quite long, yeah, okay.
CH: What happened after you finished doing these trips bringing the prisoners back?
PB: That was it for the time being, erm, I was posted then to, out to Transport Command for a little while, and then the air force [background noises] in their wisdom thought [?], in their wisdom, sent me out to Southern Rhodesia for two and a half years, er, onto [?] the navigation training school, flying Ansons, where I had a marvellous time [laughs] I really did, I thoroughly enjoyed it, you know, there were no tourists, the game was wonderful, it really was, marvellous place. We went to Victoria Falls and that sort of thing, er, saw the whole of the country at low level 'cause we were flying Ansons, and the navigators for their passing out trip, we took 'em down to Cape Town and back again, and after two and a half years I came home, and I decided to stay in the Air Force and rejoin Bomber Command, and, they’d got Lincolns then, so I was back on the old Lincolns and posted to Wyton and I was waiting there when of course the atom bomb came in, and the old Lincoln, I’m afraid, wasn’t big enough. So we borrowed some B29s from the Americans, the air force called them the Washington, and er, we converted from the Lincoln to the Washington, and that’s where we ended up at, Coningsby er, on the B29 or the Lincoln, and that’s where I was for quite a while until I think that I moved around a bit, on coastal, I think that, I spent a —a little time converting, then I was posted out to Malta and did a tour out there, with my good lady [laughs]. The Cyprus problem blew up — [interruption]
CH: That's —
AB: And, we were doing trips from Malta to Cyprus, once round the island and back, sixteen hours [laughs] rather tiring, so they decided to send us out to Cyprus and, camp on the edge of the airfield instead, so we could do shorter trips. So, we ended up camping on Cyprus for a bit until it was [laughs], time for us to come home, which we did in nineteen, ooh, was that sixty we came home?
AB: I think so.
PB: Yes, something like that, and I was [pause] posted back up to, Coningsby I think.
AB: Topcliffe.
PB: Yeah, oh, Topcliffe one or the other, yes, and er, after that they sent me back to, Bomber, where I converted on to the Vulcan eventually, that’s where we stayed did we not? Yes, I think so. Yes, they, the Cypriots had taken the [background noises] the explosives in a sandwich — in a sandwich tin, just in it, just in between two pieces of bread and they put 'em on the hinges of the aeroplane and blew the wing off, yes, the pilots didn’t like it, no, weren’t too keen on that. So, they put closer guards on the aeroplanes, that’s the only thing they could do [background noises].
CH: What year was this?
PB: Yes.
CH: What year?
PB: Erm, gosh, what year was Cyprus Chris? It’s in there, when we're doing the Cypriot runs. Five, yeah, it’ll be listed there. [pause] 'Cause they were gun running as well, that’s what we were doing there [?] just trying to pick up the gun runners at night [background noises].
[inaudible]
CH: I'll pause that. What were you saying about the Cypriots?
PB: They were very clever in the way they smuggled their weapons and stuff in, that’s why we were doing these orbits around Cyprus at night to try and catch the boats, the little boats they used to get weapons over, and explosives and that sort of stuff, yeah.
CH: Was this the time of EOKA?
PB: Yes, exactly, yes, yes. [pause] I think it was eighty something, yes.
CH: That would have been in the fifties, nineteen fifties.
PB: Yes, that’s it [indistinct]. But I moved over onto the Vulcan, 'cause we went off to Finningley for our conversion and I’d only flown on piston aircraft, piston air, and I sat in this, monster and he said, er, ‘opening the throttles, full throttle’, whump, and I found myself up over my seat and I thought, good grief, [laughs], and I, I got the instruments in front of me 'cause we’d got an altimeter and an airspeed indicator, and he shot down the runway and I watched the altimeter go like that [laughs], winding upwards [laughs]. I’m not in a fighter but a fantastic performance, it really was, but I did get used to it of course, in the end, but, one or two of the blokes I flew with like Dave Thomas and, and Andy, could really handle a Vulcan well. Dave Thomas, when we’d, we'd done a display, we were coming home one Sunday and he said, ‘Do you mind if I try and roll it?’ and I said, ‘Well, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t Dave’, and he did a roll and my desk lid lifted about half an inch and went down again, that’s all I knew, but somebody on the ground saw him, reported it to 1 Group Headquarters, and we were all summoned to see the AOC [laughs] 'cause we were both squadron leaders and he gave us both a right rollicking, and he said, ‘Don’t ever do that again’, [emphasis] well he said, ‘If you do don’t let anybody see you’, [laughs] ‘And would you like to stay for lunch’, [laughter] so he wasn’t really annoyed [laughs], but. Ah, ha, but, we did have some fun in the Vulcan one way and another [pause]. Ah. When we were training we were given a weekend off and, mother was always very pleased because we got a special, ration for aircrew and it added to her points, I think it doubled them just about and of course we got a free railway warrant, so I used to always, um, ask for a one to Birmingham and I used to exit at New Street station which was open and then catch the bus home, and that way I ended up with a few free tickets, you see, that I, I could use later on, which I did and during the war, yes it was very handy, but , yes every six weeks we were sent, to, to clear off and have a rest, eh, because we never knew but the sky over Britain was, must have been full of aeroplanes at night, that we didn’t know about, there was no radar cover, nothing like that, you just flew and fingers crossed, hope for the best that you saw everybody else, eh, fortunately we survived, no problems [laughs].
CH: Did you keep in contact with any of your crew that you flew with in the war?
PB: Yes, yes, eh, I haven’t contacted Henry, I did John Tidmarsh for a little while, I’ve lost contact with him.
AB: Johnny, Johnny King.
PB: Yes, but , Johnny King that, flew with since the war, yes, still in contact with him, he's in Canada but, we're in regular contact, yes, we flew together on, on Lincolns, yes, in fact he was a flight engineer and then, changed to pilot, trained to be a pilot, yeah.
AB: Lorenzo, Lorenzo.
PB: Yes, eh, anything else I’ve forgotten?
AB: Lorenzo.
PB: Oh yes, I kept in contact with Keith but he’s dead now of course, passed away.
AB: The Canadian ones, we’ve been over to Canada and stayed with them.
PB: But, [interrupted].
CH: Were there Canadians in your crew?
PB: Er, no, no there was, one Irish and the other one was a Londoner, the two gunners, yeah, one London, one Irish and one London. Paddy Mack [?], he was the rear gunner and there’s a little London fella, I can’t remember his name is the mid upper gunner, and I was the reserve gunner if necessary [laughs] but, I was never used [pause]. I think that’s about all I can remember, apart from the fact that flying was always cold, very, very cold [emphasis]. The only warm place in the Lancaster was in my position in fact, er, that wasn’t too bad, but the rest of them the Anson and the Wellington were perishing [laughs]. You used to wear as much clothing as we could to keep warm and you could hear the gunner in the back cracking the ice in his oxygen mask [laughs], crunching away [laughs], [coughs] but eh, you learn to live with these things [pause]. On Vulcans, Andy Milne and er, the rest of them [interrupted]
AB: Dave Thomas.
PB: Yes, but I think Andy Milne [interrupted]
AB: Jerry Strange.
PB: Was the best, 'cause we, we went on the bombing competition twice so we must have been pretty good [interrupted]
AB: And won, each time.
PB: But eh, yes, we beat the Americans at one stage but er, out in Barksdale, they didn’t like that very much [laughs], poor old, but they’ve been very good to us the Yanks I must admit, yes, um, but yes that was, that was a very good crew I must admit and we, we're still in touch, all of us. Yes, Andy's down in Devon with his own small holding, and, but our co-pilot settled in the Far East, built himself a house [unclear]
[inaudible]
PB: And er, my navigator’s still around, he comes, still comes to the meetings occasionally [pause] but, trying to think that’s, that’s about the limit of -. 'Course, there was our, my crash in the Vulcan, that was quite interesting [laughs]. Well we got to — went out to fly one day, Flight Lieutenant Galway was the captain at the time and, I was the AEO, Stan Grierson was the co-pilot, and we had, Alan Bowman and, was the radar. Anyway we got, this, almost brand-new Vulcan, it had got about ten hours on the air frame. Anyway, climbed on board, and set off and we were flying about an hour, when Ivor said, ‘The hydraulic pressure's reading zero’, I said, ‘Well tap the gauge Ivor, you know, use the old knuckle’, [laughs] he tapped it, wouldn’t come back you know, I said oh, ‘Hang on then I’ll see if it’ll move my,’ got a little scoop on the rover gas turbine in the wing, a little motor, I put my switch on and off, didn’t move, I said, ‘This looks ominous Ivor, it looks to me as if we’ve lost all our hydraulic pressure’, ‘But we’ve got air, we’ve got air, yes, have no fear, we’ll go back and use the air,’ he says, 'Okay, right', so we, we came back to base and um, burnt off a bit of fuel, you know as much as we could and then he said, ‘Right selecting emergency air, undercarriage down,’ down it went, bang’ [emphasis]. Two greens, one red. Oh dear, [sigh] ‘Which is the one?’ he said, ‘It’s the starboard wing, port undercarriage has not gone down and locked’. Now that’s bad, you can’t do anything about that at all. ‘I’ll check the electrics just to make sure that it’s not a fuse’, it wasn’t. So, he said, ‘Well , what about bailing out?’ I said, ‘Bailing out!, the nose wheels down', I said, 'I’ll go sliding out and the first thing I’m going to hit is the nose wheel,’ I said, I’m not too keen on that Ivor, if you don’t mind,’ I said, ‘The navigator and the radar might want to have a go?’ but, he looked at me and said, ‘No sir, I said, ‘What are you going to do Ivor?’, he said, ‘Well, I’m going to land her’, he said, ‘I’m going to try and land’, I said, ‘Well I'm, you are going to have two, three passengers on board as well, so to make sure you don’t clear off we’ll keep the safety pins in the seats all right, if you don’t mind, so you don’t accidently pull those handles and disappear,’ [laughs] he said, ‘Right oh,’ he said, I said, ‘Well, shall we prepare for a crash landing,’ he said, ‘That’s a good idea,’ so, we went through the drill, he said, ‘What we’ll do, we’ll pull the handle, get rid of the canopy, so that we can get out of the top at the front if anything happens,’ you know, that, and he said, ‘We'll, we’ll try.’ So he, he did a roller and it held up, but eh, and we went round again, came in, he said, ‘Well, here we go, hang on fellas.’ And eh, as he lowered the wing, bump [emphasis] down it went, straight onto the ground [laughs]. Round we went, twice [laughs]. We came to a halt about twenty yards from another Vulcan [laughs]. The bottom, our exit was okay, it was clear, actually, we could get out and the aero, the aeroplane was still upright, there was enough room for us to get out and clear off, which we did, as quickly as possible [laughs]. The aeroplanes left there with its wing on the ground, eh, yeh, a complete failure of the down leg had cracked [whispering], split, and all the hydraulic fluid had vented [?] to air. Nothing you could do about it [background noises].
CH: Let’s just pause this.
[interview paused]
PB: Crash landed twice in Rhodesia, [laughs] flying along and the pilot [background noises] said to me, ‘The controls have jammed,’ he said, ‘I can’t move the control column Phil, [background noises] can you come and give me a hand up here?’ I did, we couldn’t shift it at all, we were in a steady slow climb, so he said, ‘[unclear] I'm going to wind full nose trim on, we’ll go down and look for somewhere flat’ [laughs]. Which is what he did, [laughs] we did a very slow descent, we got two nav- cadets on board and I said, ‘Get in your crash landing position, it might be a bit bumpy when we land,’ but they [unclear] were very good you know, straight in, bent the props back and all the rest of it, chopped the ground up a bit, but er, opened the back door and the two lads jumped out, not even a bruise, yeah, yes. A clapped out old Anson you see, the control cables had dropped through the guides and jammed, you couldn’t move 'em, but there we are [laughs]. These are little things you’ve got to be ready for [laughs]. Yes, I had a time when I had to fly the aeroplane back when the pilot fell asleep, as well, poor [unclear] Freddy [laughs]. I said, ‘Fred, [laughs] we need to go back to base Fred’, [laughs] Fred Holloway, ‘What you say Phil?’ [laughs]. I said, ‘One eighty and head for Thornhill Freddy,’ [emphasis] [laughs] ‘oh, you’ll have to do it Phil’, I said, ‘Oh, crikey, I’ve not done this before Freddy,’ [laughs] ‘Nothing to it,’ he said, ‘Just keep it steady,’ he was right, you know I just [laughs], half an hour we were back over the top and he was awake by this stage. I said, ‘Do you think you could land it Freddy?’ oh, got the goose necks out there they are, I could see them, oh, he managed it. Ah, he’d been flying continually for, I think it was a week we’d been doing night flying and without any rest, or something like that, he’d overdone it [pause] yes, right oh, [pause] yes. Well the, the trips to the Congo were, well the Russians packed it in, they wouldn’t go, they, they’d got their aircraft out there, but , they said it was too dangerous, apparently. The weather was always icy [unclear], you know, going through the front but, we just, filled the old Hastings up with their soldiers and off we went and did it, but , we managed to get there and back okay.
CH: What was it that you were doing in the Congo?
PB: Ferrying the United Nations troops from, Nigeria and Ghana into the Congo to, as a peacekeeping — peacekeeping force really, because there were, having a, a dreadful war out there, Katanga, and political as well. They were slaughtering each other left, right and centre, as they do, out there, and so that’s what we were doing, ferrying the troops back and forth [pause]. RAF Transport Command, the black people saw 'em and thought they were commandos, that we were ferrying commandos in to attack them. And eh, we had to go through Leopoldville, which every time we went through, this chap in his ragged [unclear] came out with his hand, wanting so many thousand dollars so that we could go through and get into the Congo proper, where we wanted to be, and, I've forgotten how many thousand dollars we had to hand over, and if you didn’t they set up a light machine gun and trained it on the aeroplane, [laughs] so we paid [laughs]. Yes, we had to put on our United Nations hats, be part of the United Nations force, as opposed to the Royal Air Force [pause].
AB: I don’t know I didn’t hear what she said either Phil.
PB: Eh [unclear] yes, but , yes, yes, you never know — know when you were going to get through or not, that was the trouble, they tried to pull us back once because they thought we’d got the Prime Minister on board, they thought he was, the, the Prime Minister that had been giving them all the trouble, they thought we’d kidnapped him and we were taking him away [laughs] and they said, you must return to Leopoldville immediately, but er oh, it was old Bill Corker[?] who was flying, he says, ‘Tell 'em not bloody likely,’ [laughs] he said, ‘We’re going back to Accra as fast as we can [laughs] and we're not going back to Leopoldville, thank you’ [laughs]. Yes, that was their, the, the biggest problems were handling these people properly, so they could be very tricky these, black politicians. I’ve forgotten what his name was now but he was, [background noises] he caused a lot of trouble out there [pause], 'cause they’re all starving, and, we gave them all our food, all of us [unclear], as much as we could [pause].
AB: And this is one of the letters from the one he's talking about.
PB: Yes [unclear].
AB: Because they used to write regularly to us, letting us know what was going on in the other, the half and I just thought there might be something in here, erm, well there is about killing two Europeans before they got off, before we let you go we are going to kill two Europeans. I’d have to go through the whole of the letter for. I think they're the only two letters we kept, we had piles of them, didn’t we? [pause]. Yes, why I brought that out that was to show you that that’s how we used to communicate.
PB: I remember that, that’s the first time I saw Dennis’s name in, in print after he was , in the chapter called, “Men Like These”, yeah.
AB: Yes, it is only a small part of it, but I just thought that you would be interested, you know, because a lot of it happened in the era that you don’t remember. But, I think maybe David’s got the book.
PB: Oh yes, possibly yes, the one with the red cover, yeah, yes, bit tatty but , yes, yes it was a good book, yes.
AB: Any book that’s got a bit about the family in it, is good [laughs].
PB: I’m sixty, four, forty, KCs, but, as I say the aircrew of course, treat these things with er, well I, I can’t say it really, because its racist but er, [laughter] ‘Hello, hello darkies speak to me you black’ [laughs] and such like, as aircrew a lot, but, bit like that I’m afraid [laughs]. But, er, he’d never heard of it he said, but I said, 'Oh I can assure you it was an emergency [unclear] system during World War Two'.
AB: I know this has only got to do with [unclear].
CA: Not to mention the high jinks you got up to after a dining in night, and you decided to drive down to London to see the Queen, in a sports car, four of you, do you remember that?
AB: I remember them going, yeah. I remember them coming home [laughs] yeah, but that, is that the sort of thing you also want to know about?
PB: What's that?
AB: When you and, erm, what’s his name, all climbed into his sports car to go to visit his auntie, in London.
PB: In Mayfair.
AB: You and?
PB: Stan Grierson.
AB: And Ivor Galway.
PB: And Ivor Galway.
AB: All in their mess kit.
PB: Yes, not, not the best thing to do.
CA: Not having [?] imbibed a certain amount of alcohol?
PB: Weren’t in our right senses, no. ‘We’ll go and see my aunt, she lives in Mayfair [interrupted].
AB: This is from Cottesmore [unclear].
PB: 'She’s got a very nice flat’. ‘Okay Stan, yes, let’s go’. We get the car [laughs] oh dear.
AB: Carry on love.
PB: Yes, then all the wives panic, ‘Where’s my husband gone?’ [laughs]. ‘Don’t know, haven’t the faintest idea?’ We were on our way home, safe and sound.
AB: Yes, all of us were ringing each other up, the wives, to find out, is he home yet, to [unclear], Ivor’s wife, ‘No he’s not home yet, haven’t heard from him’, 'Haven’t you heard from them?’ ‘No.’ They were in London, in their mess kit, all in one sports car, they'd stayed the night, had their breakfast with auntie and then set off to come home. Arrived home at, oh I don’t know, maybe eleven o’clock, eleven am, to irate wives as you can well imagine, having been, been one [laughs]. Go on carry on, what happened then?
PB: Well, that was it wasn’t it, young and irresponsible, absolutely, totally irresponsible.
CA: As children, we were told you’d gone to see the Queen.
AB: Yes [laughs].
PB: Especially for a mature gentleman like you, yes.
AB: Well, you were the oldest member of the crew, you were the responsible one, all the others were young.
PB: Yes exactly, yes, I was the leader, yeah, yeah.
AB: I mean what a thing to do after a dining in night, you'll know about the dining in nights and how they, raucous they can get. Let’s go to London and see the Queen.
PB: It seemed a good idea at the time, yes, yes [laughs].
AB: You can imagine them arriving in London can’t you, all in their mess kit [pause]. Auntie didn’t turn a hair, did she?
PB: No.
AB: Gave them breakfast and sent them on their way [laughs].
PB: Yes, she did have a very nice flat, in Mayfair.
AB: It’s a pity those sort of things can’t come in the thing, 'cause they are hilarious, you know, but erm, what else did you do?
PB: Oh well, I’ve always been a good fellow you know that, I haven’t done anything.
AB: What about the ones in Nottingham? Auntie, in Nottingham, and Fosco?
PB: [laughs] Yes.
AB: I think we wives could write a book.
PB: Yes, come home, all is forgiven, Mother Vallance [laughs].
AB: This was, shall I carry on with it? This was one, one of the young men was, was violently sick when they went to stay in this house in Nottingham where they all used to go if they couldn’t get home 'cause the last bus went at seven o’clock at night, I mean, ridiculous really, so they used to go and stay, and he was very sick in the bedroom and he didn’t tell any of the crew, 'til he got home, and of course, she, the landlady went up and found all this, and she, she eh, was furious obviously. They all sent her a bunch of flowers and a letter saying, you know, we are sorry about this, and she wrote a letter back saying, all is forgiven, come home, love Mother Vallance [laughter]. 'Cause, this is when they were all at Coningsby.
PB: [laughs].
AB: But there’s lots of little stories like that, you know, that don’t come under the terms of flying, you know, but I think we should do a book on what the wives remember [laughs].
PB: Yes.
AB: Anymore?
PB: No, he’s still going strong, isn’t he Fosco?
AB: Yes, the one who was sick, he must be about, they were, they were all probably five or six years younger than Phil, he was the oldest member of the crew, erm, so he will probably be in his early eighties.
PB: Yes.
AB: Still lives at Coningsby. It's funny thinking about them all now, you know, it —
PB: Yes.
AB: 'Cause, Ivor Galway, the pilot of the plane that crashed, he used to live at Woodhall Spa.
PB: Yes ah.
AB: She had an unhappy end didn't she, committed suicide, a lot of the wives couldn’t take the pressures, as they were in those days, you know, the bomb and what not, you know. You, you never knew when they were called out on a QRA, does your husband, still do, is he still in the air force?
CH: No, it’s my son.
AB: Pardon?
CH: My son.
AB: Oh son. So, he would still do QRAs, rushed out in the middle of the night.
PB: Yes, that’s right.
AB: A lot of funny stories about QRAs and being called out.
PB: We used to wait for the call, ‘Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller for Waddington QRA only, readiness zero two is now in force’, and jumped in the car and straight out to the aeroplane and fire it up and get ready. That’s what they used to do [pause].
AB: It’s alright, that’s just a little passage, from the book. They arrived at the door in their flying kit having been brought home by bus because they were all, you know, a bit shaken.
PB: The MO thought we were all shook up, he said 'Go home', yes, I said 'I’m not shook up'.
AB: And we didn’t care less anyway we were, we were too busy with our sherry [laughs].
PB: Yes.
[laughter]
PB: Yes, QRA was a bit of, bit of a, bit of a bind but eh — [interrupted].
AB: And your son will know all about that if he, do they still do QRAs?
PB: Yes, well I suppose they do really eh, sleep in your kit and er, be ready to go eh, at a moment’s notice and it was eh, sort of broken sleep, that sort of thing, mind you at the same time, the food in the aircrew feeder was excellent eh, 'cause we had our own little restaurant, yes, but , [coughs] and of course, you could probably go a couple of nights without being called at all, and then suddenly, you know ‘Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller,’ and eh, and off you’d go, but, but you took your turn, you weren’t on it all the time [pause].
AB: Can I speak [whispered]. 'Cause that’s how a lot of the wives couldn’t cope because they never knew when they were called out on QRA, where they were going and what they were going to do. They could have been called to Russia and when they've passed a certain boundary time, place, they can’t turn round and come home again, they have to keep going, and a lot of the wives, lot of the wives could not cope with this, not knowing when their husbands went out on a QRA call, whether they were coming home or not.
PB: Yes.
AB: Especially the ones who were called out on the, the last, the Falkland do.
PB: Yes.
AB: They actually all wrote letters to their wives because once they got out they wouldn't have been able to turn round and come back.
PB: I think the really serious one was the missile crisis with Russia, you know, with the ships eh, going to Cuba, and J F Kennedy was the really serious one [pause]. That’s where — where we were on full alert, ready, ready to go, actually. Not that anyone wants to 'cause you know well that, there'd be nothing to come back to, if it ever happens, that’s why we want to stop these missiles spreading, it’s very difficult to do but we must try our best.
[laughter]
CH: I shall end that there. Thank you very, very, much Phil.
PB: Yes [laughs].
CH: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Philip Batty
Description
An account of the resource
Philip Batty grew up in Walsall. He discusses the death of his older brother Dennis, a wireless operator with 226 Squadron, early in the Second World War. Philip volunteered for aircrew. After training, he was posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate as a wireless operator/ air gunner in May 1945. He was involved in Operation Dodge and United Nations peacekeeping in the Congo. He worked in Rhodesia and Cyprus and survived crash landings in a Vulcan and an Anson. He reminiscences about work colleagues and tells some humorous stories relating to his career in the Royal Air Force, which spanned 40 years.
Creator
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Cathie Hewitt
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-14
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Janet McGreevy
Format
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01:02:22 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABattyPH161014
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Congo (Democratic Republic)
Zimbabwe
Cyprus
Cuba
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-05
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
226 Squadron
50 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-29
Battle
Blenheim
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
Lancaster
Lincoln
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bridlington
RAF Coningsby
RAF Madley
RAF Sturgate
RAF Wattisham
RAF Wyton
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
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
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
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
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Derrck J Allen
Format
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One typewritten page
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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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/167/2352/SAllenDJ1880966v10006.1.jpg
cbff43c5c63ae2b472698a19c80f87fa
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
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
[Post Office crest]
POST OFFICE TELEGRAM
[Post Mark]
9.40 Huntingdon 16
Mr & Mrs Allen
Ermin Lodge Stilton Peterborough
Best Wishes for your future Happiness.
Mon and Mary
[Bank Note]
[Post Office crest]
POST OFFICE TELEGRAM
[Post Mark]
12.40 Yardley 20
Mr & Mrs Allen
Ermin Lodge Stilton
Wishing you Happiness and best of luck.
Mr & Mrs Dale & Pamela
Saved Trapped Gunner
Heroism in Blazing Bomber
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 toe, has been awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.
He is Sergt, 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 ignoring 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.
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
Newspaper account of Derrick Allen's heroic actions leading to award of Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, congratulatory wedding telegrams and banknote
Description
An account of the resource
On the left a newspaper cutting with an account of how Derrick Allen freed the rear gunner from his jammed turret while his Lancaster was going down. On the right top and bottom, congratulatory wedding telegrams wishing future happiness. Between the telegrams a Belgian 20 Franc banknote.
Format
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Newspaper cutting mounted on an album page
Two telegrams mounted on an album page
One banknote mounted on an album page
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Physical object
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SAllenDJ1880966v10006
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Peterborough
Belgium
Belgium--Spa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1946-09-21
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
Claire Monk
467 Squadron
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
crash
Lancaster
love and romance
-
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
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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
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[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.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Accounts of actions leading to award of Conspicuous Gallantry medal and other congratulatory material
Description
An account of the resource
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
Format
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One telegram and nine newspaper cuttings mounted on an album page
Language
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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
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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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
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/167/2444/AAllenFam150830.1.mp3
ce07037bb8d36ffda5d4554b7041cdb7
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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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
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Allen, DJ
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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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/189/2494/PCaseyJ15170001.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2494/PCaseyJ15170004.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2494/PCaseyJ1503.2.jpg
0ae9b4109b0e4ca8a25fdb95b4a54b9d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/189/2494/PCaseyJ1504.2.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/133/2506/ABeechH160924.2.mp3
fbf6535de25eacc502310dbb5c624985
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
Beech, Harold
Harold Beech
H Beech
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection consists of three oral history interviews, three photographs and one artwork related to Harold Beech (b.1933). He was a schoolboy in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire during the war and experienced an aircraft crash.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Harold Beech and catalogued by IBCC 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
2017-03-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
One item in this collection has not been published in order to comply with intellectual property law.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound. Oral history
Still image. Photograph
Still image. Artwork
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Beech, H
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GB: Hello. This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command. The interviewer is Gill Barnes and the interviewee is Mr Harold Beech and we’re talking together at Mr Beech’s home near Kettering in Northants on the 24th of September. No one else is present at the moment. So, good afternoon Harold.
HB: Good afternoon.
GB: Thank you so much for agreeing to share your memories with us this afternoon and your experience of the heroes in Bomber Command. It would be really useful if you could tell us a little about the background. I know we have a lovely letter from you giving us all the history, but it would be great to hear a little bit about the background of how you came to live so close to all of those Bomber Command stations. Where you were born and how you grew up.
HB: Right. Well I was born in the village of Middle Rasen. In a farming community to a farming family and when war broke out I was only six. So, it didn’t make a great impression on me then. I didn’t know things. It was always things were black and things were blue so, I was willing to learn and always had my ears pricked up and as I say, they brought the news on the war on Sunday and on Monday when I went to school I sat on a grassy bank thinking where could they get a boxing ring big enough to have all these people in it to fight, because my recollection of fighting was cowboys and Indians and boxing matches.
GB: Yeah.
HB: As things got clearer the first thing I knew, the first cloud on the village was when the government declared that they were taking over everything and could make anybody go anywhere to do anything for the war effort. And that did cause concern about the farmers and the elders. So when they were worried I was worried. However, that sort of took it in its stride, but shortly after that, by the end of ‘39, my sister had been drafted into munitions and had to go and live away to be nearer work. My brother was in the army and he was on his way to India and the community was really adjusting to what was happening and their main concern especially amongst the farmers was immediately was we going to get bombed because we’d got these stations around and those stations were being built. And so harvest had been in and was getting in and it was completed and the corn was thrashed rather early, and what wasn’t wanted was surplus and was sold. The other was stored as well away from the farmyard as possible because of the fear of the stacks getting on fire. Well, as time went on it didn’t happen thankfully, and so w — the next step was the rationing. Now every, well the biggest part of the village, the villagers kept pigs and killed them for the house, and the government had declared that they were going to get a slaughter policy and everything had stopped. Nothing could be slaughtered until this policy come out. Well there was another fear then that they were going to commandeer all our pigs and eggs and what have you and we were going to live on the scratchings. Anyway, when, when the government had decided, it was back to normal — state as normal so from then onwards as regards the rationing and food shortages we didn’t know that there was a war on really because we lived off eggs, bacon, milk, cheese. You name it. We got it. And what we hadn’t got we swapped for something that somebody else hadn’t got. There was a barter trade through the village, and that’s a another milestone that stuck with me was the way the village pulled together, because as kids we used to roam the village and if we fell off our bike or tripped up and hurt ourselves we didn’t go running home, we ran to the nearest house and they would take us in, bandage us up and give us an orange squash and a piece of cake and pat us on the back and off we’d go again. And this is how we lived. One big, well I wouldn’t say happy family, we had our ups and downs but one big family. We looked after one another and it’s, it’s surprising when I do think back to think how well we pulled together. It’s — my brother in law, well he was to become my brother in law, he was a haulage contractor based at the Oxford Hotel in Lincoln, using it as his headquarters for carting materials to the airfields.
[someone enters the room]
Other: Hello there.
GB: Hi.
Other: I’m stealing the dog.
HB: And so he carted materials to many of the local, local airfields and we had an Irishman lived, lodged with us. He was in a gang that was you know laying the concrete and what have you and eventually my sister and he met up and they married in ‘43. So — the airfields were going up at a great rate of knots, and more and more aircraft were flying around and that was a bit unnerving because we thought we’d got the airfields we are going to get bombed. This was the dread all the way through and we got five airfields very close to us. Dunholme Lodge which was the quagmire it was nicknamed because it was so muddy. [laugh] That was the air force nicknamed it the quagmire.
GB: Yeah.
HB: Faldingworth which was right next door to my mum, my grandma. You went sort of out of her gate, across the road, through my the man’s fields, through my man’s gardens which wasn’t very wide and you were on the airfield. So we got a close contact with the airfield there and gran, I was at gran’s house when we saw the one bomb and a German had followed one of our aircraft in.
GB: God.
HB: And it must, must have been late on in the war because we’d got the Polish squadron there. Now, the airfield didn’t open till ’43 but the Polish squadron were after that.
GB: Yeah.
HB: So, and the cry used to go up, send for the Poles they’ll sort the B out [laughs]. He was flying down — the ground from gran’s house went away and he was flying low and he dropped a bomb, the one bomb he’d got and he cleared a spinney, it felled the little spinney but if he’d come about two hundred yards to the left he’d have hit the searchlight unit.
GB: Oh gosh.
HB: But I don’t think he was aiming for anything. He’d just got a bomb that he didn’t want and let go and then the next thing we knew there was — he was legging it for the coast with one of our lads behind him and we heard later they’d been shot down in the North Sea. That was my only bomb. Now, the one or two villages around got the odd bomb as well. Lincoln got two or three bombs but nobody got bombed like Coventry.
GB: Yeah.
HB: And we used to, we had a house with a window at that end of the house in the bedroom and a window at that end of the house bedroom, and we used to stand at that one and see Coventry light up and we used to see that one when Immingham docks used to light up so we got it all going on around us but we, so far, were free and as I say what concerned us more then was eating. You know, providing the food and we could and we did and well to the outside world and them poor devils in the east end we were living like lords.
GB: Lords, yeah.
HB: We were. But we saw, every day of the week we saw aircraft of some sort on the backs of lorries. Big, you know, the old Queen Mary’s.
GB: Yes.
HB: Taking, and they never stopped and wouldn’t let us climb on it [laughs] you know. We were most annoyed because they’d got these ruddy great fuselages and wings and we wanted a closer inspection. We could do it when the army stopped with their Bren gun carriers. They would let us play in the Bren gun carrier but -
GB: These were new planes, or older planes?
HB: These were the Wimpies and the Lancasters.
GB: Right.
HB: And the odd fighter pilot, we didn’t have many fighter planes going through but we did have a lot of the — but we never, now my father’s land sloped and if we went to the top of the slope we could stand there and we could watch going west, we could watch them going for Faldingworth.
GB: Yeah.
HB: A bit to the left going for Wickenby. If we stood up and turned around we could see them landing at Ludford and Binbrook on the hills, and the other way if they veered to the right, say one o’clock, they were going to Hemswell. So we got them going around and if we, as an old boy I’ve stood many a time at about half past three, 4 o’clock to see these flies coming up the sky and then they’d get to a certain point and then they’d all veer on a certain route. And then in the summer time when I used to get up early, if I got out I could see these planes coming to limp back and I remember — this was, this was late in the war I saw this aircraft coming back with a ruddy great hole between the pilots end and the tail gunner’s end and I thought, ‘Oh that’s going to crash,’ and I stood there, stood there. Waiting. No. No bump. Now, we had a man lodged with us who was in charge of fifteen other men in a gang repairing aircraft and he said to me, ‘Would you like to come with me?’ And mother said, ‘He can’t come with you. He’s not allowed.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I’m not going if it’s going to get me into trouble.’ ‘You’ll not get in to trouble if you do as you’re told,’ and he put me in the motorbike, in the sidecar, put coats on top of me. In I went and there were, they’d got a Lancaster in the hangar that was being dismantled for parts. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘Go in there but don’t show yourself and don’t start moving things cause if somebody sees the tail rudder moving they’ll want to know what’s going on. And if anybody comes,’ there was the dome underneath, ‘Get in there and pull these blankets over you.’ Well, do you know from about 8 o’clock in the morning till 5 o’clock at night I had the biggest thrill of my life. I bombed everywhere, I flew everywhere. I shot every aircraft down. The only thing was I couldn’t tell anybody.
GB: No.
HB: And whilst I was in this aircraft of course there were holes in the fuselage and I kept squinting out and watching them repair and they were repairing the body, the fuselage on this aircraft and there was a hole, well about this big and all of a sudden I see him with the old spray gun and then he put this paper on and sprayed again and he put some more and then he went inside and did something else. A man, obviously a pilot or crew went and stood and watched him and they must have said something to him but I did hear the man saying to the mechanic, ‘That’s right, Ben. Put plenty of paper on. The bullets don’t ricochet so bad.’ Well I went home to mum and said, ‘Ben makes aircraft like, repairs his aircraft like I make my models.’ ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. He said, ‘He’s right my duck. If there’s a hole of a certain size we paste over it.’
GB: Yeah. I thought they use canvas. I was surprised to hear they, they used paper.
HB: Well it was a peculiar type of paper. It was glossy.
GB: Yeah.
HB: Oily, but used to, well, whatever the glue they’d used it was glue.
GB: Yes. Yes.
HB: It stuck and that’s what they did.
GB: Gosh.
HB: I just couldn’t imagine it. And another thing that impressed me was what they did — there was seven men in a crew. What they did in that confined space.
GB: I was going to say —
HB: With all the clobber.
GB: Yes.
HB: And being an old boy I said, ‘Where do you go to the loo?’ [laughs] and they’d got a five gallon drum with the top sliced off, screwed to the floor and that was their loo and I said, ‘Well you wouldn’t have to turn upside down.’ [laughs] I mean —
GB: Good grief.
HB: That’s how my mind worked.
GB: Yeah. Well it would.
HB: Yeah. But —
GB: So it felt very confined inside.
HB: Oh yes, to me it was very confining. When I thought of them trying to run around with their chutes on their back —
GB: Yeah.
HB: And then was told well they don’t put the chutes on their back. They pick them up, put them on and then jump out.
GB: Right.
HB: I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ You know and —
GB: What was the rear gunner’s space like?
HB: Well I got in.
GB: Yeah.
HB: And it was claustrophobic. Your knees were up near your chin and you wriggled your bum to turn around.
GB: Yeah.
HB: And you’d only got a little aperture to get in and out of. You were exposed. You were out there. You were tail end Charlie.
GB: Yeah.
HB: And I thought I don’t want to be him. No. [laughs] And I didn’t want to be the pilot ‘cause I couldn’t see out the top. [laughs] I couldn’t sit down and look over the top. But having seen those aircraft flying and then seen that aircraft there and been inside for eight or nine hours I absorbed that much I didn’t sleep at night thinking oh what happens if I can’t get out? You know. Where’s my parachute? And, you know and then to think well there’s all those flaming holes that were coming in, there was bullets coming in.
GB: Yeah.
HB: No. I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t envisage it.
GB: Incredible.
HB: It was incredible but when I got home you see, both mum and Ben lectured me on the dire consequences if I ever spilled a little bit.
GB: Yes.
HB: And there, when I were, I mean when you’re in the school playground well I know that. I’m different, you know. Oh dear, I can’t tell you and then when, of course when I could tell anybody they weren’t interested were they?
GB: Incredible.
HB: But it was an experience that’s lived with me for –
GB: Yeah.
HB: From that day.
GB: Yeah.
HB: And it taught me even a lot more respect.
GB: For what they went through.
HB: Yes.
GB: It must have brought it home.
HB: It was and —
GB: And you saw other planes in the hangar being repaired.
HB: Being dragged in and out
GB: Right.
HB: In and out. Some of them had got little or nothing. Some, well they had to cut ruddy great patches and put patches on and weld and rivet them and what have you. All he did was repair. The other –
GB: Yeah.
HB: Air force mechanics serviced.
GB: Right.
HB: Got the engines ticking over. But oh dear, I used to think — and he used to have a deadline, 3 o’clock in the afternoon. If he said he could get three aircraft on the runway he had to have three aircraft on the runway. And then, well, I could see out of the hangar door but it was long distance, the tractors coming with the bombs. I didn’t see them loading it onto the aircraft but I saw them dragging these and I thought, ‘Oh blimey what if they go off.’
GB: And so this mechanic, this guy doing the repairs, he was your lodger.
HB: He was our lodger.
GB: Yeah. And where had he come from?
HB: He came from Lower Wortley, Leeds.
GB: Right.
HB: He worked for AV Roe.
GB: Right. Oh yes.
HB: And, well a more conscientious chap I’ve never come across. He never ever spoke of his work.
GB: Yeah.
HB: Never ever spoke of his work but obviously he’d said something to mother because she said, after he’d gone home again, he worried about the airmen going out in his aircraft. Would they come back?
GB: Yes. Did he get to know the airmen and the aircrew?
HB: Briefly.
GB: Yeah.
HB: Briefly. As they’d pass through.
GB: Yeah.
HB: They’d come to inspect their kite.
GB: Yeah.
HB: Well if their kite bought it that was the end of them.
GB: Yes.
HB: And, I was bitten by the air force at this very early age ‘cause it was the great I am and I wanted to join the air force from that day onwards but I didn’t want to fly.
GB: Right.
HB: I didn’t want to fly. There was too much going on.
GB: Did you ever get to do that?
HB: I joined the air force. I got the job I wanted and I did it for five years.
GB: Wow.
HB: And that service in the air force made me a man. I was a country bumpkin, very seldom had gone across the village boundary from childhood to seventeen and a half but when I got out and got in the job I was an RAF policeman.
GB: Oh right.
HB: And at eighteen I’d got a lot of authority.
GB: Yes.
HB: And I got the old elders saying, ‘Now, keep your mouth shut and your ears and eyes open,’ and that was the soundest advice I ever got because boy did I walk into a few brick walls.
GB: So that would be the mid ‘50s. Would it?
HB: I joined the air force in 1951.
GB: Right.
HB: At this railway station with them having the ordinance there they had to have the RAF police to come and supervise.
GB: I see. Yeah.
HB: And they said to me, ‘Well you’re big, tall and awkward. You’d make a good policeman. You ought to go in there,’ so I quizzed them and they talked to me about it so I wanted to go into the air force. I wanted to be a policeman and my brother, when he came out the air force, er out the army said, ‘Don’t go as a conscript, go as a five year man’ -
GB: Yeah.
HB: ‘And you’ll see the world.’
GB: Yes.
HB: ‘At the country’s expense like I did.’
GB: Yeah.
HB: ‘Only I saw it being knocked about. You’ll see it when it’s put back again.’ So I joined for five years and I saw Bridgenorth, Lyneham, Clyffe Pypard, Weston on the Green and Abingdon.
GB: Oh, very nice.
HB: So I didn’t go very far.
GB: No.
HB: Abroad even. So that was my worthwhile RAF experience.
GB: Yes.
HB: And because of that I am the person I am.
GB: I can understand that.
HB: And, now as I say we used to walk five miles to grandma’s –
GB: Yes.
HB: At weekends and what have you, and this particular weekend we’d walked on Saturday night, and we only, well we’d walked on Saturday afternoon and about 3 or 4 o’clock an airman come, ‘Hello ma.’ Sat down. She give him a cup of tea. Then another airman come and I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’ Anyway, that evening seven turned up. Chatted, had a cup of tea. But now, as I said being farmers and the farming community the food was there so we brought sandwiches. We brought ham sandwiches, back bacon sandwiches and what have you, all on the table and they were tucking in saying how delicious it was and what have you. How the hell can you do it? To start with they refused to eat it. And I thought as a kid, you cheeky devils, you know. You’re refusing gran’s sandwiches? No. Rationing was on and gran could not afford to give them food. They got theirs on camp. Well gran being gran she stuck her hands on her hips and she said, ‘If you don’t eat that you don’t come again.’ And after that it was a little oasis.
GB: Yeah.
HB: They, they come regular, but not night after night and this, this set me up again wanting to be in the air force because they used to put their coats on me and their hats on me and what have you. I thought I was the great I am and then again getting back to the other how the heck could they do it? They found gran had got a piano in the front room. Well the sing songs they had in there and again they’d be gone and they’d probably go early, say 7 o’clock and, ‘See you tomorrow then gran, see you tomorrow.’ No, ‘See you tomorrow ma.’ It was always ma. ‘Oh righto boys, righto. When you like. Anytime.’ And I thought, ‘Where are they going? Oh are they going on a raid?’ And I used to be on tenterhooks till Sunday and if they didn’t come back Sunday night that was it but they did. Except one, one night gran turned around and said, ‘Where’s Taff Lloyd?’ Pregnant pause. Arm around her shoulders. Outside. She come back, tears down her face. She’d been asked not to mention any face that was missing. Just leave it. So that’s what she did. And these men they used to come, well, they were half inching stuff out the mess [laughs] ‘cause they used to come with coffee and tea and sugar and, you know.
GB: Why not?
HB: Well, this is it.
GB: Yeah.
HB: She said, ‘Don’t get into trouble for our sake. We can do it.’ But they couldn’t understand how we could do it. Well, if they’d seen that it was a little hamlet and nearly everybody in the little hamlet when they got to know what gran was doing there would be a screw of tea, a screw in a newspaper or a bit of paper. Coffee, sugar, you know. Some would come with a cake. Some would come with two cakes. Some would come with— the butcher used to leave potted meat.
GB: Wow.
HB: The baker used to leave some scones or cakes. It was, it was all pitching in together.
GB: So this was a complete Lancaster crew.
HB: This must have been a —
GB: Yeah.
HB: Complete Lancaster crew because this went on for about, just about three months and it stopped as abruptly as it started and we couldn’t, well gran, couldn’t get an answer and we had the service in church hoped and prayed that they’d been posted.
GB: Yes.
HB: But those seven men were close to us today and gone tomorrow and we never had an inkling of what happened to them at all to this day. Oh that did — it took the heart out the little hamlet. It really did.
GB: And did you know the various roles that they played when they were flying? Did you know who was the pilot?
HB: No. I didn’t know their names.
GB: Yeah.
HB: But I knew there was an air gunner ‘cause I wanted to ask him. There was an N for navigator but that was all I knew. And gran, my parents, my aunt, I was not to question them.
GB: And were these English aircrew or —
HB: Oh yes they were English lads.
GB: Yeah.
HB: English lads.
GB: And they all got on as equals.
HB: Oh yes. There was no sir, this that and the other. Nothing, nothing there when they were in the house.
GB: Yeah.
HB: And they come in uniform so, no it was, they were all in together. But I would imagine later on in life I would imagine that there were no barriers because you were all out doing a dangerous job.
GB: Yeah.
HB: But at six and seven I didn’t know what was going on but they, and it all happened because a man, gran used to have a little shop.
GB: Yeah.
HB: Well, it was a shop, such a thing that sold the essentials. The Elastoplast’s, the box of matches, something like that. The baker would leave half a dozen loaves or cakes and what have you and the people would come and pick it up. And he come in for a box of matches just as gran had poured a cup of tea out. ‘Do you want a cup of tea mate?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Come and sit yourself down. Have a sandwich.’ Have this, that and the other, and he was one of the crew and so he said, ‘Do you mind if I bring a mate?’ She said, ‘Bring as many as you like but it’s only a little house. We can only get so many in,’ and he come with his six mates.
GB: Fantastic.
HB: We, I mean that village for years after mentioned they would have liked to have known what went on and we know they enjoyed their selves and how they appreciated this little oasis for relaxing. I mean some nights they’d come and they’d get, they’d get on a chair or they’d sit with their backs to the chair and go fast asleep in front of the fire. Gran used to say, ‘Look at them poor devils. Tired out.’ No. It was —
GB: Do you know which airfield they were flying from?
HB: Faldingworth.
GB: Right.
HB: We had, in the end, this must be getting towards the end of the war, probably ‘44 something like that we had, the station was utterly manned by Poles.
GB: Yes.
HB: There was Polish WAAFs and Polish crews. And they invited all the Scout groups and Guide groups as near to the camp as they could, to a tea. Well, they served salad. Now, salad to us was lettuce, tomatoes, radish, onions and some celery. Now, we got the lettuce, we got the tomato, we got the cucumber but we got diced carrot er diced beetroot and grated carrot and grated cheese. What’s all this? But being kids that had been taught to eat what was in front of us we ate it and it was good. And the meat, I don’t know what the meat was but that was good too. And then of course they came out afterwards with Polish cookies. Oh we thought we were at the end of the world with these cookies. There you go and that was, as I say they were the Polish crews that gave us tea. I mean nowadays when you see salads dished up you think, ‘Oh blimey.’ [laughs] Oh yes there was the coleslaw.
GB: Oh yes.
HB: And the, well I presume it was Waldorf Salad, because I went home and said to mum there was pineapple mixed in it and there was nuts, and there was so and so and so and so. She said, ‘I don’t know what sort of salad that is then.’ But that’s what, that’s what it was. It was new to us and by golly we enjoyed it. It really was.
GB: So the war came and then passed and your experiences led you to join the RAF.
HB: Well, yes I did, yes, but we, having seen the other side of the airman’s work I saw the other side of life. I was, it must have been a Saturday I was on one side the village and I saw this aircraft and it was coming down and it crashed on the other side of the village. So, I’m on my bike round there, right next to the school was a farm and in the field it had crashed and exploded. Well, I’m bowling up past the implement hole and my mate Bob’s sort of hiding in there. And I said, ‘Bob what’s up?’ Well, he never answered. I said, ‘Come on, what’s up with you?’ So, I went in there and he wouldn’t move and he wouldn’t talk. Well the ambulance men and the firemen were all about so I grabbed an ambulance man. I said, ‘Look, Bob’s not very well.’ ‘Oh God has he been hit?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ So he went in to see him and he said, he said, ‘Come on Bob,’ and he carried him out and he said, ‘No. He’s in shock.’ So, anyway he took him home and that was the end of that for the day. But when we got to school about a week later poor old Bob had been at the top end of this field, seen this aeroplane coming for him. It didn’t matter where he ran it was coming for him and in the end he just froze, and it was shock.
GB: Gosh.
HB: ‘Cause it crashed at the bottom end of the field and he was at the top end of the field.
GB: He was lucky.
HB: And the aircrew were just blown apart. Men with a handle at each corner of a blanket were going around whilst others picked remnants up and we, as an old boy, we old boys, there were three of us, two from across the road saying, ‘There’s some more here. There’s some more here. There’s some more here.’ And, well to put it crudely we saw boots with feet in, masks with faces. It was gruesome. And then we were told to buzz off, you know, ‘Go on shoo shoo shoo,’ so we went into the fields around it and there were more bits in there so we kept shouting, ‘There’s bits in here, bits in there,’ and in the end we were taking them around. So, I’d gone home. When darkness was falling I went home. Went to school the next day, went out to play, come back. Mother says, ‘Here I want a word with you. What have you been up to?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Yes you have. I want you to tell me about it.’ ‘I said I haven’t been up to anything.’ ‘Yes you have. The policeman and the district nurse have been here.’ I said, ‘What on earth did they want?’ She said, ‘What were you doing yesterday afternoon when you left here?’ I said, ‘Oh. Helping the men to pick up bits of the airmen. Oh.’ Well, obviously they’d come to see if I was alright. And that showed me the other side of life. I mean, when I didn’t think anything about it when you see a boot with a foot in it or bits and bobs here and you think, ‘Oh, well, you know, I’ve got to put it in a blanket.’ That was it. It never had any effect on me whatsoever. Nor the other two lads.
GB: Gosh.
HB: Why? We don’t know. Nobody can explain it because looking back it was gruesome. It was gruesome.
GB: And that was a Lancaster that had come down.
HB: Well, nobody seemed to know what it was.
GB: Right.
HB: We knew there was six or seven men in it and there’s a plaque in the church porch, but general knowledge I suppose somebody knew, but general knowledge didn’t come to my ears as an old boy to say it was a Lancaster that crashed. But it caused a bit of a rumpus. It didn’t half shake the earth.
GB: I can imagine.
HB: But, so, I saw, I’ve seen the bombing, one bomb. I’ve seen the carnage. I’ve felt the loss of my sister and my brother because our family, I was reduced to one, an only child bringing up ‘cause my brother didn’t come back till ’46, and my sister had got married in ’43 and she lived away. So that was the end of our family by 1940.
GB: And after the RAF what did you do with life then that’s brought you to Northamptonshire?
HB: Well, I came out and got a job in Gainsborough with an engineering firm. And I have never had a more boring job in all my life. It was cutting cog wheels with one tooth rotating on and it went from this side of the cog to the other side and that was done. Now, the hardest job was sorting out the cogs on the side to rotate this one. Once you’d done that you just went in and pressed it and if you got a thousand cogs to make it took you three weeks. You just went in for three weeks and pressed a button to stop it and start it and play cards and [?] and play cards and in the end I said, ‘No. I’m not having this.’ I came out. My father played hell with me. ‘You’d got a job, you haven’t got one now. There’s no work on the farm for you.’ So, anyway I said, ‘No. I’ll find a job. I’ll find a job.’ So, I then went on the railway as a plate layer. Now that was Fred Karno’s army that was. [laughs] Weeding and putting the tracks straight. Now, the line bends this way and the line bends that way. Now, to get the line straight again you have a little jack that lifted it up, and they packed granite chippings under the sleepers, let it down and it levelled out. Now, if it was this way nine or ten men got a crowbar, stood with their legs apart, put the crowbar between their legs and went ooph and shifted the track back. [laughs] Oh it was, it was all hydraulic. [laughs] But as a lad porter at fifteen, the station master and secretary would come along in the morning till 1 o’clock and then they’d buzz off back to their parent station and I was left with the signalman to run the station. I had to issue the tickets, service the air force station ‘cause when they went on leave it was pandemonium.
GB: Yeah.
HB: And that till had to be right. I remember it was a halfpenny short and I had to put a halfpenny in it. And I had to scrub the floors, clean the toilets, keep everything, wipe the edge of the platform, keep the lights going and I used to walk a mile one way and a mile the other way to the distant signals putting new lamps on.
GB: Gosh. Well, you weren’t bored [laughs].
HB: I wasn’t. No, I wasn’t but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And then as I say, I went into the air force and then came out as a plate layer. And eventually they, now I can’t think why I packed that one up, but I decided to join the RSPCA as an inspector, and I did that for thirty years.
GB: Wow. And that brought you here did it?
HB: This —
GB: To Twywell.
HB: That’s where I met my wife. Now, sitting in the guardroom at RAF Clyffe Pypard, Swindon was there and I forget now what was up there but it was a long valley, a long deep valley, and in the morning the milk train used to start puffing off and go slowly across this valley, and sat there, stood there at the gates watching it. You know in these cartoons there’s a thing like this with a caption in it from the bottom there, I could visualise that and I saw a house close across the bottom of the plot of land. Behind it was into the fields, and on the left was a spinney, and on the right was a house. When I met my wife, came here, went up the steps, stood in her garden I thought, ye Gods. The house was on the left but the spinney was on the right and I thought how uncanny can you get? So when I got to know her a bit better I said your fate sealed it.
GB: Absolutely. And in your five years in the air force in the early ‘50s and you were stationed all around Wiltshire by the sounds of things, and flying stations as well, what was the RAF feeling like then? Did you meet people who’d been active aircrew in the war?
HB: Yes. We used to have, at RAF Benson, we used to have a flight sergeant who was the unofficial test pilot. Mad as a hatter. Always went past the guardroom, ‘any boy for a lift this morning, men?’ So I said, ‘Now, are we boys or are we men?’ So anyway we got a new recruit and he said, ‘What does he mean?’ ‘He means he’s going up in an aeroplane. Do you want to go with him?’ ‘Oh. Do you reckon he’ll take me?’ I said, ‘Go after him.’ Anyway, we said, ‘Be back at five, ‘cause you’re on at five.’ Anyway, 5 o’clock come and he never turned up so we filled in. 11 o’clock this pasty faced individual come staggering into the guardroom, could hardly stand up. ‘What the devil’s happened to you?’ ‘I went up with him,’ he said. So I said, ‘Yes.’ Well apparently he went up and he kept going and he said, on his intercom he said, ‘Can we go down again?’ ‘Yeah, sure,’ and then he rolled and he said, ‘The contents of my stomach left by every orifice in my body,’ and he said, ‘When I got out of that aircraft fuselage I slipped down the side of it like a globule of oil going down the side of the can,’ and he said, ‘I’ve been all this time cleaning up the aeroplane and myself.’ [laughs]. There again, you know, you’ve got to see the funny side of it. Not like the banker’s wife who didn’t see the funny side of the police sergeant. We often, we often wonder how that got out because the police sergeant and the inspector would not spit a word.
GB: No.
HB: They were tight lipped so she must have complained about the police sergeant and the inspector to a friend or somebody who spread it around because by golly it didn’t half spread and she was, she was serenaded on many a night by the locals.
GB: So places like Lyneham, were they very busy at that time?
HB: Yes, because we were, we were bringing in, we brought in people like Sir William Penney and other important — and the Glorious Glosters man who won a VC in, wherever it were. We had to escort them. They were coming in and there was cargo flights of all sorts that were important and had to be put in bondage and what have you, and it was — we were constantly doing raids because people were lifting the cigarettes.
GB: Yeah.
HB: On raids. That RAF Lyneham was the place I got put on a fizzer. I was on duty in the guardroom with a colleague and he said, he just said to me, ‘Hang on a minute. I’m going to the flicks.’ So I thought, ‘I hope to God nobody comes and asks where he is.’ So, he went to the pictures and he come back. So the next night he said, ‘It’s your turn.’ I said, ‘No. I’m not going.’ He said, ‘It’s your turn.’ He said, ‘You have to.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ He says, ‘Yes. You have to. One of us has got to be on duty at the cinema through the showing.’ So I went, shaking like a leaf. Come back. Sure enough a bloke who had been under open arrest had absconded. So muggins was up in front of the adjutant on a fizzer, and he started off, now he was an officer in charge of the guardroom. And he started off by dressing me down about neglecting duty and what have you, and the flight sergeant was my escort and he said, ‘Excuse me sir. Can I say something?’ He says, ‘He’s only standing by your orders. You ordered that since there’s trouble in the cinema a policeman had to be on duty at each performance.’ ‘Case dismissed. Get out.’ But he didn’t half scare me I’ll tell you. On a fizzer. What am I going to tell my parents? Reduced to the ranks and all that caper. No, but as I say, the war had a definite effect on me. It had an adverse effect on me because from a very early age my father, as I said, had this sloping ground that was two fields divided by a high hedge. Now, night after night I used to have this nightmare. Germans were occupying the top field, English down the bottom field and there was all hell let loose but never anybody got beyond this hedge. And I always ended up by being chased through the village, through town streets by the Germans with rifles, and I used to wake up crying my eyes out having wet the bed. Frightened to death. Night after night, after night, and my mother she used to suffer from bouts of asthma, and when my brother came back from the day he arrived on the doorstep she never had another bout of asthma. It was purely nerves. But it took me some time to get over my nightmares. I went into quiet times after the war for a long while.
GB: Can I just ask what happened to your father’s farm in the end?
HB: It was, he was retired in 1965, and a lot of his land was rented so it was taken back. He’d got two paddocks of his own near the house but the rest of the land was taken back because it was rented so it just packed up.
GB: Fizzled out. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
GB: Well that’s great. Thank you very much Mr Beech for sharing your wartime memories with us today.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harold Beech. One
Identifier
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ABeechH160924
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Beech was born in Middle Rasen, Lincolnshire. He was six when war was declared and saw the construction of many airfields near his home. As a schoolboy he also watched aircraft being transported on the back of Queen Marys. A lodger with his family was a mechanic who worked on damaged aircraft, smuggled Harold Beech into the hangar so he could hide and play in a Lancaster as well as watch the airfield at work. His grandma became friendly with an aircrew and hosted them at her home. One day the aircrew did not return home and the family never knew what had happened to them. He describes seeing an aircraft crash and helping to collect body parts from the field. During the war he had recurring nightmares about invasion.
Creator
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Gill Barnes
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-09-24
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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00:46:52 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1943
1944
bombing
childhood in wartime
crash
home front
Lancaster
memorial
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Faldingworth
service vehicle
tractor
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/133/2508/ABeechH170302.2.mp3
ff294bf160397061e4a277da67f292c3
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
Beech, Harold
Harold Beech
H Beech
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection consists of three oral history interviews, three photographs and one artwork related to Harold Beech (b.1933). He was a schoolboy in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire during the war and experienced an aircraft crash.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Harold Beech and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
One item in this collection has not been published in order to comply with intellectual property law.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound. Oral history
Still image. Photograph
Still image. Artwork
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Beech, H
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is an interview for International Bomber Command Digital Archive with Mr Harold Beech. The interview is taking place at ****
HB: Correction H. The, Mr Beech, his birth, his date of birth is the 20th June 1933. Right, Mr Beech.
HB2: Right.
HB: Over to you.
HB2: Well as already stated my name’s Harold Beech and I lived in a village in Lincolnshire called Middle Rasen. It sat on the River Rase and a mile and a half to the east was Market Rasen and two miles to the west was West Rasen. Hence the River Rase gave them three places their name. We also sat astride the A46. It split, the village was split by, from east to west by the road, by the River Rase and by the [Bremmer Brook.] I lived on a farm. My father was a small farmer. He was one of the thirty two farms in the village. It was a mixed farm. We had arable which we grew vegetables and stuff for the house as well as the field er for the animals and we had cows that provided us with milk, cream. Mother made butter. We had poultry that provided us with birds for the table and eggs and we killed a pig for the house. So, [pause] I’ve gone blank.
HB: Don’t worry about that.
HB2: I’ve gone blank.
HB: Don’t worry about that. Sorry, just, what was the name of the village you actually lived in?
HB2: Middle Rasen.
HB: Middle Rasen.
HB2: Middle Rasen.
HB: Right. So we’re at Middle Rasen.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: And we’ve just killed the pig for the -
HB2: We’ve just killed a pig [laughs] right. Yeah. We lived in a rented farmhouse plus outbuildings, large garden, two paddocks and a farm building complex. This was in the High Street of Middle Rasen and that was my home for some time.
HB: And can you remember what the farm was actually called?
HB2: The Vines.
HB: The Vines.
HB2: The Vines.
HB: Right.
HB2: My father’s farm was under fifty acres but the complex consisted of a barn, a granary, biers for the cattle, biers for horses and smaller barns for keeping pigs and calves in and an implement hole.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And we lived off the land and we lived well. In 1938 I started school and I’d been at school for a year and was settling in nicely when 1939 war broke out and upset everything.
HB: Was that, was the school in Middle Rasen?
HB2: Yes. Middle Rasen Primary.
HB: Right.
HB2: And for some, I can remember for some time before war was declared when my gran came to the house or when my father met other people in the village it was occasionally, ‘Things are not looking too good. Things are looking black,’ and I kept asking what these things were and didn’t get an answer.
HB: Right.
HB2: So when war was declared I remember, well a gang of us asked the teacher what these things were and she just said, ‘Unfortunately Germany, people in Germany are now fighting people in England.’ Well we went home for my dinner and as I went back to school I sat on a grassy bank and I thought now where the devil are they going to get a boxing ring big enough for all these people to box, to fight in, because my, my idea of fighting was cowboys and Indians, keystone cops and robbers. And that was it.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Or boxing on the television, on the radio. So that was my idea if I, I just couldn’t understand how this fighting was going on. So anyway I do remember at a time a man called Chamberlain came back and there was pictures in the paper of him waving a piece of paper. What he, what he’d done or what he’d said went right over my head. I’d no idea. Not until many years later. When, when we got settled in the school with the teacher she did, did say again and that’s all she would say about the two countries fighting each other, people in the two countries were fighting each other but we were subdued because we didn’t understand. Now, I was a six year old and I was confused ‘cause when war was declared the government shortly afterwards put out a statement to say they’d taken some powers and I remember my dad and all the adults getting in a bit of a confused state because the powers they’d taken were like dictator powers. They could, they were going to control anything and everything, anybody and everybody and they could send a person anywhere at any time to do any job if it boosted the war effort. Well a lot of people didn’t want, didn’t think much to being shoved about the countryside and living away. Then they said that there would be rationing and that blackout would be imposed and that if you disobeyed the government orders you could get fourteen years hard labour or be locked up without a trial. Well that frit me to death ‘cause I used to look at the bobby and go around the other side of him.
HB: Right. You know at, sorry to interrupt Harold. You know at the time you started school. When you went into school -
HB2: Yeah.
HB: And the war’s been declared. The teacher’s explained it. Did you, did you have any training? Any air raid precautions training? Or was there, were there things that the teacher had to teach you about what to do?
HB2: Not that I can remember. The only thing -
HB: No.
HB2: That happened at school was the strips of brown paper stuck on the windows to stop flying glass.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: We were issued with gas masks and we were issued with ear plugs.
HB: Right.
HB2: And we, of course you had to take oh and you had to wear a luggage label with your name and address on because the ID cards hadn’t come out.
HB: Right.
HB2: So I remember going to school and watching, seeing this paper go on but there was a siren was put on the police station tower a mile and a half away and whilst we were at school we had one or two warnings but that was all and I remember one day we were all, it was a wet day and of course we all crammed in to the cloakroom and so teacher kept us in the cloakroom while the all clear sounded. Well of course there was panic then because half of us hadn’t have our gas masks with us. So anyway when we went home and told mum what had happened the parents said, ‘For goodness sake never crowd them in one place again. Let them go into the classrooms where they would have a bit better chance of survival.’ There was a big ditch between us and the farm and the next door and they said, ‘Put them in the ditch.’ Well I can imagine a gang of kids in a wet day in a ditch but that was, they weren’t very well suited but after that I’m afraid our gas masks hung on an internal door for the rest of the war and the earplugs went in a drawer and stayed there and the luggage label well it disappeared along with the identity cards and it wasn’t because of bravado but my dad said when I’m ploughing and I put the gas mask on the hedge I’m at the other end of the field and [laughs] I’m in the soup.
HB: Right.
HB2: So -
HB: Right.
HB2: That’s, that’s how they went on at the beginning of the war. It, we had preparations for the war. Now we had a big house called Willoughby house. It had got a paddock at the front and a paddock in the back and that was commandeered by a troop of cavalry and the men were in the house and outbuildings and the horses were in portable stables. Well that was an attraction for us kids. That was a magnet. We wanted to go and look at the horses in the stables but the flaming army was better at it than we were and they kept us out. We didn’t like that at all but when they went for an exercise, all these chestnut horses, they were a lovely sight. They really were but looking back we thought ruddy hell, charge of the cavalry again and on the, on the gateway they built a pillbox and it was two circles of galvanised metal. One circle bigger than the other fitted inside and the gap between the two bits was filled with concrete and one, one shell from a tank would have sent it into kingdom come. We also lost all our signposts. And as well as the tape on the windows and that was just about it. Then the blacksmith’s shop was taken over and was being turned in to an ARP cleansing station. Well us kids were nosy parkers, kept saying, ‘What are you going to do in here? What’s going to do in here.’ Anyway, nearly completion this man must have been fed up with us ‘cause he said, ‘Come in and I’ll show you.’ So he took us into this room. He said, ‘This is where if you’d been gassed this is where you come. We take all your clothes off you and then we put you through there and we hose you down with some cold water and a big scrubbing brush,’ and he’d got this ruddy great scrubbing brush and carbolic soap. He said, ‘You’re scrubbed clean and then,’ he said, ‘We get some very smelly ointment and smear it all over you, wrap you in a blanket and send you home.’
HB: Oh dear.
HB2: Well after that we weren’t interested in the ruddy cleansing station.
HB: Absolutely. Absolutely.
HB2: But that, that was, that was oh and we had an ARP warden appointed and the school teacher was in the Observer Corps. Now, he was a lovely head man, headmaster but oh dear he used to go to, go home, have his tea and at 7 o’clock he’d go and observe, he’d come back in the morning, have breakfast and a lie down and then start teaching school again. Well the first thing he did was open his desk and take out Rupert the cane and lay it on the bench. Silence reigned I’ll tell you. But he was, he was soon known as Ratty Plowright.
HB: Right.
HB2: ‘Cause he got very short tempered and we, we as kids we noticed that and we didn’t like it, you know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. I think he had reason didn’t he?
HB2: Oh he did. He did and you know the, the, this is something which you had to experience because the change in that man over a few weeks was terrific. And then of course what upset my father and the farmers was there was going to be a War Agriculture Committee in every county that was going to advise but the farmers said no, tell us to what to do and he said they resented being told by broken down farmers who couldn’t make a go of farming and shiny assed clerks [laughs]. Oh there was, there was some opposition but again if they didn’t do as they was told they could have their land taken over by the Agricultural Committee and that would be it and one or two did unfortunately. But another thing that put panic amongst them was there was a sudden stop on all slaughtering of animals. Well that meant that everything we produced like our pig for the house and the eggs and whatever was going to be confiscated and we’d get the scrapings. So harvest was finishing, the corn harvest, the root harvest was quickly dug in and everything was put in clamps or pies or whatever you call it and stored and the corn that was, the corn was thrashed out of the stacks quick. That what was needed for feeding animals was stored well away from the stacks and the rest of it that was surplus they sold and the old pigs got killed and I mean when you got say ten or a dozen people in the village that’s killing a pig around about the same time there’s a bit of a glut but they was determined that what was produced was going to be eaten in the village so friends, relations and close relatives and friends got not only the customary fry or good plate of good cheer they also got a pork pie or some sausages or something else. The offal was quickly disposed of and then when it was time to take the bacon out of curing that was started on straightaway and they weren’t, they were intending on not letting much be confiscated but when the time come there was the biggest sigh of relief because not only was it back to normal it was better than normal because they were encouraging everybody to keep chickens, produce their own food, dig every bit of ground up there was and they even advised us where these, oh they advised us to set up pig clubs and poultry clubs, rabbit clubs and get allotment associations and they would advise us how to get the seed, the food, the coupons for the food and how to house and what have you. How to look after them. They were a real help. That’s, that’s about the only good thing they could say about the war agg. But there was, there was a glut in our village. We didn’t have a selling system. We had a barter system ‘cause somebody would have something. I mean we used to separate the milk to get the cream for the butter and we had a lot of milk spare. Well people would come up with a jar of pickled onions or something like that and say. ‘I’ll swap you. Can you let me have some - ’. ‘Yes. Go on.’ You know. And at times when the cows calved there was three days when you couldn’t use the milk. It was full of cholesterol and it used to make lovely custards so of course again a lot of swapping going on.
HB: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And my father was out one night. It must have been winter time and the policeman met him. He said, ‘Evening George,’ he says, ‘Do you know I’ve come to the conclusion that we must have the healthiest babies in the country.’ So my dad said, ‘How do you make out?’ He said, ‘Well they don’t half like the night air.’ So my dad says, ‘Why don’t you have a look in the pram to see how rosy their cheeks are?’ He said, ‘No George, I’ve got to live like the rest of them.’ And we all knew what everybody was doing, even the policeman so why the hell they had to hide it in prams ‘cause the policeman got his goodies in a bag. A brace of pheasants here, a rabbit or whatever it was hung on his gate. He was included. I mean it was all open but so secretive. But that’s how we lived. We swapped.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And funnily enough a common vegetable like the onion soon became pretty scarce and it was, it was said in the newspaper one day that The Times had an onion a pound and a half in weight and raffled it and it raised over four quid.
HB: Oh blimey. That’s not bad.
HB2: It wasn’t was it? But yes people were very careful. I mean there was plenty of onions in the village but people were very careful. They didn’t let them go too quickly and I mean eggs, when rationing come in were, well they were like gold. You got one egg a week. I mean, we, we used to sit there and my mum used to cook me a piece of bacon or a piece of ham and an egg. Sometimes I used to get a goose egg fried.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: And I used to say, ‘How many folks are eating ham and eggs like I am mum?’ She said, ‘Not many. Not many.’
HB: Amazing.
HB2: And another thing that upset the females, the women of the village was the warden could not only go into the house and switch your lights off if there was an infringement of the blackout regulation he could check your larder to see if you’d got more than a week’s supply of food in it. Well the women went up in arms and said, ‘Well that means he’s going to summons the lot of us ‘cause we’ve all got more and when you think of it to kill a pig we had to send our ration books up to have our bacon coupons cancelled. Now, my mum, dad and me could get, on them coupons, thirty nine pounds in weight of bacon per year.
HB: Right.
HB2: And they were all cancelled. We were then supplied with a licence to kill the pig and we’d get a twenty stone, thirty stone pig killed that would produce summat like three or four hundred pounds worth of meat. We swapped it for thirty nine so we didn’t think we’d done too badly.
HB: No. No. Not a bad outcome.
HB2: No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. But then the old pig, it was, it was a Godsend it really was and I remember many years later I attended a illustrated lecture on the home front and in fact the lecturer didn’t give us the lecture. He listened to us on the floor telling him and we went for a meal and two ladies and a gentleman were sitting at this table, ‘Come on. Sit down here my duck. Sit down here.’ And I said, ‘Oh you sound as though you come from London.’ She said, ‘Yes. We come from the East End. What was your war like?’ So I said, ‘Oh East End,’ I said, ‘I daren’t tell you.’ So she said, ‘Come on. We want to know.’ So I told her and she nudged her sister and she said, ‘This bleeding bloke’s living in bleeding paradise isn’t he?’ I said, ‘Compared to you I was,’ I said, ‘Because we never saw a bomb. Not to explode anyway.’ I said, ‘It was tranquil. We went to bed and we slept.’ So she said, ‘Well we didn’t.’ I said, ‘No. I’ve read about you and,’ I said, ‘I’ve learned about it since the war, come across people like yourself,’ and I said, ‘What the hell of a life did you lead?’ She said, ‘Well that’s true. That’s true.’ And by golly.
[pause]
HB2: Right. Now, the blackout. It was imposed very quickly and it caused the blackout material that was for sale to dry up quick so people then had to make do and mend and they made wooden frames, covered it with old cardboard cartons and then pasted wallpaper over the top of it to start with until they could get curtains and what have you properly and that the way it was imposed quickly we thought, right, bombs are soon going to rain down on us. The, the government said you should paint all the outside rim, perimeters of your panes, your glass with black paint and so we said we ain’t going to do that ‘cause we only had one window in the kitchen and if we had cut off out any more daylight off we wouldn’t have seen. So we that was that wasn’t done. That was ignored but they painted the edges the curbs black and white sections, the bottom of poles with black and white rings but as we said in the village we never had street lighting so we could find our way around quite easily. What did cause a lot of trouble there was a lot of reports of accidents going up because of the blackout. You could have, you had to block out your headlights with a circle of concrete, er concrete [laughs], with a circle of cardboard with a two inch slit in one lamp only. Well you couldn’t see where you were going and they was hitting fences and hitting everything. Even people.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: So they had to relax the thing in the end. The restrictions on lamps on vehicles. Now I’ve done, I’ve done the farmer’s harvesting.
HB: Did you, did you find at that time as, you know, with the involvement of the restrictions or, you know the change in how you were providing your food did you find that people, it drew people together or did you find the odd individuals that really didn’t want to play the game if you, if you know what I mean?
HB2: Our village turned into just one family.
HB: Right.
HB2: As I said if we were out playing as kids and we injured ourselves, skinned our knees or anything we didn’t run home we ran to the nearest house and they would bandage us up, give us a glass of lemonade and a cake and we were off you’d again or if we were misbehaving we got a clip around the ear.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Pretty sharp so yeah it was they blended well. They really blended well.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And if anybody was sick there was always, well we had a district nurse, she was always coming around but everybody did anything and the old folk they were looked after. If an old, we had several old people who’d got large gardens well they said to somebody else come and, if you want an extra garden come and do it and they would dig their, dig that garden, grow vegetables on it and keep the old folks supplied as well.
HB: Right.
HB2: So -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: We were doing very well and the only thing that hit us really was the imported stuff. The dried fruit. We knew jolly well that would be tight but they also rationed coal and you could have a pound a month. A ton a month.
HB: That’s not much.
HB2: It wasn’t. It wasn’t. So thankfully again living in the village with trees and there wasn’t much dead wood laying about I’ll tell you. Even at sales. Farm sales or house sales all the old trash wood would be put on a heap and they’d sell that as, you know for a few bob. Yeah
HB: Amazing.
HB2: Yeah. You’d get old, at a farm sale you’d get implements, old farm implements, chicken hut, hen huts, anything and they’d sell it to you for a few bob.
HB: Amazing.
HB2: Nothing was wasted.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Nothing was wasted. Now the effects on my family. Well, my sister she was directed into munitions. My brother, like a lot of other chaps in the village was called up so from about 1940 the family was split up and I was, I was brought up as an only child. My sister never did come back home. She got married and went to live away and then my brother when he came back was only home a brief time before he too got married so as a family in the early years we never lived as a family. Now, my brother was sent abroad in ‘41 and from that day that he boarded the ship my mother started suffering from asthma, asthma attacks, and they lasted right up to the day he come back and stepped over the threshold. And some of these attacks were, well they used to scare me. And me. I had a recurring nightmare. My father had two fields on a slope. One was arable, the other was grass divided by a big high hedge. The top was full of Germans. The bottom was full of English and we, when it occurred, this dream, this nightmare there was one hell of a battle and nobody got beyond the hedge but this battle raged like hell in my mind and I always ended up in the same, doing the same thing. Running through some streets of a town, I don’t know where, chased by ruddy Germans soldiers with fixed bayonets and rifles. They never caught me but I used to wake up crying my eyes out, shaking like a leaf, probably having wet the bed and wouldn’t go to sleep again. I had, it was regular. I wouldn’t say it was nightly but it was regular and I didn’t’ get much sleep but that thing lived with me for many well if I can still if I set my mind to it I can still recall every action now but it doesn’t have the same affect.
HB: Amazing.
HB2: Now, my father, he was advised or told by the War Agricultural Committee that he’d got to plough a grass field up and he’d be paid two pound an acre to do it but he must grow sugar beet on it. Well, he, he jumped up and down and he didn’t swear but he cursed a bit under his breath because he always maintained that this damned sugar beet crop wanted attention from early spring to late autumn winter and he didn’t think much to it. Anyway, he had to grow it which he did and come November time he used to have to take it up and top it and then wait for a permit to come to tell him which factory to take it to, when he could take it so then he could organise a lorry to come and pick it up and take it off there. I used to love that because I used to go with the lorry driver when we used to get to the factory and before we got anywhere a man come with a scuttle and took a sample off. Now the result of that sample depended on how much my dad got paid because there was a deduction for dirty beet, too much soil on it, too much top or low sugar content.
HB: Right.
HB2: But he was allowed to buy a by-product which was beet pulp for the cattle. Now that come in very coarsely woven sacks and these sacks were snapped up to make snip rugs.
HB: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah. What do you call the kind of rug?
HB2: Snip.
HB: Snip rugs.
HB2: Snip. Peg rugs.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Snip rugs.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And I spent many a time in front in front of the fire snipping these, this ruddy, well we had one the size of this mat here and at the end of the winter mother put it on the line to beat and she said, ‘I’m not bothering with that, there’s more holes than a colander.’ Sparks had come from the fire and -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Burnt a hole in it.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But they very useful were them sacks but as soon as dad could he got, didn’t grow sugar beet. And another thing that upset him was he was advised to feed the tops to his cattle. It was very good forage. Well he did and it tainted the milk.
HB: [Ringtone] Oh I do apologise.
HB2: That’s alright.
HB: I should have turned that off. Now. Turn that off. Just make sure this is completely off. I made the same mistake yesterday. I do apologise. So. So, so the forage, the forage was good for the cattle.
HB2: Providing you didn’t sell milk.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: But it tainted obviously.
HB2: It tainted the milk.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: You could still use it but you had to realise that it wasn’t sour, bitter or anything else it was just the flavour of the tops and it wasn’t dangerous so again we had people coming with cans and, you know, carting it off.
HB: Right
HB2: So but oh no he wasn’t he wasn’t too pleased about that. Oh, we couldn’t make butter either.
HB: No. Right.
HB2: He did swear at that. Well, and then we had, another crop that farmers had to grow was flax and we had billeted on us a man who had a tractor and a special machine for pulling the flax. It had to be pulled up by the roots and then dried and it went for, I think the roots went for webbing, something like that so we’d got this chap billeted on us. He didn’t last long because he was making his way around the farms in his area doing his job so he went and that man was replaced by an Irishman who was in a gang working on the airfields laying the runways.
HB: Right.
HB2: And he stayed for quite some time ‘till the, well I think he came for a couple of years.
HB: So when you say he was billeted with you he was given a, he rented a room in the house.
HB2: No.
HB: Farmhouse.
HB2: Well he got a bed in a bedroom.
HB: Right.
HB2: And he got his food at the table.
HB: Right.
HB2: And he did, mum did his washing.
HB: Right.
HB2: So he didn’t have a room.
HB: Right.
HB2: He was one of a family.
HB: Right.
HB2: And then the third man was an engineer, an aircraft engineer in charge of fifteen other men who repaired aircraft and he went, he was working at RAF Wickenby and he was with us for some time. Well ‘till the end of the war from about ’43 so, but he, one day said to me, ‘Would you like to come to work with me?’ And I said, ‘I can’t. I’m not allowed.’ And mum said, ‘No. He’s not going if he’s going to get you and everybody into trouble.’ He said, ‘He’ll be alright. He’ll be alright.’ So after a lot of persuasion mum allowed me to go and he had a motorbike and sidecar and just before we got to the camp I had to snuggle down and he put a coat over me and in we went into the hangar and in the hangar was a Lancaster that was being stripped for bits, spares. Now, he said, ‘You go in there. Don’t show yourself. Don’t start peering out of windows and moving levers that waggle the tail or anything like that,’ but he said, ‘If we shout “hide” you go in the canopy under there and pull these old blankets over,’ well they were all stinky with oil and what have you. Anyway, yes I would. Do you know from about 8 o’clock in the morning till 5 o’clock at night I had one hell of a time in there. I flew everywhere, bombed everywhere, shot everything down but there was one thing, I said, it’s a bit crowded in here for when they run around with their, with their parachutes on and I tried getting in the rear turret but I didn’t like that. I thought my God sitting in a glass bubble here all over, nothing under you, nothing around you and then I struggled to get out. That was me. I didn’t want to go in there. So anyway I said to him, ‘Look. Where do I go if I want the loo? What do they use for the loo when they’re on the flight?’ Well I suppose they’d made arrangements for me ‘cause they’d screwed a five gallon drum with a lid off to the floor and I said, ‘Is that it then?’ So he said, ‘Yeah. Use that. That’s the loo.’ So I said, ‘Well I hope to God they don’t fly upside down very often then,’ [laughs] but I could look out, there was holes in the fuselage and I could look out and see what the men were doing and in the distance I could see trollies with bombs on them being moved about. I never saw them being loaded on to aircraft but they was there and then I were watching them repair these holes. Now a hole about the size of a tea plate this chap had some, looked like shiny paper and he did this with a spray and then he stuck it over the thing and then he got something else and sprayed it, I suppose that was the paint and then he went inside and did something else inside and I heard an airman come in and he said to this chap, ‘That’s it Ben,’ he said, ‘Put plenty of paper on it,’ he said, ‘The bullets don’t ricochet so bad.’ And I thought egads you’re running about in this confined space and there’s bullets coming through. Well of course they would be wouldn’t there? Could be.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And I thought oh my God I don’t want to fly. I’m not going to fly. I want to join the air force but I don’t want to fly. Anyway, I as I said I had this whale of a time in there and when I got home I was really dinged into me you don’t speak to anybody, dire consequences. Well by the time I could tell anybody nobody was interested.
HB: Yeah. So the chap who took you in there was, he was a civilian.
HB2: He was a civilian charge hand in charge of this gang of men that repaired the aircraft and if he said, ‘I could have three on the runway for next afternoon,’ he had to have three there. I didn’t know it until after he’d gone home but mum said he used to worry. He used to worry about sending the aircraft out and hoping to God everything worked and if they didn’t come back was it his fault. What had they done right? I said oh I didn’t know, you know. He didn’t show it because he never talked about his work.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But you know everybody was affected differently.
HB: Yeah. That was, that was at RAF Wickenby.
HB2: Wickenby.
HB: Right. Right.
HB2: Wickenby. Nobody could, I might have said had to make radio silence but nobody could tell anybody but nobody could take the joy of that day from me.
HB: Oh no. No.
HB2: Oh and another thing that was started was the V for victory sign.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Churchill was encouraging people in occupied countries to go out and chalk up victory signs. Well we kids took that literally here and I remember somebody said that they expected it to take off in this country. Well we did our best. We sprayed everywhere. In fact the poor old police constable used to come to school and say, ‘Enough’s enough boys, you know. Don’t do it anymore.’
HB: Oh right.
HB2: So we had to limit it to the pavement [laughs] but we, we did our best.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Now, again, in the fields, in my dad’s fields if I went to the highest point I could see aircraft leaving. They used to come up from one direction like flies, get to a certain point and then all turn and fly off and in the morning if I got up early enough I could watch aircraft come back limping and I remember getting up there one summer morning and this aircraft come in and there was a whacking great hole between the front end and the back end in the fuselage and I thought oh God that’s going to crash and I listened and listened and listened. No. There was no bump so I assumed it got down alright but to see them come back with bits hanging off and short tail, short wings.
HB: Which airfield was that that you could see?
HB2: If I went and looked in the east I could see Ludford and Binbrook. If I went we’ll say at 11 o’clock or 10 o’clock I could see Wickenby. If I come a little bit further it was Faldingworth and Waddington, Lincoln things. A bit further around to the right Hemswell and we’d got one right on the doorstep, Faldingworth and Dunholme Lodge so there were, in actual fact I think there was about I think there about were eight airfields within about ten miles of the, of my house.
HB: Right. Right.
HB2: But oh you know I used to sit there and think good God how they, where have they been and how long has it taken them to come back?
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Then we had the military movements in the village to start with was, well it was regular. We would have lorrys loads of convoys of men, with men in towing guns and God knows what and then we’d have men march, troops of soldiers marching through the village. We couldn’t understand where the hell they’d come from ‘cause Lincoln was fifteen miles one away and there wasn’t a camp in between us and them and where they going? There was no camps between Market Rasen and Grimsby so we just wondered what the hell they were doing ‘cause if they’d got to Lincoln they could get on a train and come to Market Rasen. Anyway, we loved it because they used to have the Irish Innisskillens used to have a pipe band and of course the Scots with all their kilts and things oh man they had pipes and bands as well. We loved it and we used to we could hear them coming down Lincoln Lane and we used to rush to the junction and then march through the village with them.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah. It was great but that, that didn’t last too long.
HB: Did you ever find out where they were or why they were coming?
HB2: No. No. It was a mystery. We, my mum assumed that when they went to town they marched through town to the racecourse where there was plenty for them to shelter but, well nobody camped there. There was never any official camp.
HB: Right.
HB2: So we just didn’t know where the hell, so whether it was just training. Route marching. I don’t know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But we didn’t think much to that if they’d walked from Lincoln.
HB: Yeah. I can see that.
HB2: Any shorter numbers like you’d probably get two or three vehicles come through. They’d pull up for a smoke or you’d get a half a dozen vehicles and they’d do the same thing. Wherever they stopped in the main street people would come out with pots of tea and sandwiches and give them a feed and if if them in the front giving their stuff away was backed up by other people in the village giving them -
HB: Right.
HB2: Stuff.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: It was, this is how they pulled together. I mean we used to, off the main road there used to be a ford where they used to sit and watch the tanks and Bren gun carriers and we used to love that because they used to let us get in to the Bren gun carriers and play around.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: The tank, the tank commanders were a bit different. They didn’t want us anywhere near.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But yeah oh yes we used to have some fun and as I say that’s how they went on. There was, there was always something to drink and something to eat.
HB: Right.
HB2: And it’s marvellous how you can supply that when you are on ration.
HB: Yes.
HB2: But these housewives were masters in the art of making something out of nothing and stretching things. They were all damned good cooks.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And their main aim in life was to cook a meal that was tasty. Whatever else it was it had to be tasty and oh I’ve been to, I’d go to my mate’s house sometimes and go oh mum can we have some of that and Columbus discovered America at one old boy’s house. His mum said to me one Saturday morning, she said to me, ‘I’m making some potato scallops. Would you like them?’ Well, not knowing what a scallop was and not wanting to miss anything I said, ‘Yes please.’ Well they’re slices of potato dipped in batter and fried. They were lovely. They were lovely. I even do it now for my two grandsons. ‘Can we have some scallops dad, grandad.
HB: Yeah. Lovely.
HB2: Yeah. Oh it was so simple.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Mother never made chips. She always, whatever the size the potato was she sliced it and fried it.
HB: Right. Yeah.
HB2: And oh it used to go brown and crisp and oh you put your salt and vinegar on and they were heaven.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: They were heaven.
HB: Yeah. I can imagine.
HB2: Then, oh our Market Rasen station lost its roof.
HB: Right.
HB2: It was taken down to go to King’s Cross to repair the damaged roof there. Well the locals were up in arms about that.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah. Yes they robbed Peter to pay Paul and the thing is Market Rasen station never got another roof back and now the signal box has gone. It’s virtually a dead station.
HB: I would, I mean I presume it was pretty busy and you know quite a busy little place.
HB2: Oh yes it was. It was. Because to start with they’d got a coal, the coal yard, the coal operators were in there and you used to have to go, you could go in there with your pram and get a bag of coke or bag of something like that. Oh there was always, always a trek. There was always people going in and out and as you say, it was easy to get on there and go to Lincoln. I think it was about a penny. One and a penny return or something like that and so you got the traffic. It was a convenience. Easy to go and easy to get there.
HB: Yeah. And did that supply the military as well? Did the military, did the military use that -
HB2: Well -
HB: Route?
HB2: Wickenby had got a station of its own.
HB: Right.
HB2: Snelland was next door to it. Langworth was Fiskerton and, yes you could. You would get them supplied by the rail but not at Market Rasen.
HB: Right.
HB2: I wouldn’t say never at Market Rasen because they would. Ludford. The Ludford and Binbrook people would come down to the station. That sort of thing but as you went up the branch the other side to Grimsby, the stations would do the local, the local stations so yes there was access there. It was busy. It was busy.
[pause].
HB2: Oh now from, from the outbreak of the war we were bombarded with information to be on guard against strangers. Now, we kids were going to do our bit because we’d, it had been dinged into us not to speak to anybody so we didn’t know anything, we didn’t know anybody, we didn’t know where anybody lived and we didn’t know which way you went to anywhere [laughs]. And if we saw one of these house to house salesman we used to go running to the post office to tell the warden. Now whilst he was very polite and we often think you lot are a pain in the bum [laughs] but he never said so.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Now, one day, I lived up a surfaced lane, a road surfaced lane but I lived off a little ash track and up above us about a half a mile was the big farmer had bought a farm so he was making use of the buildings but the house was empty. Now in the garden there was some lovely fruit trees so this particular day we decided we’d go and rescue some of this fruit. So pushed our bikes up, going down the side of the house, around the corner, we got to an open door and there was voices coming out of this door so we listened and couldn’t understand what was going on and one of, one of my mates said, ‘Ruddy Gerries,’ and we’d gone, zoom, gone on our bikes pedalled like hell back home shouting ‘Mum. Mum. Mum.’ She said, ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ ‘Oh Mrs Beech. Mrs Beech,’ he said, ‘There’s Gerries in the Naylor’s house.’ So, ‘Get off with you.’ So we said, ‘There is.’ She said, ‘What do you mean there’s Germans?’ We said, ‘Well they don’t speak our language. We can’t understand what they’re saying.’ So she said, ‘Well that’s strange.’ Now, I didn’t know it at the time but about a mile the other side of Market Rasen on the eastern side they’d commandeered a big house and used it as a prisoner of war camp. So it was the thinking then that they’d escaped. So of course she went down to the warden, post general and said to him, ‘Look this is it.’ So he got the policeman and he went to investigate and he came back. He said, ‘Now rest assured Mrs Beech the Germans haven’t invaded. These Germans are prisoners. They’re released to work on the farm and the big farmer who owns the house has let them go in there on wet days and meal times to light a fire and make a drink and what have you. So,’ he said, ‘It’s all above board.’ Well when we saw these devils come out I mean they got big yellow diamonds on their back, they’d got round patches on their hearts and legs what the hell’s all that for. Well that was if they did escape that was where to shoot at. We didn’t think much to that at all. Germans. Oh dear. No way. Well then when I got to the secondary modern school we were released from school on a blue card system to help with the harvest or help with the crops so it was potato picking time and I got time off to go potato picking so I went to pick on this big farm and lo and behold sitting in the ruddy heap of straw was three Germans. So if they come on that side we went that side, me and this other lad. We weren’t going near them.
HB: How old would you be then Harold do you think?
HB2: Eleven. Twelve. Twelve.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Twelve.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And I wasn’t going there.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Anyway come dinner time, I used to take my dinner and I sat having it there and I looked at these Germans and they were tearing a loaf of bread to pieces and I said, ‘What are they eating?’ So one of the foremen I think it was said, ‘Oh they’re having a bit of bread.’ ‘What. Dry bread?’ ‘Yeah. They’re washing it down with cold tea.’ So I said, ‘Oh all right.’ So never thought any more about it. I went home and told mum. I was full of this having to work with Germans and I said for dinner they only had this, whatever they had. Well the next morning when I went there was a pack. ‘Take that to the Germans.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking them to the Gerries.’ So I said, ‘What are they?’ She said, ‘Sandwiches.’ There was one apiece. So I said, ‘I’m not taking them.’ She said, ‘You jolly well are.’ So of course I took it up there and my mate, his mum had done the same thing. So I said, ‘Well are you going near them?’ ‘No I’m not. Get Mr Fawcett to take them. He’s the foreman.’ Well he wasn’t going to take them. You had to take them yourself. Well we wouldn’t go. In the end he got between us hand on each shoulder and said, ‘Come on I’ll take you.’ So we took them and when one lad opened his thing he wept. So it didn’t, it didn’t endear me at all that didn’t, you know, he could weep his eyes out as far as I was concerned but I went home and told mother and I said, ‘Why do you send them?’ She said, ‘Look. Your brother’s in the army and I would like to think that if he was in the same condition somebody would do the same for him.’ Well I couldn’t understand all that. Giving them. No way. But anyway I took it you know and in the end she was right. That was somebody’s son and after, after the war there was a lot of these prisoners had worked on farms, were still working on the farms and they never went back. We couldn’t understand it but we realised then they were in the Russian platoon, the Russian sector and they weren’t going back.
HB: Right. Yeah.
HB2: And they, they stayed and they married local girls. Some of them married local girls which didn’t go down to well with the lad that were coming back. On one occasion, prisoners used to walk into town and stroll in the streets. It was a regular occurrence as far as we were concerned. They didn’t do any harm you know. Well six load of Belgian soldiers come and they parked on the market square. Gordon Bennett there was riots. They were out them trucks. They were beating them up, they were chasing them back to camp. There was hell on until we could get a lot of our army lads in to quell it down but by, didn’t them lads, a spokesman give our residents a right pasting. They were disgusted that they should allow them there. ‘You want some occupation,’ he said, ‘before you allow them to do things like that.’ God they didn’t half wipe the floor with them. And the newsagent, poor chap, he could speak, what is it, Flemish or whatever it was and he had to be acting as interpreter. Well he didn’t know where to put himself because the language was a bit, a bit rough.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But he said they got the message across and it was ages and ages before the prisoners would come out again. No way.
HB: And that was just after the war.
HB2: No. That was during the war.
HB: That was during the war.
HB2: During. Right to the latter part. But they weren’t having that. Oh dear. We were educated in warfare.
[pause]
HB2: Now, as we know rationing began in 1940 and gran was heard, when she come to visit mum one say she said, ‘Oh dear I hope it’s not as bad as last time.’ Well she wasn’t really saying about the rationing because rationing started in June and finished in November in the First World War. She was talking about the fighting but anyway I took it that she thought rationing but it wasn’t that because rationing started immediately more or less and lasted fourteen years and got worse so but she we first of all we got four ounces of butter and twelve ounces of sugar and four ounces of bacon. If it was cooked you got three and a half ounces. Why the difference I don’t know but that was it. Tea and meat come in later and meat was rationed by price. You could have one and ten pence worth per person so me, mum and dad could have five and six penny worth of meat a week which when you come to think of prices in them days you could live pretty well. I mean it topped up. We could top it up with a chicken or something like that but in them days you could get decent meat. You could get three pounds a neck of lamb and that sort of thing. Offal wasn’t rationed but it was rationed by availability.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Because you could only get so much offal off an animal and the cheap cuts but the things you never hear of now such as brains and feet, calf’s head, calf feet, cow heel, well it’s not allowed to be sold and but as I said it was, it was rationed by availability. Now, I know we used to get orders put in. Mum used to put an order in when she got one week supply she’d order another. She didn’t always get it but she got something and we used to often have bullock’s heart for Sunday dinner because that was always good meat, plenty of it and Monday washday cold meat and sliced potatoes or bubble and squeak but it was all, it was all good stuff and then I remember when we killed the pig and made sausages mum and I would have a day out at Hull market. We used to buy, she used to buy while she was there fresh marjoram to put in the sausage meat to season it and I was in, we were coming back one day down this street and we were passing a butchers shop and I went by and then I went back again and there was thrushes, starlings blackbirds and sparrows hanging on the butcher’s rail and it was hanging over this dish with something green on it, greenish, and I was shouting to mum, ‘Come and look here mum. What’s this then? What’s this?’ And another lady was coming up the street she stood to me and she said, ‘Don’t you know what it is?’ I said, ‘No. What is it?’ She said, ‘Its whale meat.’ Oh dear. It looked ghastly.
HB: Yeah. I bet.
HB2: It looked ghastly. Well after that it was being pushed as, you know, meat to eat. Well it was described as a lump of cod liver oil.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: It took ages to get the smell out the house.
HB: Did you ever eat it?
HB2: Never. Never. No.
HB: Your mother never cooked it.
HB2: Oh no there was none. I don’t think the butchers were allowed to bring any in the village. They got enough aggro.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Sausages. We used to make our own sausages when it was pig killing time and I have never seen anything like these in the war. They were salmon pink were some of them.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: And the ladies in the things, ‘What’s in these today then butcher?’ So he said, ‘What’s that?’ She said, ‘What do we call them now? We can’t call them sausages.’ So some of them would call them bread in battle dress.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: Or the butcher’s dustbins.
HB: Oh dear.
HB2: It got, it got really rich.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And I remember gran giving a basting to the butcher. She said, ‘Where the devil did you get that last bit of meat from that I had last Sunday?’ So he said, ‘What did you have?’ She said, ‘Ruddy jump dike. It had jumped every damned ditch in the country. God it was tough,’ she said.
HB: Oh dear.
HB2: That was, that was your bit of mutton. But this is it. You had to eat what you got and everything went in.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I mean I don’t ever think, you know a cow’s stomach it’s covered by a thin bit of flesh and skin. Well that used to be cut off and they used to sell, make meat pies out of that. Oh stews and mind you it got put on the old pan on the hob from about 6 o’clock in the morning till 6 o’clock at night -
HB: Right. Yeah.
HB2: To cook it but it was cooked.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yes. You turned it out. That was the thing about having it on the hob or put it in a stew jar in the oven. It was long and slow and it was cooked and it was tasty ‘cause I must have eaten some things, you know [laughs]. The only, the only head mum ever used was the pig’s head.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And she used to, they used to cut in to half. Top half and bottom half. Bottom half was cut in half again and that was called bathchap. They used to cure it with the salt and then cook it as bathchap and the head you just put that in a pan and boiled it until all the meat fell off. The ears you could leave in as well, chop them up, mince them up or you could cut them off having been boiled you could then slice them and fry them until they were crisp and eat them like scratchings.
HB: Right.
HB2: Oh aye. I mean you offer somebody a pig’s ear now [laughs]
HB: Well yeah.
HB2: Well.
HB: You’d get a different reaction I suppose.
HB2: Yes. I was I was in this supermarket and they’d got pig’s trotters and this well he wasn’t an old chap but he was mature and he said to his wife, ‘What they hell are they selling them for? What can you do with them?’ So I said, ‘Well if you’re like me you’d eat them and enjoy them.’ ‘Enjoy them?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘Well what would you do with them?’ I said, ‘Well you’d boil them, leave them till they were cold, sprinkle them with vinegar and then eat them.’ ‘Well there’s no meat on them.’ I said, ‘No it’s all gelatine.’ ‘Oh my God,’ he said [laughs]. I said, ‘I’ve had no end of them in wintertime.’
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I said, ‘They’re lovely.’ ‘Oh hell,’ he said, ‘It’s fat.’ I said, ‘No. It’s gelatine.’ They weren’t having that. Oh yes the government come out with a thing. Lemons had gone, you’d missed all the lemons and they said that by sprinkling, by sprinkling it with vinegar and adding some sugar it was quite, quite tasty [laughs] I mean, now, my mum had been in service from school leaving in the big houses. She said, ‘We never had vinegar and sugar on pancakes before,’ she said, ‘We’re not having it now.’ ‘Course we had homemade butter didn’t we?
HB: Oh sorry. I’m with you. So that was like come Shrove Tuesday or whatever.
HB2: Yes. Yes.
HB: You’re doing pancakes.
HB2: That’s right.
HB: Instead of your lemon juice.
HB2: Vinegar and sugar.
HB: Right. And was that, did your mum get these sort of leaflets that the Ministry of Food put out and you know like they used to distribute them through the Women’s Institute or something like that.
HB2: Well I was going to say they were available.
HB: Right.
HB2: I don’t think she had many.
HB: Right.
HB2: I don’t think she had many. I don’t think many of the housewives in the village did.
HB: Right.
HB2: Because they’d been brought up on the old recipes. The stodge. Oh my mother used to make, you know how you make dumplings with suet and what have you.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Well she used to make a pudding, put it on the tea plate, put it in the steamer, and let it steam and she’d have half we’ll say with liver and onions and the other half sprinkled with jam or treacle and she used to call it her dual purpose pudding [laughs] When I was visiting my aunt once a lady across the road, a very refined lady, she came across and she said, ‘Harold, something smells very good. What is it?’ I said, ‘It’s liver and onion.’ ‘Can I have a look?’ ‘Of course you can.’ So she looked in the frying pan that was sizzling away there and then she said, ‘What’s in that pan?’ I said, ‘Oh madam that’s a secret that is. That’s my dual purpose pudding.’ And she looked at me. She said, ‘You’re kidding. What are you, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘Have a look.’ So she had a look. So she said, ‘Well it looks like a suet pudding to me.’ I said, ‘That’s what it is but it’s dual purpose.’ ‘What on earth you do you mean by that?’ So I told her. Savoury and, oh she went out giggling, ‘I must tell my husband. Dual purpose pudding.’
HB: Lovely. Lovely. I like that.
HB2: Yeah the old rations were going up and down. Milk used to be a terrible thing. At its maximum it was three and half pints a week. Well it used to go down to two pints or two and a half pints. It was always like a yoyo that was. How the hell some of them managed I don’t know. There we are having a mug for our supper and going to bed on. A mug of milk and all the milk we wanted.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah. It’s fantastic really when you think back as to just how some people did live.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. You can imagine yeah. It’s difficult.
HB2: And then when they brought out dried egg. Oh dear. You could get a tin. One tin a month plus your one egg a week. Well mum tried it. Mum and gran tried it for baking. Well the Yorkshire puddings wouldn’t rise and the cakes were useless. They used to, sponge cakes were useless so they used to use that in the dishes that you could mix it in with that didn’t -
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Didn’t show too much.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh no and dried milk was more of a favour than than the dried egg but one thing we did like and that was now what did they call it? It’s spam. Supply Pressed American Meat. Spam. And we used to love that dipped in batter or just plain fried. That went down a treat.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: The old spam fritters. Even in the air force we had spam fritters.
HB: Wow. Did, did you, did any of the small farms around you did they actually supply any of the airfields direct?
HB2: Not that I know of.
HB: Or it all went through the ministry I suppose.
HB2: Well I think it all went through the ministry because there was bacon factories, egg factories, potato marketing board, apple marketing board. Everything had to go through a board but I think a lot of it might have ended up there because, but it didn’t go direct from the farmer.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: Prices were fixed at what a farmer could buy and sell at.
HB: Right.
HB2: So it would be possible for them to sell it if they got sort of permission but I just don’t think many did.
HB: No. No.
HB2: Fish was never, fish was never rationed but that again was availability because the poor old trawlers used to get sunk and whilst we, whilst we got a supply of fish, the fish and chip shops were never open regularly. Only when it was available and the wet fish man on the market sometimes he was there and sometimes for weeks he wasn’t ‘cause he just couldn’t get the -
HB: Yeah
HB2: He just couldn’t get the fish but oh and we had, we had a fish in a tin called snook.
HB: Right.
HB2: Barracuda.
HB: Was it?
HB2: Now funnily enough it had got a rotten name but it didn’t taste too bad.
HB: Right.
HB2: No. We only, we had very little of it but what I had I wouldn’t turn up my nose at it again. I do remember that but we didn’t eat, we didn’t have much tinned fish. We didn’t. Mum used to, when it was available, get a bit of fresh fish, batter it and fry it herself but no, we didn’t have a lot of fish.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: As I say we stuck to the stodge which was sometimes repetitious but it was still good.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: You know if it was a case of having a dry crust and a plate of meat and potato we’d have a plate of meat and potato. You know, it was stodge.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And we ate what we had. If we’d had it yesterday it didn’t matter.
HB: Yeah. Did you ever, did you ever have evacuees in the village?
HB2: Yes. We did. We had nine.
HB: Right.
HB2: From Lower Wortley, Leeds and these were dumped at the school one dark evening and as one lady described it dished out like prizes at a whist drive ‘cause you couldn’t refuse to have a evacuee. If you did you got fined fifty quid.
HB: Blimey.
HB2: Now the nine kids that come to our village were in that school looking very bewildered, very frightened with a ruddy label attached to their coat collar and the gas mask hanging around the back of their bum. Poor little sods. And they were doled out to these people in the village who never should have had them. They were all houses that had got toilets, running water, mains water but the people that lived in them were, two of them in particular were old couples, house proud, never had any children. Now, one lived, two of them lived in a bungalow at the bottom of our lane and they crossed the road from our lane end. Now, the girl, she wasn’t too badly treated but we couldn’t go, we could go and call for her to play with but we couldn’t play in their yard, their garden. No you had to go out. The other lad, he was a saddler, this bloke that had him. He was house proud and no children and he was a sod. I remember one night we’d gone to Scouts and we was a bit late coming out and he’d come to meet him and he started going at this old boy because he was late and I said, ‘We were doing things. That’s why we were late.’ Anyway, it was none of my business and as I ran off I heard Bob shout, ‘Ouch that hurt.’ Well I run into an RAF sergeant. He said, ‘Where are you going in a hurry?’ I said, ‘I’m going home.’ He said, ‘Is somebody chasing you?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Who just shouted “ouch that hurt?” ’ I said, ‘Oh that’s Bob.’ So he said, ‘Well what’s Bob got to do with it?’ So I told him. He said, ‘I’d better go and see.’ Well I earwigged in a woman’s gateway in the garden and crept along the side of this hedge to listen and I heard this sergeant say, ‘I’ve a bloody good mind to give you a thrashing with that.’ What he’d done was he’d hit Bob on the back of the legs with a plaited riding crop, a leather plaited riding crop. Anyway, I run home and told mum and oh didn’t the villagers let rip but the authorities didn’t, didn’t contact mum to fetch him back again. He was there for quite some time after this incident. I mean we could go and call for him but he had to come away and he didn’t have to get dirty, he didn’t have to get dishevelled. I mean mum’s used to spruce him up. Would clean his hair, wash his face, his hands, clean his shoes before they sent him back and if he, if we’d been fishing or anything he had to leave everything with other kids. Oh this bloke. Well he was a wrong one.
HB: What sort of age would Bob have been?
HB2: He’d have been the same age as me. Ten. Twelve. But as luck would have it if and when his mum found out they fetched him back.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But it must have been, it must have been towards the end of the ‘43 ‘44 type because the evacuees, as soon as things started to get easier I mean Leeds, Leeds was getting bombed but it was nothing like London so mum’s were fetching them back except for one lad. He came in the village with his two sisters. Now, funnily enough they got put with a family of three boys. The two sisters. They’d got a big family already what did they want, but they had a good time, they were alright. The brother, he got billeted with a farmer and his wife and he was, the three of them were brothers and sisters of Ernie Wise.
HB: Really.
HB2: And the brother, he went through agricultural college and went into farm management. So -
HB: Wow.
HB2: He did alright. Another girl called Mary she was stationed with the traction engine man. The contractor, who was an old couple. No children. But she landed on her feet. They were good to her and she, she did exceptionally well. She won a scholarship to the grammar school but for some unknown reason she finished up with me at the secondary modern and people couldn’t understand that. If she’d got a scholarship she should be there. So anyway things began to boil and they used to get on to the big farmer who’d got a finger in every pie there was, you know. He was one of these sat on every committee and got a say on everything that went on. ‘Why is it that your daughter’s gone to grammar school and she never passed a test? Why doesn’t she go?’ Anyway eventually she went to grammar school did Mary and she did well. She even stayed back with the couple until she finished her schooling.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: And then, I think she finished up in Canada.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: So she did alright and as I said the other, the two twins, well, that came they they sort of hit the chair and bounced off again ‘cause their mum couldn’t bear them being parted and came and fetched them so they’d gone but no poor old Bob got the short straw.
HB: Yeah. Sounds like it. Sounds like it.
HB2: But we had, we had a teacher come with them. Thank God we did. She was a lovely teacher. She was a granny type teacher. You know. Loved by all us kids and she acted as interpreter.
HB: Right.
HB2: And we were out in the field one day, village kids playing football this two or three lads lined up and, what do they want? So we said, ‘What do you want?’ [Can we [lay it with the casey?] ‘You what?’ [laughs]. Can we [lay it with casey]. So by using sign language they got the message across so we said, ‘Yeah come on in,’ and then when we started playing at marbles [can we lay it with the cars]. Oh my God. So again sign language, ‘Yeah come on.’ We fitted them up with marbles and away with them and they taught us a little ditty –
“we’re right down at cellars oil, with muck slats at windows, we’ve used all our coil up, we’ve started on cinders and when the bum bailiff comes he’ll never find us, ‘cause we’ve got mud splats on windows.”
HB: Oh right [laughs]
HB2: And when you’re confronted with that type of talking.
HB: Yeah and the teacher was the interpreter.
HB2: And the teacher was the interpreter oh and would they hell as get used to getting milk out of a cow? There was two of them with me one day. Dad was milking. ‘What’s he doing?’ I said, ‘Milking his cow.’ No he’s not. That’s not milk.’ ‘It is. Do you want a cup full?’ We got a cup. No way were they going to drink that. If you put it in a jug on the table they’d have it out the jug on the table yes, but not that so it took us ages before they accepted it. Once they did I mean once they were drinking milk till it was coming out of their ears.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But it took them ages to that and then one day they would go around and collect the eggs and one hen had just squatted and dropped her egg. They wouldn’t touch it. It had come from the chickens bum. It was dirty.
HB: Oh right. Yeah. Course we don’t think of that do we?
HB2: No. And then and what they did like was we used to get a slice of bread, mother used to spread it pretty thick with butter and then we’d go out in the spring and pick the hawthorn shoots, the green buds of and stick it in there. ‘What’s that?’ ‘Its bread and cheese.’ ‘You can’t eat the hedge.’ ‘Yeah you can. Come on.’ Well when they got used to that, I mean every time they come they wanted a slice of bread and butter.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And goosegogs.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Used to top and tail the goosegogs and if they got golden drops which were sweet oh they loved that. They’d pick them up and stick them in and eat them.
HB: Brilliant.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But we used to, they balked at eating carrots pulled out the ground. I mean we used to pull the carrot out of the ground, go to a bit of grass and wipe it on the grass and then rub it in your hands and [click click].
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Nothing. Or swede. We taught them how to peel a swede with your teeth. Well they thought we were absolutely filthy.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. But of course that’s, I mean their experience was totally different.
HB2: Oh God.
HB: Coming from Leeds.
HB2: I mean, the first thing we asked them was, ‘What were the Germans doing in Leeds. Have you got Germans up there?’ ‘No.’ And then we used to say, ‘Why don’t you eat that?’ Because they were amazed at the food that was presented to them. What the hell they’d eaten I don’t know. It couldn’t have been varied much but we used to say to them, ‘Well it’s food. This is what we eat.’
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: I mean bread and jam. They’d have eaten that till it come out their ears.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And cakes. I don’t think they’d ever seen a cake or pastry and because we’d got plenty of fat, I mean the old fat bacon used to get rendered down for lard and we, mum used to cook pastries as she did before but all you know they used to like the egg custards. Oh they loved them and the curd tarts.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah. But in the end I mean they used to tuck in. None of them went home any lighter than they were before they come. They all went home pretty well stuffed.
HB: Yeah. And did you ever see them after the war?
HB2: No.
HB: Did any of them ever come back?
HB2: Never saw, except Gordon. The farmer. He used to be in town, he used to play cricket for the town.
HB: So that was that was Ernie, one of the Ernie Wises brothers?
HB2: That was Gordon Wise. Gordon Wiseman -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Was his name. Ernie Wise.
[pause]
HB2: We had, just after the evacuees arrived we started school dinners and we used, at the infants, at the primary school and we used to get a third of a pint of milk a day and I think it was more or less compulsory and I used to say, ‘Mum why do I have to drink milk at school? Don’t I get enough at home?’ She said well at halfpenny a time it was tuppence halfpenny a week for the five days and then they started doing school dinners. They converted the church hut into a kitchen and that was sixpence a day. Half a crown a week. Well of course when it started I had to be in to start, you know, it was something new so I had to be in there and they were, they were nice but before they got the canteen they tried serving them up in the cloakroom and they’d got these ruddy great big oval steamers and pans on a cooker next to a Belfast sink and they used to cook nothing but parsnips and mutton and I, oh I got to the state where mum couldn’t, couldn’t have a joint of mutton because I couldn’t eat it. I used to be sick. And that lasted, that lasted until I joined the air force at seventeen and a half. Now I enjoy mutton like the rest of them.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But oh dear. When I used to go to church on a Sunday, evensong and as the vicar was coming down the aisle to go to the pulput to sermon I was going to the vestry to be heaving. In fact mother thought I was up to something. She come out and found me there and when she saw I wasn’t she was a bit surprised.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah. I was allergic to mutton. Now whilst we were at my grans one day -
HB: Sorry. That was one thing I did want to ask you. Where did your gran live?
HB2: Newton.
HB: She lived in the village of Newton.
HB2: Newton. Right next to the church near the village pond and if you went across the road through like going from here to the other side the road there, across his garden you were on the airfield.
HB: Right. Right. It was as close as that.
HB2: On the peri. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah. And one day we’d gone to see gran and we heard these, these aeroplanes in a bit of a hurry and then we heard a burst of gunfire so of course we were out and stood under a big elm tree that gran had in her garden and a chap shouted, ‘Get in your shelter.’ ‘We aint got one.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘In that case I’d better join you,’ so we stood there and the road and the ground slipped away in a dip so it was panoramic and obviously a German plane had followed one of our lads home and he got to the bottom of the valley and he’d got a bomb he didn’t want so he dropped it and demolished a little spinney. If he’d gone to the left a bit he’d have hit the searchlight unit.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: But anyway he disappeared in the distance, the next minute the pair of them came roaring back. The English plane was chasing him across and back and when this old chap who’d said get in your shelter shouted, ‘Send for the bloody Poles,’ he said, ‘They’d get the bleeder down.’ Anyway, they did get him apparently towards the east coast.
[pause]
HB2: We had, in our little cottage, we had, it faced more or less east to west and in one end was the bedroom window which overlooked Immingham and Grimsby and we could see Immingham docks getting bombed or if we looked out the other time we could witness poor old Coventry going up in smoke. It was an eerie sight. ‘Course I used to say to my mum, ‘Coventry? That’s a long way away from there.’ ‘Yeah and that’s how big the blaze is.
HB: So that was the night Coventry was bombed.
HB2: Yeah. Oh yeah. But -
HB: Well actually that is a very, yeah I suppose you would see it that far away yeah.
HB2: Well there was a glow in the sky.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: A very vivid glow in the sky and that’s what it was put down to.
HB: Ahum.
HB2: But we thought, we thought that we would be getting bombed because not only of the airfields but there was Scunthorpe Iron Company and things like that. Immingham docks and around that way but you know we didn’t really know. It was all in the distance. We never got anything locally and then we, enterprising youngsters that we were, we decided we’d do waste paper collection so we found a ruddy great big old wooden crate and I’d got some cast iron wheels off a [hen hut].
HB: Oh right.
HB2: We were only little and we put this on a piece of a wood, made, got axles on it and then we put two handles and we had to put two ropes on the front for someone to pull it ‘cause it was too heavy when we got anything in it to manipulate and we used to go around the village collecting waste paper and scrap metal and rags and anything like that and take it to the local carpenter whose yard, he’d got several little sheds and he used to have waste paper in one shed and rags in the other. Anyway, we used to go in there and we used to spend a lot of time in the waste paper sorting out comics and colour magazines like Illustrated News and Post and comics. Cor blimey. And paper that had only been written on one side ‘cause we were short of paper to draw on and the carpenter’s wife come out on many occasions. She said, ‘I’m sure you take home more than you bring in.’
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Then on another occasion we had to collect, we was asked to collect conkers to use them as a dye.
HB: Right.
HB2: And of course we, we loved that ‘cause we used to keep the big ones out for conker fights.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And that -
HB: So where did the conkers go? Did they just go to some central collection point?
HB2: Well yeah. Carpenter’s shop.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: He put them in a, in a sack in the shed. Somebody used to come and collect them. And we used to go around collecting rosehips and oh that used to give us an excuse to go on the farmer’s fields and they tolerated us. They tolerated us. Telling us not to climb on gates and makes holes in hedges but they, they tolerated and for our sins we got, we got once got a free bottle of rosehip.
HB: Wow.
HB2: We thought we’d done great guns there. Then we had news of a complaint made by the banker’s wife in town against the airmen going home from the pub singing bawdy songs. So she reported it to the sergeant, the police sergeant who said, ‘Yes Madam. I’ll come around and see you.’ So he went around there, ‘Now madam what did you say they were singing?’ ‘Bawdy songs.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘But I can’t stand up in front of the magistrates and say these men were singing bawdy songs because he’d turn around and say, “What were they singing?’’ Anyway she stuttered out about the first verse but when she got to the chorus and they had to whip certain garments away she kicked him out and reported him to the inspector who then went around and said to the sergeant, ‘You did it all wrong. I’ll do it right this time.’ So the first thing he said was, ‘Yes madam. Before I can stand in front of the magistrate giving evidence against these brave men who risk their lives nightly,’ he said, ‘I want to know what they were singing.’ ‘Well there’s the door. Get out.’ Now for some unknown reason and we don’t think it was the fault of the sergeant or the inspector but this tale got out.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: And for many many lengths of times afterwards the locals when they left the pub serenaded the lady.
HB: Oh.
HB2: She wished she hadn’t mentioned anything.
HB: I’m just going to check the battery on this -
HB2: Right.
HB: Harold, ‘cause I’m just getting. No. No. We can keep going for a while. Keep going for a while.
HB2: Right. As I said my sister worked in munitions but she was relieved because she suffered badly from dermatitis.
HB: Right.
HB2: And she went into, into a job in a hotel, the Oxford Hotel in Lincoln as a general dogsbody and in the same hotel was a man who had a haulage business and he was managing his lorries going from local quarries to the airfields carting materials and they met and got engaged and got married in 1943 and it was, we were all determined, the village and the family were determined that she should have a proper wedding. So coupons were pooled to buy the dress for her and the bridesmaid and mum would cater for the reception. Well muggins here had to go in the washhouse and scrub the copper till it shone so that we could boil the ham.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: The whole ham.
HB: Ok.
HB2: In there. Well first of all I had to spend a week turning it, soaking it, getting the salt out. Then we put it in the copper and it had to be gently boiling so we got that done and then we lumbered it out, put it in a dish and put it in the pantry ready for the day. The next thing was I had to scrub the cart out, the old horse and cart, line it with newspaper, put sheets on it and then put the food in there to take it the half mile down the road to the church hut.
HB: Right.
HB2: Anyway, we got it all there and laid out, the wedding went off alright and then these people I think there was over twenty came into the reception. Now, all his side come from Leeds and, ‘cause I remember the best man turned up in his lorry piled with gear so I said, ‘What have you brought the gear for?’ He said, ‘Your dad wants it.’ I said, ‘Does he?’ So he said, ‘Yeah.’ Anyway, left it at that but what he’d done was he’d loaded it up with this with what dad wanted because he had to have his petrol, he had to have an excuse to do the journey.
HB: Oh right. Yes. Of course with petrol rationing.
HB2: Anyway, he come and he took his overalls off and there he was in his best suit with a button hole. And he said, ‘Have I come wedding boy?’
HB: Yeah. Oh dear.
HB2: Anyway, the wedding went off and the reception went in and when they got in and saw what was laid out ‘cause the villagers again had come with cakes, pastries, bread, butchers with potted meat and what have you, mother with her ham and the people with salads. It was April so we got salad stuff and these people from Leeds just couldn’t, just couldn’t understand how mother had put the spread on that she did. So she said, ‘Well it would take a long while to explain but just sit down and enjoy it.’ Well enjoy it they did. I mean a whole ham for twenty odd people and it went.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: What they didn’t eat they took home in doggie bags.
HB: Well yeah. Yeah.
HB2: There was, there was the cold ham, there was the salad, there was cakes, fancy cakes, there was trifles, there was jellies, there was blancmanges and there was wine. Oh and I fell out with the best man because he wouldn’t give me any, any wine.
HB: How old were you then?
HB2: I were ten. I said, ‘It’s my sister’s wedding and I can have some wine.’ Anyway, I went crying to mum and she said, ‘Oh for God’s sake give him a drop.’ Well when I tasted it I wished I hadn’t. [laughs]
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But being a good lad and what was in my glass I had to drink.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: So I tipped it back, swallowed it back. Well I thought I was going to burn the back of my throat out.
HB: Oh dear.
HB2: Yeah. But that was, that was, that was the wedding.
HB: So boiling up the ham, the copper that’s, that’s the laundry copper that the washing used to be done in.
HB2: Oh yeah. Washday copper.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Make sure there’s no soap in it.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Lovely job.
HB2: Laxative.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But that, that’s the sort of thing that went on you know. For occasions like that the people in the village turned up trumps, you know. They did. They really did and you know to us the spread wasn’t, well normal run of the, it was a bit exceptional but it was things that we always had. We hadn’t given them up because of the war. I mean you could still buy jelly and we had enough milk to make custards. You could get custard powder.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: So that was a jolly good, a jolly good spread out because everybody thoroughly enjoyed it and absolutely amazed at what went on. Now gran as I said lived at Newton and she had a little cottage in which she sold, she had a bit of a shop. Sold the essentials like firelighters and plasters. The baker left his bread there, orders of bread there and she sold lemonade and one day an airman came in for a box of matches just as gran had made a pot of tea. So she said, ‘Do you want a drink of tea?’ ‘Oh yes please.’ ‘Well, here, have a cake as well,’ and they had quite a chat and she said, ‘That’s it old lad. Cheerio. Come back again when you like. Bring your mates.’ ‘Do you mean that ma?’ So she said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got six more.’ So she said, ‘Well it’s not a very big cottage but bring them,’ and that’s when this crew turned up and made her, they didn’t come every night or every weekend but they come regular. Turned it in to a little oasis. They would come and first of all they wouldn’t eat or drink what gran offered them and she was a bit annoyed and she said, ‘What’s wrong with my food?’ ‘Nothing’s wrong with it.’ Ma they called her right from the start. ‘Nothing’s wrong with it ma.’ She said, ‘Yes there is and if you can’t find room to eat it then don’t bother to come.’ ‘Oh don’t be like that ma. You can’t do it. You just can’t do it. It’s rationing.’ ‘Look,’ she said, ‘if I couldn’t do it I wouldn’t offer.’ So anyway after a lot of arguing and umming and erring she won the day and she brought out the fat bacon sandwiches and whatever. Well these old boys they were amazed to think and each time they come there was tea and something to eat. Again the people in the hamlet used to come with a twist of paper with some tea in it. A twist of paper with some sugar in it or gran would put some sugar to one side and she said, ‘This is why we can give you the meat. Because we kills pigs.’ Oh right well that was alright. Well then they started coming with bags of sugar and bags of tea they’d nicked out the mess and gran got really worried. She said, ‘Don’t you lads get into bother,’ she said, ‘Because we can manage.’ No gran. ‘No ma you’re alright. You’re alright.’ And they, sometimes they’d come and have a chat, sometimes they would go in the front room and just sit around the fire on the floor leaning up against the chair going to sleep. Gran often said, ‘Look at them poor devils. Tired out.’ Anyway, when they found out she’d got a piano oh didn’t they used to have some singsongs there. Then one night gran put her foot in it. She turned around and she said, ‘Where’s Taff Lloyd tonight?’ Pregnant pause. Shoulder went around, arm went around her shoulders, ushered her outside, come back tears streaming down her face. He hadn’t made it back and they’d said, ‘Look ma if there’s a face missing don’t ask. Just don’t ask.’
HB: Yeah.
HB2: After that it was plain sailing until like I said the time come when they just didn’t appear and it was the hope and praying of the village that they’d been posted and not -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Lost in battle but that was the one thing that -
HB: And this was just the one crew.
HB2: Just the one crew.
HB: Just the one crew.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah. And so they’d lost a crew mate.
HB2: Yes. Yes they had.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Oh and I was dinged, I hadn’t to question them as what they did.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I was not to question them what they did.
HB: What sort of time would this have been 44ish?
HB2: Well, it was, it was must have been 44ish and I think it was after Christmas because the nights were still dark and I can’t think that we were leading up to Christmas so it must have been after Christmas.
HB: Right.
HB2: But I know, I know the nights, the nights were dark when they arrived. I mean they didn’t stop till midnight. 10 o’clock and they’d gone.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And they would always say, ‘Ma see you on such and such a night. We might be a bit busy.’ So once she knew what night it was then the villagers used to drop off. The butcher used to drop off potted meat. The baker used to drop off some cakes or scones or a loaf of bread.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Looking back it was, nobody asked. It was done.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. And that, and that sort of follows this supportive trend through the village -
HB2: Yes.
HB: With everything else.
HB2: Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh God yes I know gran used to benefit no end by it. The farmers used to drop her off a bag of logs or a -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Few spuds.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: You know. She was well taken care of.
HB: And they, so they were obviously flying operationally.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: They were all English crew I presume.
HB2: Except for the Welshman.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah but they were all English.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yes.
HB: Yeah that -
HB2: And I know, I know one was a gunner ‘cause he got air gunner, AG is it? The other was a navigator because he got N and the other had got two wings so I presumed he was the pilot.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But we didn’t, I didn’t dared ask.
HB: No. No. I understand that. I understand that.
HB2: Oh and they used to dress me in their coats, put their coats on my shoulders and their hats on. I thought I was the bee’s knees you know. My God. ‘Look at me mum. Look at me.’
HB: Yeah. Yeah I mean ten eleven year old would be.
HB2: Yeah. Oh God yes.
HB: You’d be all over that.
HB2: And in them days, yes because I was more of a child at that age then what kids are today.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah. Absolutely delightful that. And then just one day.
HB2: They went home at night. Never seen again. Never seen again. Not even a word. Just gone.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh, that, that did grate with the villagers not knowing what had happened to them.
HB: Can you remember roughly when that would have been? Would that have been, you know what period of time they would have been visiting do you think?
HB2: Well I think, I think it must have been January to March because as I said I don’t recollect getting excited about going up to Christmas so it must have been after.
HB: Right.
HB2: And -
HB: So just two or three months then.
HB2: It was only two or three months. Three months would have been the most. But in that time they’d made several visits, regular visits, you know. Sudden bursts and there they were happy and singing and jumping about and then next minute just gone.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Another thing in the village the teenage girls. Makeup was scarce.
HB: Right.
HB2: And so were stockings. There was all sorts of substitutes sort of made up such as olive oil and bees wax for skin softener, bird cork for mascara and a mixture of soot and something else for an eyeshadow and they used to, we could get a liquorice sweet. It was a piece of liquorice soaked in like an icing that used to turn red and they used to use the red for the lipstick. Or beetroot juice.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: And we used to shout out after them, ‘sugar lips.’
HB: Oh dear.
HB2: And the best of it was we used to have to run because some of these girls could run and when they caught you they could thump and all. ‘Sugar lips’ or beetroot, ‘beetroot lips’ and then they, my sister was one of them. She used to paint her legs with gravy browning.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: And then her mate used to have to put a seam down with a big leaded pencil and we used to shout, ‘Your gravy’s gone lumpy, your gravy’s lumpy,’ or ‘Your seam’s slipping.’
HB: Oh dear.
HB2: That was it but then, then they brought out a thing, some liquid called silk toner. Liquid stockings. And there was enough in the bottle for twenty four applications. I mean. Can you imagine just painting your ruddy legs with it?
HB: Right.
HB2: And another thing is if they got the start of a ladder they nearly always carried nail varnish and they’d put a blob of nail varnish at the top of the ladder and at the bottom to stop it running.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Stockings were treated like gold. Some of these poor women used to be darned heals and sewn up ladders. I mean patches were worn with honour.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I mean men used to have patched knees and elbows. Oh God yes.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Now they don’t bother to patch them now do they?
HB: No. That’s true.
HB2: Yeah, poor, yeah, that was it, gravy legs. ‘You’ll be in a mess when it rains.’ [laughs] ‘Look there’s a dog following you.’ [laughs]
HB: Cruel.
HB2: And I went to school in short trousers made out of mum’s old great coats or men’s greatcoats, shirts out of her dresses. Things like that. You see these housewives were masters at needlework and cooking and what have you.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh yes. The old jumble sales did a roaring trade. Knitted, knitted garments were soon picked up and pulled down and recycled.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: They used to, they used to wear little woollen bibs instead of collars the men working in the fields.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Instead of scarves in the winter.
HB: Right.
HB2: Oh used to fit down front in the V of the jackets.
HB: Oh that’s, yeah.
HB2: Then then they started, the ladies started making coats out of candlewick bedspreads and out of black out material for other things because blackout material wasn’t rationed.
HB: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Oh God and if you could get hold of a blanket, an army blanket, a coloured one oh you’d have a coat out of that as quick as lightning.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And hats weren’t rationed and there was no end of tips how to make felt hats into a pair of slippers.
HB: Yes.
HB2: Yes. And how to titivate it up to make it look more expensive.
HB: How did they find this out? Was this through newspapers or -
HB2: It was the -
HB: Leaflets?
HB2: Greatest tip provider was “Home Chat.”
HB: “Home Chat”?
HB2: A woman’s magazine. “Home Chat.”
HB: Right.
HB2: I mean nearly every magazine covered tips of some kind or other. If it wasn’t recipes for food it was how to revitalise a drab dress or something like that.
HB: Yeah. That’s, yeah, I’ve not heard of “Home Chat” before but, yeah.
HB2: It was 1940 ’41.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: When that was on. Now food on the table. I can’t recollect eating less in the war than other time.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: It remained the same. As I said my mother’s generation and grandma’s generation were masters in the art of making something out of nothing and they could cook and it was tasty.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: They used to make dumplings. Now, the variety of dumplings. There was parsley dumplings. There was dumplings with, we called green dumpling. Now these green dumpling could have little juicy spouts off the hedge, some bits of growing corn or dandelion leaves chopped up in them.
HB: Oh right. You’d pay a fortune in a posh restaurant for that now.
HB2: Yeah. You would. You would. But most of the food was provided locally. You know. It was grown locally.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And we, my father had a house with, we moved in to a house with two large gardens so that was providing us with veg of all sorts, shapes and sizes and extra potatoes and stuff like that were grown in the fields.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: So we got plenty of that sort of thing and around two fields we had ten apple trees, crab-apple trees, all of different varieties.
HB: Right.
HB2: And in the middle hedge was Bullace trees. Little, little blue plums. So we’d plenty of fruit in season in the hedgerows.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And a big pear tree stood in the bottom field. And a Coxs. Not a Cox. An apple tree stood in the garden.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: So we, and again the apple used to be floated around. Nobody wasted an apple. It was swapped then or turned into jam or something like that.
HB: You know just taking you back a bit Harold you know you mentioned about going with the girl who stayed, the evacuee girl who stayed to go to the secondary modern school.
HB2: Yes.
HB: Obviously the war was still going on
HB2: Oh yes.
HB: When you went to the higher school.
HB2: ‘44 yes. Yes.
HB: Where was the secondary modern school?
HB2: Market Rasen.
HB: That was in Market Rasen.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: So how did you get -
HB2: Oh we had a bus.
HB: Did you?
HB2: Oh yes we had a bus.
HB: So you got from this, from Middle Rasen.
HB2: Yes. Yes.
HB: To Market Rasen.
HB2: Yes.
HB: By bus to go to school.
HB2: Yes.
HB: Right.
HB2: Mind you I think it went our as far as West Rasen.
HB: Yes. Yes.
HB2: To a catchment there but yes we went by bus.
HB: Yeah. So obviously as you move in to the secondary modern school and you meet some of the older pupils and kids obviously some of your attitudes must have to change do they?
HB2: Oh yes. Yes they did. We were a bit more grown up.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: You know. But we were governed then by female teachers when I first arrived there up till ’45. Then when the male teachers came back they didn’t mess about. They weren’t harsh but they’d got the military discipline hadn’t they?
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And when we say jump you jump. I remember a kid at the back wasn’t paying attention and he got a board rubber thrown at him and he threw the rubber board rubber back at the teacher. Oh God.
HB: By the shirt scruff and -
HB2: He give him a dressing down in front of the class and made him stand at the side of him, at the side of his table until he said he could go and sit down. No. They weren’t, they weren’t cruel.
HB: No.
HB2: But by God they were, you know, you’ll do as you’re told and I don’t think any of them gave them the stick.
HB: No.
HB2: No. They just I mean they wouldn’t allowed it today physically yanking them out or grabbing them by the ear and pulling them out of the front. That was sufficient.
HB: Yeah. So by, by that time when you were at the secondary modern the Polish squadron would have moved into the air base, the air field. Did, did you because I think you said to me on the phone there wasn’t an awful lot of contact between the Poles and the village.
HB2: No. There wasn’t. There wasn’t.
HB: But I mean at any time did you ever go to any sort of social dos or you know invitation dos at the airfield.
HB2: Oh yeah. We had a tea party.
HB: Right.
HB2: We had a tea party. It, all the, all the scouts, local scouts, guides, brownies, cubs were invited to a tea party there and oh what a day that was. We were shown some aeroplanes and then we were taken into this long room where the table was set and we were sat down to tea. Now, on my plate in front of me was some ham cured by Polish methods, some chicken seasoned by Polish methods and then there would be if I said a spoonful, a tablespoon full of chopped tomato and cucumber with a dressing on it. There was something like curds or cheese with bits of fruit in it. There was grated carrot and grated cheese with a dressing on it. Everything had got a dressing on it. There was what we call now today potato salad and there was coleslaw and all these were on a dressing and I mean nearly everything was a first to me and my eyes used to look a bit suspicious at it and think, what’s that? What’s that? But oh and the lettuce was chopped up, sliced up thinly with a dressing on it and we ate, it was neither a biscuit nor bread but it was soft so it must have been a type of bread or bread cake to eat with it. Well we didn’t have anything on it but by gum it was good and so of course with my fork I’m there tasting this and tasting that and thinking this is not too bad and my plate was clean like the rest of, the rest of the other kids.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: It really was and then when they come out with the cookies oh our faces must have been a picture. I mean we’d never seen anything like that and as most of the kids had been told to eat what was put on their plate there wasn’t much left.
HB: No. No.
HB2: And it was all washed down with a fruit cordial.
HB: Right.
HB2: Oh that was memorable was that tea party. That was memorable.
HB: So who was serving the food? Was this the -
HB2: The WAAFs and the men.
HB: The WAAFs and the men.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: And they were English.
HB2: No. They were Polish.
HB: They were all Polish.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Right. Right. And they, so how did, I mean obviously they could communicate.
HB2: Oh they could speak better English than we could speak Polish.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: No problem. I mean kids could speak naturally don’t they?
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And they had no difficulty. Maybe with the dialect but no, they understood what we said ‘cause we said, this was dinged in to me and dinged into the others, ‘You remember your manners. Please and thank you costs nothing,’ so it was, ‘Please’ and, ‘thank you,’ a thousand times over.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How many, did that only happen the once or -?
HB2: Just the once.
HB: Right.
HB2: Just the once.
HB: Was that early when the Poles came or was that after they’d been there a little while? Do you remember?
HB2: Oh I think they must have been a bit established a little bit there because I think it was even quieter. The war was going better than ever.
HB: Right.
HB2: You know.
HB: Right.
HB2: They was in there.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But oh yes. But that was a day to remember that was.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I mean I can, well it must have been for me to remember the details today.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. It’s obviously stuck in your mind.
HB2: It has and I mean even today we’ll try, you know, the Poles did it this way so we’ll chop up our tomatoes and cucumbers different. What the dressings were I don’t know. Didn’t get them out but they tasted good.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: That was the first time I’d had slices of apple, raw apple and raw pear on a salad
HB: Right. Yeah.
HB2: I thought.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I thought oh God. Apple? With a salad. It went down.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: It went down.
[pause]
HB2: Now then we had, we got bombarded with make do and mend and waste not want not.
HB: Right.
HB2: Now, clothing, as I said, second hand clothing was turned into all sorts of things from snip rugs to short trousers. And the food. Well, nothing was wasted. It was not wasted at all.
HB: No.
HB2: And some of the things would make them stare today because, take for instance growing broad beans. The tops are nipped out.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: They weren’t thrown away. They were cooked as a vegetable.
HB: Oh right. Right.
HB2: Pea vines were nipped out and tender shoots took out and boiled out as vegetables. The tops of Brussels sprouts was always cut out and used as a veg and the tops of them newly spouted tops on swedes was done the same way and when we grew spring onions, when we grew the normal onions from a bulb or when we grew celery the tops were cut and chopped up to put in stews and soups as seasoning.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: We had, always had a row of chives to put seasoning in so there was plenty of seasoning going on and when we, when we had a leek we took the leek up out of the ground, cleaned it off, cut the mushy root off, took the pair of scissors and snipped the brown tips of the leaves off. Then we cut the blue from the white but we chopped the blue up, put it in a pan and cooked it five or ten minutes before we put the white in.
HB: Right. Yeah.
HB2: So that wasn’t wasted.
HB: No.
HB2: And when we, when we cut, cut a cabbage we used to cut it within the tops of the first set of leaves, trimmed the leaves off to about this much stalk, split the stem into a cross and then a new shoot would come out where the leaves joined the -
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: The thing. And the cauliflower, we’d always cut that off and use all the leaves around it. We’d strip all the leaves off to get the bare flower first of all and put them in to cook first.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And then we’d cut the florets off the stalk and chop that up finely and put that in.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And the top half of the Brussel plant or a cow plant, something like broccoli plant we used to cut that off ‘cause it was soft and chop that up and put it in a stew or the thing.
HB: Right. Yeah.
HB2: And I remember getting in to awful bother in the supermarket when the broad beans come in ‘cause I was picking them up about as thick as my little finger and this old boy with his wife come to me and said, ‘Why are you doing that for boy?’ ‘Because I want them.’ ‘Well they’re no damned good,’ he said. I said, ‘They’re exactly what I want.’ ‘What do you mean? What are you going to do with them?’ I said, ‘I’m going to top and tail them and cook them in the coshes.’ ‘Come on misses,’ he said, ‘This bloke’s gone mad here.’ And off he went. But we did. We used to cook the beans. Now field beans are tough old things aren’t they?
HB: Oh yes. Yeah.
HB2: Well there were so self sets up the top here. I went up there one day and they were there were just forming, the beans, I pulled them off, topped and tailed them and cooked them and I went up there one day and as they were just forming I pulled them off, topped and tailed them and cooked them and you couldn’t have better tasting beans in all my life.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And my wife’s grandfather kept a shop and he had one lady used to go in and ask for the broad bean coshes and she used to trim the edges up with the scissors and then cook the rest.
HB: Yeah but it’s a skill learned -
HB2: Oh my God, yes.
HB: In adversity.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: And it’s seen you through the rest of your life.
HB2: That’s right. And we used to cook bacon. Slice of bacon in the frying pan or a joint. Well the skin used to come off. The rind used to come off and it used to be minced up and put in a stew.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: Or a soup.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Oh yeah. And when, when we had a carcass of a chicken or some big marrowbones when they went out and got thrown away they were white. They’d been boiled and boiled.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So as you come, as you’re coming through now you’re sort of eleven, twelve year old, you’re heading towards the end of the war really. What, did you as a boy then, as a young boy did you notice a change in people in the village and around, in the fact that you know we’d had, I presume by then we’d had D-Day and were starting to, you know, make inroads did you notice a change in attitudes with people or were they still pretty well set, you know we haven’t done the job yet. That sort of mentality?
HB2: Yes I did because rationing hit them. Rationing in peacetime was worse than rationing in the war.
HB: Right.
HB2: I mean for instance bread was rationed in peacetime. It was never rationed in the war. And the cheese ration went down to an ounce and milk went down to two and a half pints a week or two pints a week sometimes. We had first of all there was the end of lend lease and so the food that was available had to be eaten then and it wasn’t plentiful. Then they had a world shortage of dollars and that was a thing, another thing that we had to pull our belts in, tighten our belts up and then there was, we had to, now then, meat went scarce or something because we had to feed the Germans which didn’t go down at all well so there was reasons. Oh there was a world financial crisis and that caused us again to cut down on rations. So in, all in all the feeling was that the war was over but we’re still on rationing.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: We were still paying.
HB: Did you, did you have, did, I mean you lived in a relatively small village compared to Market Rasen, did you have, did you have your own VE celebrations or -
HB2: Oh yes we had our street parties.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: We had a bigger celebration for VE day than we had for VJ day.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Because that was I’m afraid a long way away. When we was at school and Germany, Dunkirk had occurred mother met one local lad whose family she knew well and he’d just escaped with them and I remember her coming home and crying her eyes out. She said, ‘that poor devil escaped with what he stood up in,’ so that’s how it hit her and then having, having the Dunkirk thing happened that, that, that had a very gloomy effect on the village and there was little things like that that sort of reminded them that they hadn’t finished with it yet.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: They, they, they did relax at the end of the war when we had our celebrations but not completely because we had a reminder. Two lads come back having been prisoners of war of the Japs and one of them had suffered very badly. He lived in a row of little, four little cottages where we used to play marbles outside his house. Well when he went for a rest oh he used to scream his head off and he used to frighten us kids to death. How long it took him to get over it, if he ever did get over it, I don’t know.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But he had a rough time and as I said then there was the lad from Dunkirk who presented that side of it and so we knew what was, we knew what was going on.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I mean the gloom on the village when Dunkirk happened was, was noticeably, even me as a kid noticed what it was like.
HB: So as you come into the end of ‘45 and into 1946 what were your, what were you looking forward to? Can you remember what you were looking forward to? ‘Cause the war’s, the wars almost over but it’s not quite over. You’re heading towards, you know there must have been a point when you realised there must be some kind of peace coming. What were you, what were your expectations?
HB2: I, my one thing I was thinking about was my brother coming back.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: What he’d be like because I hadn’t seen him for five years.
HB: And I mean very early on in the interview you just said that your brother went abroad. I mean -
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Where did he go? Do you know?
HB2: He went to India to start with and then picked his way over into Egypt and up the toe of Italy to the German border.
HB: Right.
HB2: Then they sent him all the way around by sea home again to send him across the sea to finish off his service in Germany.
HB: Right. Right.
HB2: So yes and I didn’t know until I’d started my job, left school and started my job we had a relief signalman and he said to me, he says, ‘Are you the brother to Jack Beech?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘How do you know him?’ ‘In the army.’ He said, ‘I was long range desert patrol and,’ he said, ‘I come across him and a bunch of his buddies just standing in the desert.’ So I said, ‘What do you mean standing in the desert? He was a driver.’ So he said, ‘Yeah the front line had moved up and down and where it was safe before for them to go the Italians had been stood waiting for them,’ and he said, ‘They just took their vehicles and left them what they stood up in.’ He said, ‘And as luck would have it we come across them.’ I said, ‘Oh is that why he doesn’t like Itys?’ It was always those damned Itys. I could understand it but he never spoke about it. We never got to know about that.
HB: No.
HB2: No.
HB: What age were you when you actually left school Harold?
HB2: Fifteen.
HB: So, so you were there at the secondary modern through to fifteen.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: From ’44 to -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: ’48.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. And so, as, as the war is ended and you’ve touched on the rationing. All the guys who had been away who had survived and been away they’re come back what was happening on the airfield? Was that, did you notice that winding down or -?
HB2: When I got my job I did.
HB: Right.
HB2: I left school at fifteen in ’48 and got a job as a lad porter at Snelland Station and Snelland Station serviced Wickenby airfield.
HB: Right.
HB2: And Wickenby airfield was getting rid of all the old ordinance and scrap vehicles so they were constantly coming down to the railway station to dispatch vehicles and these ruddy great bombs and didn’t [Sabu] the crane driver get me going ‘cause there he is swinging five of these ruddy great bombs and putting them down on, in the wagons saying, ‘Be very careful when you’re nailing the chock don’t make a spark because you’ll be going up in smoke.’ [laughs]
HB: What were these? Were these like the big oil drum type bombs or -?
HB2: Yeah. We had an open wagon, railway wagon and five would get in nicely that we could scotch them.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Five in a truck and they were the width of -
HB: Scotching obviously being putting the wooden wedges in. Yeah.
HB2: It was a wooden wedge.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And don’t you cause a spark. Well me and my mate were frit to death. I remember us sitting on these bombs one day when we’d scotched them and we said how the hell could a spark set this lot off? And then we came to the conclusion they weren’t live, well live enough but you know.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: They were pretty safe.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Egads we used to have to spend so much time building a wooden frame so they wouldn’t roll because I mean if them five had hit the end of the truck they’d have been gone.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But touch wood we never had a complaint about them being littered up on the line but they were going up to Stranraer to be dumped in the sea.
HB: Were they now?
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Right.
HB2: I think the vehicles were going to a depot to be to be scrapped and -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Broken down as scrap.
HB: So that, so that would have been the bombs that would have been all the way to Stranraer that would be all on the railway then.
HB2: Oh yes.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh yes. Boxed wagons had got the smaller ammunition.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And the low, the low wagons had got the vehicles.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh for a fifteen year old I were busy. I was really busy.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Me and my mate from the next station.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: We really were and I mean we were both young and inexperienced and yet we’d got a responsible job of making sure nothing fell off.
HB: Absolutely. Absolutely. You wouldn’t want one of them rolling off anyway.
HB2: You wouldn’t. No.
HB: No.
HB2: And it was a, it was a real experience being working as a lad porter ‘cause as I said at fifteen I was responsible for keeping all the lights in the signals and the other little things on the line alight.
HB: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: ‘Cause when they put, well they had dollies that used to turn and I mean they had to have a light in there. They had to have lights on the gates, lights on the platform, lights in the signals.
HB: And what was, what was the source of light?
HB2: Paraffin.
HB: All paraffin lamps.
HB2: Paraffin. Oh and what did stop, when you got, I don’t know, three quarters of a mile away from the station to the distant signal and the ruddy lamp blew out and you were trying, down the bank trying to shelter it with your coat to light it again and you’d get up to the top and the damned thing had gone out again.
HB: So you’d have go up the ladder and put it in the, in the signal.
HB2: Yeah you had a lamp that was stuck on a spike -
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And put it in and sometimes I’d go back the next morning and get down to that signal. The light’s out.
HB: Yeah
HB2: Oh dear. Primitive.
HB: Oh yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Primitive.
HB: But did it work?
HB2: Oh it worked. Yes it worked.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Yeah. And we had a pony delivered by passenger train. It come on the end of passenger. Well if you’d seen the rigmarole of that. The signaller pulled the line so the lines went over and I had to run over with a G clamp and clamp the ends so they didn’t open again.
HB: Sorry what’s a pony?
HB2: Riding pony.
HB: Oh. Riding pony. I’m with you. I’m with you.
HB2: Come in a horse box. Behind the -
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And I had to shunt it across the line. I had to put this G clamp on the end of every section that opened.
HB: Oh right. Blimey.
HB2: There was a delay of the passenger train I’ll tell you.
HB: Yeah. I would, yeah they wouldn’t be very happy would they?
HB2: No.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh and you had to shout out the name of the station.
HB: Oh yeah. Yeah.
HB2: One day I was in an impish mood and I said, ‘Anyone for here. This is it.’
HB: You’d get away with that?
HB2: Yes.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. How long were you there at the, sorry what was the station I’ve forgotten?
HB2: Snelland.
HB: Snelland. That’s it.
HB2: Fifteen to seventeen and a half. Two and a half years.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: To ‘51. ‘48 to ‘51 because I’d made up my mind bringing bringing the ordinance down the RAF police would come down -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: To supervise and I used to talk to them and they said, I used to say I want to join the air force and they said oh you go in the police [you’re big and awkward?] you go in the police which I did. I got the police and I got the air force.
HB: Oh right.
HB2: So -
HB: Right.
HB2: Seventeen and a half when I was taken into the air force in 19’, February ’51. Whilst I was in the air force I got in to awful trouble at RAF Benson with this messing sergeant. I’d gone up as you usually do with your plates and they dished out the spud, the veg, the meat, pudding and the custard and I, the pomp ‘No thanks.’ The cabbage. ‘No thanks. The custard. ‘No thanks.’ And the sergeant said to me, ‘When you’re finished your meal I want to see you in my office.’ So I said, ‘Right.’ So I went in her office and there was the WAAF catering officer there who had just taken over and so catering officer there who’d just taken over and so the catering sergeant said, ‘Oh hello corporal. What do you want?’ I said, ‘I’ve been asked to attend here by the sergeant.’ ‘What’s he done wrong sergeant?’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘He refused the potato, he refused the cabbage and he refused the custard.’ So she was a wily old cuss was this sergeant, she was lovely. She turned to me and she said, ‘Well what’s your answer?’ So I said, ‘Well first of all I was told and brought up that if I didn’t want anything and I wouldn’t eat it I didn’t have it on my plate.’ ‘Right,’ she said, ‘So what was wrong with the potato?’ I said, ‘It was pomp.’ ‘What was wrong with the cabbage?’ I said, ‘It was dehydrated.’ ‘What was wrong with the custard?’ I said, ‘It was made with water.’ Well the sergeant’s face was a picture so the sergeant stepped in, she said, ‘How do you know it was made with water?’ ‘Because it was blackish. It’s very dark and blackish.’ So the old WAAF officer she turned her head away. I think she’d had a quiet smile. So the sergeant then said, ‘Alright corporal, are you some sort of a chef? Are you in the food trade?’ I said, ‘No. I’m just a farmer’s son living on a small farm.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Well explain yourself.’ I said, ‘Well I live on a small farm that produces milk, plenty lot of it and the custard that they make is nowhere near what you’re making there so I assumed it was made of water.’ Well she didn’t say it was and didn’t say -
HB: No.
HB2: It wasn’t and I said, ‘I don’t like, I’ve tasted and don’t like the pomp and the dehydrated cabbage. So the old WAAF sergeant said, ‘Fair enough corporal. Fair enough.’ She said, ‘I can see you’re a man that’s had an upbringing that’s different to others.’ I said –
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I said, ‘Well’ –
HB: Yeah.
HB2: ‘It might be simple but,’ I said, ‘It’s good.’
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And she said, ‘Well alright. Off you go.’ Well then we used to take the swill of the messes and feed pigs ‘cause they’d got a pig farm on there and send them off to be processed for bacon and the general public. She said, ‘Stop that. They’re coming in the mess.’
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh we used to have some lovely dishes. Yeah.
HB: Right.
HB2: ’Cause she did say after that she used to come around, both of them used to come around the mess and say, ‘Is anything alright?’ And mean it.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: If you’d got a complain you said so and I know I said to them one day I said, Look, I do patrols through the night and I come in to the mess for a sandwich,’ I said, ‘And it’s usually the time when the joints of meat come out of the oven I said and they don’t taste anything like what we get at 1 o’clock.’ ‘Oh?’ I said, ‘Well let’s face it you’ve got a thousand odd men. How do you keep slices of meat warm from 2 o’clock in the morning till middle of the day?’ She said, ‘Well there’s the snag. What’s wrong with them?’ she said. I said, ‘Well they’re like cigarette papers aren’t they?’ I said, ‘It’s tasteless.’ Anyway, she did something about that.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And I said, and she said, ‘What about the eggs?’ I said, ‘Well they’re like rubber. They hit the wall and bounce around the camp.’
HB: Oh right.
HB2: She said -
HB: Right.
HB2: She said. ‘Well again unless we have somebody frying them and dishing them out, then we’ve got a bit of a problem there.’
HB: Yeah.
HB2: So I said, ‘I understand,’ I said, ‘It doesn’t stop me eating them.’
HB: Yeah. But it’s different.
HB2: But it’s different. So, she, she it was a, it was an ex-naval man that was the thing before, messing officer before and he just got what was easy. Of course -
HB: Yeah.
HB2: When she took over we had to eat what was in the stores.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: To clean up but after that she got it going.
HB: So what, you know as obviously we’re coming towards the end what do you think, it’s not an abiding memory that’s, that’s the wrong phrase but what, what do you think your experience of being a boy in the countryside and on a farm and near an airfield, what do you think your experience has given you for the rest of, you know, for your adult life.
HB2: It’s, I had the opportunity on occasion to see the rough side of war. I was messing about at home one day when I heard an aircraft that was making a funny noise and I saw it hit the ground. It crashed on the other side of the village and I jumped on my bike and got over there and I was going up the yard and in the implement hole was a mate of mine, Bob and I said, ‘Are you alright, Bob? What’s going on here?’ And he never answered and when I went up to him he never moved. So I said, ‘Are you alright?’ And he never answered again. Anyway, an ambulance man was going up the yard and what are you two doing in here and I said, ‘It’s my mate. I can’t get him to talk,’ so he come in and he said, ‘Oh has he been hit?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ So he picked him up and carried him out to the ambulance and he, I stood waiting and he said, ‘It’s alright. He’s suffering from shock but what he’s done I don’t know.’ So he says, ‘I’ll take him home.’ So they took him home and I wended my way into the field. Where the crater, you couldn’t get anywhere near it. There were people busying about so I went up the other side to the hedge and watched them and there was men on the corner of a blanket, four on a corner, on each corner of the blanket metal things picking and I thought what on earth are they doing? Well as they came around the outskirts of the crater it was remnants of bodies, flesh. And then I started wandering around the outskirts and I found a boot with a foot in it and I thought oh God yes they’ve been blown to bits haven’t they? Well by the time more police had arrived, more ministry people, more air force people had arrived and there was keeping us further and further away from the wreck so I went through the hedge and damn me if there wasn’t bits of body in there so I came back and the chap’s coming near me I said, You’ve got some more out here.’ ‘Oh come on then show us where.’ And I spent some time showing them where in the other field. Eventually I went home and the next day I went to school, come back home and my mother said, ‘I want a word with you.’ So I said, ‘What for?’ ‘Well what have you been up to? Where did you go yesterday?’ I said, ‘I went down to Hankins farm.’ So she said, ‘What did you do there?’ I said, ‘Walked around a field.’ So she said, ‘I’ve just had a policeman and the district nurse here.’ So I said, ‘What for?’ ‘Well they told me you were interfering.’ So I said, ‘I wasn’t. I kept out of the way.’ Course she’d suspected I’d done something wrong and they weren’t telling her the truth so I said, ‘No. I hadn’t done anything wrong.’ So she said, ‘What did they mean by asking questions of me if you’d slept alright and did you eat your breakfast this morning?’ I said, ‘I don’t know what they’re talking about.’ Anyway, it come out that Bob had been in the field at the top when the aeroplane crashed at the bottom and he saw this thing coming for him wherever he went and he just froze but eventually managed to get in to the hovel and hide. Me? I’d witnessed too much.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Which was gruesome so they wanted to know if I was fit and well. Now me and the two lads from across the road who were there as well never had any effect on us at all.
HB: No.
HB2: No. It was strange that.
HB: Never came back to visit you.
HB2: No. No. It was something that was being done and I couldn’t visualise the bodies with that in the blanket.
HB: No.
HB2: I knew what it was but I just couldn’t visualise that that’s what had happened so I saw that side of that. I saw the German prisoners of war. I saw the rationing so I, oh and I saw the Lancaster. I was in the Lancaster and saw what they had to put up with so I got a good insight, only briefly, but a good insight on the other side of the war.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And you know watching the aircraft coming back and going out.
HB: Yeah that’s yeah I mean that obviously came through your character. Helped, you know well I wouldn’t say helped, it didn’t help but it came through your character after the war then.
HB2: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Oh yes.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I mean when we went, when we went to secondary modern school we were still collecting paper there. We had a baler in the girl’s things and we used to bale it up and send it off and we got something like eighty five tons in five years and we were, there was reports and letters saying how essential it was for us to do this and what was doing so I got another side of what was helping on because paper was important.
HB: Yes.
HB2: And the war effort could be made. I mean I couldn’t associate with making a shell about a piece of paper or anything like that but this is what it taught us.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And we we had a memorial service ‘cause we lost three, three old pupils. One lad come from our village and he was nineteen, an air gunner in a Lancaster and he got shot down and never returned. And another lad was a sailor and he never returned. So we lost two in the village.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And then we had the two men troubled by the Japs.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. A significant time.
HB2: Oh yes. Yes. We, I can understand there was hardship but ours wasn’t hardship it was an inconvenience.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. I see where you’re going. Yes. Yes.
HB2: I mean when, after I got out especially when I joined the air force and saw some of these lads that had come through the war and were still in the air force oh you got a different story out of that altogether.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: And I mean as I said before I just used to sit back and think what sort of men were they to do that? How could they do it?
HB: Yeah.
HB2: You know and here they are as happy as sand boys.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: They’ve weathered the storm and this is it. I mean we had one chap, a flight lieutenant and they used to say to him oh he’s a surly so and so yet he wasn’t. He’d spent six months in the jungle and survived and was now an expert in lecturing others on how to survive in the air force. He’d been shot down and survived and I used to sit there and watch him marching up and down, walking up and down and think what a chap you are. You know. God. Could I have done that?
HB: Yeah. Again towards that time you know you’ve come to the end of the war and the sort of year at the end of the war ’46 ‘47 can you have you got a memory of how your mum and dad sort of reacted when it was as it, well it was finished then. The war was finished.
HB2: Well mums best reaction with my brother.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: My father’s reaction was getting rid of the war agg.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: And being able to do what he wanted to do.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But dad never said much about anything.
HB: No.
HB2: He, a grandfather and four uncles one of which didn’t returned had all served through the First World War. Now you couldn’t get an old soldier in the village to even mention anything.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: They wouldn’t talk to you. Especially to us kids.
HB: Yeah. So, yeah I mean your dad very pragmatic then, you know, he can get back to his normal farming as he would phrase it and mum has had chronic asthma.
HB2: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Like you say your brother walks through the door.
HB2: That’s it. Everything was -
HB: Everything was fine.
HB2: Just like waving a magic wand.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Oh I know she used to walk to town, a mile and a half. She’d come back she could hardly breathe sometimes.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Used to frighten me to death.
HB: Was your family much of a church going family?
HB2: Oh mother was.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: I was a choir boy.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Dad didn’t.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: He was too busy milking cows at church time.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: But he would go on special occasions.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: Like harvest festival or something like that but no he wasn’t a church or a chapel goer.
HB: No.
HB2: But as I say I was a choir boy and mum was a cleaner and stoker of the stoves in winter.
HB: Yeah. Do you think your mum got some sort of comfort?
HB2: Satisfaction out of it.
HB: Comfort from the church?
HB2: Oh yeah. I think so. Yes I think so.
HB: Yeah.
HB2: She wasn’t deeply religious.
HB: No. No.
HB2: But you know that’s she had, she had her feelings.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: But oh God how, how many times did we urge these Christian soldiers onwards and sing for them that was in peril on the sea. Oh dear.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: Well that’s just coming up to quarter to two Harold and I think that’s absolutely brilliant. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed listening to that. It puts, it puts a context on it.
HB: Yeah. So I think what we’ll do unless there’s something else you want to tell me about, something you’ve been hiding you know I would close the interview down now I think and thank you very much for what you’ve, what you’ve given us.
HB2: I don’t think I’ve missed much out. No. I think I’ve covered it pretty much.
HB: Yeah. And you’ve got the bits out that you wanted to -
HB2: Yeah.
HB: To bring out.
HB2: Oh yeah.
HB: That’s good. That’s good.
HB2: It’s, it was not all milk and honey but as a kid it was an experience.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
HB2: At times it was frightening but at other times it was pretty interesting.
HB: Well I’m going to turn the tape off now.
HB2: Yeah right.
HB: Harold.
HB2: Right.
HB: It’s, so it’s quarter to two. Thats lovely. Thank you very much.
[machine paused]
HB: This is a continuation of the interview that we terminated at quarter to two. Mr Beech was just telling me a little bit about his experiences with the Home Guard and what was going on in the villages so I’ll let him carry this on so we’ll have this as the second part of the file for this particular interview. Right, Mr Beech, it’s running.
HB2: At the beginning of the outbreak of war there was a home, there was a look, duck and vanish brigade which was commonly known as the Local Defence Volunteers but which was later were renamed the Home Guard now, made up of locals, usually the farm labourers and these farm labourers used to meet at the pub and exercise in the two paddocks, and train in the two paddocks but they were always eager to go on night manoeuvres. Now night manoeuvres covered a multitude of sins because the biggest part of them were poachers and they used to have, used to have great coats which was usually a World War One great coat that had a big, a skirt inside that used to get sewn up into two pockets. Ferrets in one and nets in the other and off they’d go across the fields and do a bit of rabbiting and some clever devil could also get a pheasant or two but no one seemed to tumble the reason why they wanted so many night manoeuvres but it was pretty obvious. Many a good dinner was obtained through the night. But another they used to train was camouflage and they held an exercise in this farmer’s field who’d got big bushy hedges and big chestnut trees and they were hiding. Well us kids used to go around and say, ‘What are you doing down there Mr Caps?’ Or he’d start to climb a tree and somebody would tell you in no uncertain terms to clear off. ‘What are you doing up there?’ So, in one, in one instance we were ushered out the field.
HB: Oh dear.
HB2: So, [laughs], as kids I think some times in the war we were very much a pain in the backside.
HB: Right. Well, yeah thanks for that. I do think that’s worth, worth just recording particularly getting the old rabbits and pheasants for the pot so we’ll just terminate this particular one at 1.55. Thanks again Mr Beech that was really interesting.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harold Beech. Two
Creator
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Harry Bartlett
Identifier
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ABeechH170302
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-02
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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.
Format
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02:37:39 audio recording
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Pending review
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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eng
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Sound
Description
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Harold Beech could see the activity of several airfields and witnessed stricken aircraft flying back to stations near his home. He also witnessed a crash and describes how he hid in a Lancaster, with the help of the engineer who was billeted with his family and was able to watch the activity of a Bomber Command station closely. His grandmother adopted an aircrew from RAF Faldingworth, but one day they did not come for their usual visit and were never seen again. He describes how the village always pulled together and he described the make do and mend plus the effect of rationing. He also recollects the arrival of evacuees in the village.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1943
childhood in wartime
crash
evacuation
home front
Lancaster
military living conditions
prisoner of war
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Wickenby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/214/3353/PBrewsterDG1602.1.jpg
4638c2a9b10e66a020eed6251410c875
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/214/3353/ABrewsterDG160617.2.mp3
8de1fcde610d2afb6e235c498b312f6d
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
Brewster, David
David G Brewster
David Brewster
D G Brewster
D Brewster
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with David Brewster and one photograph.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-07
2016-06-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Brewster, DG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is David Brewster. The interview is taking place in Mr Brewster’s home in Horncastle on the 17th of June 2016. Could you tell me a bit about your early life?
DB: I was brought up at Sutton on Sea as a little boy and we moved actually from Sutton on Sea to Alford in December 1939 but before we moved there I was taken up onto the sand hills at Sutton on Sea by my father and saw the Germans bombing a convoy out in the sea. We could see the aeroplanes and the ships and the bombs dropping in the water and some of our fighters were going up and down the coast to make sure none came inshore. That was my first recollection of the war and then we were dished out with gas masks, all of us at school, and we had to test those in the school and then, as I say, we moved to Alford and at Alford there was only ‒ Alford was only bombed on one occasion and the goods shed at the station was bombed one night and the night watchman was killed and, er, but we did see a lot of German aeroplanes over and, like, I remember standing outside my front door in Alford and there was a Heinkel 111 up in the sky and the hillside at Miles Cross Hill was covered in incendiary bombs, little fires all over. And once, I can’t quite remember just when it was, but I know there was two German ‘planes shot down at Bilsby It was one lunch time and my brother, he gobbled his lunch quick and gone out to some of his friends and came running back in saying “The Jerrys are here” and so, what did we do? We all went outside to see (laughs). These three German aeroplanes were flying over, being attacked by some of our fighters, and one of them was on fire and they disappeared into some cloud and then all bits were falling out and parachutes coming down and a lot of people from Alford went to see where they’d landed. Though I didn’t actually go to that [emphasis] crash site but I did learn that two of the aircrew were killed and, with a friend of mine, we were biking around Bilsby on one occasion, just afterwards, and there was a funeral taking place, a military funeral, so we stopped and had a look, and it was these two Germans that had been killed, so we went to the funeral. And, but there was quite a lot of planes that flew over. We saw these thousand bomber raids, the sky was absolutely full of aeroplanes. But near Alford there was Strubby airfield. Well, as boys we used to bike up half way up Miles Hill out of Alford and we could look down over the marshland area there over Alford and out to Strubby and we could watch them take off. And I used to go to an uncle’s farm near Stickney, near East Kirkby airfield, and there we used to bike and watch them take off and watch them come back again there. So, I did see a lot of aircraft around at different times and one thing that always stuck in my memory, and has done, was going out with my father out in Orby Marsh, out Skegness way, and we were walking across the fields to ‒. My father worked for the Drainage Board and we were going out to some drag lines where they were cleaning the drains out and these three Mustangs, these American Mustangs, flew over and they were so low we ducked [slight laugh]. And they were going [emphasis] (where they were going I don’t know) but they were in a hurry. And I also remember being at Sutton on Sea on one occasion, again during the wartime, when a flight of Beaufighters flew past. They’d got torpedoes under them and looking down to Huttoft way there was a pall of smoke going up. So I thought ‘what had happened?’ So next day at school I asked one of my friends from Huttoft I said ‘Did something happen down your way yesterday?’ He said ‘Yes and one of those planes crashed’. He said it had come down in a field just outside of the village and he says ‘You’ve never seen two people get out of a ‘plane and run so quick for their life’ as they’d got torpedoes on board. So they got out in full flying gear. He said ‘They would have beat any Olympic record to the nearest ditch’ [laughs]. But we used to bike out, my friends and myself all over to aeroplane crashes and try and salvage bits of them to see if we could have a souvenir of a plane crash somewhere, and we went out to all sorts, German and English planes, that had come down. One Lancaster – there’s a little monument just near Ulceby Cross. I don’t know if you’ve seen it there. Um, as you come to Ulceby Cross Road from Alford, go straight over towards Spilsby and on the next bend there’s a road goes off to Harrington and that way, and just in the corner of the first field there’s a little monument to a plane that crashed and it’s the Lancaster that got shot down by intruders. And Peter Rowlands from – He’s an ex-headmaster from Ancaster Grammar School (unfortunately he’s dead now) but he wrote a book about – “Lest We Forget” and it mentions that plane crash in there and it says about somebody biking up from Alford to it. Well, I said ‘I wasn’t the person that was written about in the book but I biked up the next morning to that crash and had a look at it’. Because the police sergeant lived next door to us and he came and told us where it was. But I also went to a German plane crash near Spilsby, at Asgarby, and there was a guard on duty on the gate and he wouldn’t let us in so I said ‘Can’t we go down to the wreck’ and he said ‘No, not allowed’ and I said ‘Well, you’ve got a guard down there’. ‘Well’ he said ‘You see that piece of stuff half way down there?’ I said ‘Yes’. He said ‘That’s an unexploded five hundred pound bomb’. So, he says ‘I’m not letting anyone go passed that’. But, well, we got around quite a lot of crashes. I also remember, as a naughty boy, scrumping some pears on one occasion, up a real tall pear tree in Alford, when a Heinkel 111 flew past and we could see the crew in there because they’ve got a big glass front and you could see the crew in there as they flew past. We didn’t pick any pears. We got down as quick and went home. [Slight laugh]. What happened to those, I don’t know. I also remember walking out. My father used to be a big walker and he’d go for a walk every Sunday morning while lunch was being cooked and I used to go out with him quite often, and we walked out on the road towards Strubby on one occasion, and we saw a plane come over, flew over us. It was a German plane. It went back and it dropped some bombs over Mablethorpe. We saw the blow from that. Also, in Alford, we did actually see the glow from that serious bombing they had at Hull. We could see the glow in the sky from that night. We stood outside in the road and we could hear planes about. We couldn’t see any because it was dark but we could see the glow in the sky from Hull burning, which was something you don’t forget. But it was, it was, a hectic time. And then, when I got to be thirteen I joined the ATC and used to go Manby every month and get a flight in some airplanes or other and I actually got a flight in a Lancaster and a Lincoln when I was there so I was very fortunate. But I could probably think of a lot more things later but, er, there was some of my recollections of the wartime.
AH: When you were in the ATC what did you do?
DB: We used to go to Manby once a month, and we used to go on the rifle range, shooting, we used to go and look at them, you know, watch the people repairing aeroplanes. It was a training place Manby, and we used to watch them doing all sorts of repairs and that sort of thing. And we were tested out on Morse code and everything. We had to know all about it and one of the main things was aircraft recognition, to make sure we knew what was ours and what was theirs, and they always used to take us for a ride in something while we were there. We flew in ‒, well I flew, in Ansons, Avro 19s, Harvards, Tiger Moths, Lancasters, Lincolns. I had a good old time really and thoroughly enjoyed it.
AH: Were they nice?
DB: Oh yeah, they were very good to us. And there was quite an interesting one, he’s dead now of course, he was our CO at the ATC from Alford, Geoff Hadfield. In your recollections and all things happening with bomber command I’m sure you’ll find out that name will crop up more than once ‘cause he was, what you’d call them? Looked out for aircraft, not an air raid warden, but they’d got posts, Observer Corp, that’s right. He was in the Observer Corp in Alford and so he had a lot of recollections and he wrote a lot of books and things, about things as well. He was the CO when we went flying in the Avro 19 and I nudged him and said ‘Geoff, the engine’s stopped and we’ve only got two’ and the colour sort of drained from his face. He said ‘It’s alright, it’s started again’. After a minute or two that [emphasis] one stopped because they were engine testing [laughs] but I could always see the funny side of that. I got a peculiar sense of humour. ‘Cause my rule about flying is, ‘the man who takes me up wants to come down for his dinner so he’s going to get down if he can’. So, there’s more chance of getting down than anything happening and I was always lucky, one or two rough landings, but mainly they were alright and afterwards, many years later, I actually flew in a microlight at Manby. I was the only one in the office that dare go up but we had a club running on East Kirkby, Manby ‘cause I worked at East Lindsey at that time on Manby. I persuaded the man to take me up for a ride. [Loud sound of chiming] Excuse me.
AH: And you went to Yorkshire with the ATC?
DB: Yes, with the ATC I went to a week’s camp at Diffield airfield and during that time I did get a ride in a glider which was quite novel, but I was lucky. But unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of breeze and we just did one circuit round but I found it very quiet [laughs] but again very interesting.
AH: Did you enjoy flying in the different ‘planes?
DB: Oh yeah, I’d fly in anything. We actually went on holiday once to Monaco for a week, sorry for a long weekend. Took my son for his eighteenth birthday and we flew from Manchester to Charles de Gaulle, from Charles de Gaulle to Nice and a helicopter from Nice to Monaco and then the reverse journey coming home again. And while we were coming home we took off in the helicopter and there was a big cruise liner just coming into Monaco so we flew round it so we could have a good look at that as well.
AH: How long were you in the ATC?
DB: Er, about three years, I think. Yes, I joined at thirteen and I started work at sixteen, that’s right.
AH: What year were you born?
DB: 1931. I’m getting a bit old in the tooth I’m afraid now. [Slight laugh.] Eighty-five this year.
AH: And so you first lived in ‒?
DB: Sutton on Sea. We were there in Sutton on Sea until the December of 1939. War started in the September and then my father’s job took him ‒ he had to ‒ he was working in Alford but he had to go and live in Alford. So we left Sutton on Sea which, from looking back with hindsight, was a very good thing really because our playground was the sand hills. And the sand hills were all mined in the wartime and whether we could have been kept off them or not is anybody’s guess because I know one or two people were blown up by them. And when they finally moved them all out, got rid of all the mines, they couldn’t find a lot because the sand moves and they’d moved with the sand, and they washed them out with hose pipes and, er, some of the bomb disposal people were at Well, just outside Alford, at the army camp there and Ted Burgin, one of their people, was on this and he was a real footballer and he played for the England B at football afterwards. He used to play for Alford on a Sunday, no, on a Saturday, army on a Sunday and when he came out of the army he played for Sheffield [laughs]. I knew him quite well at that time ‘cause my friends lived up at Well, so I spent a lot of time round there.
AH: What was he like?
DB: He was a very nice bloke actually, a very ordinary person, but dedicated to what he was doing, shifting all these mines and he was laughing about washing them all out and them exploding all over the place.
AH: Who got blown up by them? Was it children?
DB: I can’t remember but I do remember some mines going off at Mablethorpe once, but I can’t remember whether it was children or who it was but it was somebody in Mablethorpe area that got injured by them. But there was defences put all down in the sea, like scaffold poles aiming outwards in the sea on the coast there, in case anything came ashore. Because the shore on the Lincolnshire coast is an easy place to land normally, come in at high tide and you’re right up on the foreshore, right at the top end. So that had these scaffold poles aiming out to sea so if anything came in they got stuck [slight laugh]. They were down at low tide.
AH: Was there a feeling that you could be invaded?
DB: At that time, yes, there was a worry that we could easily be invaded and, yeah, we were very pleased to hear the news at times about when things turned round and of course at Well Camp as well, there was an awful lot of airborne there, before Arnhem. ‘Cause they were at Woodhall Spa as well but there was a lot at Well, and they all went off and I can’t remember how many came back now but a lot of them didn’t of course.
AH: Was there a charge when the war started round here? Did society round here change? Was there a big influx of - ?
DB: We had refugees from – We got them in Alford from Grimsby and at school, my class at school, there was two or three of these people that had come from, boys of my age like, come from Grimsby and were – They were there for the duration of the war so we got to know what it was like up there [loud clock chimes] because they were in touch with their family but, yeah, anyway I can’t remember how many came to Alford, but quite a lot.
AH: What was that like?
DB: Well they just became part of the school and I remember one of them, he was lodging with a farmer who had a milk round and, of course, in a few days he was doing the milk round [laugh].
AH: Was there a big influx of service persons?
DB: Oh, service persons, well a big army camp at Alford just as you come out of Alford going towards Spilsby on the right hand side by the cemetery, where the cemetery is now, then next to the cemetery is a big highways depot and some of them buildings are ones that were put up in the wartime. They’re still the same ones, well that part and the field beyond was a big army camp. And there was a big army camp at Well and a big army camp at Bilsby and Bilsby at one point became mainly Polish people, later on, after they moved the Germans out. I’m not sure where there was an Italian prisoner of war camp but there was an Italian prisoner of war camp in the area and they used to take them out in the lorries, working, ‘cause I remember going with my father down to Anderby Creek ‘cause the creek itself, which is a drain outfall into the sea, it had got sanded up and they got a lorry load of these people to dig it out and I went down to see them there.
AH: What did they look like?
DB: Well, same as anyone else. They were in a uniform but that’s all. And at one point in the wartime I also worked on a farm just outside Alford. My friends had a farm and their father said they wanted some help and I went to help them in harvest time and there was two German prisoners of war worked there and they used to be brought in every day and taken out again at night. But there was a German prisoner of war camp at Moorby just between here and Revesby. I think it’s all gone now but it was there until not long ago. Oh, I know where there were some Italians up at, er, just the other side of of Baumber, Sturton [?] Park, because when I was up at Manby we got some planning applications there and one of the lads went out to visit the site there and, in some of the huts at that point, there was still some paintings on the wall that the Italian prisoners of war had done but they’ve all gone now, all disappeared, which is a shame.
AH: Did you ever talk to any prisoners of war?
DB: Talked to the ones I worked with at ‒, on the farm, yeah, one was very dour ‒, hardly said a word, but there was a young one there. He was only eighteen and he chatted away. He spoke quite a bit of English and he was looking forward to going home after the war and I presume he did. But he was just an ordinary person.
AH: What did you talk about?
DB: We talked about the war and we talked about ‒, at that time it was going our [emphasis] way, and he said ‘Yeah, let’s hope it soon finishes and I can go home’. But he was talking about the farming and life in the prisoner of war camp. They were fairly well looked after. He’d had no complaints but I think, if I remember rightly, he was on the Russian side and it looked like he’d be captured there and he’d got right back across to the American side and give himself up [laughs] ‘cause he didn’t fancy being captured by the Russians. He got back and presumably ‒ I never saw him afterwards, like. I presume he went back to Germany. I did meet one German after the war. I got some relations and that they’d met some Germans before the war and after the war the German had contacted them again and he actually came over to stay over here, across in Lancashire, in actual fact it was Mary’s first husband who was friendly with him, and he came and stayed with them in Darwen in Lancashire and they brought him over to Lincolnshire, to Partney, which was Mary’s home and he was a very nice bloke. No problems.
AH: And he’d been a prisoner of war?
DB: No, he hadn’t been a prisoner of war. He’d been in Germany all the war. But as I say, he’d made contact as a boy before the war and afterwards he wrote to see if they were still about, and found out they were, so he came over and there was no enmity or anything like that. He was just a good friend. But Mary’s first husband, he finished up in Colditz.
AH: What happened?
DB: I don’t know what happened altogether. Somewhere up in the attic upstairs I think, or somewhere in my records, I’ve got a newspaper cutting about him when he died. He weren’t all that old when he died. But he, er, he was captured, like, on the continent somewhere, I’m not sure where, maybe Dunkirk, I don’t know, but I’ve got all the details somewhere but I just can’t find them at the minute, but he finished up at Colditz and he was released from there at the end of the war.
AH: What was his name?
DB: Jim, Jim Walsh. He worked for ICI and, originally, I think he must have met Mary in the wartime because he was over at one time or just after the war. Because he worked at Grimsby for the Wallpener [?] shop. Wallpener was a type of emulsion paint of yesteryear. They used to sell it in a shop in Manby. ICI, he worked for them in Grimsby and he met Mary somewhere there. They got married and lived in Grimsby and then he got transferred to their headquarters at Darwen and he moved back there and Mary went with him, of course ,obviously, and they made a life over there and, unfortunately, he died and she married again, Eric, and he was the one was out in Italy during the wartime. He was at the, er, Montecassino there, and he was out there one day, him and Mary, after the war, they were out there after Montecassino had been rebuilt, and they were out there looking around it on one occasion, they went on holiday, and they met an army – I think he was a major. And they were looking round and he said ‘Do you know this area?’ Eric said ‘Yes, I know it very well,’ he said ‘I was here in the wartime’. ‘Were you?’ he said ‘Yes’ he said ‘I was here in the wartime behind that hill over there’. [Another person enters the room.] Eric and Mary were out there. He said ‘Where were you?’ He said ‘I was behind that hill over there’. ‘Oh’ he said ‘We’ve got a special service on Sunday. Would you like to come?’ So they went and they were special guests at this memorial service at Montecassino. So it was ‒ they enjoyed it very much. Eric often talks about it now.
AH: What’s Eric’s surname?
DB: Johnson.
AH: And Mary was your cousin?
DB: She was my father’s cousin.
AH: What was her surname?
DB: She was a Holdiness before she was married, from Partney. They farmed at Partney. She was one of ten and my mother she died, unfortunately, when she was only forty-eight and my father married again and he married his cousin, which was Mary’s sister. So it was a bit of a complicated family [laughs]. But I had one brother and he was a year and nine months older than me. Unfortunately, he died about twenty years ago now. He was only fifty-nine when he died. He was Just due to retire the following year. He was in the Met Office. He had a heart attack, unfortunately. But these things happen. [Long pause.]
AH: And when you saw the ships being bombed from Sutton on Sea, were they‒? How far away was it?
DB: Four or five miles out I suppose, something like that. You could see they was ships and we could see splashes in the water. Obviously bombs were being dropped. We did hear on the grapevine somewhere, I don’t know where my father got the information from, some of the planes were shot down. I don’t know whether they were or not but they were Heinkel 115s, I do know that. The float planes. They were sea planes.
AH: How did it feel to watch them?
DB: Well, it was so far away. You could hear the bumps but they were too far away really to realise what was happening, I suppose, as a young lad of eight years old [laughs]
AH: And you saw a Zeppelin?
DB: Yes, I saw a Zeppelin pre-war. Again, I was at the sea front with my father and this Zeppelin flew back, obviously going back to Germany, it was going out across the North Sea, and it was either the Graf Zeppelin or the Hindenburg. I don’t know which, I believe the Graf Zeppelin ‘cause it flew over here quite a lot, I believe, and I remember this great cigar-shaped thing in the sky. It was enormous.
AH: And how did you feel about that?
DB: Well, as a little lad, excited, and of course there wasn’t a war on, of course, at that time, before the war, and as a little lad I thought it was marvellous to see this thing fly over. Little realising what it was really doing. I’ve actually flown in an airship since then. The Goodyear airship. I got a ride in that on one occasion at Doncaster race course. And they call them airships and you can understand why when you’re flying in them because it feels like a ship at sea. That’s what it feels like. That was through Goodyear Tyres ‘cause my wife was company director, company secretary sorry, for B A Bush Tyres at that time and we got an invitation to go [slight laugh].
AH: How exciting.
DB: I don’t know what else I can tell you. I’m sure an awful lot more will come back as time goes on.
AH: Has Sutton on Sea changed a lot?
DB: Oh, changed enormously [emphasis]. The biggest change was after the flooding in 1953 because I remember them building the sea front, basically, there, the original sea front with all the chalets on the top, the colonnade as we’d call it with the chalets on top and half of that was washed away in the flood. But before that there was the old promenade on the front and it had railings along the front and just steps down. And I can remember being stood on there as a little lad, I can’t remember what ‘plane they were flying, but Alex Henshaw and his father flew past as we were stood there on the promenade, and we looked into the aeroplane it was so low and we could see pop Henshaw and Alex in the aeroplane as it flew past. ‘Cause Alex Henshaw was a test pilot during the war, for Supermarines. He was a test pilot, in Spitfires mainly, and during that time, in the wartime, his home was at Sutton on Sea but he was actually stationed at Brooklands, I think it was, where they flew from mainly, and he had a good system. He used to, on a Friday late afternoon, he’d take his Spitfire up for a test flight, he’d fly up to Strubby, land at Strubby. He had a bike there, he’d bike down home for the weekend and on Sunday night he’d bike back, jump in the Spitfire and fly back. I actually got to know him quite well after the wartime. He was a very nice person, a very ordinary person, and I knew his son very well, young Alex (he was an Alex as well). But Alex, he only died not many, just a few years back now. He was in his nineties when he died. But one of the stories that went around at Strubby, ‘cause he did also test Lancasters out as well, they got him to test one at Strubby on one occasion, and the story that went around was that he flew along the runway so low that if he’d put his wheels down it would’ve jacked him up [laughs]. Now that was the story. Whether it was true, right or wrong, I have no idea but knowing the way he used to fly I can well imagine it was true. But he still holds the record for a single-engined light aircraft from England to Cape Town and back again, which he did in 1938, I think it was, and that record still holds for that type of plane and somewhere in my records I’ve got a photo of that plane. And as a little lad at school at Sutton on Sea at that time there was a reception at Sutton on Sea for him when he came back and all the school went.
AH: And where was the reception?
DB: In the front of what was The Beach Hotel. Well, the Beach Hotel is no longer there. It was badly flooded in the flood in ’53. It was used afterwards for a time but since then it’s been demolished. And as you go down Sutton High Street the pull over is in front, and the war memorial, and just to the left of that was The Beach Hotel and the car park, and it was in the car park of The Beach Hotel. I shouldn’t think there’s many people now as remembers that.
AH: And what happened at the reception?
DH: Well, all I can remember is being there as a school and him on the platform in front, basically. And he was introduced to us and congratulated on what he’d done. That’s all my recollection is, as I say. I think it was ’38 when he did that so I wasn’t very old.
AH: Have the amount of holiday makers changed going to Sutton on Sea?
DB: Yes, yes. Well, Sutton on Sea has grown enormously [emphasis] since the flood, in fact, because where we lived in Church Lane at Sutton on Sea if we didn’t get the sea in our front garden in winter time we’d had a bad winter. We thought it was marvellous if the sea came over the top but of course there was a big dyke opposite and most of it would run into the dyke and disappear. And there was fields opposite as well. Well the fields are now all developed, all housing and everything like that, and there’s an awful lot of housing gone on there in Sutton on Sea and in Mablethorpe, of course, as well. I don’t know how many times it’s doubled or trebled in size but quite a lot. But the shops down there now are nearly all seaside type shops. They’re not the shops they used to be. There used to be one shop in Sutton on Sea, Miss Johnsons’, which was a ladies outfitters shop, and people from Nottingham used to come there shopping. It was a real high class shop and if you bought something from Miss Johnson’s you’d got something [emphasis]. It was the fashions of the day but it’s gone now, it’s no longer that. It’s a hardware shop or something like that now. And next to it is The Bacchus Hotel and the car park at the left of The Bacchus Hotel used to be The Bacchus Hotel garage and one of my uncle’s worked in that.
AH: So your family, were they around?
DB: My father came from Sutton on Sea. The name Brewster maybe rings a bell. The Brewsters of the Mayflower days. One of my father’s uncles, my father’s brothers [emphasis], he was an elderly uncle of mine, he did some research into the family history. He was a Detective Sergeant in the Police so he was a good man to do that. He sorted out, he went down to Somerset House to sort out and he sorted out that the Brewster family that went over to America on the Mayflower, some generations later some of them came back to this country, and we are descended from that lot and they came back to Orby and they were all blacksmiths in Orby, and so we are descended from them. The original ones came from just outside Gainsborough ‘cause there’s a Brewster Cottage next to the church at Gainsborough and, of course, at one point they sailed from Immingham originally and there’s a monument at Immingham to them sailing there. Well, it was in the middle of the docks on the point where they sailed but now it’s been moved to the village, just opposite the church, because it was all surrounded by big oil tankers in the docks and of course people weren’t allowed in there. Although, I must admit I went in a few times. I was able to from my work. But the, er, my grandfather, he was the son of the blacksmith at Orby. He thought being blacksmithing was too hard work and he moved to Sutton on Sea and he was the first person to have horses on the beach for people to ride on, on the beach at Sutton on Sea, but unfortunately he died when my father was only three so my father never remembered him.
AH: And did they carry on with the horses?
DB: No, no way. My grandmother then sold the house they were in and built a pair of smaller houses in the park at Sutton, in Park Road East, and she moved into one of those and let the other one.
AH: Is that how she survived?
DB: Yeah, and my father was brought up there in that house. He can’t remember being in the other house at all or didn’t remember. He doesn’t now of course. Unfortunately he’s gone. But he didn’t remember the original house, Sidney House, as it was known as. It’s an estate agents now and where the arch was at the side of it to go through to where he’d keep the horses is now a fish ‘n chip café belonging to the fish and ship shop next door. They’ve got that bit of it. So things have changed a lot.
AH: And what did your father do?
DB: He worked for the Alford Drainage Board. He was the Finance and Rating Officer for the Alford Drainage Board and they had an office at Mablethorpe originally, a sub office, and that’s where he worked originally. Then they moved him to the Alford office and he had to move to Alford and he moved up there in 1939.
AH: What did you think of that?
DB: Oh, it was exciting really. We’d only just recently moved in Sutton on Sea from the original house, which didn’t have a bathroom, to a house that had got a bathroom. We moved in, I think it was in the October, and in December we left that house and went to one in Alford without a bathroom again, one that had only got gas lights and a pump outside for water. So we lived a little bit of a spartan life until after the war and then the landlord there put electricity into the house and a water supply and then put a bathroom in later. But it was rather spartan to start with [laughs].
AH: And where did your mother come from?
DB: She came from Stickford and I think she went to Sutton on Sea. She worked for Crawfords, who were bakers down there. She went down ‒ Her elder brother was running a garage there and I think that’s why she went there, I think he found her a job down there working for Crawfords and she worked for them, not Crawfords, Copelands sorry in those days, became Crawfords later. But they, that’s where they met and they married in 1924 at Stickford and that was where my grandfather at that time ‒ he had The Globe Inn at Stickford, the pub there, and that’s where we used to go for our holidays, to the pub.
AH: And how was that?
DB: Oh, we used to love going there. Because my grandfather had got a field as well, where he used to keep chickens and grow potatoes and things like that, and just across the road from the ‒, from his field, was the local cobbler and he had a barrel organ in his place and we used to go along and play it (laughs).
AH: During the floods in Sutton on Sea did you have family still living there?
DB: I had an auntie and cousin living there at that time and they were flooded out. They lived in what had been my grandmother’s house and they were flooded out and my father ‒. They were brought to Alford from there and my father at that time had married again and he was living at Partney, at the farm, and he fetched them to the farm and they lived there for a while.
AH: Did they say anything about the flood?
DB: I’ve got some photographs of it and there’s a heap of sand about as high as this room in front of their house, which came out of their house and out their garden. Oh, I actually saw the flood that night, at Hannah, about what? A couple of mile in land. I was ‒, I got some friends with me staying the night, not staying the night, they come over and were playing cards, my brother was at the Met Office and he was at Manby at work and my ‒, I lived with my sister in law at that time and my brother, and as I say my brother was at work, my sister in law had a friend staying the night and I got two friends down from Well and we were all playing cards. And the baker used to come round late at night, about half past nine at night, the baker would come. And I went to the door. I said ‘It’s a bit rough tonight Mr Heath’. He said ‘Yes, it is. This time the sea is this side of the railway at Sutton on Sea’. I said ‘Come off it, I lived down there. If was splashing over nicely it would be worth going to look at’. I went back in and said to the rest of them ‘The sea is splashing over nicely at Sutton and Mr Heath says he’s heard it’s this side of the railway line’. And one of my friends, he’d got his father’s car, he said ‘Let’s go and look’ and we went off down and we go to Hannah and the house on the corner and all the houses round about had got all the lights on, and by this time it was about ten o’clock at night. Well, by that time, out in the country like that, most people had gone to bed. And we were going up a little rise going up to the church from a farm at Hannah and my friend who was driving pulled up and said ‘Let’s go and look out’ so we pulled up and his brother and myself got out and had a look over the hedge. All you could see was water. That was the sea coming in and we looked down behind and it was coming across the road behind us so Ray went and put his finger in it and tasted it ‘It is the sea, it’s salty’ . So I shouted ‘For Pete’s sake turn the car round, we’re going back’ and by the time we went back, where it had come across was about six inches of water had come across the road, and we went back up. But I didn’t think then, in our own mind, that Sutton would be as badly flooded as it was because, just near where we used to live in Sutton on sea, I’d got some friends down there. There was the estate agent in Sutton and he lived about three doors from where we used to live and I went to help, well we all went down to help him clear his house out. He wasn’t at home the night of the flood so everything was just as he left it, and as I stood in his front room it was my eye level, the water level, and one of these metal buoys, about that big, that they have on fishing nets and such like, had come through his bay window, for one thing, and we found that in the front room. But we took everything out. He salvaged what he could out of his sideboards and that sort of thing, what he thought he could deal with, and the rest of it was just put the hose pipe on. And we put the hose pipe right throughout the house. I know my brother and myself, we dragged the carpet out and we hung it on his clothes line, and the clothes line really sagged but he couldn’t do anything with it. It was way past it. It was covered in sludge and everything. So we did a good move in moving away from there [laughs].
AH: And when you – Did people have time to get out?
DB: There were quite a few casualties all the way down the Lincolnshire coast. I don’t know of any in actual Sutton on Sea but there was some down at Sandilands. One house in Sandilands, it was about ninety per cent washed away. There was two walls standing and one room upstairs and the people were in that room, there was two ladies in that room, and they got out. But the whole of the area was under water. It was dreadful. And after the flood I was working in the planning office at that time at Louth and I was seconded to the River Board, Lincolnshire River Board it was, which is now the Water Authority. They were the authority, you know, sorting everything out and my wife worked for them and her office in Sutton on Sea was flooded out and my father arranged for her and the other girl out of the office to stay with my brother and his wife and me in Alford and we had various people up there as well. Other friends and relations come and stayed. Some of them stayed only one or two nights and went but Olive and Gretta, they stopped for quite a while, and Gretta married one of the other lads that was there. And she lives at, what do you call it? Scremby now, out there, and I married Olive and we were married fifty four years before she died. So it did a good thing in some respects [slight laugh].
AH: Absolutely.
DB: But we had ‒, although it was a very hectic time, I worked in the offices there on the radio to the engineers down there, for the engineers and such like, in the offices at Alford. They took over a whole big two or three storey building in Alford Market Place, which now is no longer here. It’s been demolished since. But I worked the day shift and a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, from the planning office at Lincoln, he did the night shift. We did a twelve hour shift each, eight ‘til eight. People wouldn’t do that now but we did and I know on one occasion I was ‒, Henry [?] had just come on at eight o’clock to take over from me, and one of the engineers came through ‘Can any of you drive?’ I said ‘Yeah’. ‘Take my Landrover down to Mablethorpe to the office down there. They won’t mind. It’s got the radio in it and bring me one back’. So, I jumped in his Landrover with, I think, one of the army blokes. We’d got some army people with us as well. Well, he jumped in with me and we drove down to Mablethorpe. We got in the Landrover there to drive back and it was chug, chug, chug, chug, going at no speed at all. So I said ‘There’s something wrong here somewhere’. And of course it was in four wheel drive, wasn’t it? [laughs] I’d never driven a Landrover until that night. Anyhow, I managed to find out how to get it out of it into ordinary drive and we came back and I think I got my tea that night about 10 O’clock.
AH: And what did your aunt do on the night of the flood?
DB: She went upstairs. She went upstairs out of it. I had a cousin in Mablethorpe who was flooded out. Her husband wasn’t at home. I don’t know where he was that night. And she was sat in the room and she suddenly found her feet were getting wet. That was the first thing she knew that anything was happening. And she went and the children went upstairs but one of the friends that came to stay with us, well two of them, one was this estate agent that I knew in Sutton very well and they’d got a new baby and his sister, no his brother in law that’s right, his wife’s brother, had also got a new baby and it was going to be the christening the following day. Of course, that was all cancelled. Had to be. But they lived in a bungalow in the park in Sutton and they were keeping everything they could out of the water as much as they could, putting up on top of tables and everything, like, trying to keep everything out of the water and I think Frank made a way through into the false roof so he could go up there out the way. But it was very frightening. In one estate at Ingoldwells there was seven people drowned on one estate, the Lovedays Estate as they call it down there. As I say, an estate of bungalows, supposedly built as holiday bungalows, on the seaward side of Roman Bank. Well, of course all of that area up to Roman Bank filled up with water and it came over, over the top, and they’d nowhere to go but they were in a state of, er, ‒. Two or three dozen bungalows in there that had been built at that time (they were still building them at that time) and, er, they, now it’s ‒. Some of the bungalows were left, some were twisted on their foundations and did all sorts. And they were all taken down and now the rest of it is caravans.
AH: Before we started you were talking about a man, a neighbour, was killed during the war, one of the oldest who were killed.
DB: Yeah, Mr Scrimshaw.
AH: Just tell me about him again.
DB: Well, he was in the RAF and he volunteered for aircrew and he was an older gentleman. Well, he was thirty-nine when he was killed. And his daughter worked for my father and after she left my wife actually worked for my father (before we were not going out or anything) and then she ‒. He used to come home on leave and lived just round the corner from us. And he used to come past our house on his way to, up to the town to the pubs for a pint at dinner time, and, er, he used to stop and talk to us on the way past. Like we knew him well, we knew the family well and he, unfortunately, didn’t come back from one raid. And when I was at the memorial centre at Riseholme they looked him up and they found out that he actually flew from Skellingthorpe but they found out the details of it and where he went down and everything.
AH: And what was his role?
DB: I thought he was a navigator but they got him down in some of their records, they showed him as a rear gunner. And they got in some of the records as a flight sergeant and some as a pilot officer so he obviously got promoted during his time in the RAF or in flying crew presumably. But he was in, as I say, just about the end of his tour ‘cause they used to do thirty raids. That was their tour. But I know one person down in Old Leake area, Sid Marshall, down there. I’ve met him a few times and he did two tours. He did over sixty tours of flying. And when the Canadian Lancaster was over here, I can’t remember where he flew from, he flew in the English Lancaster [unclear] from Coningsby, and they flew him in that that day, and they flew back to Coningsby somewhere, and they flew Sid in it and he hadn’t been in a Lancaster for I don’t know how long. But it’s amazing the people who you meet over a period of time and where you’ve been. When I was in the ATC at Manby once I actually sat in the cockpit of a Messerschmitt 163, which was the rocket propelled German fighter. They had one parked up there and that is now part of East Lindsey offices where it was parked in [laughs].
AH: Where had they got that from?
DB: I don’t know. When we went there it was there one day and they took us to show us it and we could sit in the pilot seat. It’s only a one man band like. They also flew a Messerschmitt 188 there for quite a while. Well, they flew it after the war until they couldn’t get any more parts to keep it going and it was scrapped then. I saw it there a few times.
AH: What did you like flying in best?
DB: Well, I think I just liked flying. I don’t think – I enjoyed the flight in the Lancaster ‘cause we flew over the Humber and over Hull and in that area, and one of the interesting things on that particular flight, I was just at the back of the cockpit, stood up in the back of the cockpit, so I could see everything happen. The pilot was there and the flight engineer and there was another lad up there with me in there. He sat down and began to look a bit pale and the flight engineer said ‘Are you alright lad?’ He said ‘I don’t feel very well. He said ‘I’ll cure you’. Stood him up, opened the window and stuffed his head out [laughs]. He wasn’t sick and he wasn’t sick any time in the flight. It cured him [laughs]. We were flying somewhere over the Humber at that time. But drastic treatment. But it worked. It cured him [laughs].
AH: Did your mother work?
DB: No, she was in the Red Cross right through the war. In fact, I’ve got her medals upstairs from that and she was in the Red Cross right through. As far as I remember the only work she did after, when I was a little lad at Sutton on Sea, we used to take in visitors in the summer time and we would all move to the back of the house and the front house was let out, it was let out to visitors, and she would cook and look after them. But my father was seriously ill in ’36 ’37 winter. He didn’t work for about six months and she had saved up to that point a hundred pound. Well a hundred pound at that time was a lot of money but that kept us going right through until he could work again. And for the last fortnight before he actually went back to work he went to Bournemouth for a fortnight’s convalescence down there, him and me mother, and they went down there. And that was the last of money she’d got so it did a good job because he lived ‘til he was eighty three [slight laugh]. Lived for nineteen years on one lung.
AH: What was wrong with your father?
DB: Well, he lost his lung just after we were married. He, er, he worked for the Drainage Board and they’d been sorting out some old records and they were down in the cellar. They were all damp and fusty and he breathed some of that fust in and it stuck in his lung and grew and he had to go down to Bromfield, yeah, Bromfield Hospital in London and they took one lung out. I spoke to the surgeon afterwards. He said when they opened the lung out ‘You know what a fusty loaf of bread looks like?’ He said ‘that was what his lung was like inside’. The other one was OK and he lived another nineteen years on that and he got, I don’t know, pneumonia or something like that in the end and unfortunately he died from that. He got a chest infection anyway.
AH: And what did your mother do in the Red Cross?
DB: I used to be a patient and she used to practice bandaging on me [laughs]. But she worked at a Red Cross group in Alford and she went to that every week, I think it was, and they used to be available to look after all the army and navy personnel or anybody who wanted looking after in the wartime. And they did anything, any accidents and that had happened they were called out and they looked after these people until they could go somewhere different. As I say, I got three or four of her medals upstairs what she had for her services in the Red Cross and I still support the Red Cross.
AH: You said you saw the good sheds burning? Or did you see it?
DB: No, I didn’t see the goods shed burning but it was blown up while we were there and I didn’t know until a long time after we were married, and we lived in New Bolingbrook, that the person who was killed in there was – I know he was a bloke called Bush ‘cause I didn’t know any Bushes at that time but, of course, when I went to New Bolingbrook my wife went to work for B A Bush and Son, the tyre people (and she had twenty-two years working for them) and it was one of their family, Ivor Bush, who ran the depot at, er, well, built the business up basically, it was his uncle who was killed. But I do remember on one occasion there was a raid on during the war and I remember my brother – we all dived into our mother and dad’s bedroom and we could hear planes about and my brother was looking out the window and he said ‘Oh, that’s one of ours just gone past’. With that it opened up with its cannons on the army camp [laughs]. It was a German night fighter and it, the guard at the camp, he dived under the road bridge (there’s a drain went underneath) and he dived right under that and there were shells all round him where he’d been. And also I’ve mentioned Geoff Hadfield, in the Observer Corp. There was an Observer Corp post down Willoughby road, that was the post where he was at, and he was in the place that night, and in the grass field across to it there was cannon fire up to about a hundred yards before it and it started again one hundred yards past. For some reason he’d taken his finger off the trigger, the German pilot had, and the Observer Corp post wasn’t hit but if it had, well, they wouldn’t have a chance because it was a directly in line of fire. I don’t know if that was the night the plane was shot down at Ulceby, near Ulceby Cross, or not, but that was by an intruder. It was shot down by an intruder. There’s a little monument there in the hedge bottom, two of them, and every year there’s a little poppy wreath goes on it. I don’t know who does that. And I actually worked for the Air Ministry at one point rebuilding East Kirkby and Steeping airfields for the Americans so I worked on there and at East Kirkby behind the hangars there. There’s twenty-three acres of concrete and I did the surveys for that. They built a mass parking apron, as they called it then, because by that time when the airfields were built in the war there was these dispersal points all-round the airfields, so they parked all the aircraft round about, so if there was any bombing took place it only took out one or two but, of course, with the modern bombs , if they dropped one on the airfiled it would flatten the lot, so they put all the planes together ‘cause it was easier to look after them and built this mass parking apron, twenty-three acres of concrete. I did the surveys before it was built and then it was designed and built and I supervised it being built.
AH: And when was that?
DB: Er, ’55 ’57 when that was built and it was only used for about a month. I actually joined the Air Ministry as an Assistant Engineer and my post really was as build draughtsman because I had to do a survey of all the buildings on East Kirkby and Spilsby airfields or Steeping as we knew it as. Because they’d all been altered by the Americans over the wartime and there were no records of them. So my first job I was employed at Grantham and then I was posted to East Kirkby because I could live at home and work from there at Alford at that time (there was my brother and sister-in-law over at Alford) and so that’s what I did and so I started off on that, doing this survey of all the buildings there so they got a record of them all. They’d got records of what they should be like but they weren’t [laughs] and I started doing that and then they came on with the part one contract, as they called it, to do the runways and everything and build this mass parking apron and I was transferred over to that group. So I did surveys of the runways at East Kirkby and at Steeping. ‘Cause we did some roller tests on them for safety to see if they were strong enough and they weren’t. We’d put a fifty ton roller over East Kirkby and a two hundred ton roller over Steeping and when they’d finished rebuilding Steeping and they did a test on it, the test should have come out at forty LCN, as it was called in those days, Lowest Common Number (they got a special testing rig that gave these figures). It came out at nine so it wasn’t fit to use and it never has been used apart from the odd light aircraft landing on it now and again but East Kirkby was better. The asphalt, the hot rolled asphalt put in went wrong for some reason, I don’t know why, but it went wrong and it was rotten underneath. The surface was good, if you dug the surface up you could just pick it up with your hands there was no strength in it, so what caused that –? When I left them they were testing, still testing, to find out what caused, what the problem was. But the Americans actually did use East Kirkby for one month for a big NATO exercise and they had big strata tankers in there flying for this month and then it was closed down. But they were testing when I was there and the junior engineer above me, he was posted to South Uist in the Outer Hebrides and I didn’t want to go out there ‘cause I wanted to get married. So I began looking round for another job and I went to work for Holland County Council at Boston. I got a job there. And then from there moved to the Lindsey County Council at Lincoln and then to East Lindsey from there. So I had a few trips round Lincolnshire but never moved out.
AH: And was that doing planning all the time?
DB: Yes, apart from rebuilding the airfields I was in planning. I went back to planning from there and started qualifying again and managed to qualify as a planner when I was at Lincoln and that stood me in good stead for a job at East Lindsey and I became the Assistant Director of Planning there. And I had that for nineteen years before I retired and then I worked for the best part of three years, just two days a week, at Chattertons the solicitors in town here, as a consultant for them. They wanted me, they’d been after me for a long time, ‘cause I knew them very well. So I had two days a week working for them and then I decided it was time I did retire.
AH: And when did you move to Horncastle?
DB: 1969. Had this house built and the builder was next door at another house. He lived in there and I built next door to him. And my son was five. He was five on the one day and we moved here the next day and he started school the next week in Horncastle. We’d arranged that, like, and the school at that time was a private school at the bottom of the hill and it was er ‒, my wife at that time, worked for Bushes. And her offices were across the road, of course, so she could see him in school and out of school he used to come across the road to her and be in the office with her until she came home.
AH: Did you have any other children?
DB: No, just the one boy. No others arrived. Just the one. That’s him and his wife at the bottom there.
AH: That’s nice.
DB: They were going to some function there.
AH: Well, is there anything else you’d like to say?
DB: No, I don’t think there is at the moment. But if you can think of any other questions you want to ask, yeah, I’m quite happy to answer them or I’ll try to give some indication of what happened.
AH: Did you have air raid shelters?
DB: We didn’t have an air raid shelter, no, but people did have them. But we used to go under the stairs, in a cupboard under the stairs, go into that when there was an air road on, if it was bad. Other times we’d get under the bed. But a lot of people had Anderson shelters in their gardens or Morrison shelters, which they’d have in the house ‘cause they were a steel frame shelter that you could have in your ‒ and you could sleep in them or on them. A lot of people slept on them, put mattresses on them. If there was a raid you went underneath.
AH: And what about rationing? Do you remember rationing?
DB: Oh yeah, things were rationed. Like, we never saw oranges or bananas or that sort of thing throughout the war. They were just disappeared. I worked from being thirteen to going to work at sixteen. I worked in the local butchers and I used to deliver rationed meat, it was all rationing at the time, and I used to bike round the area with a proper butcher’s basket on the front and a tray and I used to take the meat to the houses but it was cut up and rationed, cut up into sizes, certain sizes. Some things weren’t rationed. Sausages weren’t rationed but, of course, they hadn’t got a lot of pork and they used to put any scrap of meat they got anywhere went into sausages. And corned beef came to the butcher’s shops in very large tins in those days. I think they were ten shillings a tin, or something like that, and some of that used to go in sausages. It wasn’t rationed either but I’ve cut those up, cut big tins of corned beef up, to make sausages but you made do and it was amazing what you could do. And my mother was an excellent cook, fortunately, and she could make a meal out of nothing, basically. She could make a meat pie, or fish pie out of a tin of salmon you know, if you could get salmon. I know the only salmon you could usually get was grade three, which was the poorest of the salmon, and I remember on one occasion my grandfather was staying with us and he was taken ill with food poisoning afterwards. It didn’t affect anybody else but just he got it and unfortunately that was my mother’s father. Unfortunately his wife died, my grandmother died during the war. They kept the pub at Stickford and then he kept the pub for a year and had a housekeeper to look after things for him but then he packed it up and retired and he lived amongst the family and he used to come to us for so long and one of my aunties and uncles for so long, stop at all of them.
AH: What was he like?
DB: A little tubby fella [laughs], a real publican, and he worked originally for Salby, Sons and Winch, which was a brewery in Alford and then he got the pub at Stickford. It was one of their pubs and he did that. And he had a pony and trap at one time and he used to do a bit of carrying around the area but his horse would never pass a pub, it stopped at every one [laughs]. He was quite a character. He used to weigh, oh, fifteen or sixteen stone and he was only about five foot six at the most. He was a little barrel.
AH: And what was his pub called?
DB: The Globe at Stickford. It’s not a pub any longer. It was taken over as a pub after he’d retired out of it. Other people had it and somebody called Burton took it first, and then one of the Catchpoles took it I think after that, but it packed up being a pub many years back now. It’s just a house. But one of my uncle’s, my mother’s brothers, he had a garage across the road and there’s still a garage there but it’s not the garage that my uncle had. It’s totally changed and the original house that they lived in, which was a little shop and post office as well, it’s all gone and different houses there now. But I did meet one of my cousins from there last week. He lives at Woodhall. But my grandfather used to come and he’d bring his bike with him and he used to bike round the area. But we kept pigs in the war time. My father rented a sty just at the end of the road. And there was about five or six sties in there and he rented one of them and we kept pigs, so we’d always got some bacon or ham or something uncut during the year, and most people did that who could do. It was a way of life. I used to like it when they used to kill the pig ‘cause I was very fortunate that I could taste sausage meat before it was cooked and tell you if it needed more salt or pepper or sage or whatever was wanted in it. I could taste it and I used to go round all our friends that kept pigs as well when they were killing them and putting them all away and be tasting their sausage meat [laughs]. Before that, oh, they always used to test it as well. They used to put some in the oven and cook it a bit and they would taste it cooked but I could taste it raw.
AH: How would you realise that?
DB: Just by tasting it I think and I liked it. But as a teenager I was a good hand.
AH: And did you grow vegetables?
DB: Yes, we had a vegetable garden there and a little lawn and just a vegetable plot and we had fruit trees at the bottom of it and next door to us there was a house. It was a semi-detached house in Alford we had. A police sergeant lived in that side and we lived in this one and on the other side was a new house that had just been built, was pre-war, and they were builders in Alford. Two brothers had a building business there. One of his grandsons or one of his brother’s grandsons still runs it. Woods the Builders in Alford. It’s still there and behind them there’s a big orchard and everything and the man who lived beyond that side, in the next house, his garden come right round and took all that in. He had about half an acre of garden and chickens and everything, and he had one, a James Grieves apple tree in there, which they are one of the earliest eating apple trees. And all the fallen ones he used to push through the hedge for my brother and myself. These were the gifts we used to take [slight laugh].
AH: What was your address in Alford?
DB: 16 Chauntry Road. The house we lived in at Sutton on Sea just before we, not the one just before we left, the one before that was St Clements Lodge and it’s still St Clement’s Lodge ‘cause I passed it not all that long ago, and it’s been painted white outside. But when I was at the planning office at East Lindsey we had a planning application to do some alterations in that house so I said’ I’m doing a survey at that one’ and I went down and knocked on the front door and this lady came and I explained who I was from the planning office and I said ‘Can I have a look and see what you want to do but’ I said ‘actually I’m here just being blooming nosy’. She said ‘Why?’ ’Because’ I said ‘I used to live in here until I was about eight years old and wondered what it was like now’. I went in. The staircase was exactly the same with the same cubby-hole, mahogany coloured. I went in the front room. The fireplace was the same fire place. It was a Victorian fireplace with tiles down the side. It was just as I remembered it and I went through into the back room. It was ‒ I think it had got new windows and that in it. But the others hadn’t and then the kitchen, that’s right, they were rebuilding the kitchen area ‘cause it was built on the back. And then I said ‘can I have a look upstairs as well?’ and she said ‘Yes, of course, yeah’ and I went upstairs and the front bedrooms were the same, three front bedrooms it had got, that’s right, and a back bedroom. And on the way through to the corridor to the back bedroom was a little alcove. Well, my father had a bed made for that for my brother to sleep in. It was smaller than a full size single bed but it was big enough for a ten year old boy and he had a bed made to fit in that alcove. I said ‘Here then now’ ‘cause it was a door. She said ‘That’s the toilet in there’. I said ‘Our toilet was across the yard’ [laughs]. We did have a flush toilet but it was across the yard in the house next door basically. Well, next door was a shop. It was in one of their outbuildings but that was our toilet and I think the reason for that was, like, our house belonged to part of the family that was next door, it belonged to the wife’s parents I think, down there. They were a well-respected local family at Sutton on Sea, the Wileymans, and Cass[?], she lived next door. She was married to Mr Johnson and they had the shop next door to us. I used to go round as a little boy and sit in there, helping making orders up and that, and I used to help them make ice cream in the outbuilding at the back. They had an ice cream maker that you wound. Nowadays you have the electric to go round but you had to wind it, put ice in it, pour the liquid in, wind it round until it made the ice cream and take it out again, put it in the shop and sell it. And you could buy an ice cream for a ha’penny , the old ha’penny.
AH: Did they flavour it or was it vanilla?
DB: It was all vanilla. All vanilla ice cream. You didn’t have any flavoured in those days, not like they do now with about twenty-five different flavours.
AH: And in what road is St Clements Lodge? Where’s St Clement’s Lodge?
DB: St Clement’ Lodge? In Church Lane, Sutton on Sea. It was, if you go to Sutton on Sea, turn right, you come down the high street, turn right at the end of it virtually, there’s a car park there, you turn right down York road and then follow it through, past the playing fields. The road actually now goes round and you go off there and you go round there to the end, it turns right very sharply, and we were about the third house. There was a house on the corner, then there was a shop, and we were next door to that. But as you turn off down that road past the playing fields the first house there is made partly of railway carriages, two downstairs and two up. In the middle, downstairs, that was their lounge. Upstairs, each bedroom was a compartment from the railway carriage. Some of my friends used to live there as a boy and he had a model railway set, big enough to go right round the house, but in those days, of course, you had no electricity, no electric railways, they were all mechanic. You had to wind them up so you had to have someone at the far end to wind it up again to send it back. And then he got very modern. He got one that worked with steam and methylated spirit and it would go right round on one filling. But that’s been sold now. I don’t know who lives there now. But Frank, he kept it for a long time and I saw only a few years ago Frank Unwin died and it was sold. But just past there, there’s two more bungalows that had just two railway carriages downstairs, one’s got a pointed roof and one had a tin roof going over. But they were there, they were built, I think, in the 1920s or something like that. But quite unique.
AH: And that’s near Church Lane?
DB: Yeah, I think, is it Furling Lane, they call that bit of it? It goes from – you go down the high street, turn into York Road and go straight on down behind the sand hills, and there’s a playing field out on your right hand side, and then the first lot of bungalows, there’s a little group, you see a group of bungalows. I think it’s called Surfside, or something like that, and that one’s built on what used to be a pond. I remember sliding on that as a boy. Now it’s a group of bungalows. I hope they’re built on rafts or something or something to make them safe. But as I say, you keep on behind the sand hills, right at the back. There’s some interesting little places in Sutton on Sea when you go round. In the centre of Sutton on Sea there’s a car park in the middle there. Well, on that used to be, when we were boys, was some big wooden sheds and they belonged to a Mr Sheardown the local second hand furniture dealer. And they were full of furniture (hello, Tracey wants me ‒). But when we actually flitted in Sutton on Sea pre-war days (oh sorry, beginning of war time ‘cause it was October we flitted) we actually flitted in a horse and dray and the person who flitted us was the man who run the donkeys on Sutton on Sea, Harry Bucknall, and I earned my first money ever leading donkeys on the beach at Sutton on sea when I was seven years old. I got about sixpence for the week I think, something like that, which I thought was marvellous. I used to go down in the morning and fetch the donkeys up from the field to his house where he had the stables for them, get them saddled up and all that, take them to the beach, and have them out on the beach, and they’d be there three or four hours, and take them back, and take all the gear off, and take the donkeys down the field again [laughs].
AH: That’s very young.
DB: Yeah. And when I took my son, when he was, what would he be? About three, no more than that, I took him down to the beach for a ride on the donkeys and it was the still the same man running the donkeys, Harry Bucknall, and he looked at me and said ‘I took you to be born!’ He actually took my mother to Louth Hospital. He had a taxi business as well as his donkeys and he took my mother to hospital in his taxi when I was born. And he said ‘You’d better give him a free ride’, that’s my lad, he got a free ride on the donkeys (laughs). So it’s, it’s a small world you know when you go round. Like, I came to work in Louth in 1948 and lived down River Head in the little council houses down there. I lodged in number two, I think it was. I can’t remember the numbers now but it was the second one along, I know that, and the people I lodged with, the man was the ‒ he looked after all the warehouses down there, down River Head. They were all in the one family, one big ownership of the Jacksons, and he worked for the Jacksons and looked after all those, ‘cause in those days they were all full of corn and all that sort of thing. They’re all changed into something different now, those that are left. One of them used to be a restaurant. I don’t know if it still is. It was down Thames Street that was. I have an idea they might have had a fire there at one time but I can’t remember. And further along there, originally, there was the gas works. They became Ludermeaties [?]. ‘Cause Ludermeaties[?] were in Eve Street at one time, off James Street, and they outgrew that business and moved into the gas works down Thames Street. I know a lot of history of these places. I’ve been around too long.
Ah: Well, I think that’s all. Thank you very much.
DB: No problem. Do you want me to sign that, do you?
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ABrewsterDG160617
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Interview with David Brewster
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:31:23 audio recording
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Anna Hoyles
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2016-06-17
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David Brewster grew up in Alford, and has memories of watching the Luftwaffe bombing convoys at sea, a dog fight and watching bombers take off from RAF Strubby and RAF East Kirkby.
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Horncastle
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Christine Kavanagh
Beaufighter
bombing
childhood in wartime
crash
He 111
home front
incendiary device
Lancaster
memorial
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Strubby
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/223/3367/ACastletonGJ160719.1.mp3
2488179b194344b8120c1ea4daec0025
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Title
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Castleton, Gerald John
Gerald John Castleton
Gerald J Castleton
Gerald Castleton
G J Castleton
G Castleton
Description
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One oral history interview with Gerald John Castleton (1605349 Royal Air Force).
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-07-19
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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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Castleton, GJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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PL: Ok. I’m in the home of, It’s Pam Locker and I’m in the home of Mr Gerald John Castleton of *** on the 19th of July 2016 and I’m interviewing Mr Castleton in his home so can I just start John by saying thank you very much indeed on behalf of the Bomber Command Memorial Trust for allowing us to interview you. And I guess I’ll start by saying do you want to just tell us a little about your, your family?
GJC: Yeah. My family?
PL: Yes.
GJC: Well, as the war started here in Southsea and the first bombing my mother and father went to live at Cosham. It was a bit safer. And I stayed in the house on my own. From then on I had different jobs. I did demolition. I did a training course in metal but I was naughty at the factory and I got instant dismissal with a friend and I won’t say why, you know but I really wanted to work for this firm that was putting up the chimneys, a hundred and, two hundred foot chimneys on the [electrolyte?] company with the furnaces and everything and I used to be up there and that was in the forties and sometimes the aircraft come around. We weren’t supposed to stay up there, you know. But from then on I went demolition and then I wanted this job at the labour exchange and they said you go so and so and I said, ‘I’m not going,’ you know. And they said, ‘You’ll get your calling up papers,’ you know. I was eighteen then and I ignored it. I got my job and the next morning, in forty eight hours I got my calling up papers from the labour exchange [laughs] and they sent me, sent me to the army recruitment office and I’d already, I’d tried before to join the air force but they told me to join the, you know, the cadets and get some in. Anyhow, I didn’t do that. Anyhow, when they sent me down to the army office I went into the air force and I didn’t know it then I suppose but they were getting short on men. They were taking the fitters and that, putting them into aircraft and as they couldn’t stand it so I joined. I waited a year to join. I joined on 20th, 20th of December and I went, I went to Oxford, you know [laughs]. Keble College. For forty eight hours, you know, doing basic maths and a little essay and I thought I’d passed and anyhow when I eventually goes in to the air force I was going in as a gunner/radio operator but I had an aptitude test for radio and they scrubbed that and they, I didn’t know then but I got made into an engineer’s course which was a direct, I was direct entry number six and from then on it was six, three, six - half a year in a classroom. We used to exam every week verbally of bits and pieces. The old aircraft and that. Yeah. And while I was in training I witnessed two Spits colliding one afternoon. It was a lovely sunny afternoon. One pancaked into the, into the station. The other went into a field at the back and then, but this is wartime, you know and so many things happened, you know. Anyhow, I did my six weeks, six months rather and we were saying so and so’s passed and someone says, ‘He’s been shot dead.’ And we said, ‘No. He can’t be,’ you know. You didn’t believe it. He’d only been in the classroom. But that’s what it was then. Anyhow, I got, I passed out. That’s the only time they gave me a decent uniform ‘cause I had second hand boots, tatty old trousers and a tunic which was near worn out so I sewed my new tapes on them and went down the road. I didn’t go a hundred yards, got ordered to go back and they dished me out with a new suit. You got a, you got sheets once you became aircrew. Before that you just had blankets. Yeah. And of course in training you were doing two guards a week. One station guard, one wing guard and a spell in the cook house peeling spuds. You know. It was a, and you used to get a ration of cigarettes in them days. Twenty five fags or something like that. ‘Cause your money was low wasn’t it, you know? I think it was about a guinea a week you know and I used to send five shillings home to my mum but had some good times there though. Anyhow, eventually I get sent to Rufforth. That’s outside York and there we crewed up. Must have done about ten hours training and the first time I went up I was as sick as a dog. I fell out the aircraft. I couldn’t stand. And I can remember the officer saying, ‘How long has he been like this?’ And I was sliding up and down inside. That was, that was terrible. Anyhow, they sent me to the doc and they gave me tablets and that cured me and I found after I’d been flying a fortnight like I could leave them off and I never got sick on an operation. It’s funny that, you know. And I went from Rufforth then we got posted to the squadron and that’s, they all decided I hadn’t had leave for, I had a week earlier in the year but I had nothing, you know and they said they got our crew together. We were on that night and I was, I protested, you know. I said, and I know it sounds corny but I did. I kicked up and I said, ‘I’d like to see my parents.’ I mean once ‘cause [there was those tales you were getting?] Anyhow, they, they scrubbed, the crew already had, they all went on leave and I was put with another crew and he wrote a book, “The Pilot Walks Home” ‘cause he got shot down the next trip but they all got out, you know. Yeah, but I went. It was the worst night of my life. I’d never kept a proper log, I did it all off the instruments, they couldn’t believe it when we landed. And I said you know I can do that lot and I can remember 6 o’clock in the morning walking down the road and getting a lift on a lorry full of old tires into York. Yeah. That was my first trip and I had my, my lonely er you got these leaves but when you got home everyone was working or, or your mates were in the services or something. [?] They were great days though when you look it and the life in York during while the bombing were, on the bombers. A girl gave me a theatre seat. I could always remember that. In the front row and I had too much to drink and fell over the wall, you know. But I did have an unusual thing. I went down and used to go to The Ouse Inn. It was a little pub down on the river and I used to come out of there, I used to get in a rowboat and have a row and I’m rowing this out but who should I see? My brother in law. He’s in the King’s Scots, King’s Scottish Borderers you know. The Cosby’s. Yeah. I won’t mention the girl. A nice girl. But then when after about, I did about five trips and the thing I remember mostly about them is Flamborough Head. You know coming over the, over the, just near Hull, Bridlington. Out over there and you could, in the distance you would see Flamborough Head and you’d see the Northern Lights. Lovely at night. I liked that. I found, strangely enough, on bombing raids you got the odd bump and that, you know, but I used to, you had, and in the Lancaster er Halifax you had to move back to the centre of the aircraft to change tanks and that and I used to sit there ready to change my tanks and it was a certain peace you know. It was really nice but but er then frightening things of searchlights. Yeah. But like I said I was lucky. I had a good life and I enjoyed that and the night I was shot down it was all over in seconds. We’d gone through a barrage and I was stood in position and I saw a little flame of light come through the wing and it, within minutes, seconds had shot back to the tail and the wing peeled off. All the top just peeled away and it’s, I didn’t see it then but I looked out the back and I saw this trace and I thought, ‘They’re not trying to shoot us from the ground are they?’ It wasn’t. It was a fighter wasn’t it? Tracing. He drove in. He hit us. Nobody was hit in it though. There was this, ripped up the floor a bit and he broke away over our port wing and the next thing I know is the skipper tells the mid upper because he’s only a kid really to look in the dark side. Don’t look at the fire. He said he was hot and he said don’t look at the fire. Turn to the dark side, you know and me he gave the order to release the locks. Well, when you think about it for no reason at all whatever went through his mind at the state of the aircraft he should have given the, I ponder with this now, he should have given a baling out ‘cause I never moved ‘cause he didn’t tell me to bail out. [I knew better to do that] and while I was struggling to get to the midships to get to the locks I looks around by that and then daylight inside the aircraft with the fire and I could see two of them baling out the nose and I thought [laughs] ‘Something’s not right here.’ Anyhow, straightaway I made my way. I picked my way, I picked up my chute, made my way to the front and there’s the bomb aimer standing there. He never had his chute on or nothing and I don’t know where, you don’t know what goes through men’s minds do you? They did nothing and they, they went so. Anyhow, I just jumped straight through and the wings then, I could always remember as a I come past the pilot I tapped him on the leg and the wings were coming up, engines still running flat out and we were going into a spin and that’s what made it difficult getting to the escape. Anyhow, I got through, fell back and oh that’s lovely. I can remember now how cool and suddenly I remembered I ought to pull my chute and it was clipped the wrong side. I went like that and there was nothing there. Luckily I just went like that and used the other hand and I opened it up and I looked around. I thought it’s totally black. I couldn’t see a fire anywhere. And suddenly I looked down like that and that was underneath me. I covered my face and as I covered my face there was an explosion and I landed on my back. And I stood up and I was embarrassed saying all this but I relive and relive that. I stood up. I cursed. I swore. Ridiculous really. Suddenly, I dropped on my knees.
[pause]
And I thought of my mother and father and I thought, ‘You sodded up their Christmas.’ [laughs] but the aircraft was in front of my a hundred and fifty yard away. The back end was still standing and there was one pile of, what’s that, I thought four were in it and I stood there while it burned and then I thought, then I turned around and I covered my chute up. I put it under some bushes and that and started walking in the night and it was like a heath. Mass of bushes and that sort of thing. Anyhow, I came to a road and I started off along the road and as I as I started along the road I looked up and I could only see shadows because there was no wind, no movement and I see a barn and I thought, ‘Well I’ll get my head down. Have a bit of rest.’ I got in this barn, found a sack and laid down with this sack and suddenly I heard a noise and I got up and I went towards the doors, big doors and looked out the crack and I could see three figures and, with a lamp coming towards the barn and you don’t know what, whether they’re guards and that and I think well there’s no good doing anything here. Anyhow, I’m not going anywhere with these flying boots. So I stood in front of the lights. They came up. Held my hands out like that. Stood in front of the light and they took me into the farm house. Well, evidently, well I think they were, they must have been because no German would be working on the farm the farmer and there was these two young blokes and they took me into the farmhouse. None of them spoke. I tried, said gendarmes and silly words like that and I got nothing out of them but you won’t believe this the one sat in the corner they were laughing and he played Tipperary on a mouth organ. It’s unbelievable isn’t it? Yeah. Anyway, they kept me there and then the Gestapo came. Two. And they called me English bastard. That’s the first. Women and children baby murderer. And I said some things. What about Pompey, you know. Anyhow, they takes me down the local, there’s a little wooden bench on a chain against the wall. That was for the night. The two, the navigator and the bomb aimer er the navigator and the wireless op were already there. They’d been taken so they must have come down near the aircraft and all but we had to stay there. Well we slept there and six in the morning we were taken outside and that’s was the only time I felt a little bit uneasy. It was a little stone courtyard, they stood us against a wall and said, explained to us we’re going, you’re going to go to the station, you are going to walk down the middle of the road, the guards will be either side. So the three of us had to walk down with the guards each side and when we got down there, there was another engineer been picked up. He’d been hit with a shovel though ‘cause you never know. You could understand them I suppose, it’s just your luck isn’t it. If you’re going to land somewhere where you’ve dropped bombs you’re going to get it in the neck aren’t you? But anyhow we waited for the, the train. We got on the train and we, ordinary train. We sat there. Two guards. They were drinking schnapps and carving up a loaf. Never spoke to us or nothing, you know. And they stayed like that and they took us all the way into Frankfurt. Frankfurt we went into the, into the cooler and all the Yanks, there was a load of Yanks with us, been shot down and they were all in their underwear ‘cause they used to take all their, they used to have all the flying kit you know. The old leather coats and that and the Germans used to have all that off them and they’d be standing there in those big electric boots that were no good for anything. Standing in them you know with no, in their underwear and the officer who was in charge of us we went on the tram and the tram someone wrote in the paper the other day about it. They remembered the tram. The tram to the, where we were locked up and the chap in charge of that turns out, he was a Nazi but he turned out to be from New York but Germans that worked overseas or anything like that if they went back to Germany or anything they automatically got snatched and put into uniform. Yeah. Yeah. Strange isn’t it? Anyhow, then I started my confined to, to my little wooden box.
PL: So where were you taken to, John?
GJC: Pardon?
PL: Where were you taken to?
GJC: Where er -
PL: Whereabouts were you taken to, when you became a prisoner of war?
GJC: Whereabouts I was?
PL: Where was the camp where you were taken to?
GJC: Er
PL: Was that near Frankfurt?
GJC: Er well no it must have been a couple of hours train ride to Frankfurt. I’ve got it on paper somewhere. What’s the name, but um you were taken up there anyhow and you spend, I spent from the 21st to New Year’s Eve in solitary.
PL: Good gracious.
GJC: I was taken out once and they asked me where I was from, where’s your identification and I said I’m wearing the King’s uniform and I left it at that and they put me back inside again. They all seemed rather nice [at times?] yeah. But there was a slice of bread. One guard used to unlock the door, the other’d throw a slice of black bread on the bed and you’d get a tin of, a cup of mint tea. Used to get that every day. Mint tea. And when we were at the end, New Year’s Eve, I can always remember it, we had salmon and potatoes. Tinned. Through the Red Cross. That seems so ridiculous doesn’t it? You know. Yeah. But one of the most unusual things that happened apart from the navigator saying he wanted to recommend, we should recommend Lou for a medal and they were the sort of things that always get up my back. I could never see the point. I know some people earn them, they do and that but when it goes to people I can’t understand it and I said, ‘What for?’ Well, to him maybe he saved his life but he also neglected Nobby I think. He should have given a bale out order.
PL: So was this -
GJC: We used to practice it.
PL: So is this the pilot -
GJC: Why didn’t he do it?
PL: So this was the pilot -
GJC: Yeah.
PL: And what, and his name was?
GJC: Cable.
PL: Cable.
GJC: His name, yeah. Lou. Really, a dour sort of bloke but the pair of them Lou and the navigator who I fell out with were always talking about what they were going to do together. Not, didn’t mix with the rest of the crew. No, we’re going to go on Mosquitos. We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. To me that’s not done is it, you know. I took offence to it anyhow and as he carried it he carried it on. I went to meet him twice at Chichester where he lived and I, he spoke to me but it was hard for him I think. Anyhow, so really the whole crew bust up.
PL: So did you, did you all survive that crash? Did the crew, the whole crew survive it?
GJC: Did the crew survive?
PL: The crash. When you were, when you were shot -
GJC: No. No.
PL: Down? No.
GJC: No. Three died straight out didn’t they? The Germans told us that. Your crew. I thought four had gone but Roly had baled out from the turret, you know. That’s the rear gunner. He bailed out from the turret but Nobby, the skipper and the bomb aimer they died. Yeah. Killed on impact. That what they got it down as. But that night, New Year’s Eve, this is unbelievable. A naval officer, um a German officer came there to see a British navigator. Youngster he was. And it was his son. Now, and it came to the final end at the end of the war we were taking people in into the camp. His mother came there to be with her son. She knew her son was there and she came. Unbelievable isn’t it?
PL: So she [coughs] sorry, she was a German was she? His mother.
GJC: No. English.
PL: So how did it work that they were -
GJC: Well she’d married, I suppose she’d married the German, she’d had a baby but whether she’d had it in England or what but -
PL: Extraordinary.
GJC: He was, he was -
PL: So she was interned in the camp with her son?
GJC: Pardon?
PL: She was interned in the camp with her son?
GJC: No. She was, she was living a normal life I think. She was married to the German. She was living that life. It was only when things got rough and the Russians turned up she made her way into our camp. That’s only roughly I got it but it’s a story. I think it’s well known. Yeah. And one of the quietest mornings was when the camp, camp um ended. There wasn’t a German in sight. It was quiet and there was hundreds of horsemen. Come outside and there were Russians on horseback. Yeah. And they gave us a half a dozen tins of beans er sacks of beans and a cow. [laughs] Yeah. And when you see them on the move the one side of the road had horse and carts and the other side would be tanks and that. They were all moving. I had a good time the last two or three weeks when the Germans left, you know.
PL: So tell me about your life in the camp. What was it like being in the camp? How long were you there for?
GJC: Eighteen months. Oh, I had, I had appendicitis er made me way to sick quarters on my own. I was in agony. They left me on a stretcher for about six hours then eventually they took me outside to the [santenair?] or whatever they called it. It was wooden huts but they had double glazing, you know and two French doctors. And they said to me, ‘Oh young man.’ I got there and anyhow they sat me on a table in my shirt and I lay back and they, they gave me chloroform out of the bottle, you know, and operated on me and two or three of my mates or two or three mates was at the side watching, you know. Yeah, ‘cause if anything] the sanitation was vile inside the camp and even the hospital. There was only a pit and that was inside but I suppose you, it’s obvious. You’ve got to do something like that, isn’t it? They were pits. About forty seats. Yeah. Yeah.
PL: So how many of you were in the camp? Roughly.
GJC: This, in our camp? Must have been thousands. There was, there was six, what’s it say on there. One of them there is a, what’s the name of the camp there? Is it. That’s the documents when I was taken. That’s when I was taken prisoner. That one. And that, yeah that’s the camp. I was in these, I think. Opposite the, opposite the gate. Two hundred.
PL: You were in one of the long buildings.
GJC: Yeah. Yeah and the Russians, well, there was all sorts in them, you know. Yeah. They used to keep there, it was rumoured they used to keep their dead to have them counted ‘cause they get their rations that way. Quite a few were walking around. They let them out. I don’t know why. There was a load of French, Italian. Poor Italians. They used to give them the dog’s life ‘cause half were fighting for Germany weren’t they and half, half were Emmanual. Emmanual they used to say. When I had my operation the chap looking after me he was running around me all the time. An Italian. He must have been six foot two. He was enormous. I mean, the boys were always taking the mickey out of you if you had, it didn’t matter what happened like water up your bed and things like that. And he’d, I used to go, ‘Guido.’ He used to come running. Yeah. Had a little Italian in there with one arm. One arm, one leg. All on one side and they used to pick him up and lay him out on the grass. You know, they tried to get him going with a broom handle, with a broom like but - . I had another one there. Air force he was. He got shot getting through a window because our windows all they were with a bit of barbed wire over them. They were so big, the huts, two hundred people and that, you just used to cover them up in the winter with a bit of, with cardboard or something, you know. From the Red Cross boxes. Yeah. And he got, he got shot through the hip, I suppose it was and he lay in bed and he had his legs stretched. He had a bucket of sand to hold his legs down. Two of my mates were repatriated. Well they weren’t mates. They were army. They were captured on Leros and Ron, he got a paralysed arm and the other one, he had cancer and he died on the, on the Spanish border being repatriated. Yeah. Yes, hundreds of, in there. Not much said about the bombing is there?
PL: So what was life like in, in the camp, John?
GJC: What was what?
PL: What was life like in the camp? What did you do to pass the time?
GJC: Obviously we all went walking. Everybody walked. You were afraid to run [laughs] And there was one dumbbell. It was a hundred kilo I think it was. Old fashioned one, you know, with the big iron balls. And that used to, and you could walk around there and you could pick that up. I came home quite fit actually and about three weeks home and I was back to normal. Yeah. Yeah I had, I had a tan. I was, yeah that was, not all, some were morose. Stick in their bunks and they don’t seem all there. It’s strange, you know. I mean, I used to go out at the end of the war when the fighting and that, when the Russians first got there so for three weeks the war was still going I used to go around and there would be all sorts of things that would - I remember seeing an old boy lying in his great big house, like this, laying in the pathway in his long johns and a pair of boots on and he’s, he’d obviously been shot ‘cause he’s laid back there and someone stuffed a pillow over his head and his hands like that. I always remember it because his hands laid back like that and he had his pipe in his hand. You know. Yes. Strange. Yeah. Went to a farm one day. Tried milking a cow. That didn’t work. And there were Russians in this farm. A German was making boots, sewing boots. A really smart farm it was, the bedrooms and that and in, in the, what would be like the kitchen was a half a pig smoked, you know, hanging up. We was always looking for [laughs], we got more than we bargained for there. He cut a bit of the bacon off and tossed it and he gave us a big onion and that was the meal. And the Russky, he looked at us, we tried biting that, cried like and he picks the big onion up and he eats it. Yeah. Strange.
PL: So this was after you were liberated from the camp.
GJC: Yeah.
PL: Yeah.
GJC: Yeah.
PL: So what was -
GJC: Yeah.
PL: The food like in the camp? What did you get to eat?
GJC: What? After the camp?
PL: In the camp?
GJC: Mostly skilly.
PL: What’s skilly?
GJC: Well its dried veg, you know, chopped up like you get here. You get a mixed veg don’t you? But you used to have it there. It was like, dried and they’d, they’d you’d get it and you used to make your own trays cut up. You had, salmon was a common thing because it was always in the Red Cross. You might have to serve, share it between two [?] four of you trying, from the Red Cross. Whatever turned up? There might only be enough for, you wouldn’t get one for each of ourselves like. Yeah. But we, and oh and spuds. You got spuds every day. Maybe four with their skins. Yeah.
PL: And what about the Red Cross? How often did you get things from the Red Cross?
GJC: How what?
PL: How often did you get something from the Red Cross?
GJC: Oh.
PL: Or was it just random?
GJC: OH it could be three or four weeks or something like that and then it would be shared, you know. We used to look forwarded to the American really because the American they used to, whereas with our Red Cross they would stuff it up with paper you know to what’s that, the Americans would stuff cigarettes in, you know. And you could, it was and that was wealth in a, people sell their life for fags. I used to, I used to get twenty five fags. Half used to go on either jam or coffee. Somebody’s have coffee. I’d give them twenty five er twelve fags for it. They had a price, you know, so many. Even buy German bread with fags. Fags could buy anything. ‘Cause there was some Poles taken prisoner and the amount of stuff that was sent to them from South America that the Jewish side oh it was, and it all got through. It’s amazing.
PL: So what was the connection there?
GJC: Well it used to come through on the, on the rail and the Germans would never touch it. That’s, that’s was the worst thing a German could do was touch any of that. He’d be on the eastern front. Yeah.
PL: So, so the stuff that came from South America.
GJC: Yeah.
PL: That was collected by the Jewish community and sent to the Poles.
GJC: Yeah. Yeah.
PL: Gosh.
GJC: Yeah. Oh I had a pair of slippers. They turned up in Brighton after the war from South America. A pair of slippers. Funny isn’t it, you know? Strange. Yeah.
PL: So after you were liberated by the Russians from the camp tell me about your, your journey home
GJC: How many?
PL: Tell me about your journey home once you were liberated.
GJC: Well I didn’t. I stayed with Germans. [Kurt ?] he was a teacher. I stayed with him but that was before the end of the war and the Russians threatened anyone who was harbouring English. I don’t know why but any Englishmen living with the Germans was, they were threatened, you know but er yes. It was a bit mixed up then. I decided with my mate, he come from Manchester. What’s that? I thought of his name this morning and this guardsman we decided to move on from the – distrust the Russians. I got it down that they was going to take us down in the local, you know, the lockup. ‘No. Don’t bother. We’ll get back in.’ We got back through the fence to the camp and the next day we walked out the main gate and they never did nothing. There was three of us and we walked through an old, an airfield with real old aircraft. Russian, you know. Stringbags and that. And anyhow we must have walked twelve kilometres I suppose and we come to this village or town and there’s like the square and in the square is a table and four chairs and a Russian girl in red shoes and a tommy gun and invites us to sit down. This table got Stalin’s photograph on it, you know. This is out in the street. There’s nobody around, you know. Strange. And while we’re sitting there they must have been Poles come along, three or four, in civvies like, started chatting her and the chap, the sergeant who was with us he understood them and he said, They’re getting ready to send us back to the camp. They’re going to send us back to the camp,’ and we thought, ‘Oh my,’ you know. And at the same time a jeep. You can’t [laughs] this all sounds so, it’s not real is it. A jeep comes to the side turning. There’s an American officer and a sergeant in it and he sort of slows up and the sergeant yells to them and he says, ‘Runs for it.’ And I always remember that. We run. She could have mowed us down I thought but anyhow we all run for the jeep. We all, we got on it and the officer said to the sergeant, ‘Get out of the, get out of here.’ The square. So he dives out the square and we was trying to get over the river. He said they’d had enough. The Russians keep trying to take their jeep. Course the Americans had not advanced that way, they’d only advanced up to the river and we were still in Russian territory. So, anyhow, we’re tearing up this road and we thinks there’s a bridge over the river, over the Elbe and of course when you think about it there are no bridges. It’s obvious isn’t it but you can’t see that running up this road to you know you can see the bridge. It ends a bit. And as we’re doing it somebody there starts yelling at us from the from the bank and then we realised we had to turn around, come back and went off along the grass and we came to a bailey bridge with the Russians guarding one side and the Yanks the other side. So we sat out there real what’s the name and saluted and drove over the bridge and the Russians did nothing, you know. Drove over the bridge. Stopped the other side [and they all] all started all excited we was and we all had a wee wee. I can always -
PL: In celebration.
GJC: And then we got back on the jeep again and we set out and I can never think of the place we went to. It’s an airfield they’d taken. The yanks. Anyhow, we got on the jeep and the jeep, the back of the jeep was full of K rations. You know. Up to your knees in them.
PL: K rations?
GJC: You know. There was chocolates.
PL: Oh.
GJC: Everything and anyhow, we spent two hours on the autobahn and we ended up at this airfield and the first thing we get is dry cleaners with negroes. ‘Cause they never carried guns did they? They had all the menial jobs didn’t they? A lot of the negroes. Anyway, dry cleaners like the one at home. Big drier and that so takes all our clothes off and we’re sitting on the lawn with a blanket around us and as all our clothes dry cleaned and then I think we had egg and bacon. Something like that. Followed by whatsitsname and they said, ‘Go in.’ And we went in their, where the stores are, you know, like for razor blades. Everything in this place. [?] or something they calls it and we goes in there and you had to laugh ‘cause we [?] the bottom of our trousers up running [nickerless?] in the stuff ‘cause never had any of it. And we had underwear, toothbrush was there, everything. Everything you wanted and they’d been there four days and they had a film. They fixed up a cinema and I saw the er Charles Laughton in, ‘The Suspect.’ I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. And then, then you decided you had to go home like and there were Dakotas everywhere. Dozens of them. And they’d say, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘New York.’ ‘Over there.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Australia.’ ‘No. Australia you have to go to London.’ So and so and anyhow we got booked for Brussels and they, everyone had loads of loot. One bloke came out with a Volkswagen. He was a NAAFI type he was and he had this Volkswagen full up with towels. All sorts of stuff and he was thrown it away. I picked up a couple of pieces and we got on the aircraft and they said you can take what you like but no guns. You know. So that was fair enough. I had a badge. I sold it. I think I got forty pounds for it. We went on holiday once and it paid for a holiday.
PL: What was the badge?
GJC: Yeah. When we got to Brussels the [?] gave us the blow, blowed up your trouser leg, you know. Delousing. Then they gave you a fiver. Well, by the time I bought Hazel some scent I didn’t have nothing left, you know. The fiver went on that. We stayed the night in Brussels. Then we flew back with a Lancaster to what is now I suppose the main airfield now isn’t it? Yeah. And from then on to the Midlands. Get kitted out with the uniform and, yeah. One thing that stands out in my memory too is when they shot the air force officers. They got caught escaping didn’t they? There was ten of them or eight of them. They shot them and they issued, we had to stand still and they gave the order that escape is not a game and this is the result, more or less, you know. I had one or two, had six killed, I think, outside the camp during a strafing. There was aircraft everywhere at the end of the, the war. A Thunderbolt gave us a low level view attacking a train alongside the camp and you could see the pilots and the boys all stood out there. Yeah. And then they strafed each side of the camp and they killed six. That was a mistake. Even if they saw a cow they had nothing to, nothing to fire at, you know, at the end. That’s what it was. And the sad one is that we had, one of the air force chaps used to hide every time we had a parade mornings he would hide. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t show up for a parade and things like that. And one morning we heard bang bang and when we got outside he was against the fence. They’d shot him. Yeah. Yeah.
PL: Why did he hide?
GJC: Pardon?
PL: Why did he hide?
GJC: I think there’s some people are a little around the twist aren’t they? That’s the trouble everybody. When I was in training one, you can’t say whether it was suicide or not but he walked around and walked into the propeller. In training that was. You know like the classroom. See, you can’t, you can’t tell really. You get some cranky. That’s the way it is isn’t it? Like there was a, this is a name I don’t know whether they was [?] he was a smashing looking bloke, you know. Curly hair and they made shoes for him. Two piece suit you know and he was forever dressed up like it and it’s one of those things I suppose. There was a Frenchman used to dance on the stage but he should have been a ballerina like, you know. Took all sorts. You didn’t have [a sexuality?] I don’t think people, didn’t take a lot of notice of it then. You can’t understand it.
PL: So was it something that you were aware of but everyone was just tolerant -
GJC: Yeah.
PL: Of it.
GJC: Yeah. If you see a couple of sergeants walking around hand in hand no you wouldn’t just, didn’t enter your, didn’t enter your head. No. It’s, it’s mind you see the camp I was in is equivalent to a large city. There were hundreds there. All Russians were Joes ‘cause of Joseph Stalin. Joe. I had one as a pal the whole time I was in there. He’d been wounded sometime. Used to limp a bit. And one of my mates was blonde and I named him the blonde bastard and the Russian used to, he learned that and he come out with it but he was there all the time. I often wonder what happened to him. Course they were so primitive and yet there used to be one Russian used to come around singing opera. Come in mealtimes and they, the thing is they used to abuse him but that’s the way it was. They all appreciated it really but it was easier to have a go at him like, you know.
PL: So how, how were they primitive? How were the Russians primitive?
GJC: Well, I suppose, well they come from all, lots of them came from the Far East. Most of them they weren’t like you see now. A lot of them came from the Far East, you know. That sort of, well I suppose that’s all they could. They didn’t appreciate anything when they got it. Put it that way. You gave them a big house, they’d be in there and they’d be wrecking it, you know. Fowling it up and then you’d see them and then you’d come across, like I did, one officer. He was driving a Churchill tank or whatever it was, a British tank, and he had black leathers on. Immaculate. You know. He was totally different. Yeah. Yeah.
PL: So when you got back. You got to Brussels and then how did you get back home from Brussels?
GJC: Lancaster.
PL: Right.
GJC: Yeah. Lancaster, we flew in. Landed at um, well it was, what’s the big one now? Terrible isn’t it this is? Where you all go on holiday from now.
PL: In the south? Down south.
GJC: Well it’s quite close to London isn’t it? I can’t think of the name.
PL: Not to worry. So you got to, so did you then -
GJC: Oh Heathrow. It wasn’t Heathrow. No it was the other one. Gatwick.
PL: Gatwick.
GJC: That’s it. I reckon it must have been Gatwick. You know ‘cause it wouldn’t, that’s what seventy years ago wasn’t it?
PL: So when you, when you got back to England were you then given some leave and time to go and see your family? What happened to you then when you got back?
GJC: They took me to the Midlands. Kitted me out. And I can remember having a [payraid?] getting about a hundred and fifty. [laughs] Yeah. Because course you got paid, got promoted at all didn’t you? ‘Cause that’s, when I look back on it, I think that’s one of the shames. The Yanks all get together but I couldn’t eat with my, with my navigator and bomb aimer. Seems ridiculous doesn’t it? Yes.
PL: So why, why was that?
GJC: Well there’s, they had an officer’s mess and a sergeant’s mess and they were sacred years ago weren’t they? But we used to end up to be together be in the ordinary, ordinary room, you know. Yeah. But people used to disappear so quick. I remember the Canadian. He was just behind me in the hut. There would only be five of us in the hut and he was there and I’d never spoken to him really and then suddenly he’s not there. Course they whip in, they take all his belongings and that. Done within seconds you know. ‘Cause that was the first one I flew with.
PL: So what happened to him?
GJC: Pardon?
PL: What happened to him?
GJC: Got shot down and luckily I met him again. Well I see him in prison camp, Frankfurt and he was covered in fleas. He had fleas all over him ‘cause they weren’t very, not very clean really. I mean I never see a wash or anything.
PL: But the Canadian who was in the bed near you that disappeared in the camp. Why did he disappear? What happened to him? Do you know?
GJC: Shot down.
PL: He was shot.
GJC: Yes. Shot down.
PL: But why?
GJC: I don’t know. Crew. There was [Fewson?] I always remember him. Straight, straight to the squadron. His first posting and he’s making the, making his bed and we said to him you’re not, ‘What are making that for?’ He said, ‘I’m going to sleep in it.’ ‘You’re going to be lucky.’ He got shot down but they all lived. All that set of crew. Seven of them. Yeah. Some, you laughed at some, some was serious. My skipper wouldn’t. He, he was dour I suppose, some would say. He got drunk once and we carried him back to camp and when we got through the gate he stood up and he says, ‘Thanks fellas.’ So, another night he came and he fell in a ditch and we left him there thinking like, he’d come around [laughs] and get back to camp. Lou aint coming. Went back and still in the ditch. Hilarious. Yeah.
PL: So what were you doing when the war came to an end?
GJC: When the war came to an end.
PL: Yes.
GJC: Well VE night was absolutely terrifying. The Russians was firing everything. We went to a wood yard and got in between the timber and stayed there because it was, it was horrendous. Yes. And then after that everything sort of, the war ended. That’s, it was getting out then, that was when I took out the old, strange. Yes. Oh, I did, flying back with the Yanks with the, in the Dakota he took us along Happy Valley and he showed us Kassel. Whereas, I did two raids on Kassel and the second raid wiped it out and we flew over it, he flew over it to show us and there was absolutely nothing. Yeah. Course it’s going to be a lot harder the next one isn’t it? You wonder what’s coming.
PL: So –
GJC: It’s the human race though. All through history. That’s all man ever done. Destroy himself.
PL: So after the war -
GJC: Pardon?
PL: After the war how did you feel Bomber Command were treated? Do you have a view on that?
GJC: Yeah. Well I’m a, I’m a [?] person. I couldn’t care less but [pause] unbelievable. Even Churchill turned on it didn’t he? If you do something you, you do it. Do it and you accept it. You can’t apologise for sixty thousand dead can you? And not, and not respect them. That’s like me. I joined Brexit. I can’t understand anyone wanting to go to Europe. Give up their, their sovereignty. For the life of me I can’t. Even if you go to the bottom you can always make your way up again but I think they were a nasty shower weren’t they?
[Pause]
PL: Well -
GJC: You don’t ever get over it I suppose. I’ll never get over it. What the Germans said to me. ‘English bastard.’ But I treated it as a compliment. English I am. And the other bit. Well that’s a matter of opinion isn’t it? Yeah.
PL: Well John. It’s been a fascinating interview. Thank you very much indeed. Is there anything you wanted to add before we finish?
GJC: I mean you’re a bit faint.
PL: Sorry. John, I was just saying thank you for a fascinating interview.
GJC: Oh that’s alright. Thank you.
PL: And is there anything else that you would like to add at all?
GJC: Well Stoney Cross is a little story. Stoney Cross. I worked there as a labourer. That’s Beaulieu. Worked there as a labourer, airfield. We had an up and downer with a foreman and he was a whatsthename. Nobody on, on the firm would work with me so, and I knew I was going in the air force mind you but I used to go in every day. Catch the bus. Used to go across to Southampton each day and I used to go dressed and I eventually I had to leave and go in the air force and now we go back after the, after the war. I’m, went to Bournemouth for the day with my brother in law and we pulled up in the forest and I looked at it and I thought I remember this. The airfield’s gone. There’s still bits there. I remembers this. This is Stoney Cross but the bit that I remember mostly is nineteen forty something after the war when I was at Manby because there used to be a pilot and navigator and engineer on your own most of the time. Sometimes you’d take a wireless op. You flew down to Stoney Cross. What for? Three Christmas trees. We cut them down. One for me, one for the sergeant’s mess and one for the officer’s mess. And we put them in the bomb bays, had dinner and then flew back. Who’s done their Christmas shopping with a Lancaster? We once took some of the boys home from Manby. Got rid of it from Manby. We took them home to Newcastle. We charged them half a crown and that was given to, went into the charity you know. Half a crown. And a mate of mine lived in Ireland and as he was on holiday we flew him to Speke. They’d go mad wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t the Daily Mirror have loved that sort of story wouldn’t it? Yeah.
PL: Well that seems like a wonderful story to -
GJC: Yeah.
PL: End on. If you’re happy with that.
GJC: Yeah it was a laugh. I flew the, my Halifaxes at the end of the war. I flew from Rutland. I flew the last bomb, horses. Two hundred and forty drops in a night. Two of you, that’s all. Loosed a rope. Yeah. That was the last of the [horses?] that was. Then we flew them for break up flew them down to Lasham. Lasham. The Spanish had the last of our Lancasters didn’t they? The latest ones. The Mark 6s. They went to the Spanish air force. Yeah. Oh well.
PL: Well, John, thank you very much indeed.
GJC: Yeah.
PL: Thank you.
GJC: Yeah.
PL: Restarting interview with John Castleton.
GJC: Yeah.
PL: So John you were just about to tell -
GJC: I think that was -
PL: Us about the bombing.
GJC: In Mannheim. Two thousand pounder and they -
PL: And that was the first -
GJC: Seemed to go straight down [but as far as we knew?] really isn’t it? That and leaflets. Leaflets. Them leaflets there. Hang on. Yeah that’s it. Adolf and that’s a Jerry in there. Whatsisname, yeah. I keeps that because I think my mother must have [?]
PL: Goodness.
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ACastletonGJ160719
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Interview with Gerald John Castleton
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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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Sound
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eng
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01:28:26 audio recording
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Pending review
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Pam Locker
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2016-07-19
Description
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Gerald John Castleton was born in Southsea. He worked in demolition until he joined the Royal Air Force. He flew operations as a flight engineer but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
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Julie Williams
76 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
crash
Dulag Luft
flight engineer
prisoner of war
RAF Rufforth
RAF Stoney Cross
searchlight
shot down
Spitfire
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/225/3370/AChaplinSR170407.2.mp3
a95468a013bf06283db41402714c4f41
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Chaplin, Susan Rose
Susan Chaplin
Susan R Chaplin
S R Chaplin
Sue Chaplin
S Chaplin
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Susan Chaplin (b. 1954) about her research into the crash of Wellington HE740 on 4 January 1945.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-04-07
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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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Chaplin, SR
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Thursday, 7th April, 2017, and I am here in Thornton with Sue Chaplin who arranged for details to be made much more public and memorable about an air crash at North Marston nearby. So Sue what are your earliest recollections of life?
SC: I was born in North Marston where my mother and her brothers and sisters, and grandparents, great grandparents were all born, and my mother was always very very interested herself in local history and the stories of everyone so I was brought up surrounded by stories of village people and family and one of her stories was always about how she had witnessed this Wellington plane crashing in the war when she was twenty seven years old and she used to show me on our country walks the field where it came down and she always used said to me ‘there’s an engine deep down in that field you know may be one day it will be dug up’, so that’s how I grew up really with an interest in local history and the family and I’ve always had a very strong connection with North Marston where all of my family seem to take up most of the churchyard and so although I don’t live in the village anymore I have very strong connections there and my mother herself died nine years ago and my cousin still lives there so I’m going back there all the time and it’s really what led me to write back in 2014 to write the history of North Marston “The North Marston Story” which really I was prompted to do because I wanted to put down in writing all of those things that my mother had told me when I was a child, and then of course the book expanded in to far more than that in the end. I went to school in I went to Aylesbury High School er and after that I went to Teachers Training College at Wall Hall Aldenham for three years where I trained to be a teacher and then I went to the University of East Anglia after that and did a degree in history and education, so history has always been a great interest anyway and when I qualified I got a job at a school called Akeley Wood School which was a private school near Buckingham, er I got the job in 1976 and I thought it would be a stop gap for a few years until I got a different job. I had never been to a private school so it was nothing that I knew about so I thought well it would be a nice job just for a year or two but I actually stayed for my whole career and I was there for over thirty years ,and er I became head of the junior school there, and I retired in 2006 I took an early retirement in 2006.
CB: Okay we’ll stop there for a minute.
SC: In er about 2008 a gentleman came to live in North Marston who was a local historian, John Spargo, and in conversation with him one day he mentioned to me that he was surprised there was no written history of the village of North Marston as it was so rich in history, and I said to him ‘well I would absolutely love to help you put that down’ because as I mentioned just now it was something I’d always thought would be a good idea. So we decided to see if there would be um an interest in the village for a written history and we sent round a questionnaire and yes people would love it, so we started off by recording I offered to do all recordings of all the elderly people in the village and actually the not so elderly as well some of them were my old friends from school, and I did twenty three recordings including my mother, one of the recordings was also a chap called Chris Holden and Chris had been a little boy when the Wellington came and crashed and during his recording he was recollecting that night and he said ‘you know’ he said ‘I think it’s tragic there’s never been a memorial to those boys’ so I thought about this and coupled with my mother’s story of that night and finally by the fact the nearby village to me Thornborough erected a memorial in 2014 to the Wellington Bomber that crashed there all of those three things combined, so I went to the North Marston History Club which we had founded by then and said ‘how about it why not do a project the anniversary of the North Marston Wellington crash is coming up on 4th January 2015, that will be the seventieth anniversary, Thornborough had just put up one, Chris Holden had said in his interview what a shame so why don’t we go for it?’, it was agreed that we would then start to investigate the possibility of doing it this would have been the summer of 2014 when we started to think about it so we had about six months before the seventieth anniversary in January 2015 came up, obviously we had we wanted to put a memorial in the church so the first thing we had to do was approach the Vicar and the Faculty at Oxford to see if they would give permission, so the er church Parochial Church Council applied to Oxford for the Faculty that took quite a long time to come through, but we decided that we would go ahead with the memorial even if it couldn’t be put in the church because we would find somewhere for it in the village and obviously the next thing to do was to get going on finding out more and more and more about these boys. In our North Marston Story that we had written the big book about the village we had actually mentioned this crash, we knew the names of the six boys who’d died, we knew where they had come from, three were from New Zealand, one from Sussex, and two from Kent, so our next project was to try and trace any relatives that we could and my colleague in the history club Jane Springer started off by emailing the Otago Daily Times in New Zealand because we knew that two of the boys came from there, she had an instant response that day from the journalist from the Otago Daily Times and within a few days he had published our story, I sent him all the details we knew he published our story and that same day we had a response from Michael Reece who was the nephew of our pilot Michael Reece he had seen this in the paper, and we had a response from Chas Forsyth who had been a friend of the Reece’s he had seen this article in the paper, we had a response from dear Neville Selwood who was a Lancaster navigator who had been stationed at Westcott who knew Alex Bulger our bomb aimer, and we had a response from Alex Bulger’s family and that all took place within a few days. The biggest surprise at the time to us was that the Reece family and the Bulger family who had both lived all their lives in Otago knew each other but until we got in touch they hadn’t realised that their uncles had died in the same plane so that was just the most amazing thing and that was the first of many coincidences that were to happen, er so then they started to inundate us with photographs, letters that they’d had from their boys, photographs, photographs of the funerals in Oxford because five of the boys who died in the Wellington were buried at Botley in Oxford, the other one went home to Maidstone, but the Reece family in New Zealand had photographs of the burial and so they sent us photographs of the family of the boys, I mean to suddenly seeing photographs of these boys who my mother knew died that night, she by then had passed away, and it was of great sadness to me that my mother couldn’t see these photographs that suddenly came to us because she would have just loved to have seen the pictures of the boys who died. So we were suddenly starting to get information and we, Jane my colleague, went on to Ancestory.com and she was contacted by somebody who said I am a relative of Don McClellan the wireless operator, Don McClellan came from New Zealand but much further north, so she put us in touch with Don McClellan’s family so then we suddenly had photographs and information from the McClellan’s so we thought wow we’ve got enough stuff here to put out a little publication throughout the village let us put all these pictures into a little pamphlet and let’s send this round the village and tell everybody that this is our project and ask if we could have any contributions towards it. Well whilst we were doing this we then er decided that we would write to the Kent Messenger newspaper and the Brighton Argos and we had an immediate response from the Brighton Argos, somebody knew of our Reginald Price his name was in the memorial book in the St. Peters Church Brighton, we had a response from two people who read the Brighton Argos called Jackie and Nick Carter who were interested in tracing people they offered to help trace the other three British boys, they came up first of all with a relative that they had found from a free electoral um site of Mormon a family search Mormon site and free birth, marriage and death site, they came up with an address of a Christopher Colbeck who they believed was a nephew of John Wenham, I wrote to him actually wrote to him and yes he was John Wenham’s nephew and his mother John Wenham’s sister was still alive down the road in Luton, so suddenly we got John Wenham’s photographs, letters, documentation, that left us with Reginald Price and it left us with Ian Smith, then Reginald Price um suddenly started to appear because again from the Brighton Argos somebody who had read the Brighton Argos who again loved investigating went on to Ancestry.com and located a Catherine Cook who was a marine biologist in Scotland who was distantly related step step family distantly related to Reginald Price she put us in touch with her mother who had um you know was a step daughter of of a relative and we then had pictures from them that was Reginald Price ticked off. The only by now our doc out leaflet had gone round North Marston village and we had put in it that we didn’t actually have any pictures of er Ian Smith we couldn’t trace Ian Smith’s family, so the doc the leaflet went round North Marston we immediately started getting money in but the leaflet went in North Marston to a gentleman called Mike Fillamore, who again is a local historian, he saw the name Ian Smith he telephoned me and said ‘Sue a few years ago I was in North Marston Church and a gentleman was in the church looking to see if there was a memorial to a relative of his called Ian Smith and I happened to take down his name and address’ and so I telephoned I found on the internet his telephone number and I phoned him that night and he said ‘yes this is amazing’ um and so we then were put in touch with Ian Smith’s more immediate family and again the photographs started rolling in. So we had by well by November we had got pictures of all of the boys, documents, letters and we were in touch with their families and the money had started to roll in and in the end we er I had approached Brett and Sons the stonemasons in Norfolk who did a lot of the village churchyard gravestones, they um gave us a quote for um the actual plaque would have been um was going to be about fifteen hundred pounds in the church but in total our donations from the village people and from the families of the crew came to three thousand pounds so that enabled us to put up the plaque, Oxford Diocese said absolutely fine no problem, and so then we had money left over for a lovely reception and things like that. But um if I can just go back for a moment the er anniversary of the crash was 4th January, and the seventieth anniversary would have been 4th January 2015, but we didn’t have time to get together the Faculty permission to get the plaque done and to get a big service organised for 4th January, we also asked all the New Zealand relatives what they felt about it and all of them said they would absolutely love to come to the service but really January is too soon for us and we would rather come to England when the weather was a bit warmer, so we decided to have a remembrance service on 4th January 2015, which happened to be a Sunday, we put together a lovely service, we as history club wrote some of our own poems, the niece of Michael Reece the pilot, great niece of Michael Reece the pilot happened to live in Wales she said ‘I will come to this January service to represent the families’ and she read a poem at the service, we had the Last Post and it was a wonderful anniversary service followed by a lunch in the church so village people and a few RAF people who we knew and Tina Reece as the relative, and of course she wasn’t the only relative to come to our January service because all the Luton people, John Wenham the young air gunner his sister Joy in her nineties and her family all attended the January service so we had a lovely representation from families there, but we decided then that we needed to find a date to have the big plaque unveiling and the bigger service the New Zealand families suggested if it were possible what about having it on Anzac Day 25th April, it was a very special Anzac Day in 2015 and so we all you know went to the powers that be the church and everybody and it was decided to hold the big memorial on 25th April 2015, by which time the plaque in church would have been completed and we would have time to organise a big big celebration so that is where we’ve got to at the moment. We then decided that er obviously we would like some more representation at this service than we had at the other so I contacted the New Zealand Embassy in London and asked if we could possibly have any New Zealand er RAF people they said being Anzac Day they were a bit short on the ground, but as it happened a week before our service they phoned me and said we are sending six RA New Zealand Air Force, we also had very very honoured to have Air Marshall Sir Colin Terry who agreed to I wrote to him and he agreed to unveil the plaque, we had um members of the er cadets, we had from Maidstone in Kent where young John Wenham had been a boy and had attended the Scouts the Tovil Scouts came up and represented the Scouts they came, we had some local RAF reserve people, and we had our Church Warden um an ex RAF wing commander so he took a big part in the service, um the Royal British Legion of course were desperately keen to be involved and so we ended up with a procession involving um a lot of people all in uniform we had the Last Post we had um eight relatives from New Zealand that day at the service, and a huge coincidence again was that one of the New Zealand relatives was talking to one of the RAF New Zealand RAF and er she said ‘well my er son is a photographer in the RAF’ he said ‘what’s his name, ooh I know him’ so that’s amazing this lady had come from New Zealand and one of our New Zealand RAF boys knew knew her son so that was another little coincidence. So er we had well I say the most wonderful service the church was packed we had wonderful hymns we started off with “God is our Strength and Refuge” sung to the Dambusters tune and it was um a really really lovely service members of the history club all read poems and did readings, I introduced the whole service I set the scene and gave the whole background to it and er then afterwards we went down to the village hall where some local groups had set up memorabilia war time memorabilia, and er a local lady had set up a huge huge refreshments we had a cake with “Lest We Forget” and Joy Colbeck the ninety ninety two year old sister of the young air gunner er she cut the cake and all her family were there so I mean it was really absolutely marvellous, but we had decided before the er big celebration that really with all the photographs that we’d got and the documents er we really need to needed to write a proper book so John Spargo the chairman of the history club and I and two other people from the village, John Newby who was very interested in aircraft he had been er flying with the RAF in the RAF Volunteer Reserves and had had twenty five years in management per to the aviation industry he helped write all of the technical stuff about the plane, and Martin Bromelly who was a current airline pilot and again very very interested in airline history he investigated an awful lot for us, he found out the weather conditions that night, he wrote his own version of what he thought happened that night, so all of these us four basically put together this book with photographs all the photographs that we’d got plus um our interpretation of what actually happened that night and we sold over a hundred copies of the book and we put all the photographs from the day onto a DVD and sold I think about seventy or eighty of those.
CB: Having a break having a breather. So continuing from there.
SC: Um so following the service it it certainly wasn’t the end to everything because although it was coming up now for two years ago we are still in very close contact with the New Zealand families and the families of the British people we are getting emails from them every now and then with best wishes we have Christmas cards we have letters, Jane Springer my colleague who did a lot of the initial investigation with Ancestry.com, she and I have visited dear Joy Colbeck er the sister of the young air gunner John Wenham we visited her several times we visit her on her birthday she has been back to North Marston on several occasions so she has become very much a family friend, er we have been given gifts er um we’ve been given lovely pictures of Wellington aircraft and things like that, and not only have we learned about the six boys themselves but of course we’ve learned very much about their families and these New Zealand boys who had also had brothers in the air force, and Don McClellan whose brother was killed very tragically just before he died his he had also lost a brother on a POW ship that had been sunk by er um mistakenly by a British torpedo, so we learnt about all the tragedies in the families and how sad they’d been and we learnt how much it had meant to them all to lose these boys some of their descendants are named after their uncles and great uncles who died in the crash and the wireless operator Don McClellan his sister is still alive in New Zealand and she has had a picture of him on her wall ever since he died, Michael Reece the pilot his brother Jim is still alive in New Zealand, and of course Joy Colbeck is still alive and Ian Smith’s sister only died a couple of months before we started to do our investigation, so in fact it’s amazing that there are still siblings of these boys still around, it has brought the Colbeck family um John Wenham’s family who are called the Colbeck’s they had had a bit of a rift in the family and because of our investigation about John and they all came together for the service they have all been reunited. Also um dear Ed Andrews from Westcott showed me a photograph one day of a Wellington crew and he said ‘we don’t know who these people are in this picture’ but he gave me the photograph, well Neville Selwood the Lancaster pilot from the Lancaster navigator from New Zealand who was a friend of Alex Bulger who had been to Westcott also sent me a photograph of himself at Westcott and it was exactly the same photograph that Ed had given me so I could then contact Ed and say ‘I now know who this crew is’ and dear Neville Selwood he’s still going strong he writes to me frequently he sends me copies of all his log books, he is the honorary chaplain of the Royal New the New Zealand Bomber Command Association he’s the honorary chaplain and I get their magazines every quarter or every six months they send me their magazine and I believe Ed Andrews from Westcott writes in this magazine because um I’ve seen his articles, so having having um this contact with these people has been wonderful and I myself have found it really heart-warming, I spoke to Captain Jack Charley again who was a Lancaster navigator I believe had a long conversation with him so to to talk to these people is absolutely wonderful, and er as I say you know we’ve brought closure to the families and we have explained a lot to them that they didn’t actually know before they now know that it was North Marston not Long Marston, they’ve seen the site, they’ve seen the field and the actual spot where the plane came down, um one thing that Joy Colbeck er John Wenham’s sister was very very concerned about which is interesting is that she had the official report sent to her of the crash and many many years ago and in it it mentioned that the pilot it was the pilot’s fault because he was inexperienced she was desperately worried when she met the Reece family that this shouldn’t come out, she didn’t want it put in our book she didn’t want them to know because she felt that if they thought that that they wouldn’t be able to live with that, er and so of course we never mentioned it anywhere but I think you know we have discussed this and um basically if he didn’t have enough experience to go up that night then he shouldn’t have been allowed to go up so one can hardly blame the pilot we feel, but we did keep it quiet from the Reece family ah but it has been the most amazingly heart-warming experience since the service in April 2015, we have had three more sets of relatives from New Zealand who have visited they couldn’t make the service themselves but they have been over to England and I have taken them to the memorial, to the crash site, shown them round Westcott airfield which I am now getting very familiar with, and have taken them to Botley to the cemetery, and I expect there’ll soon be some more coming [laughs].
CB: Is there a crucial question here or matter I think which helped closure for families and that is um what was the um what was the operation that they were on because some people don’t recognise how many crashes were in training and there they attributed the loss to a wartime operation, so how did that come out with the different families?
SC: Um the fact that they were just on a on a training mission um I believe John Wenham’s sister knew that anyway um the New Zealand families were happy to know the facts.
CB: Which were?
SC: Which were that they had taken off from Westcott at about seven o’clock on a snowy evening to go on a training mission we’re not quite sure we haven’t been able to find out exactly where they were heading but they took off from Westcott at about seven seven ten and fifteen minutes fifteen minutes later the plane came down in North Marston, so it said on the official report that it came down in from five thousand feet, my mother who was in the back garden at the time heard the plane coming very low over and she knew that it sounded wrong there were Wellington planes all around the airfields around North Marston and she knew it sounded wrong, and Chris Holden with his friend up the road heard the explosion heard the bang, er Clifford Cheshire who was a young boy was out delivering bread with his father he came upon this crash scene within minutes, and er so that is why these people have such vivid memories but they we do not know we haven’t been able to find out what they were doing but it was a training flight the pilot was alone there wasn’t any other train there wasn’t um anybody training them they were on their own, um the New Zealand families were surprised to hear that it wasn’t a mission but they accepted it and er I don’t think they were anything other than pleased to know the facts.
CB: So just to clarify that so some of the families that were there were under some misapprehension that this was actually a bomber sortie.
SC: Yes they hadn’t ever been told that it was a training flight so they assumed that it was a bomber sortie in the in the New Zealand the New Zealand yes yes we have the letters in our book we have the letters that were written to them after the death to announce you know the deaths um from Captain Stevens who was the Group Captain at Westcott um and it basically says ‘your son lost his life as a result of a flying accident the aircraft in which he was flying took off from the station on a normal exercise at nineteen thirty five hours the aircraft crashed’ it doesn’t say what time it took off it just says it crashed at nineteen thirty five hours and it says it was a normal exercise and I think that they just assumed in New Zealand that it was actually a bombing mission, their boys had trained in Canada before they’d come over here and so they had these boys had arrived at Westcott in October around about October and this was January they were due to go off to another base very shortly where they would be going on to Lancasters and things um but I don’t think that er the families probably comprehended that they were just still training I think they probably thought having trained in Canada and come over to England that they had finished their training and no more training was involved er and the letter from Captain Stevens goes on to say ‘no details as to how the accident occurred are available’.
CB: So just to clarify that they’d done their initial training in Canada?
SC: They have.
CB: They’ve come to an operational conversion unit on a twin engine Wellington?
SC: Yes.
CB: There next move probably would have been to heavy bombers because of where the Westcott stream went.
SC: Yes.
CB: So they would have gone to a heavy conversion unit.
SC: Yes.
CB: After that they would have gone to an operational squadron.
SC: Yes yes and I believe that the New Zealand er contingent often went to the same place it was um you might know which one they went to.
CB: Seventy Five Squadron.
SC: Seventy Five Squadron yes yes, one of the letters that we have from one of the boys when he wrote home said that er you know he was sort of suggesting that very soon they would be on their way to somewhere else yes er you know um and they never got there and of course it was only a few months before the war finished
CB: Yes.
SC: Which is very very tragic.
CB: Yes because this was January 45 and the war finished on 8th May in Europe
SC: That’s right yes.
CB: 1945.
SC: Yes.
CB: What would you say was the reaction of the families to the event you put on in memory of the crew?
SC: Huge gratitude and overwhelming surprise that we had decided to honour their family members seventy years after the event that’s that those six lads were still being remembered and were in somebodies memory and I think they were honoured they felt honoured to um think that we had done this, that their boys names are now in the church on a plaque forever and er yes great surprise, but as I have said already several of them said what wonderful closure the actual siblings of the crew who died it brought real closure to these elderly people all in their nineties of course that now they felt it was it had come a full circle and this had been remembered, and of course they were so grateful that they now knew more details about everything and that they had managed to find out about the other crew members that were in the plane with their relatives that night and they have become firm friends the New Zealanders now are all in contact with each other and they write to the old lady in Luton so they’re emailing her she is in her nineties but she still emails she’s very lucid so its brought great friendship and a sense of togetherness and very heart-warming to us at the history club that we managed to do this for these people.
CB: Yes, and in the village what was the reaction to the publication of the book but actually the event itself also?
SC: Well we had the most amazing response to the book because the money just starting pouring in I think the fact that we showed the photograph the photographs we got by then that the photographs the story of this plane crash in this little booklet made it very personal and very poignant um and the village people showed great interest in fact I think we could have filled the church twice over er that day of the big service but obviously with all the RAF personnel and relatives you know and people close to it we er we couldn’t fit we wouldn’t have fitted everybody in um [laughs] but er yes um great interest great interest.
CB: I remember it was a very good event.
SC: You see a lot of people in the village er had no idea that a plane had crashed you know in the village and they didn’t know that and so I think yes it was an event very well worth doing all round for everybody concerned.
CB: Two supplementary questions associated with this what was the reaction of the Church of England to this?
SC: Er there was no opposition whatsoever to putting a memorial in the church the Faculty although they took a long time to give us permission but I think faculties always take a long time to come through and the er Vicar the village Vicar was very very happy to do that.
CB: And afterwards did you get anything from them?
SC: From the church?
CB: Yes.
SC: Yes um in fact er we we because we had some money er left over from our collection we actually gave the church a substan quite a nice amount of money as er the collection at the church that day was about five hundred pounds that day and so er I think we actually handed that over to the church so they were very grateful for that as well.
CB: Right brilliant, the second question is to do with your speciality education so how did the Local Education Authority but particularly the school in the village react?
SC: The school in the village? Er they had very little to do with it the village school yes yes.
CB: It’s not surprising in a way that so many people don’t even know when the war was.
SC: Mmm mmm.
CB: Let alone anything that came out of it.
SC: Absolutely, I think to be honest with you we were so busy, and I was particularly busy because I I organised it all, so I wrote all the letters, I wrote all the invitations, I did all of the organising absolutely everything, I wrote the service and everything, I think I was so probably taken up with the organisation of it all that I didn’t actually involve to be fair the village school children at that time because um we we just had so much else to do, we have the North Marston History Club we do go into the school I have gone into the school and given talks on various things like the history of the school but we haven’t actually talked to them about this particular event but we we might because I think it it’s something that we can we can do but at the time the village school children weren’t really involved, the children who were at the service were not the village school children they were air cadets local air cadets and the young scouts from Maidstone, er quite another nice coincidence was that John Wenham the young air gunner was a scout in Maidstone in the Tovil Scouts and there is a memorial to him on their Scout memorial but also his name is just alongside Guy Gibson’s because Guy Gibson was an honorary Tovil Scout, so John Wenham and Guy Gibson are on the same memorial down in Maidstone which is rather rather lovely, and those scouts our Tovil Scouts from Maidstone have forged a relationship with old dear Joy Colbeck now and they um have looked after they have now gone round to look after her brother’s grave in Maidstone and in fact the war grave the War Grave Commission have renovated er his stone and so that’s another nice outcome, I think the she wrote to it and I think it all brought it to the fore that the stone was getting in very poor condition and so that’s another result of this is that his stone has now been renovated at and the Tovil Scouts tend it and have shown an interest in him so it’s been educational for those young boys as well, and I think also what has been again so amazing is the response from the newspapers the Kent Messenger they have run big they wrote ran a big article for and to find to try and help us trace relatives they reported our service afterwards, The Best of British Magazine had it in , in er you know the Bucks Herald, er and the Brigton Argos if they hadn’t have published our story that time, and then since then the Kent Messenger the journalist there who was so interested in our story that he has contacted Joy Colbeck and has got a lot of stories about her family and her her family grew up in Maidstone, her family ran I’ll say a well known shop in Maidstone and I think he’s just suddenly she’s become a local celebrity in Maidstone although she lives in Luton she’s become a local celebrity in Maidstone and he’s been writing stories about her so that’s another offshoot really from it yes yes.
CB: You mentioned the Military Cemetery at Botley on the west side of Oxford.
SC: Yes yes.
CB: How well is that maintained and by who?
SC: It’s maintained beautifully um I’m not sure whether it’s the Oxford Council who do it or whether it’s the War Graves Commission but I’ve visited it on many occasions occasions and there’s always somebody mowing it’s beautifully kept and the three New Zealand boys are buried side by side and then the two British are just a few yards away in a different place, and all of the relatives who have visited this country have all obviously been over to Botley, and on the morning of our service on 25th April, we organised a little minibus and er a little minibus load of people went over there before they came back for our afternoon service and they took poppies and flowers over there to lay on the graves that day, yes very very beautifully maintained.
CB: Finally you’ve done a huge amount of work on this which worked extremely well and gave great closure for the families what would you say was the most memorable aspect of your task in arranging and er closing this operation?
SC: I think the most memorable aspect was our initial contact with the families we had no idea we would actually contact anybody and I think to receive photographs but receiving the photographs um I think every time I had a photograph I burst into tears when I saw it, there was only one of the crew who we couldn’t get a photograph of as an adult we only had one of the child, but to see photographs of those boys who died that night that’s my most I think one of the most poignant things, and I think to looking back to think how we have brought the families together and have given them so much information and honoured them, I think they felt honoured that we had remembered their boys and I think it’s the overwhelming sense of thanks and gratitude that we have had from the families I think that has been the the the personal aspect of it has been the most the thing that will live with me forever, I think it really well and er its been er yes a very very very worthy thing and I shall never regret doing it, my only regret is that my dear mother who saw the plane come down that night and who gave me the first early stories of this plane er had died before we managed to do this she would have just loved to have met everybody so that was my regret but yes that’s it I think really to say the everlasting legacy of it I think.
CB: In view of what you said I think it’s worth recording that er to do with the New Zealanders that of all the Commonwealth Countries New Zealand contributed the highest proportion of it’s population towards the war effort in Britain.
SC: Really, that’s amazing.
CB: So Sue we’ve spoken about people who are effectively are not in this locality in terms of the crew and their families and their descendants but in the locality first of all what was the reactions of schools and secondly the press because that links together really in an awareness but first the school so what was their reaction?
SC: Er the local village school er didn’t actually show any interest in it really, that said we didn’t approach the school at the time because we were so very very busy involved in the organisation and all of you can imagine how busy we were, er but some of the people who had given us money er and were helping us in the project had children had links with the village school but somehow it didn’t filter through to the village school or the headmistress there er that this might be a worthy project for her children to do, I don’t think that the headmistress of North Marston Village School had a great interest in history herself, in fact the only thing that the village school has done in North Marston in any way to do with history is that they have called their four houses after some important names linked with the village history, like Shaw and Camden and things like that because of its their names that go back in North Marston history back to twelve hundreds they have called their children’s houses by those names, misspelt I might say they haven’t spelt them properly, but that’s the only real thing that they’ve done towards village history, and they did er I asked them if I could go in and give them a history talk and I talked about the history of the village school er so that is really the only link that they have they have had with history, oh and I believe our Chairman of the History Club did take them on a guided walk around the village but certainly with where we go back to the bomber they didn’t show any interest at the time but that said we were so busy and exhausted with it all actually that we probably didn’t approach the school ourselves so we might have engendered so interest if we had gone in, um but the local newspapers were very disinterested the Buckingham Advertiser didn’t even publish a story about it and the Bucks Herald did publish something many weeks after after we had cajoled and that was a complete contrast to the reactions that we had from the Kent Messenger newspaper and the Brigton Argos newspaper who were thrilled to publish pictures of our big service and the stories behind them so it’s interesting that the editorial in the Bucks papers is disinterested in that sort of thing, er I will probably give a talk to the school at some stage actually I’m sure that they will um yes they they will let me go in and talk to them but I think um it didn’t engender their interest at the time.
CB: And your secondary school is in Waddesdon so what was the reaction there?
SC: No well we haven’t heard anything from them but again they might not have known anything about it because the local papers didn’t publicise it.
CB: Okay right I’ll stop there.
SC: Keep thinking of things but
CB: There are occasionally other things that come to mind afterwards and one is that there are stories about things that happened like what your mother’s perception was so shall we just cover that and also the other one so what did your mother say about it?
SC: Well my mother who happened to be in the outside privy in the garden at the time age twenty seven heard the Wellington bomber coming over and knew that it was in trouble because it didn’t sound like the other Wellington bombers that were always going over, she always said to me that it was on fire and she heard those poor boys screaming, but thinking about it with the noise of a Wellington bomber just a hundred feet above your head she probably didn’t hear screams and although it exploded in a field about quarter of a mile away er and obviously there was fire all around them, er we’ve all discussed since that possibly it wasn’t on fire when my mother saw it but it’s something that she thought it probably would have been but she didn’t actually see it but she’s dead now so we won’t ever know but that was her perception of it at the time.
CB: Well it could have been an engine fire of course as the crash was undetermined, what was the other story?
SC: Well this isn’t in our book at all and we haven’t mentioned it to some of the relatives but a local person in North Marston, Mike Fillamore, who is still alive, said that he was told by another local villager that the morning after the crash when they were down there a body was found hanging in a tree an ash tree just on the edge of the road, this was news to me I’ve never heard this story certainly my mother had never mentioned it, but the person who told this story was somebody called Jeff Ayres who has now passed away, but Mike Fillamore who heard this story from him said that was what he told him but Mike Fillamore could still tell you that, but we didn’t mention this to er the Joy Colbeck, the sister of John Wenham who was an air gunner, because we thought that it would upset her if she thought that it was her young brother who might have been in that tree and possibly in the dark might not have been noticed that night and could possibly have been saved, so we thought it was best not to tell her this because it’s not substantiated but I think I don’t know where the story comes from but this was what was said.
CB: So it is quite possible of course that somebody tried to get out like the rear gunner rotating his turret.
SC: Yes, so it could have been John Wenham or the young Reg Price the two nineteen year olds.
CB: Yes. Thank you.
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AChaplinSR170407
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Interview with Sue Chaplin
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
Language
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eng
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00:52:23 audio recording
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Pending review
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2017-04-07
Description
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Susan Chaplin was born in North Marston and was a local teacher. She recounts the story her mother told her as a young girl, about Wellington HE740 which crashed near the village. With her local history group she researched and wrote a book “The North Marston Story”, about the crash and erected a memorial in the village church. Flight Sergeant Michael Reece, Flight Sergeant Donald McLennan, Flight Sergeant Alexander Bolger, Sergeant Ian Smith, Sergeant John Wenham and Sergeant Reginald Price were killed in the crash.
Coverage
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Civilian
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1945-01-04
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
crash
final resting place
memorial
Operational Training Unit
RAF Westcott
training
Wellington