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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/139/1347/BYatesYates1501.1.pdf
02b947322ef129d2f40e918ece938cec
Dublin Core
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Title
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Yates, A
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns the service of Warrant Officer A Yates (1134566 Royal Air Force) and consists of two photographs and an memoir.
A Yates was a navigator with 149 Squadron, flying Stirlings from RAF Lakenheath. His aircraft Stirling R9170, ‘OJ-H’ was shot down over Holland in 1942 and he became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Roger Yates and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
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2015-04-22
Identifier
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Yates
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
FIFTY YEARS AGO
The 8th May 1945 was officially recognised as V.1. DAY - VICTORY IN EUROPE DAY
My own particular war in Europe came to an end on the evening of Sunday 29th April 1945. and this is an account of my last few months as a Prisoner-of-War, and my return to U.K. and service life in the R.A.F.
I was shot down on the night of 10th September 1942 over the Dutch coast on operations to Dusseldorf in a Stirling of 149 Squadron, and it was 2 years and 231 days later that freedom came when the town of Freising (some 20 miles north of Munich) was occupied by units of General Patten's 3rd Army of the United States.
I spent most of my time as a P.o.W, in Stalag VIIIB Lamsdorf, in Upper Silesia but was evacuated and marched with some 30,000 others away from the advancing Russian army who had reached the River Oder in January 1945. Two of us broke away from the main column of prisoners, and with the vague idea of being overtaken by Russian soldiers, we dawdled along from village to village in bitter cold winter weather. On the twelth [sic] day, a thaw set in, and our sled was useless, so we thumbed a lift to 'anywhere' in a German army truck. The driver and his comrade were quite happy to provide us with a ride to a French Army prisoner-of-war camp (Stalag) at GorIitz. It was an appalling camp for us. The French had got things organized, but for the rest of us in that comparatively small Stalag it was over-crowded, there was very little food (no Red Cross food parcels), diarrhoea and dysentery reached epidemic proportions. Somehow, I managed to avoid the worst ailments, but I lost weight and developed a chesty cough.
Eventually, as the Russian advance drew near, the French prisoners were evacuated as we had been from Lamsdorf. Then the British, Belgians, and other allied troops including some Americans who had been captured in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge. I watched them all go from my hide-out in the German clothing store, as once again, I had the idea that the Stalag might be overrun by Russian soldiers.
Early in the morning of my first night in hiding, I was awakened by shouting and shooting. A German soldier soon found me, and chased me outside, where I found myself lined up against a wall with six British soldiers of the Parachute Regiment. Wasn't I glad to see them!
An Unter-Officier (corporal) threatened us with his machine-pistol, bawling his head off at us, and I for one, was pretty nervous of the outcome. Apparently, a few Russian P.o.W's had broken into the clothing store (most probably to get some warmer clothing), and the section of German soldiers under the command of the ferret-like corporal had flushed them out (and us as well), and had shot one or two of the Russians. The German corporal then shot two more, slung his machine-pistol over his shoulder, stopped shouting, and asked us (in German of course) "What/Who we were?"
Sgt. Hunter of the Paras (who spoke German) said that we were all 'sanitators' i.e., 'medical orderlies', and as evidence, he pointed out their maroon berets, and my 'angel's wing' (Observer brevet). 'Sanitators' or 'Medical orderlies' were protected personnel under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
The German corporal seemed to think that his luck was in. A hospital train was due in Gorlitz that afternoon with wounded from the Russian front, and there were also some British P.o.W's on the train. We 'medical orderlies' might be said to be 'just what the doctor ordered' - we would join the train, and look after our own sick soldiers.
We took cover as a couple of light Russian bombers strafed the empty Stalag with cannon and machine-gun fire, then me and the Paras searched the German Administration section of the camp to see what we might find. In the Red Cross store we found a number of 7 lb. tins of corned beef, a case of 4 doz. tins of Nestle's condensed milk, and some large tins of Nescafe. We concluded that the fleeing French P.o.W's had found these too heavy or bulky to carry. We also found some potatoes, some carrots, some onions, and the ex-Camp Commandant's two pet rabbits. Our lunch that day consisted of rabbit stew, followed by cups of coffee. I did not feel very well afterwards, but nevertheless we travelled to Gorlitz railway station on a horse-drawn cart - two German soldiers, six paratroopers and an airman, plus the tins of corned beef, the case of condensed milk, and the large tins of Nescafe.
The hospital train was well fitted out. We were directed to a coach containing the sick soldiers, and there were more than enough bunks to spare for us. The bunks were comfortable with the usual army type mattresses, duvets, and we found that we would be looked after by a German doctor and two nurses. Girls! We had not seen any for years!
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They looked after us very well, because something seemed to have gone wrong with the much vaunted German efficiency, as it now appeared that the 20 sick British soldiers on the train had now increased to 27. Speaking for myself, I did not mind at all, because I felt in need of tender, loving care. It started to snow just after we left Gorlitz, and we saw some lovely scenery during the five days that we spent on the train. Five very pleasant days — on the move, and not behind barbed wire. We cleaned ourselves up. We were warm, and we received German hospital rations supplemented by corned beef sandwiches and coffee (which were also well appreciated by the doctor and the two German girls.)
Our train moved in a westerly direction, then south, being routed and diverted to avoid bomb damaged tracks. We passed through Dresden, Chemnitz, then northwards through Leipzig, westward again via Erfurt and Wurzburg, then south through Nuremberg and Regensburg until we reached Freising where we British P.o.W's had to leave the train.
The town of Freising was built on two levels. The hospital was located in some medieval buildings on the edge of an escarpment some 100 feet higher than the lower town where the River Isar (a fast flowing tributary of the Danube) and the railway station were. This cluster of solid stone buildings within an exterior wall must have been the centre of a religious order centuries ago, because is still housed a beautiful Dom and a convent. We found that the nuns who lived there acted as nurses and orderlies, because as soon as we arrived we were directed into a bathhouse on the ground floor by an English speaking nun. In the bathhouse, a Scottish orderly of the R.A.M.C. took over. There was a plentiful supply of very hot water, Red Cross soap, and Red Cross pyjamas and dressing gowns to put on when we were clean — so carrying our discarded uniforms, Jock led us upstairs to a room on the third floor. There must have been thirty beds in the ward — real hospital beds, and I can say that Warrant Officer Yates and Sgt. Hunter took advantage of their rank and chose beds next to two of the heavily curtained windows. It was quite dark now as we settled down. Jock issued each of us with a chemical hot water bottle. "Just put a bit of water in it — shake it up, and it gets bluidy [sic] hot" said Jock. "Dinna put too much water in it, or yee'll no be able to bear it." He came back once more, this time to give us all a mug full of cocoa, and to wait around until we had drunk it, and of course to answer lots of questions.
"Tomorrow morning those of ye who are nae to [sic] ill to move will go downstairs to see the doctors. Aye, German doctors. The ChefArtz [sic] is a Dr. Straubel — I think he's a Major and he speaks English — the other bloody Artz doesn't. Then there's a French doctor who does the ward rounds every day, that's Capt. André. He's O.K. for a Frenchman."
It is hard to describe the state of euphoria I was experiencing. Compare this warm hospital ward, warm bed, hot water bottle, pillows, duvet, pyjamas — with the dreadful conditions since leaving Lamsdorf in January. I was not sure what month it was — most probably towards the end of February, but surely, the war must end fairly soon now, and as far as I was concerned, this place would do me until then. On that note, I slept.
In the morning, Jock drew back the curtains, and gave us two thin slices of bread spread with either honey or jam, and a mug of tea. "Sick parade at 9.0 o'clock. I'll come for ye."
From my adjacent window, I could see that the walls of our 'hospital' were almost a metre thick. The windows were double—glazed with heavy frames with at least half a metre between the two frames. Below the window, three floors below was a gravelled terrace with a low wall, and beyond that, a series of terraces led to the outer wall and the lower town.
The garden terraces had been neglected, but I am sure that before the war, they would have been very nice. But the view! We were overlooking a plain southwards towards Munich. We could see Munich, and beyond that city, the snowwhite [sic] glistening Alps.
Jock came to collect his patients for the sick parade. A few of the lads remained in bed too ill to get up, but the rest of us went downstairs and waited in an anteroom to wait our turn in the surgery. In the meantime, an English speaking nun took our names and other relevant particulars. I had expected that with a surname 'Yates', I would have been last to be called, but I had forgotten the principles of the German Army. "Warrant Officer Yates" was the first name called. In the Wermacht, [sic] they salute an Unter-Officier (corporal) so a R.A.F. StabsFeldwebel is quite an important person outside the officer class.
Dr. Straubel introduced himself, then I was given a very thorough medical examination. Blood sample taken; blood pressure taken, urine sample given, chest x—ray taken, height and weight measured — and I was very surprised to find that I only weighed 7 stone, 8 pounds. Dr. Straubel told me that I had bronchitis. "Go back to bed Mr. Yates. Dr. André will come to see you."
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Back in the ward later in the morning, Jock came in with medical history sheets which he hung at the foot of each bed, and later, he accompanied Capitaine André, the French army doctor on his rounds. Jock issued medicines, pills, and anti-biotics as prescribed by Capt. André. The sulpha [sic] drug and their derivatives had now become available, and my bronchitis was treated with sulpha [sic] tablets of some sort.
Most of us suffered from general debility and weightloss, [sic] and some form of malnutrition. Coupled with colds, flu and associated aches and pains. We had an American with malaria, one chap had jaundice, others some form of gastro-enteritis with diarrhoea and/or vomiting.
In the next bed to me on my left was Cpl. Howle, a regular soldier of the Staffordshire Regt. who had been captured at Dunkirk. A taciturn man, bullet-headed, and whatever was wrong with him, he kept to himself. Next on his left was Pte. Waller of the Royal West Kents. He was a conscript, and he too had been captured at Dunkirk. He was a countryman, a farm labourer before his call-up, and he became something of a comic character. He was convinced that he had dysentery, even though Capt. André diagnosed that he had acute diarrhoea, and treated him accordingly. Next to him was Cpl. Corpe of the Royal Corps of Signals. He was a man in his mid-30's - a family man captured in Crete who used to entertain us with a fund of ghost and uncanny stories. There was an American S/Sgt. who lived in Los Angeles and had been employed as a camera man [sic] with Pathé. There were others who I never got to know - and the Parachute Regt. men who chose beds next to each other by the far wall under a huge painting of "The Last Supper".
Each morning, Jock served 'breakfast’, then came round to take temperatures and check pulses. On our second day, he took my temperature with an anal thermometer, then Howle's but when he came to Waller, he met with an objection. "You’re not sticking that up my bum!" said Waller. "It's been up his," said Jock, indicating Howle, "but you can have it in your mouth if you like." Waller turned on to his front and pulled down his pyjama trousers.
Capt. André made his rounds each day, sometimes calling in Dr. Straubel for his opinion. Every Wednesday morning Dr. Straubel checked, and it was then that he decided if the patient was fit enough to be discharged from the hospital and sent to the Stalag at Moosburg which was 15 kilometres north-east towards Regensburg. Two weeks after we arrived at Freising, the ward became half empty - all the Paras had gone, and a few others whose health wasn't so bad because they had not been P.o.W's very long. But me and those with a longer captivity stayed, and to some extent 'got a little better'.
We discovered that we were pretty free to roam the corridors of the hospital complex. Occasionally a guard would patrol the corridors, but mainly, the guards were only on sentry at the outer doors and gates. We discovered that there were several wards on the second floor that were for surgical cases, and that there were two British doctors, a Major Darling and a Capt. Church of the R.A.M.C. I also found that the senior soldier was a Lieut. Colonel who was recovering from wounds received in Italy. He was kind enough to tell me of the war's progress up until his capture.
I also 'discovered’ the beautiful Dom with its baroque interior, and the nunnery and the Mother Superior. She spoke fair English, and so did one of the priests.
We also found out that there was a Russian ward, a French ward, and a U.S. Army ward. As we started to get better, we quickly realized that the 'lunches' and the 'teas' which were a mixture of German Army hospital rations and the contents of Red Cross food parcels, need investigation. We 'old lags' from the Stalags knew what was in a Red Cross food parcel, and the majority of patients in this hospital did not. We found that the Quartermaster issuing from the parcel store was an American Staff-Sergeant, and he was not doing his job very well. In fairness to him, he had to send food into the kitchens, and it was communal cooking, catering, and coping with diets by German nuns who did not speak any English. He was 'persuaded' that he could increase his issue of parcels to the cookhouse, and that he could issue 25 English cigarettes per man per week, and that we could have mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and night-time drinks of beverages such as tea, coffee, cocoa, or sometimes Ovaltine or Horlicks.
We had no news of the progress of the war. Winter gave way to Spring, and then it turned wintery for a few days, but the days lengthened, blossom and brand new leaves burst out on the trees, and of course, it was warmer and much nicer in Bavaria than in Silesia. From time to time we watched a daylight air-raid on Munich, and occasionally heard the sound of much heavier bombs during darkness as the R.A.F. attacked targets. From time to time Dr. André brought his chess set and we played chess during the evenings, and on a couple of occasions, Dr. Straubel also invited me to have a game with him. I had many little chats with Dr. Straubel, (I mean short chats), usually after his examination on Wednesday mornings, and I often wondered if he knew that Dr. André popped in to the ward
[page break]
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on the evening before Dr. Straubel’s examination to give me some tablet which seemed to raise my temperature so that I was not as well as I ought to be the following morning. At any event, I was still in the hospital on the morning of Wednesday 11th April when Dr. André had felt unable to continue to assist me in my malingering. On this day, Dr. Straubel did not sound my chest, nor did he examine me at all. He merely said, "You seem to be much better now Mr. Yates, but we will give you another week here in hospital, but next Wednesday you must move to the Stalag."
The following Wednesday, the 18th April, I was prepared to be escorted to the Stalag in the afternoon, but until someone came to order me to put on my uniform I just carried on as usual. It was a lovely Spring day. Warm sun was shining through the window on to my bed, so I just lay there wearing only my pyjama trousers sunbathing. I must have fallen asleep, because I was shaken awake by one of the soldiers "Hey Raff! The Yanks have left one of those smoke things over here!"
What the soldier had seen was an approaching wave of U.S. Air Force bombers. The leading aircraft had just released his bombs, and with it a smoke marker to indicate that the other aircraft in the formation should release theirs simultaneously. What I heard was a screaming roar as hundreds of bombs fell on the lower town of Freising. I tried to duck under the bed, but I did not make it. The window frames were blasted inwards, parts of the plaster ceiling came down, and I was 'bounced' to the other side of the room. At that stage, I don't know what the others were doing. The American S/Sgt., one of the nuns, and myself wearing only pyjama trousers made for the air raid shelter. We made it just before a second wave of bombers attacked, then a third wave's bombs blew off an outside door with the blast forcing open a door between the air-raid shelter and the coal cellar. We were all covered in coal dust. The sound of aero engines died away.
We went back to our ward to find that Corp. Howle had watched the raid from an upright position in a rear corner of the ward. Most of the lower town was wrecked and on fire. The railway station was in ruins; there were six bomb craters in the terracing below our ward; there were trees half covered in new leaves with the other half sliced bare; up in one tree there was something that looked like a sack - it was a priest.
As the day wore on, civilians started to arrive at the hospital for treatment of their wounds, and later, Dr. Straubel told me that it was estimated that there were 700 killed and twice that number wounded or injured.
One thing was certain, I was not going to the Stalag now.
Sleep was hard to come by that night. The air-raid warning system had been put out of action; the room was lit by the fires in the town; smoke sometimes eddied through the non-existant [sic] windows; and the taciturn Howle did not help matters by saying "I hope the bloody R.A.F. don't come tonight - they don't muck about!" (He didn't say muck)
From then on there did not seem to be P.o.W's and guards; British or Germans; just air-raid victims. We helped where we could. Jock (the medical orderly) with myself and a German guard went out of the town and into the country with a horse and cart to collect milk in churns for the hospital. In a day or two, services were re-connected and it was something of a relief to hear the air-raid warning system again - this time it was a flight of R.A.F. 'Boston' day bombers on the way to Munich, and for the first time we heard the frightening noise of a jet fighter. A [sic] M.E. 262 made one incredibly fast attack on the Bostons to disappear into the distance - the flight flew on, then one of them started to smoke and it fell to the ground to finish in the usual mushroom of oily smoke and flame.
As days went by, we saw refugees passing through the rubble strewn town. We saw a column of artillery, and we saw German armour moving south in the direction of Munich. Then, at noon on Sunday 29th April I was talking to an English speaking priest in the timbered courtyard when a shell burst overhead and the sirens sounded not for air-raid, but "enemy tanks and artillery". The priest said, "I would like to stay with you if I may, and I think that we should go into the cellars." I told him to go to the cellars, and I would join him later. I went back to our ward where Howle, Carve, Waller and one or two others wanted to know what was going on. Another shell burst overhead, so down to the cellars we went.
During the following seven or eight hours we heard gunfire, artillery, demolition as the bridge over the Isar was destroyed. Some explosions shook the foundations, but we found it hard to distinguish between friendly fire or German. About 8.0 pm a German officer came into the cellar and asked for a volunteer to run up a white flag. Corp. Howle said that he would if they would give him a bottle of Schnapps. The spirit was produced, Howle left with the German officer, and shortly afterwards the firing ceased. We did not see Howle again until Tuesday morning.
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
50 years ago
Prisoner of war in Germany
Description
An account of the resource
The memoir covers Sergeant Officer A Yates' time as a prisoner of war from September 1942 to April 1945. He was initially imprisoned in Stalag VIIIB in Upper Silesia, he was evacuated with 30,000 others to escape the advancing Russian Army. He and a friend escaped but the conditions were so bad that they turned themselves in. He evaded the next evacuation but was quickly caught and lined up against a wall. Some Russians were shot but he and some British paratroopers pretended they were medical orderlies who were protected under the Geneva Convention. They looted a Red Cross store before being put on a hospital train. This was a great improvement on their previous conditions. They stayed onboard for several days until Freising where they set up in a hospital. Because of their condition they were treated as patients at a much greater level of comfort than the camps. They were about to be evacuated when there was a huge bombing attack, by the Americans, which destroyed most of Freising. The hospital was used to treat the survivors. A few days later the hospital was liberated, the German’s asking for a volunteer to run up a white flag.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A Yates
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
4 typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BYatesYates1501
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lakenheath
Germany--Freising
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Görlitz (Görlitz)
Poland--Łambinowice
Poland
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Suffolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-09-10
1942-09-11
1943
1944
1945
1945-04-29
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
149 Squadron
displaced person
prisoner of war
shot down
Stalag 8B
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1170/11739/PGoodwinWJ1701.1.jpg
8b4ec729b85f1c3409510581a2237ccf
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1170/11739/AGoodwinWJ170607.2.mp3
e3c8203b31a0ff85ab7d6725b4be77a1
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
Goodwin, Wal
Walter James Goodwin
W J Goodwin
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Walter Goodwin (b. 1921, 419914 Royal Australian Air Force) as well as his log book, a story about visit to Cape Town, certificates, flying operation guide for Haverfordwest and photographs. He flew as a pilot with 463 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Walter Goodwin 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
2017-06-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Goodwin, WJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: This interview for the International Bomber Command Centre is with Wal Goodwin who was a pilot with 463 Squadron on Lancasters. The interview is taking place at Wal’s place at the Basin in Melbourne, in Victoria. My name’s Adam Purcell and it is the 7th June 2017. Wal, we might start at the beginning if you don’t mind. Tell me something about you early life. How you grew up and what you were doing before the war.
WG: Oh. Well, my father was a farmer and we had conscription and I put in, in the Army for quite a while and then they decided because I was a Reserved Occupation they kicked me out, which I didn’t complain about. Not that I had any complaints out there either because they knew I had a driver’s licence so I had the, quite often had the job of seeing, driving the CO around in a beautiful new [unclear] [laughs] which was much better than doing route marches. But after I got back, about three months later I enlisted in the Air Force. But I had to wait to be called up and there were a lot of things that we had to learn because there was so many subjects we had to know which were way above whatever I had done. There was maths. And I was very lucky in one respect. There was a Post Office fellow, a guy that worked in the Post Office down in Boronia and he taught me Morse Code which was a great thing because a lot of the fellas were scrubbed because they couldn’t handle Morse Code. You had to be able to take and send twenty six words a minute and there was no way of faking it. You had to get it accurate and if you weren’t accurate you were out. And I was a bit lucky with the maths side of it. I did a correspondence course for, for the three months I was waiting and so that got me back on track but it was way above what I had done, learned at state schools. So that was a help. And then when you went to Bradfield Park, the initial training course at Bradfield Park was really nothing to do with flying. Although there was a lot of ground work and all the subjects we had to learn as well and there were, which were only be about a hundred guys on the intake I was on and they all wanted to be pilots but there would only be fifteen I think that qualified to go on to elementary flying. So I was posted to Narrandera to do elementary flying and I was a bit lucky there because if you couldn’t go solo in in six hours you were scrubbed. Anyone could learn to fly but there’s a time limit on it and if you couldn’t do it in six months, six hours you were out. Well, I was a bit lucky really because one of my mates [Salle Colewall] for some reason he couldn’t fly and he was filling in his time at that stage in the office. And when I was younger I used to get quinsies which were an abscess on the tonsil which are pretty painful things and I was home on leave from Narrandera one night and going back and I felt this quinsy coming on. So I went straight to this doctor and they put me into the hospital in Wagga Wagga and took my tonsils out which took me off course for about six or eight weeks I suppose. Quite a while. And part of the recuperation we were sent to a farm at a place out of Wagga at a place called Mangoplah where Charlie Harper had a farm. And it was quite an experience because there again because I had a driving licence. Mangoplah was quite a few miles out of Wagga but they used to go in to Wagga Wagga for their shopping and they got me to drive their Ford truck and the roads were all corrugated and I’d never met corrugated roads before and I, going, driving slowly. And a lady said, ‘The only way to handle these roads is go like hell.’ [laughs] So I tried and it worked. But I was there for probably five or six weeks recuperating and when I got back to Narrandera because I hadn’t had any flying experience in that time and according to my records I wasn’t there. But that’s when [Salle?] came in handy because he was in the office and said, ‘He couldn’t be because he was in, in hospital.’ So I was back on course again with a different instructor and I can remember he told me to do a slow roll and I told him I’d never been taught how to do it and he told me I was a bit of an [embarrassment ] But I proved to him I hadn’t because I went in that way and came out [unclear] [laughs] So I finally finished my course in Narrandera and then we were posted to Point Cook to Airspeed Oxfords and that was quite an experience flying a twin-engined Oxford after a Tiger Moth. Tiger Moths, you could, you could do anything in a Tiger Moth so a very very safe plane. But there was a couple of guys who were scrubbed from there as well. One guy was about to take off and the CO was taking me out for a test and suddenly he said, ‘Taking over.’ And he taught me so much in that five minutes that I never forgot. He turned the thing around, right around. So actually down and put the plane down right alongside the chap who was about to take off. He was taking off with, they had a little luggage compartment in there, just behind the cockpit and that was open. He was flying, taking off without opening and he never flew again. And another one he was a bit unlucky in a way, he landed downwind which another thing you recommend because Tiger Moths didn’t have any brakes and he got, before he went in to the drain at the end of the runway he managed to stop. He got out and turned this thing around and took off the other way. But the CO happened to see that so he never flew again either. There were all sorts of reasons why they were scrubbed. Anyhow, flying Airspeed Oxfords was quite an experience. The, my instructor was, he used to fly air ambulances in Sydney in peacetime and everything he’d tell you was just like taking candy from a baby which it was eventually. We, we learned an awful lot on the Airspeed Oxfords. They were, I was lucky really when you had, you didn’t have a choice but we got either posted to Ansons or the Oxfords and I’m glad I had the Oxford because they had hydraulics whereas the Ansons you had to wind everything up and down. And they were very safe plane but the Oxford had a few quirks about them. If you had a dent in the cowling that would put up the stalling rate by quite a few kilometres an hour but I managed to get through it all alright. And then we had to do a cross country flight up to, oh it was around almost to Ballarat and then back down again but you had to find your own way. It was common knowledge. Everyone that had done the course before would tell you when you did that all you do was follow the line. There’s a [unclear] plantation with a ring fence. You follow that down and you go straight [laughs] on to Point Cook. That was a big help but one fella did low flying down Geelong Road and he got a bit low down and took the tips off the propellers. He didn’t fly again either [laughs] But from there I was posted to embarkation depot in Melbourne. We started out at the Melbourne Showground and while I was there I got the mumps so, I missed the [unclear] By the time I was cleared of the mumps all the guys that I’d trained with they’d already been posted. I don’t know where they went. A lot of them went to England but not all of them. I never kept track of it after that. And then we moved from the Showground to the Exhibition Buildings for a few months and from there we went to the Cricket Ground which was quite an experience staying at the Cricket Ground. And eventually we went. We were posted. We went on a Dutch ship, the Niew Amsterdam which was a pretty big ship and we went from there and then we stopped off at South Africa and Durban for about four weeks because they took on about five hundred Italian prisoners of war and about the same number of Polish women. Girl refugees which were going to England so they had to change the ship over so everyone was segregated and of course it was quite an experience. Pretty well uneventful until we got up to Freetown and they took on supplies and one silly guy decided to buy a monkey. I don’t know what he was going to do with it but fortunately they found out before we sailed that he had a monkey so they, that was the end of his monkey. We went unescorted all the way because it was a pretty fast ship and it did a zigzag course which took a bit of getting used to but they reckoned that way you to go so submarines wouldn’t be able to get it. So we finished up in Scotland and went by train from there down to Brighton on the, right on the English Channel. And the first night we were there they had, there was an Englishman who had just defected to the Germans. His name was Lord Haw Haw and he used to do a radio broadcast every night in English to the English people and that the intelligence was pretty accurate because he heard that there was a group of Australians had arrived in Brighton that night and they were going to give them a warm welcome. So we had a quite a lot, a lot of planes going over and they dropped bombs where we were in Brighton and one of them was shot down and it crashed just a couple of streets away from the hotel we were staying at. And for me we, there were so many pilots around. There was. They didn’t know what to do with them so they sent us back to a private airfield flying Tiger Moths again. And from Tiger Moths we had one guy [Danny Maddox] was his, he was a civilian who ran this, this Tiger Moth station and they were all civilians and one of the guys [Danny Maddox] decided, he had a girlfriend and he decided he was going to go and see her in the daytime when he was flying. The only trouble was he tried to land at an airfield, in a wheatfield and he tipped it up. So, he rang the CO, told him he'd crashed a plane and the CO said, ‘Is it flyable?’ He said, ‘Oh, if you send a couple of guys out to stand it on its wheels it’ll be alright.’ [laughs] From there we did a, what they called a BAT course. That’s where you, a beam approach. You did everything by radio. You couldn’t see the instruments. You had to do everything on your instruments of course. It was quite, quite an experience. I really enjoyed it but it taught me a lot about instruments though. At Narrandera we used to do what they called a link trainer which was just, they all called them the horror box because if you could do it they were like a simulator you could do anything in the things but you never crashed. And quite often at night time I’d go back and do another course on on the link trainer because it was, I think that helped me a lot but this instrument flying one was really something. But we found flying in England was a lot easier, especially at night time than it was in Australia because in Australia at night time all you had were flares down the side of the runway and you had to come in until you virtually lined the flares up all in one line. I mean, you, that was it. You landed. But over there they had the control lights. If you were too low it’d be red. If you were on course it’d be green. If you got too high it’d be yellow. So, you come in on this its green and they had a, you had to come in at a separated speed and you had to lose height at certain times otherwise they had what they called the outer marker beacon and then an inner marker beacon and then a cone of silence and you had to be about fifty feet when you came over the cone of silence and you had to pull everything back and you’re on the runway. Which was really good. But from there I got sent on a [pause] down to a place called Haverfordwest in South Wales on flying control duty in the, in the control tower where it was getting, and it was quite funny really too. They had a radio channel that was monitored twenty four hours a day. It was called Darkie and if anyone got in to trouble they’d press Darkie and they, they would be directed to the nearest airfield. Well, this night there was a fella calling up for Darkie and we couldn’t get him. He’d got the, had the transmitter down all the time because we couldn’t get him. But it’s a funny thing I’ve often wondered about that. I reckoned he just must have just gone off into the night and crashed. But in reading a report from a, in a book that I got a bit after the war this guy he was doing his OTU at, in Scotland and the navigator should have been able to tell him where they went, where they were but the navigator had no idea. It was night time and it was cloud and the navigator didn’t know where they were, the pilot didn’t know where they were and they just kept on flying and eventually he was very lucky because the clouds broke up and underneath him was the Isle of Man and he was able to land on the Isle of Man. But in report he was, he was afraid he was going to be scrubbed because of that but in the report it said the navigator was the one who really got the blast. But he said to him as a navigator he wasn’t very good but as a pilot he was proficient. Well, I was there for another couple of weeks and this was after the D-Day landings and there were planes flying backwards and forwards across the Channel and the Navy was shooting at everything that came in sight. So they put me on a destroyer at Milford Haven as aircraft identification and they were taking a convoy of ships up the Channel to Cherbourg or what was known as a Mulberry Harbour. That was a harbour that was built up in Scotland [coughs] Built up in Scotland and it was, it was a huge thing. It was about a mile long. How they did it. We got there without any problems and we were on the way back to Milford Haven when the admiral was on board the destroyer I was on and he got a call to go to Portsmouth and I was, I’ll never forget it, I was on the catwalk on this destroyer when it turned around and I was up to my knees in water. Anyhow, we got to Portsmouth. Portsmouth, and from there got posted back to Haverfordwest and then the next day I was sent to Moreton in Marsh for OTU. That’s where I first met my crew. They put a whole load of us pilots and all the guys in a big room and we had to pick a crew. We’d nothing. We knew nothing about them at all except that they’d done their course and must have been proficient in whatever it was they were. I was very lucky. I managed to get a crew which we all got on very well with. Yeah. And the only one that I didn’t get was the flight engineer. He, they sent me a flight engineer and he came from Newcastle but he was quite a nice guy too. But we never had any problems. We just, we all got along very well with and we finished our OTU. The only thing was there’s something that I’d forgotten about until a couple of years ago when my rear gunner and mid-upper gunner reminded me that I’d, we were flying at seventeen thousand feet and suddenly started coming down, losing height and I can never, couldn’t get it back and we were coming down down down, getting lower all the time and everything was working as it should have been. I’d forgotten about it because, but when we got down to about six thousand feet I told them to prepare to jump out and when we got to about six thousand feet I was able to hold it at six thousand feet. So we finished the flight at six thousand feet but I reported it as an unserviceable plane, told them what the problem was but the next day we were posted to Winthorpe to the Lancaster. So I never really found out what the problem was. The only thing I can think of is that you had a constant speed propellers but [pause] you took off in fine pitch and then you put in a course pitch and from then on they took over and the only thing I can think of is that for some reason they changed over to fine pitch which would give you, you wouldn’t be able to climb very far on fine pitch. But that’s the only thing I can think of. I’d forgotten about it until just a few years ago when my rear gunner told me he always wanted to do a parachute jump. And he did two parachute jumps down at Wollongong but he said he was never so glad as the night I cancelled the order to jump ship. Now, I never, to this day I really don’t know what caused that. But then we went to Winthorpe. That’s where I met a guy that took me on a conversion course or an initiation course on Lancasters told me that he was very glad I was flying Lancasters and I never had any trouble. But the funny thing was there was an Englishman on the same course and he’d had no problem landing the Wellingtons and yet he reckoned he couldn’t land a Lancaster which doesn’t make any sense. I think he just didn’t want to go any further but I don’t know what happened to him. They took him out one day to an airfield that wasn’t used very much and they had him doing landings all day but I don’t know what happened after that. So from Winthorpe we were posted to 463 Squadron and [pause] I was, we were still on training at that stage and I can only remember they used to have a spoof raid which they called them, where the main course, main flight, the bombers would take off but this other lot would, one or two planes would take off a few minutes earlier and go on a different course and they’d throw out these strips of aluminium which they reflected on the German radar as planes that they didn’t know. And the idea was to get their planes up in the air somewhere away from where they, the main force was going. But the night war ended over in Europe we were flying on and all of a sudden all the lights came up all over the ground so I asked the wireless operator what was going on and he’d been listening to music so he didn’t know. Then he rang back and told me that the war was over and we had been recalled an hour earlier [laughs]. So we went back to base and I called up for permission to land which you have to do and of course and no one answered me. So I flew down over the control tower and never got any result from anyone. So I took a chance on what the wind was doing, what direction it was coming because we couldn’t see very much and when we landed we called up for transport to get us to go from dispersal back to the control tower and nothing happened. No one answered so we had to load all our gear for quite a long walk back to the control tower. And when we got back there all the guys were very much inebriated or had [laughs] had a little bit too much to drink. But it was quite a relief really to know that the war was over down there. And then we did several they called them Cook’s Tours. We took mostly WAAFs who had been in the offices around the place on these Cook’s Tours over Europe and showed them the bomb damage and all that sort of stuff and then that’s where instrument flying came in very handy because we were flying in cloud for oh, probably an hour. And it sounds silly but you, you swear blind your bum was six foot, six inches off your seat. You could really reckon you were upside down but you, that’s where I, you had to be convinced that the instruments are working. One of them might get out but not all them. And I finally got out of the cloud and when we came back I landed and the CO happened to be in the control tower and he, he said, ‘The pilot of that plane report to control tower immediately.’ I thought what the heck have I done? And he said, ‘That’s the best, best landing that I’ve ever seen.’ From there we did, we were supposed to go down to Italy to bring the prisoners of war home but it turned out that they had, in Italy they were all grass runways. So they didn’t have any concrete runways and they’d had a lot of rain there and the Lancasters that had gone down were all bogged. So we never went down there but the war was still going in, in the Pacific and the whole squadron were posted to, to go to Coningsby to do a conversion on to Lincolns. But the war ended over in Europe before, in the Pacific before we started on that so the next things happened pretty quickly from there on. That’s a photograph taken there of our squadron after the war. But we, we never actually got to Coningsby. I was posted back to Brighton and within three weeks we were on our way home. So that’s about it.
AP: There’s your quick story. Can we go back and fill in some gaps?
WG: Yeah.
AP: How old were you when you actually enlisted?
WG: Pardon?
AP: How old were you when you, when you actually joined the Air Force?
WG: 1942, I joined.
AP: So, how, how old were you at that point?
WG: Twenty one.
AP: Twenty one. Oh, of course because you had been a farmer.
WG: Yeah.
AP: The farm wasn’t a Reserved Occupation. That’s what —
WG: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok. That makes sense. Where were you when, when war was declared? What can you remember of that time? What were you doing? What were your thoughts?
WG: Well, that was [pause] well the Japs came in to the war when I was out at Seymour in the Army. So that would be, well ’41/42. ’41 I think it was. So, I would have been in the Army up there at that stage and as I said I enlisted in the Air Force in about six, would have been when I was called up would have been about three months later.
AP: What can you remember of 1939?
WG: Well, that would be, in those days I was just a farmer.
AP: Did you suspect when, when you became aware that war was on did you suspect that you would be involved at some point? What were your thoughts about that?
WG: No. To this day I don’t know why I enlisted in the Air Force [laughs] It was just something. I’ve no idea why I did that. Anyway, I decided I had to do something and I wasn’t really crash hot on being in the Army so I decided the Air Force would be better. You know. I had no idea. It’s funny because my younger brother enlisted in the Air Force just before I did. It’s funny how people, what their ideas are because she told him he could enlist in the Air Force as long as he was a rear gunner which was the most unrealistic thing [laughs] I mean, that’s the last job you’d want. But —
AP: So your brother did serve with Bomber Command as well? But did he —
WG: No. He was a fighter pilot.
AP: Fighter pilot. Ok.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Can you tell me much about the process of enlistment? What did you have to do? Did you have to do interviews and any extra training or anything? Any medical exams before you enlisted?
WG: We all had a medical exam and that was about it. And then we were called up and were put on a train and we turned up to Sydney and, where we did as I’ve said I didn’t do anything, learn anything really about flying except the theory of flight. That was about the only thing. But we had to pass in meteorology and so many [pause] There was about fifteen or twenty subjects we had to study. Law and administration and, as I said before Morse Code. That included aldis lamps and semaphore which was all part of it. I can’t remember the rest of the things. We had to be able to take a Bren gun apart and put it back together with your eyes closed which is quite a thing to do. But I don’t think there was anything. We did a lot marches in, in Sydney while we were there. Never did any marches in Melbourne.
AP: So, you mean like a march down the city street.
WG: Yeah.
AP: As a recruiting thing or just to get from A to B or —
WG: Oh no. It was just something they just decided to do. I don’t know why they did it but we did two or three. Three I think in Sydney. Marching down the street in Sydney.
AP: What did the local population think of that? Do you know?
WG: Oh, there was always a crowd of people out to watch it. But I don’t really know what they thought about it because we weren’t privy to that.
AP: Was it, was it a serious thing or was it like a joyful thing or, what was the mood on a march like that?
WG: Well, no one complained about it. It was just something we did. At one stage after we, when we were in England we were posted up at [pause] north of England and they had a lot of what they called six weeks wonders. There was a guy trained in administration but they didn’t know how to handle anyone. And I can remember at one stage that we were all marching, we still had to do marches and we were marching past a, I can’t remember [pause] it was, if it was for some reason the guys just kept dropping off. This fellow was in front leading the marching and by the time he got back to base there was only half a dozen guys behind him. And the day we were passing out up there unbeknownst to the, the officer in charge they all decided they would silent hop. Normally when you stopped you banged your foot down like that. It was something that always happened and this day when he called out, ‘Halt,’ there wasn’t a sound behind him. He spun around. Everyone was there, which rather surprised him. He thought he’d lost them all [laughs] While we was there this chap came in in a Lancaster and it was probably one of the worst landings I think you’d ever see. He touched down and up and down and up and, and when he finally got it down there a big roar went up. And I remember the last flight I did in England was at a [pause] I don’t know why I had to, I don’t know why I was there but there was a chap, Johnnie Blair. He was senior to me. I was only a flying officer and he was a flight lieutenant and I had to go along as his second pilot for some reason. This is what they called a gaggle where everyone just flew in a heap at night time and it was the worst flying I’d ever seen. I was tempted to take over many times but I thought well, he’s, he’s my senior, it wouldn’t go down too well. But we got back alright and I never saw him again. That was just a few days before we were posted to Brighton and the funny thing is he joined, he was a pilot with TAA in those days and this was quite a few years after the war and I was up at Mildura and I was there having a meal and this guy come in and he looked. He came over straight away to apologise. He recognised me even though he was a civilian pilot and this was quite a few years after. He reckoned he didn’t know he was going to fly that night and he had too much to drink [laughs] But he remembered that years afterwards.
AP: Oh dear. That’s great. Ok. Well, we’re talking about flying. Tell me about your first solo.
WG: Oh, it was uneventful. I did everything. No drama at all. That was on Tiger Moths. We had a lot of funny experiences because the airfield at Narrandera, they had a satellite field a few miles away where we flew. And I can remember one day these, the pilots used to get really cheesed off with it because they didn’t want to be instructors on Tiger Moths and this guy undid his straps on his parachute and walked out on the wing and sat there on the wing. The Tiger Moths, you could fly them with your hands out at the side really. They were, I don’t think any Tiger Moths crashed while I was up there. I think if you crashed you’d have to have done something silly. They were, they were a reliable plane. Yeah. I don’t think I had any dramas. When we were at Point Cook we had what they called a crash mate. There were, there were two of you and one guy would do his hour or whatever flying or whatever he had to do and then they’d change over. Well, my crash mate, his first solo flight was from Werribee and they’d, and he was coming in to land at the same time as another plane and they were both killed. So that wasn’t a very good experience. We didn’t know what happened to him. We only found out afterwards. So that taught me to make sure you knew everything that was going on around about you. Which reminds me, when you were coming in to land you always had to call up for permission to join a circuit and you always had to go downwind, crosswind and then put it, come back downwind and this guy he was supposed to meet his girlfriend that night and he decided to come straight in. I could see him coming and I thought well I’m not getting off the runway for him and he had to land on the grass alongside, just behind me. And unfortunately for him the CO happened to be in flying control and saw that. He didn’t go out that night. He was a bit of a rat bag but he was still flying a couple of years ago. He was flying, delivering newspapers down to, well down as far as Eden. Dropping them off. So, he was still flying so he must have been able to fly all right.
AP: Didn’t set him back too much. What can you tell me about Narrandera? The airfield. How did you live there? What sort of things did you do on a typical day?
WG: Well, I was lucky in one way. My cousin had trained at Narrandera and my brother had as well and they got to know a Mrs Andrews who was the wife of the doctor and we could go and spend a weekend when you couldn’t go and come home and get back in time for anything. So we, quite often we’d spend a weekend with the Andrews family which was quite good. Otherwise, we just stayed on the station.
AP: What was a day like? When you were learning to fly on a Tiger Moth what sort of things did you do on a typical day? How, how did it run?
WG: Well, as I said earlier quite often I’d spend time on the link trainer. Apart from that there wasn’t much else to do. I didn’t have any social habits. Really, really nothing in Narrandera itself. The town was very very small.
AP: Ok. Can you describe a link trainer?
WG: Pardon?
AP: Can you describe a link trainer? What did it —
WG: Well, it was like a big box and had all the instruments the same as a plane would have. You were completely enclosed in this thing and you could do anything. You could put it in a spin and whatever and, but you couldn’t hurt yourself. So the one thing we had if you did anything wrong you’re not going to hurt yourself.
AP: Very good. What about Point Cook? What was that like as an airfield to fly from?
WG: Oh, it was quite good actually. It was wintertime when I was down there and at that stage I was importing Vultee Vengeance planes which they came boxed and they were assembled down there and the pilots had taken [unclear] do a circuit to make sure they were flying alright. And I can remember one day I was walking behind one when he decided to rev it up and I was blown over and down the runway on my backside. But it was, it was only the bare necessities at an airfield. Nothing special about it. But they didn’t, they didn’t have concrete runways. They were all grass which meant you could fly in any direction but there was nothing special about it.
AP: You said you stayed at the MCG for a little while. That would have been something of an experience I imagine.
WG: Well, it was. A lot of things in the Air Force disappear and they did a stock take of things while we were there and it’s amazing how people would get off with things from the store room which, you’re not supposed to go to the storeroom only if you need another uniform or shoes or something. And it was amazing the amount of stuff that was missing. Which reminds me of another time we were between sometimes it must have been after [pause] no, it would have been before we started OTU. We were at a place called Burton and it had a coal dump at the back and they had a whole lot of fire buckets and things like that and one of the guys used to take the fire bucket into the town and sell them. And he sold buckets full of coal as well. They never caught him [laughs] And I remember he had a verey pistols and a cartridge you would fire if you were in distress or something land or something and there was a big flare at the end of it and one day I had one and I was trying to light it with a cigarette lighter and I was keeping well away from it because I knew that it was going to if it, if it lit it was going to go off. Well, two of my mates [unclear] and Bob Hines decided to take over and they were crouching over the top of it when it went off and they lost all their eyebrows and half their hair and everything else. They weren’t going to go to the doctor. They went to the chemist down the street.
AP: Yeah. Ok. So, when you get to England you said there was something like the first night there was a a Germans attacked.
WG: Yeah.
AP: What were your general thoughts about wartime England? What were your general impressions?
WG: Well, we had been through London in daylight and they had big barrage balloons up in the air and all the damage that had been done so you didn’t feel any sorrow for anything that happened over in Germany because London was pretty badly bombed. But we didn’t know that at the time it just it wasn’t until the next day we knew that the plane had been shot down. We, we knew the Bofors guns. They had Bofors guns all along the, the promenade so we, when we heard them going off but that’s about all there was to it. They didn’t last very long.
AP: What did you think of the civilian population and how they were handling things? Did you —
WG: Oh, it was amazing how they handled it really. A lot of them used to sleep at night under the railway stations in the Underground. London got a, it had done a lot of damage to the buildings and the houses but there were so many people who were spending their nights in, in the underground railway stations. Hundreds of them. They did that week after week. And it was funny when the what they called the buzz bombs they were just a little two stroke engine and a bomb and wings and they’d fly over until they ran out of fuel and then they’d crash. Well, the Hurricanes used to fly alongside them and tip their wing up and turn them out to sea so they crashed out to sea. So they didn’t do that much damage after they realised what they were. But then when the V-2s came along that was a different story because you couldn’t do anything about them. You didn’t know they were there until [pause] and I reckoned we were pretty lucky because we were at the Victoria Station and were about to get into a taxi when this woman for some reason wanted a taxi in a hurry so we said, ‘Take ours. Take it.’ And a V bomb came over just a few seconds later and I reckon we would have been just about where it was. So, as I said lucky we didn’t get that. But there was nothing they could do about them. They were just going too fast.
AP: You said something about a beam approach course.
WG: Eh?
AP: You mentioned something about a beam approach course [coughs] Excuse me, that you did earlier.
WG: Yes.
AP: Flying the beam. How did you do that? Can you remember the process of it?
WG: Well, it was set up for landing when there was a fog on for some reason. Before that they had what they called, well they still had what they called FIDO where they had pipes of oil down the side of the runway and they’d light them. Well, this took over from that and you’d have to find where the runway was for a start but they had different signals for, one side would be dit dit dit and the other side would be da da da but when you, you got on the where it was quiet you knew that’s where the runway was. So you did your circuit around, and you had to have everything accurate. Your rate of descent had to be right any you had to be at a certain distance there. The marker beacon, you had to be seven hundred and fifty feet and your rate of descent had to be accurate or you had a gauge telling you what that was and then had an inner marker which was a different sound again and then, and then a cone of silence which everything went off and you just pulled back on this control tower and you were there which made it very simple.
AP: How often were they used in anger so to speak? I know you trained on them. Did you ever —
WG: No.
AP: Do you know of anyone who —
WG: No. I never knew of anyone that used them.
AP: You have to wonder the point don’t you?
WG: Well, London used to get fogs and —
AP: Yeah.
WG: Their Meteorology was very very good except for one night I remember we were supposed to do a cross country flight and we had to take off north and then we had to come back over the airfield and then and we had to be at about twenty thousand feet. And it, the Met told us that it would be a windspeed of about fifteen or twenty knots but they got it completely wrong because it was over two hundred knots and I can remember it took us over half an hour to fly across the airfield and, and it went on and on and on. I could still see that there was one plane up there and one down just below me and one was just going veering away so I had to make sure I stayed in the middle and hoped to hell they didn’t change. Well, after about an hour I decided that we were never going to be able to finish. We didn’t have fuel enough to get back again so I aborted and went back and the CO told me off ‘til the next morning when the planes were all over the country and they’d all ran out of fuel so he decided I did the right thing which I think I did anyhow.
AP: Was what aircraft were you flying at that point?
WG: Lancaster.
AP: That was a Lancaster [unclear] Cool. Alright, turning to thoughts of leave. You would have got leave in England fairly often. What did you do?
WG: Well, there was [pause] quite often I wouldn’t go on leave. But when I was, before I got a commission there was a what was known as a Victoria Leagues Club where other ranks could go in Vauxhall Bridge Road. It was the Duchess, the Duchess of Devonshire was a patron and you’d pay about two shillings for a bed and your breakfast. But it was only for other ranks and there was, the person who really ran it was an Australian Red Cross girl, Virginia [Herman] and I got to know her very well and quite often I just spent half a day helping her in the office because there was a lot of office work that I could do to help her. But then I got, we got an invitation to, for an evening at the Duchess of Devonshire’s residence in Knightsbridge and so I think that was the Red Cross girl organised it for me and I went out there and that’s, and the present Queen Elizabeth happened to be there. She was in the Land Army. Just an ordinary girl in those days and we had a dance with her and Princess Margaret. Quite a nice night. Something I can remember which not everyone’s had.
AP: That’s quite a good claim to fame actually. I like that one.
WG: But once I became commissioned I wasn’t supposed to go to the Victoria League Club but I kept my old uniform and if I was going on leave I’d go down there because you get sick of London. There’s not a lot you could do there. I wasn’t a great one for going and getting drunk or anything like that. But it’s funny because my wireless operator was a funny little guy. He was only very very little but he was walking down the street in London and there was a couple of New Zealand guys trying to break in to a car. They reckoned they’d lost their keys so Shorty said, ‘Oh, I can get in there for you.’ Just then the police came along and grabbed him [laughs] So he was arrested, spent the night in jail. There was an American guy in there as well and as he was going before the judge he put something in Shorty’s pocket. He didn’t know what it was but when he, he finally, the judge believed what he said and when he put his hand in his pocket there was a brand new watch. So he sold that and got his uniform cleaned.
AP: Ok. Characters. What was your first impression of the Lancaster when you first saw one? What did you think?
WG: I think. Well, I thought it was a marvellous plane. I didn’t realise how good they were but one night we were supposed to go, take off early in the day and went in flying and like the day before, it was summertime and for some reason when we were coming in to try to land everything was just a blur of lights. I’ll never forget it. It was just a blur of lights and the instructor said, he he aborted it, the whole lot and said, ‘The student is showing signs of fatigue.’ But the next night no problem. I don’t know what it was. There was something about it because we had never any trouble flying at night with landing. But with the Wellingtons they were a different story. They were a sleeve valve engine on them and if you throttled back quickly the, it would backfire and the carburettor catch alight. Well, in the daytime you didn’t see it but in the night time you did see it and the only thing to do when that happened you opened the throttles and it sucked it all out. And this guy, I was supposed to take off after him on his first solo flight at night and he’d throttled back and see this sheet of flame they reckoned [he was surrounded going in]. The poor old instructor said, ‘I think we’ll have to shoot him down.’ [laughs] But after four attempts he did come down and landed all right. He took a chance on it but you don’t really see the flame in the day time but at the night time it’s very very visible. It’s something you just have to watch out for.
AP: So the Wellington was a challenging aeroplane then in some ways.
WG: Not really. A lot of people didn’t like them. One of my mates he had to have a certain length leg to be able to put on the full rudder when one engine gave out and he was too short. He started off flying Wirraways in Australia but he, his legs were too short and he couldn’t. He couldn’t handle them. He tried to join Oxfords at Point Cook and did all the things that I did, the beam approach and all that until he got to OTU where he couldn’t, couldn’t handle the Wellington. But they were a very good plane really and they were the first plane that bombed Berlin so, but the only thing I, trouble I had was when I lost height with them. But I never had any trouble landing them ever.
AP: There’s one thing I’m really interested in as well. You said you were at Haverfordwest, I think.
WG: Yeah.
AP: At Haverfordwest. Flying control.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Declaration. I’m an air traffic controller. I’m very interested in your experiences there.
WG: Oh. Well, they were really flying looking for U-boats and that sort of thing and I can remember one day when a Halifax came in. Yeah. A Halifax. And it had been shot up and they’d landed. The undercarriage was blown away. I never, I didn’t think anyone could get out a plane that fast. The whole crew were out. They landed on the grass and the whole crew were out but the plane was still going off down the runway. You can do it if you wanted to. But otherwise it was pretty uneventful. One of the things that I will never forget though was I had to do a couple of nights on pundit duty. Every airfield had a call sign and this pundit duty was an alternator. It had a big diesel engine and it was roaring all night and this thing was going. It was clacking out the three figures for the, to identify the airfield. So, I never got much sleep that time.
AP: So —
WG: There wasn’t much to do though. It was just to make sure that it was alright. Everything didn’t stop. Another time I was on the [pause] controlling on the runway and the guys were supposed to end up being flying, shooting bullets and they had to clear them again before they came in but he didn’t. He was clearing his guns on the runway. Everyone was diving for cover.
AP: So what did the runway control duty involve? What did you actually have to do there?
WG: Well, the control duty was only really if anyone was taking off you had to give them a green light or not. Whichever way. It depended if something was, an obstruction on the runway which could well be they had to stop anyone landing. So you either gave them a green light or a red light.
AP: That was like an aldis.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
WG: And the only thing wrong with the Lancasters if you had to stop before taking off they’d overheat because they depended on the air flowing through to keep them cool. If that happened you had to turn around the other way and rev them up until they cooled down again otherwise they’d blow all their oil out, coolant out which wouldn’t be a good thing.
AP: No. No. Not at all. And did you do much in the watch tower there as well? The control tower.
WG: I was in the control tower for about three weeks. That was before I went on the Navy excursion and after that I was posted to OTU.
AP: So, what can you remember about that control tower? What did it look like?
WG: Oh, it was just up in the air. It was a view windows all the way around and you could see everything that was going on all the way around you.
AP: Who else was in there?
WG: Pardon?
AP: Who else was in the tower?
WG: Oh, who was qualified. Yeah. We were, we were only doing what we were told to do because we didn’t know anything really about it.
AP: What, so what sort of things were you actually doing?
WG: I don’t remember doing anything very special. That night when the chap was calling up Darkie I was on the radio trying to get him but couldn’t do it. That’s the sort of thing we did.
AP: So just an extra pair of hands to fill in.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Get the coffee or whatever [laughs]
WG: Yeah.
AP: Alright. Cool. What did you think as the only Air Force officer on a Navy vessel? That would have been a bit odd.
WG: Pardon?
AP: When, when you were with the Navy what was the —
WG: Oh, I was the most popular guy in the Navy because they gave them a tot, a tot of rum every night and I didn’t drink the stuff. So I was the most popular fella. They all wanted my tot of rum.
AP: And were you, you were just sort of on the bridge there or —
WG: No. No. We, we was just there and if we were needed they’d call up. We didn’t have anything.
AP: Any duties as such.
WG: We didn’t have to do anything.
AP: Yeah. Ok. Alright. We might move on to Waddington. You weren’t there for very long I gather.
WG: Waddington?
AP: At Waddington. Yeah.
WG: No. I wasn’t at Waddington at all.
AP: Ah. Ok.
WG: 463 had been at Waddington but then they turned, they moved to oh what’s the name of the place there? Skellingthorpe.
AP: Skellingthorpe. Alright.
WG: Yeah.
AP: Tell me about Skellingthorpe.
WG: Very basic. Everything was very basic. Waddington was more of a permanent airfield whereas Skellingthorpe was just one that he been built during, just as for the war.
AP: How did you live there?
WG: Oh, we had all the amenities we needed. Had a mess hut. For a long time they used to have what they called high tea. I thought that was a main meal but I found out after that wasn’t a main meal. Once you became a commissioned officer you lived in a different world. You had a, I had a room to myself with a batwoman that came in to do all, all your necessary. Take your laundry or whatever. And they paid her a little bit extra for their meals but their meals were one hundred percent better than the ordinary troops got and one night a week we had a, what was called a dining in night. We had to be there in dress uniform and the CO shouted everyone a glass of port. I missed that for quite a while because I didn’t realise that the high tea wasn’t a main meal although it could well have been.
AP: So —
WG: The meals were much much better than the troops had.
AP: What was a high tea? What was the high tea?
WG: Pardon?
AP: What was the high tea? What did it involve?
WG: Oh, well it was a meal really. You could, could exist on that without any problems. But it was just called high tea. You had a normal meal. Your normal meal.
AP: What was, what other things happened in the mess? Did you get up to any high jinks there or —
WG: Not really. They had a bar but I wasn’t one that did a lot of drinking anyhow. Otherwise, it was just, one experience I’ll never forget was when I was orderly officer you had to go around the camp with the military police. They’d go around with you and they set me up because I was new on the station and there was, you had to check all the lights were all out by 10 o’clock and everyone was supposed to be in bed by 10 o’clock. But we came to this hut where there was a fair bit of noise going on so I opened the door and looked in. There was, this was the WAAFs quarters and this WAAF standing there with nothing on. Just the standard equipment [laughs] I couldn’t get out of there fast enough but the MPs knew what it was. They just set me up.
AP: Very good. Very good. Alright, so the war ended you said when you were on your first essential operation wasn’t it? Was that, did I understand that correctly?
WG: It wasn’t. That was a training flight.
AP: Yeah. Ok.
WG: [unclear] the training flight when Johnnie was listening to music. That was when it ended in Europe. That ended, was the night after when I was with Johnnie Blair and I was his second pilot.
AP: Yeah. And so then at that stage you, so you didn’t actually fly in any operations. Is that, that correct?
WG: No. We were still listed as learning.
AP: Ok.
WG: Yeah.
AP: At that point. Yeah. Alright. Alright. So, someone I, well you’re the first person I’ve spoken to who’s told me about a Cook’s Tour. Can you tell me more about it?
WG: Oh, Cook’s Tour. Yeah. There were a lot of ground staff on every station you were on, and they, they could be radio operators and all sorts of things but they were all WAAFs and we took them. There were two different routes. You flew over a fair bit of Germany, Munich and you crossed to Holland. And I could still remember something that I’ll, I thought I wish I hadn’t done it but we flew down low over the train on the [unclear] line and we flew down low. There was a train and it stopped and everyone [laughs] everyone piled out. Then we waved our wings at them and they all waved back [laughs] That’s something. I shouldn’t have done that.
AP: Wow. So, when you got back to Australia did you have a bit of time or a bit of trouble adjusting back to civilian life again when you got there?
WG: Oh, a lot of trouble. Yeah. Yeah.
AP: What sorts of things happened?
WG: I can still remember the day I was demobbed. I went in there as a flying officer and they made a point of telling me, ‘You’re mister from now on.’ I’d have liked to have stayed in the Air Force really but the way things were at home it just wasn’t practicable. But it took a lot of adjusting to civvy life again.
AP: What did you do after the war?
WG: Oh, my father still had a market garden. We planted an orchard with my brother, an older brother and we had an orchard and grew flowers and I used to do the marketing. Go to Victoria Market in the middle of the night about three, three times a week selling the produce. Couldn’t do it now. It’s a different world. But the old Victoria Market was quite an experience. I remember there was one chap down there he used to have flowers and his name was Eden and he sort of lost his marbles. He went around one day how long you’d be coming in to the market and telling him oh you’ve been here too long, writing me out a cheque. I don’t think anyone ever cashed his cheque. But that, I did a lot of the marketing before during the war before I joined up and it was pretty difficult driving with your headlights blacked out. Headlights were just a slit across and it was pretty hard on a dark night or wet night to see where you were going. I managed to make it all right. Didn’t have any crashes. But I’m glad I’m not doing it now.
AP: We might just jump back a few years again then as well. Most people that I’ve interviewed before the war if they joined up a little bit later they were still at school or something like that but you were actually working.
WG: Yeah.
AP: So as a civilian in Australia how did the war have an effect on your life in the first few years?
WG: Oh, it was just hard settling down to having to make your own decisions about everything because you had to earn a living which in the Air Force it was all [unclear] out. Yesh. Apart from that it was just something you had to get used to.
AP: So, my final question when you look back on your Air Force service what does it mean to you and what does Bomber Command mean and how should it be remembered?
WG: Oh, you’re talking about something I’m glad I did. I’m really, I was pretty proud of what I managed to achieve in the Air Force. I think someone had a guardian angel on my shoulder because if we’d been three months earlier I probably wouldn’t be here now because three months earlier Bomber Command were, their attrition rate was almost one hundred percent. And so we were very lucky. Ron, my mid-upper gunner I didn’t know until after the war that he started off trying to fly Tiger Moths and he couldn’t make it. I don’t know what it was but if he was doing anything he’d always turn to the left. If he was driving a car and he didn’t know where he was he would always turn to the left. And it must have been something to do with that because I never knew anything about that but he finished up a mid-upper gunner. He’s still going too. Shorty was a bit of a troublemaker. We, quite often, we had the living quarters and the mess hut were a long way away from the flight things and we used to all have push bikes and Shorty didn’t have a push bike so he would just take the first one he could find around the place. I can remember when first we got to Winthorpe we didn’t know where, we went into the town, Newark. It was only a few miles down the road. Then there was an, the Air Force had their buses take people into town and bring them back at night and we got back pretty late at night and we thought we knew where we were going and we were, it turned out we were walking through the CO’s tulip patch and the adjutant came out and the CO it was and I could see the moonlight shining on the brass around his hat and I saluted him and did everything right. And he said, ‘Do you know who you’re talking to?’ I said, ‘The commanding officer.’ And Alan Short said ‘Oh, what of it. Have a cigarette.’ And he said to report to the adjutant next morning at 10 o’clock. We thought we know [unclear] he doesn’t know who the hell we are. He knew who we were alright and we went in front of the adjutant the next morning and they called us. We were having lectures and they told us to go and report to the adjutant. They told us off a treat and they reckoned Alan Short was going to be sent home straight away and I said, ‘Well, if he’s going I’m going too.’ After giving us a good dressing down he said ‘Jolly good show.’ [unclear] So that was the end of that and the next day I got my commission.
AP: Oh really. Everything changed.
WG: There was lots of little things happened. Shorty used to, I had an electric iron when I, before I got a commission we all lived in the same hut and he, he’d break in to the butcher’s shop on the way at night time and bring out a steak out or something and cook it on my electric iron [laughs] Do that time and time again. One night the MPs were after him and he was a bit of a ratbag in lots of ways because they’d be looking for him and he’d sing out, ‘Hey, over here.’ And by the time they got there was somewhere else [laughs]. They never caught him. And he, I remember one night he went to the kitchen and he brought back, a lot of the kitchen staff they wore clogs, wooden clogs and he brought these clogs in. So I grabbed him by the curly hair and told him to take them back straight away. Well, he did take them back because they’d be wanting them the next morning because the kitchen, the floors would get wet and normal shoes would slip whereas the clogs they wouldn’t. One Christmas I remember they had a big Christmas dinner and out on this side of the runway they had a big kegs of beer. So, there were a couple of the guys went around to the field, found one that was pretty full so they took it back to the hut and they were drinking beer out of anything at all until Kenneth, the navigator got sick of it and he threw a slipper to the light and put the light out.
[pause]
AP: Any final thoughts?
[pause]
AP: No. Right. Thank you very much, Wal. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
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 Wal Goodwin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Purcell
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGoodwinWJ170607, PGoodwinWJ1701
Format
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01:31:39 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Wal Goodwin grew up near Melbourne, was conscripted in the Australian Army but was discharged due to his father’s reserved farming occupation. He later volunteered for the Australian Air Force and received his initial training of meteorology, Morse code and semaphore in Sydney, plus basic combat training – including dismantling and reassembling a Bren gun blindfolded. He recalls a march through crowded streets of Sydney. Wal took flying training at Narrandera by Link Trainer and then Tiger Moth but stopped due to tonsillitis. Further training was undertaken at Point Cook on Oxfords. Next, he awaited embarkation to England at the Showground and Melbourne Cricket Ground. Delays ensued, contracting mumps and then, after departing Australia, Italian prisoners of war and Polish female refugees were added to the sailing vessel at Durban, South Africa. In London, Wal saw barrage balloons and the destruction of the Blitz. In Brighton, Wal listened to an accurate broadcast by Lord Haw Haw and undertook an instrument flying course. He assisted in the control tower at Haverfordwest, then transferred to Milford Haven for aircraft identification. Wal’s destroyer accompanied a convoy to Cherbourg following D-Day. Wal crewed up at RAF Moreton in Marsh and converted to Lancasters at RAF Winthorpe before being posted to 463 Squadron. He completed a decoy operation when the war ended. Unable to contact RAF Skellingthorpe, they landed unassisted and returned to a party at the control tower. Wal was invited to a function at the Duchess of Devonshire’s residence in Knightsbridge where he danced with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. He remembers flying Cooks Tours. On return to Australia, Wal missed comradeship and struggled to adjust to civilian life; working on the family farm despite hoping to remain in the Air Force.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Victoria
Victoria--Melbourne
New South Wales
New South Wales--Narrandera
New South Wales--Sydney
Great Britain
England--Brighton
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Sussex
Wales--Haverfordwest
Wales--Milford Haven
Wales--Pembrokeshire
France
France--Cherbourg
South Africa
South Africa--Durban
Victoria--Point Cook
Victoria
England--Gloucestershire
New South Wales--Wagga Wagga
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
463 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Cook’s tour
displaced person
Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain (1926 - 2022)
Lancaster
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
prisoner of war
propaganda
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Waddington
RAF Winthorpe
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/205/3340/ABatesP151009.1.mp3
f5fd2ef009e496cfc1da092a451f6c89
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
Bates, Philip
Philip Bates
P Bates
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Philip Bates (1307447 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 149 Squadron until his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-09
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bates, P
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Mr Philip Bates at home in Urmston, Greater Manchester on Friday 9th of October at 2pm. Mr Bates could you please confirm your full name?
PB: Yes. Phillip Bates.
BW: And your rank.
PB: Sergeant when I was shot down but warrant officer when I returned back from being a prisoner of war.
BW: Ok. And do you recall your service number at all?
PB: Yes 1307447.
BW: It’s surprising how that -
PB: And I can tell you my prisoner of war number as well
BW: Ok.
PB: 222803
BW: 222803
PB: Stalag 4b.
BW: Ok. And what squadron were you on, sir?
PB: 149 at Lakenheath.
BW: Ok. So if you could just give us an idea of what your life was like prior to joining the air force so where you grew up and any sort of significant movements before joining the RAF and what prompted you to join.
PB: Yeah. Well I’m a native of Burnley, Lancashire, a cotton weaving town, until I was employed as a junior clerk with a local manufacturer but once the war started I was keen to get in and immediately after the fall of France I volunteered for the air force. And -
BW: So this would be May 1940.
PB: This would be May 1940 and went to Blackpool for a fortnight square bashing.
BW: Ok.
PB: Those of us who were on that particular course were then posted to Cosford and -
BW: Ok.
PB: Nobody thought about anything in those days except the imminent invasion of Britain and we who’d been in the air force a fortnight were given the job of defending Cosford against German paratroopers which was the most farcical thing you could ever imagine so a friend and I very quickly sneaked away to the orderly room and volunteered for training as flight mechanics and we both -
BW: Ok.
PB: Trained as flight mechanics and then as fitter 2E’s and my friend was posted to 149 squadron where I met up with him in 1943. I went to 86 squadron, Coastal Command flying the Beaufort torpedo bombers and moved from there to Scotland and eventually I was sent to Sealand to a huge maintenance depot on a six month potential NCO course with the intention that when I returned back to my unit I’d be made a corporal but whilst I was at Sealand a Manchester landed and this was June 1942 and I went to look at this Manchester. I’d never seen anything bigger than a, than a Wellington before and this thing was stood there with its bomb doors open and this was a few months after Butch Harris had taken charge and I looked up into that bomb bay and I said to myself. ‘Bomber Command is no longer a joke. It’s big. It’s getting bigger. I’ve got to be part of it,’ and so the next day I volunteered for training as a flight engineer.
BW: Ok.
PB: And I trained early in 1943. Posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit at Waterbeach where I was crewed up with a crew who had just finished their OTU on Wellingtons and we went from there.
BW: And so just thinking back to your decision to join Bomber Command. You’d already had some technical training -
PB: Yes.
BW: At that stage.
PB: Yes.
BW: And so you wanted to further that as a flight engineer.
PB: Well the obvious job for a fitter 2E was to be, was to be a flight engineer.
BW: Ok.
PB: And it didn’t require a great deal of training to bridge the gap of course.
BW: And there were a number of guys who went through Halton. Did you do any training for flight engineering at Halton or not? With [?]
PB: No. St Athan.
BW: Right.
PB: St Athan.
BW: So you weren’t one of Trenchard’s brats or anything?
PB: Oh no I wasn’t a brat. I was too old to be a brat [laughs].
BW: And so it was the sight of the Manchester that prompted you to join.
PB: Yes.
BW: Properly Bomber Command.
PB: Yes, yes.
BW: Were you able, at that stage, to volunteer for flying duties or did that come later? Did you foresee that as being part of that trade as a flight engineer?
PB: Once I became a flight, once I became a flight engineer obviously I was going to go into Bomber Command.
BW: Ok. And -
PB: When I arrived at St Athan I was given choices I could train to be. I could train to be on Stirlings or Halifaxes or Lancasters or Sunderland Flying Boats or Catalina Flying Boats. Now, as a fitter I’d always worked on radial engines and so I chose this, I chose the Stirling for the reason that it was Bomber Command and it had radial engines. It perhaps wasn’t the wisest choice. I’d have been better off on Lancasters probably but I I I liked the radial engine so that’s why I chose Stirlings.
BW: Speaking as an engineer how did you find the radials then? Were there, were there particular properties about them that you liked?
PB: Yes. They, they, they were more powerful than the Merlin for starters and they were more dependable and they could take more, they could take more damage.
BW: That’s er that -
PB: When I when I was a boy very keen on aircraft now to me the inline liquid cooled engine was just a big motor car engine. The radial was a proper aeroplane engine.
BW: Ok.
PB: That’s what it was all about for me. The radial was a proper aeroplane engine. The other was just a big motor car engine.
BW: I’m sensing there there’s a difference between the aerial engine and flying. Did you have a wish to fly at an early age?
PB: Well as a fitter whenever I worked on an aircraft and a pilot came along to do a test flight I invariably asked if I could go up with him so I flew on, I flew on Lysanders, Blenheims and Oxfords as a passenger.
BW: And which of those was your favourite? Which was -
PB: Oh the Lysander.
BW: Really?
PB: Oh gorgeous. You’re going, you’re going along and there’s a slow, you heard a terrible creaking noise and the slots and slats worked and the flaps come down.
BW: Ahum.
PB: And you could practically stand still. Wonderful aeroplane. Wonderful.
BW: They used that -
PB: Aeroplane.
BW: On special duties -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Squadrons.
PB: Short take off, short landings.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But they were, they were a lovely aircraft to be a passenger in.
PB: Oh yes.
BW: Was it?
PB: It was a marvellous aeroplane was the Lysander. I loved it.
BW: Did you get many flights in those?
PB: Yes quite a few. Yes. I was on, I was on an ackack calibration unit. We worked in concert with the defences of Edinburgh the Forth Bridge and the Rosyth dockyard and I was once in a Lysander where we did dive bombing exercises on the Forth Bridge which was fantastic.
BW: Brilliant.
PB: Absolutely fantastic. It was like being in a JU87 almost.
BW: And this was just to calibrate the ackack guns as you say.
PB: Yes.
BW: To make sure they had the right sort of -
PB: Yes.
BW: Ranging or -
PB: Yes. Yes.
BW: Distance. There were no rounds fired in these -
PB: No. No. No just -
BW: Just to make sure.
PB: Calibration yeah.
BW: Right but either way the pilot imitated a dive bombing manoeuvre on a
PB: Yeah but we had a real clapped out aircraft.
BW: So having had some experience of Lysanders, a single engine aircraft and Oxfords the twin engine.
PB: Yeah.
BW: You then -
PB: All radial engines of course.
BW: And radial engines yeah you then opted while you were at St Athan to go forward for Stirlings.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And what was the course that lead you from St Athan to your squadron? How, how did you go about getting that?
PB: Well, we, we completed our course and we got our brevies and were posted to, to Waterbeach Heavy Conversion Unit and I was introduced to a pilot, a Pilot Officer Cotterill and he was my skipper and I then met the rest of the crew and we took it from there. Did our heavy conversion training.
BW: And how long did that take? Roughly.
PB: Not very long. Maybe about eight weeks I suppose. Something like that.
BW: And was most of that or all of it daylight sorties or were there night time -
PB: No.
BW: Ops involved as well?
PB: We did, we did two four hour sessions of daylight take offs and landings, circuits and bumps. Take of twenty minutes to take off and land for four hours. And having done eight hours of that in daytime we did another eight hours at night and then after that we did, we did cross country flights.
BW: And when you met your crew at this point did you stay together from the conversion unit through to, on operational squadron as the same crew or were the members interchanged?
PB: We lost two members. We lost two members shortly after we joined the squadron.
BW: And was there a reason behind that at all?
PB: Yes. Our first, our first navigator, Geoff was a regular soldier stationed in India when the war broke out. Browned off. To escape he volunteered for training as air crew. He had a stammer which didn’t help and he was a useless navigator and we knew he was useless and our first trip was a very simple mine laying in the North Sea and he flew us straight through the balloon barrage at Norwich coming back and the next day he packed his kit bags and left us.
BW: And was that his choice or -
PB: No. No, that was forced upon him.
BW: Right ok so it wasn’t something there like a moment of self-awareness. He decided to leave.
PB: No. No, he told, he told us he said, ‘They decided I’m not suitable for Bomber Command. I’m being posted to a Coastal Command station.’ Well I think that was just a face saver on his part. I can’t imagine what happened to him but he couldn’t navigate for toffee. Even, even, even with a Gee set he was useless.
BW: Ahum.
PB: And then we did two mine laying trips. We did a lot of fighter affiliation exercises and our mid upper gunner [Bolivar?] a Londoner was brilliant during, during fighter affiliation. Now, Len, Len the wireless operator was always sick. He spewed up everywhere and I sat there and think, ‘Why don’t you crash the bloody thing and get it over with.’ That’s how bad I felt and Bob was as happy as could be but we did two mine laying trips. One in the North Sea -
BW: Ahum.
PB: And one in the river estuary at Bordeaux and then our first target was the opening night of the Battle of Hamburg. 24th of July.
BW: This would be 24th of July 1943.
PB: Yeah. The next night we went to Essen. The next day our mid upper gunner reported sick with air sickness. Now, how he suddenly became air sick overnight I do not know but that was the end of him. So we had a new navigator and a new mid upper gunner.
BW: Sometimes after raids like that men would be removed if they were felt to perhaps have broken at some stage. Do you -
PB: Oh yes.
BW: Do you think that might have been an impact?
PB: Yes. He was still, he was still on the station when we were shot down and I’ve often wondered what he made of it that morning when he woke up and found five empty beds.
BW: And so if I can just touch again on the fighter affiliation. What kind of exercises were carried out there?
PB: Well either, either a Spitfire or a, or a Hurricane would make mock attacks on us and the gunners would give instructions to the skipper as to what evasive action to take and it was quite, it was quite, because our bomb aimer was a failed pilot who could fly, fly a Stirling perfectly well and the Stirling had dual controls so him and the pilot used to work together and we could really throw it about. Really throw it about. You could never have done that on a Lancaster what we did with a Stirling,
BW: No. There was only a single set of controls.
PB: Yeah. Oh it was a wonderful aircraft. Wonderful manoeuvrability aircraft. Couldn’t get very high but by George it could, it could manoeuvre.
BW: And so you mentioned about the raid on Hamburg. That was pretty close to being your first operational sortie.
PB: That was our first target yes after two mine laying trips.
BW: And what, what do you recall about that at all because it was Operation Gomorrah, the raid on Hamburg was pretty significant.
PB: It was operational. What, what, what was most fascinated me most was the colours. The colours of the lights. Reds, greens, yellows. Searchlights, blue searchlights, tracer shells, flak it was an incredible sight. An incredible sight and when you see, when you looked down and someone had just released a string of four pound incendiaries you’d get this brilliant white light like that and then it slowly turns red as the fire gets going. An incredible sight.
BW: So you’d see a sort of a line of white which would -
PB: Yes.
BW: Presumably be the magnesium -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In the incendiaries -
PB: Yes.
BW: Setting fire to the building which was then of course -
PB: Yes.
BW: Catch turn orange and burn.
PB: Yes it was quite remarkable.
BW: And did you only make the one raid on Hamburg or did you return because there was -
PB: We, we, we -
BW: Four days I think.
PB: In ten days this was our introduction to the target. In ten days we did four Hamburgs, an Essen and a [Remshite]
BW: Wow so you flew right through the raid on, or the operation against Hamburg -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In that case.
PB: And the second night of course. The night of the firestorm oh, deary deary me, that was terrible.
BW: Were you aware at all of what was, what was going on? It seems a lot of information has come out subsequently. What were you sort of aware of the damage at that time?
PB: Well where -
BW: While flying.
PB: On the second night when we were back over the sea I went up into the astrodome and looked back and there was only one fire in Hamburg that night. It looked to be about three miles across and it came straight up white, red and black smoke thousands of feet above us and I said over the intercom, ‘those poor bastards down there.’ I couldn’t help myself. It was a terrible, terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it on any other target.
BW: At once it’s a spectacular sight but it’s also when you see that sort of thing -
PB: We, we, we killed forty thousand people that night.
BW: When did that, when was that made aware to you? When did you become aware of that sort of statistic? Was it pretty soon after or was it -
PB: Well the newspapers reported it a couple of days later and gave the number of dead.
BW: Right.
PB: And quite honestly I was disappointed. I thought from I saw it must have killed more than that.
BW: It sounds like they might have underestimated.
PB: Yeah. But forty thousand people were killed that night.
BW: Ahum.
PB: Compare that to how many were killed in London in the entire period of the war. There was no comparison.
BW: No. It’s different isn’t it?
PB: But we never, we never, we never achieved anything like Hamburg again until Dresden of course and in Dresden it only killed twenty odd thousand.
BW: And so Hamburg has obviously made quite an impression for that reason.
PB: Hamburg, I think was undoubtedly Bomber Command’s greatest success of the war. I’ve just, I’ve just read a book by Adolf Galland who was in charge of the German night fighters and the things he says about what the consequences of Hamburg and what it meant to the High Command and the changes it was, it shattered them. Completely shattered them.
BW: So it had, it had certainly had ramifications on the ground but it had more ramifications for the Luftwaffe High Command is what you’re saying.
PB: Yes. Yes. It terrified the German fighter defence to pieces. Terrified them.
BW: And did you see many night fighters at this stage over Hamburg? Were they active?
PB: No because it was it was the first, it was just the introduction of Window and everything was at odds.
BW: And so Window was the anti-radar -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Jamming mechanism.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Where they chucked out strips of aluminium.
PB: But they recovered, they recovered from, from Window very very quickly and they got, they got a new form of defence which was more effective they forced it out before, before Window and I’ve read the German view that Window did more harm than good for Bomber Command in the long run because it completely organised their defences.
BW: But at least on that night or on those nights that you were flying over Hamburg the fighters were ineffective because -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Of the use of Window.
PB: The first night there were eight hundred aircraft and we lost twelve.
BW: Wow.
PB: And most of those were lost because they were off course. Separated away from the protection of Window.
BW: Were there any hits from the ackack below? German anti-aircraft fire was renowned as being very accurate. Did you feel that as you were flying over there?
PB: The one thing, the one thing that fascinated me about ackack was that the smell of cordite filled the aircraft. You were flying through clouds of the stuff but when we landed the bomb aimer and I always got our torches and we searched underneath the aircraft and if there was no damage we were disappointed. We expected to have been hit.
BW: So that, that, sort of, I suppose summarises or encompasses your first few trips on operations. What happened after Hamburg? What were the next -
PB: Well we flew on -
BW: Significant raids for you.
PB: We flew on the last two raids ever carried out on Northern Italy and we flew twice to Nuremberg which we always regarded as a particularly important Nazi target and we did a few other various towns in the Ruhr and then on the 31st of August we went to Berlin and that was something else. That was an absolute complete fiasco.
BW: And this was still 1943?
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: In August ’43.
PB: Yeah. The raid on Berlin on the 31st of August. Well the trouble was we’d been, we’d been to Monchengladbach the night before and we quite often did two nights, two consecutive nights. Well, you do Monchengladbach you get very little sleep, you go for briefing and you’re told its Berlin. There were howls of rage from all the air crews and that manifested itself later because that night about eighty aircraft ditched their bombs in the North Sea and returned early. Biggest number ever ‘cause people weren’t prepared to go.
BW: That, that almost sounds a bit like a mutiny in a way doesn’t it?
PB: It’s not far off.
BW: Down tools.
PB: It’s not far off really but the raid was also badly planned. All the damage to Berlin had been in the west and it was intended that this raid should do damage in the east and so we were sent to a point south of Berlin. There was Berlin on our left. We expected to fly seventy miles east. Split-arsed turn, fly seventy miles back and approach Berlin from, from the east. Now, nobody did it. The pathfinders put their markers down two miles south of where they should have been and we all approached from the south so the creepback extended miles and miles and miles. We killed less than a hundred people in Berlin. We lost over two hundred airmen killed and over a hundred prisoners of war. It was a complete and utter fiasco.
BW: Wow and that simply stemmed from, as you say, the pathfinder markers being dropped two miles south.
PB: And we’re coming from the south.
BW: Yeah.
PB: You can imagine it, practically no bombs and the Germans that night for the first time put down these parachute flares. It was like driving down the Mall with all the lights on. It was an incredible sight and it’s such a big place to get through. It takes forever.
BW: And so the gunners clearly with those parachute flares they could have a clear sight presumably of the bomber stream.
PB: And you’ve got day fighters looking down.
BW: Wow.
PB: As well as the night fighters looking up and you’ve got the schragemusik by this time as well.
BW: Which are the cannons in the back of an ME110 to fire vertically underneath the bomber yeah.
PB: Yeah or a JU88.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Or a Messerschmitt 110.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Seventy degree angle, in between the inborn engine and the fuselage hit the main tanks. All you’d see is a great big flash in the sky and that’s it. It was gone.
BW: The crews often said they didn’t know they were there.
PB: No.
BW: Those who survived didn’t see them.
PB: You could see an aircraft flying peacefully and then the next second it’s a ball of fire and you’ll see no tracer and a myth arose and the myth was that the Germans were firing a new type of bomb, a new type of shell which we called a scarecrow and it was designed not to shoot aircraft down but to explode and give the impression of an aircraft blowing up and for months navigators would log these and they weren’t scarecrows. The Germans never had a scarecrow. They were aircraft blowing up.
BW: Actually the aircraft themselves.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And -
PB: And the irony of that is that in the First World War the British had upward firing guns to attack zeppelins.
BW: Ahum Yeah.
PB: [laughs] They never learn.
BW: Because they were difficult to shoot down as well. But so ok from, from there that’s two operations on the trot really. Monchengladbach and Berlin.
PB: Yeah.
BW: You mentioned those airmen killed. Were any of those from the squadron? Did you know any of those guys at all? Were there Stirlings in that lot that were shot down?
PB: Er we there was a raid on Berlin on the 24th of August as well but we were on leave but a crew that we trained with went missing that night and a friend of mine got shot down on the night we were on. A fella called Lew Parsons. He was shot down on the 31st .
BW: Luke Parsons?
PB: Yeah. L E W, short for Lewis.
BW: Oh I see. Lew Parsons.
PB: He was a flight engineer.
BW: And he was shot down on the 31st of August.
PB: Yeah. Yeah. But it, it was a dreadful night. Anyway, the next day our skipper and our navigator were commissioned officers and so the next day we met up with the skipper and he said Johnny’s reported sick and Johnny was our navigator. Flying Officer Johnny [Turton ]. A fantastic navigator. Absolutely fantastic and he’d gone sick and later in the day we were given a replacement. Another flying officer but a New Zealander by the name of McLean and he was the exact opposite from Johnny. Johnny was a big outgoing personality who radiated confidence. This chap had no, no, no personality whatsoever. He was with us five days. We scarcely ever saw him. We scarcely ever spoke to him. We never even learned his Christian name. And he got us shot down.
BW: And that was, of course then going to be your last -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Last flight.
PB: Yeah 5th 5th of September. Mannheim.
BW: Ok. I was just going to ask a question there and it’s just gone from my memory but I’ll probably come back to it. So, oh yes how far into your tour were you at that point? It sounds -
PB: That was our fifteenth trip.
BW: So exactly halfway through.
PB: Exactly halfway. We knew with Johnny we could do, we could do the tour because he was so brilliant but without him we were lost and he finished his tour. He joined another crew, finished his tour got his DFC, survived the war. He was brilliant.
BW: It’s strange how fate goes isn’t it?
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Before we move on to your experience of being shot down I would just like to ask about what it was like for you as a flight engineer in the sort of preparation and flying out. What sort of things you would do? Perhaps if you could give us a sense of preparation you would go through to -
PB: Yes.
BW: To board the aircraft.
PB: Yes.
BW: What it was like to then go up in a Stirling.
PB: Well to begin with once we got out the aircraft there were a great many pre-flight checks to do. One of them was to go up onto the main plane with a member of the ground crew. Now, we had fourteen petrol tanks on a Stirling. Sometimes we only had the four main ones. Sometimes we had fourteen. Sometimes we had a mixture but my job was to go up on to the main plane with a member of the ground crew and he would open up the filler caps on all the tanks that were supposed to be full and I had to check visually that they were full to the, to the brim. Now, every night I’m stood on the leading edge of a Stirling. I’m twenty feet above the ground. I think when he moves to the next one and I follow, if I slip I’ll roll down the main plane I’ll fall fifteen feet to the tarmac and at the very least I’ll break an ankle and I’ll be alive tomorrow morning and I always, always considered that thought. I never did it of course. The thought was always there. It was in our own power to be alive tomorrow morning [laughs]. But once, once in the air my two main jobs was one to monitoring engine performance making sure the pressures, temperature etcetera were as they should be and that we were flying at the right airspeed and the right revs and the other was calculating every twenty minutes I had to calculate the amount of petrol used from whichever tank doing the past every twenty minutes recorded so that I always knew how much petrol remained in each tank because they weren’t over generous with their petrol allowance and people did run short very often. So that was, that was important, to keep, to know exactly how much petrol you had and where it was.
BW: So even though you’d done inspections and the ground crew had correctly filled the tanks presumably you could encounter unknown winds and like a headwind.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And use your fuel more quickly.
PB: As I understand it the calculation was made. This is your track. It’s so many miles. You’ve so much petrol. We’ll give you so much and we’ll give you another three hundred and twenty gallons as a, as a reserve.
BW: Reserve.
PB: But of course you get off track, winds are against you, anything can happen. You can’t hold height, you’ve got to get into rich mixture to climb again. All sorts of things could happen to make you use more fuel.
BW: And that would include of course having to take evasive action over the target or anything like that.
PB: Yes, evasive, any time when you had to open up the engines and go into full fuel. We were using a gallon a minute.
BW: That’s pretty significant and that’s just through one engine. A gallon a minute through an engine.
PB: No. It’s, that’s the aircraft.
BW: Oh, the aircraft. Ok.
PB: A gallon a mile through the aircraft.
BW: Oh right.
PB: A gallon a minute through each engine yes.
BW: And I think you said the Stirling was a, was a lovely aircraft to fly. What was your experience generally of the environment in which you were having to work? Was it cramped or was there enough room to do your job?
PB: I’ve only been in a Lancaster once and it horrified me. There’s no space to breathe. You could hold a dance in a Stirling. It was huge and because of the short wingspan it was so highly manoeuvrable. It was a beautiful aeroplane but it couldn’t get any height. Couldn’t get any height.
BW: A limited ceiling.
PB: We had to fight to fly at thirteen thousand. On the last night at Hamburg. The night of the big storm we did two runs over Hamburg at eight thousand feet with the bomb doors frozen up.
BW: Wow.
PB: That was a terrible night.
BW: Just out of interest the air supply gets pretty thin around ten thousand feet. Did you ever have to use oxygen?
PB: It goes on automatically at ten thousand feet.
BW: Right.
PB: Ten thousand feet, oxygen on and skipper charges into S gear.
BW: Into S gear.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And does that give you extra boost through the engines?
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Ok and were you able, in some cases crews had to stow their parachutes. Were you able to move around with your parachutes on or did you stow it?
PB: No it was always stowed. Always stowed away.
BW: How did it feel when you were actually bombed and fuelled up ready to go and you’re at the threshold of the runway and you’d got the green light. Could you just talk us through that?
PB: Well -
BW: What you were feeling there and what you were doing?
PB: I experienced three feelings. Between briefing and going out to the aircraft, absolute terror. Once we delivered the bombs and the photoflash had gone off, wonderful. Once back eating bacon and eggs very, very satisfied. Those were the three emotions that I suffered.
BW: How did it feel when you were given that that green light? Presumably as a flight engineer you followed the pilot through on the throttles.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you feel this surge of power of the engines going.
PB: Yeah all all the while was concentrating on getting the thing up because the Stirling had a violent swing. It had this ridiculous undercarriage and because of the torque of the engines it swung to starboard and you had to correct that swing either on the throttles or the stick. Now, if you got a cross wind as well that swing could be quite dramatic and it went like that and then like that.
BW: So a violent swerve either way.
PB: The undercarriage just collapsed you don’t want an undercarriage collapsing when you’ve got a thousand -
BW: No.
PB: Incendiary bombs stuck in the belly [laughs].
BW: Were there any incidents where aircraft were unable to take off because of that? They perhaps didn’t control the swing or there was a cross wind.
PB: Oh yeah. The very first Stirling on its very first flight in the hands of a very skilled test pilot on its very first landing wrote its undercarriage off.
BW: Simply because of the swing due the power in the engines.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the imbalance.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And yet it looks from, as you say, the size of it -
PB: Yeah.
BW: It looks a very stable beast to fly.
PB: It’s incredibly strong that way. It’s not very strong that way.
BW: So longitudinally strength.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And laterally not so good.
PB: It was a very strong undercarriage but it’s so tall it [put a side strain on it] like that.
BW: Yeah.
PB: It goes. Time and time again.
BW: And of course these are pure manual controls. They’re not power assisted in any way.
PB: Oh no. No.
BW: So, but it was generally very smooth to fly and very easy to fly once you were airborne.
PB: Oh it was a beautiful aeroplane to fly. Beautiful. It really was. It was like a [? ] You could do anything with it.
BW: How many were, were in your crew? There were normally seven in a Lancaster.
PB: Seven yeah.
BW: The same in the Stirling.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you had initially for your first part of your tour you had Johnnie [Turton] as your navigator.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And your pilot. Who was your pilot?
PB: Pilot. When I joined him in May it was Pilot Officer Bernard Cotterell.
BW: That’s right.
PB: By the time we were shot down he was Acting Flight Lieutenant Bernard Cotterell.
BW: Is that C O T T E R -
PB: Yeah.
BW: I L L?
PB: Yeah. E L L.
BW: E L L. And so who are the, you mentioned your wireless op.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Um, who was Len -
PB: Len Smith. Bomb aimer was Alan Crowther.
BW: Alan Crowther.
PB: Yeah the rear gunner was John [Carp?] a Scotsman.
BW: John [Carp?]
PB: He was always known as Jock rather than John.
BW: Jock.
PB: And the new, the new mid upper gunner was a Newcastle lad called Ray Wall.
BW: Ray Wall.
PB: Yeah, Ray Wall. There were only five of us, as I say, left from the original crew and of those five I was the only survivor. The mid upper, the mid upper survived and this new navigator survived?
BW: And so from there we’ve looked at sort of the raids and the preparation for them. What sort of things would happen on the return to base? You’d obviously be debriefed but what form would that take?
PB: Well, we, we, we always flew at the recommended airspeeds which got you the most miles per gallon. A lot of people just simply flew back as fast as they could regardless of wasting petrol so we were invariably the last aircraft to land which meant we always had to queue up to wait to be de debriefed which was a nuisance but then of course it was the bacon and egg lark. Bacon and egg time and off to bed.
BW: And what, what was the accommodation like? You were all crewed up. Were they in nissen huts. Was there a crews either side or was it -
PB: We, we, we were in a nissen -
BW: Different.
PB: Hut and I think we shared it with two other crews and one morning, one morning you would find that half the beds are made up and all everything’s gone because they had disappeared but the thing is you never, you never associated with anybody outside your crew. There was no point to it.
BW: Really.
PB: No point to it at all. A crew was a very. very tight little, little group. We did everything together.
BW: And so even though there would be two other crews in the, in the nissen hut with you you would still socialise only with your own crew.
PB: Oh yeah we never bothered with anybody else. Very rarely spoke to anybody else even.
BW: And where did you go during your off-duty hours? Where did you socialise?
PB: Oh the village pub in Lakenheath.
BW: Do you recall the name?
PB: No, I don’t actually. No.
BW: Ah.
PB: But I do remember there was a Mrs Philips who used to provide us with suppers some times. Just across the road. She used to put on bacon and egg suppers. I don’t know where she got the bacon and eggs from but she used to put on bacon and egg suppers.
BW: Just as a special treat for you.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the rest of the crew.
PB: But you know you sit in the village pub at night and you were surrounded by farmers and butchers and bakers and all the rest of it. People for whom the war was just something they read about in the newspapers and you were just so happy, you’re so happy. It’s wonderful. There’s nothing like a crew. Nothing. Incredible relationship. Incredible.
BW: And did you have opportunity to mix with other locals? Not just the, the tradesman there, if you like, the farmers and the bakers or whatever?
PB: No. The only time we went out, off the camp was to go in to the little pub. On the nights we weren’t flying. We were in there every night we weren’t flying.
BW: Were there station dances at all or anything like that?
PB: No. There was no station. You’d the airfield there, you’ve the mess here and your billet over there and something else over there. If you didn’t have a bicycle you couldn’t exist in Lakenheath.
BW: So quite a distance between -
PB: Distances are immense. And I’ve visited it since the war. It’s an American town now.
BW: Yeah. It’s, it’s a huge place.
PB: Oh it’s a big place and when I, when I was there talking to them they produced some information about the wartime use and they spelt Stirling as if, as if it was the bloody currency [laughs].
BW: Were there, just out of interest, were there other crews in the pub where you went or was it pretty much just you guys?
PB: Well no doubt there were.
BW: Right.
PB: But we just sat in our corner and nothing else existed.
BW: Right.
PB: Nothing else existed.
BW: So tucked away in your own -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In your own little world.
PB: And there my skipper named my first daughter.
BW: Right.
PB: My skipper. I don’t know how we got on, how the conversation got around to that actually but one evening for some reason the skipper said if my wife and I were to ever have a daughter we were going to call her Penelope. I never forgot that and so very many years later when my first daughter was born she simply had to be Penelope. I had no choice.
BW: Well. As you say it obviously comes from being a tight crew.
PB: Yes.
BW: And that connection.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Ok. You mention then about your trip to Mannheim and this New Zealand navigator.
PB: Yeah.
BW: About your, of your crew.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Who, who got you shot down?
PB: Yeah.
BW: Just talk us through that if you would, please.
PB: Well we had a full petrol load which means a minimum bomb load of course. We were briefed for Munich and when briefing had been completed the CO said there’s a Mosquito on its way to Munich at the moment because it’s feared the weather may break down there so we’re going brief you for a possible alternative for Mannheim. So we had a second briefing then. Now, we’d no idea where we were going which meant of course the navigators had two flight plans to prepare. They’d doubled the work in the limited amount of time so they were under stress from the start. So we, we, we retire to our aircraft. Do all our pre-flight checks and the CO comes around in his van and says Munich is scrubbed. You’re going to Mannheim. So off we go. Immediately we cross enemy coast we were hit by flack. Now this had never ever happened to us before. He’d taken us straight over a, straight over a gun batt. I was shocked and I thought I’m going to spend, I’m going to spend the next hour checking the fuel in the hope we were losing fuel and we could turn back. And I went and did a meticulous check on the fuel but we weren’t losing fuel of course. Now, the raid was cleverly designed. You’ve got Ludwigshafen, the Rhine, Mannheim. If you fly over Ludwigshafen into Mannheim a creepback occurs. You get two targets for the price of one. And so that was the way we were to enter. So, to make sure we got it right for each wave of the attack the pathfinders was putting down a red marker. Now if you turn on a red marker on to the right course you flew straight over Ludwigshafen straight to Mannheim. So as we, as we were approaching the point where we could expect to see the flare the navigator says, ‘Keep your eyes open now. You should be seeing a red flare any time now.’ And suddenly there’s a red flare there and another red flare over there.
BW: So one to your left and one to your right.
PB: Yeah. So which, which is, which is the correct one? Only the navigator knows which is the correct one. ‘That one,’ he says.
BW: On the left.
PB: Nearer to the target. We get to the target five minutes early. The skipper makes what I still think was the right decision. He said we’d been hit by a bomb once at Nuremberg so we knew that. You’re either the only one over the target or the bombs are coming down from Lancasters. The skipper did an orbit but unfortunately the radar picked us up and as soon as we start to go in a blue searchlight comes straight on.
BW: Which is the radar guided one.
PB: Yeah and then then the column builds up and we’re flying straight over with the bomb doors open. So we continued like that until the bomb aimer got a sight and then you let the lot go in one go and we didn’t wait for a photograph. And over a target I always went up in to the astrodome facing backwards to help the gunner search for fighters and I was up there [ and we slowly began to pull away? ] and there were only a couple of searchlights on us and I thought I’d better check on my engines cause they’re getting a terrible thrashing. You’re only allowed a few minutes on full power so I get down, I get down from the pyramid and have a very long, I have a very long lead on my intercom so I can, don’t have to keep plugging and unplugging and I get down and I’m just going over to the instrument panel and suddenly there’s a terrible screaming and Len, Len the wireless operator had been just behind the main spar pushing out pushing out the window came running up through the main spar screaming, tripped over the pyramid, fell across my lead, pulled it out so I lost all communication and he fell at my feet and then this huge fire broke out in the fuselage and I’m steeling myself to stand and step over Leonard’s body to get to the fire extinguisher and out of the corner of my eye I see the mid upper gunner get out and put his chute on. I turn around. The navigator’s already on his way down the steps so instead of going for the extinguisher I go for my parachute and follow the navigator. I get to the top of the steps, the hatch is open. The navigator’s gone. I slide down. I get my feet through. The bomb aimer had gone up in to the second pilot’s seat to help the skipper. He started to clamber down from the, from the seat as I go past. I get my legs through. I feel a pressure on my back. I turn. Alan’s got his knees pressing in my back, tap him on the knee and go and as I go I feel the aircraft break in two and Alan never got out. So the rear gunner and Len were killed by the fighter. The skipper was wounded by flak that also set the port inner on fire and the skipper and Alan never had a chance of getting out because the aircraft had broken in two. The tail unit with the rear gunner’s body in it landed a considerable distance away. The main wreck landed right on the German Grand Prix racing track at Hockenheim.
BW: Wow.
PB: I have the map. I have a map showing the exact position and I saw the fire. It was a huge. We’d over a thousand gallons of petrol on board. We had enough petrol for Munich and the three in the aircraft were completely destroyed. Only, only fragments of bone left. The air gunners body was complete and so in the cemetery now at [Bad Tolz?] there’s a, there’s the rear gunners grave there, then there’s a headstone for Len, a headstone for the skipper, a headstone for Alan but what bits of fragments of bone there were are all buried in front of the skipper I’m sure. It was just symbolic. Never, never let the relatives know that of course. Never mention fire to the relatives but those two graves were empty and what bits there were were in front of the skipper which is right and proper.
BW: And you, you must have been pretty close to the ground when you baled out yourself.
PB: No. Oh, no. I was about ten thousand feet.
BW: Oh right. It was, it was the sense I was getting that it was almost a last minute sort of thing where you were able to escape.
PB: No. No, the aircraft broke in two very quickly. It was a tremendous. What happened I think the JU88 killed the rear gunner and then from, there’s a pump on the starboard engine, and dual pipelines to the rear turret that power the turret. Now I think it hit those pipelines. You’ve got hydraulic oil pressure, high pressure, high temperature came out and that’s what caught fire. The fire then came underneath the mid upper gunner, hit Len when he was doing the window in and stopped before it reached me but it was, it was a terror, it certainly was a fire and although I didn’t know till much later virtually simultaneously flak knocked out the port engine and the port inner engine and wounded the skipper and Ray, Ray told me later that when the skipper gave the order to bail out he [signed to say] as if he was badly hurt.
BW: And then at that point, the stricken aircraft, it must be almost I guess vertical if it’s broken up at that point.
PB: It didn’t, it didn’t go like that when it hit the ground it was it just come straight down like that.
BW: Yeah.
PB: I dare say some of it is still there buried under that racetrack. Some of the engine. But later I had a friend in Germany who was, who was in Ludwigshafen. He lived in Ludwigshafen. He was a schoolboy in Ludwigshofen. He may well have been on the flak gun that night for all I know.
BW: That would have been a coincidence wouldn’t it?
PB: Well after, he worked for the postal service after the war and when he retired he set himself up as what he called an air historian and he excavated a lot of shot down bombers and he was very keen on Bomber Command and he provided me with a lot of information and he produced a woman who’d been a schoolgirl in Hockenheim and on the morning after we crashed, after we were shot down, a neighbouring woman knocked on her door and she had what they described as a Canadian airman with them. It was in fact a New Zealander and the girl’s mother gave him a drink of water and later in the day the girl’s interest was aroused and she and a girlfriend went out to look at the crash and she provided me with a map of the actual crash site just by the, so whenever the German Grand Prix comes on I always, always watch it for a few minutes. I don’t like grand prix racing but I always watch it for a few minutes.
BW: Just that particular one.
PB: Yeah. That’s where it crashed.
BW: And have you been back to Hockenheim at all?
PB: No. No, I’ve not. No, I’ve not.
BW: But the information’s come through to you.
PB: Yeah.
BW: As to what’s happened.
PB: Peter provided me with a lot of information.
BW: What’s the air historian’s name? Do you recall?
PB: Peter Mengas M E N Mengas G A S.
BW: G A S.
PB: Peter.
BW: And is he still around?
PB: I don’t know. I’ve not, I’ve not heard from him for a year or two now.
BW: So you’ve managed to get out of the aircraft yourself.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And this is night-time. About ten thousand feet over Germany.
PB: Yeah 1 o’clock. It was just about midnight on my watch. It was 1 o’clock in the morning German time.
BW: And you pulled the rip cord and -
PB: Well, no. This was the problem when I, when I first joined the squadron I got a harness which could be adjusted. Now, I moved about a lot in the Stirling. I’ve controls there, there, there and there.
BW: All around the -
PB: And I used to [bend down?] around number seven tank and the shoulder strap would fall off and I thought I’ll get this fixed but I never did of course so when I baled out I was terrified of falling out of my parachute so I daren’t open it until I got myself you know [? ] as I could.
BW: Sort of braced against the straps were they?
PB: And when I opened it and I felt oh that’s it but it wasn’t that was just the parachute pulling the pack off my chest and then bang.
BW: The snap of the canopy.
PB: And I took all the weight there. The shoulder straps were up here. I came down in agony. I don’t know why it didn’t castrate me.
BW: Because of the tight grip around the -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Groin area where the -
PB: And then when I eventually I saw the ground rushing up and I rolled myself into a ball as I’d been taught and this buckle took two ribs with it.
BW: On the left hip.
PB: Yeah. Broke, broke two, broke two of my ribs and so I, it was, it was very painful. Very painful. And this is funny really by the next day my left side had seized up and I’m walking in a westerly direction trying to get to France [laughs] and, I don’t know and there was just one house which I had to pass and I thought, I thought a girl stood in the window had spotted me. I wasn’t certain but I thought she had. Anyway, I kept going and suddenly I hear a shout and I turn around and there’s this chappy running towards me and running behind him is a woman, presumably his wife and the two things I didn’t believe. I didn’t believe that fighting men put their hands above their heads like the baddies in the cowboy films and I didn’t believe the Germans went around saying. ‘Heil Hitler,’ to each other but as this chappy approached without any conscious effort on my part my hands went up. This one went up. This one wouldn’t.
BW: Your right one.
PB: He saw me like. He stopped running [?]and, ‘Heil Hitler.’
BW: So because you can’t raise your left arm you can only raise your right arm he thinks you’re doing the salute.
PB: He thought I was a Luftwaffe chappy. ‘Heil Hitler,’ he said [laughs] Well, I just I was in a pretty perilous state by this time. I just collapsed in to hysterical laughter. I just stood there and laughed and laughed and laughed and his wife came along and she sized up the situation immediately. She put her arm around me, took my weight on her shoulder and led me towards the town and the very first house we came to she made a very, very cross old woman let me into her kitchen, sit me down and made me a cup of coffee. So this woman very unwillingly gave me a cup of coffee. I hadn’t drunk anything for twenty four hours and I took a sip and I thought, ‘Bloody hell, I can’t drink this. It’s absolutely disgusting,’ and I thought, ‘Well if I don’t drink it it’s a great insult to this woman who’s been so incredibly kind to me,’ so I had to drink it. That was my introduction to the German diet oooph [laughs].
BW: And so you managed from a rough landing in a loose parachute in God knows where -
PB: Yeah.
BW: To get yourself together. You didn’t meet any of the other crew at this point because you obviously talked about -
PB: The -
BW: Yourself.
PB: The mid upper gunner landed right next to a railway signal box and was arrested within seconds. The navigator landed in a tree and had to be rescued. So they were captured very quickly. Both of them.
BW: So there was just you on your own at this point.
PB: I was on my own.
BW: Were you knocked unconscious or, or did it take some time to come around? I mean you’ve obviously had to get rid of your chute and -
PB: No I, I, I was shocked. I was shocked obviously and I was in pain from these ribs but I said I’ve a duty to the RAF and that was to get to Gibraltar. [Laughs] It’s a long way away.
BW: Yeah.
PB: I’d got the Rhine to cross for one thing. That’s not, that’s not easy. [laughs].
BW: And so the, the people that, that met you I mean you talk about heading west towards France and Mannheim is, is quite deep in western Germany.
PB: Yeah.
BW: So you’re actually being met by Germans at this point.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But they assist you.
PB: Yeah.
BW: So what then happened? Did they, they pass you on? Or -
PB: Well this couple took me to the police station where the other two were already held although I didn’t know it and we were kept there for about three days and a couple of Luftwaffe chappies arrived to take us up to Frankfurt to Dulag Luft interrogation camp and when we left we were given a bundle of the rear gunner’s clothing and his flying suit had hundreds of holes in it. The cannon shells must have hit the turret and exploded, it was absolutely riddled and his helmet and his, his oxygen mask was soaked in blood and there were the four guns from the rear turret as well. So we had that to carry. And we had, we had an adventurous journey. We couldn’t, it, this was the most successful raid on Mannheim Ludwigshafen at that time and it was complete chaos and we had to go by train in to a big detour so we travelled that day and went to a Luftwaffe camp and stayed the night in the guard room there and the next day we go back to the railway station and it was a, it’s a station something like Victoria in Manchester. A long corridor with steps going up to the various platforms. We were on the platform and what I call a typical Daily Express German came along, feather in his hat and oh he was furious he was furious and Hitler had issued an order to all military and police units that if civilians get hold of airmen before the authorities do the authorities were not to interfere. They must leave it to the discretion of the civilians what to do with them and this one was stark raving, oh he was angry. And in the air force there’s an offence known as silent contempt. You don’t do anything but you look at an officer who’s ticking you off and look at him and make it obvious you think he’s [lowly?] and it’s a serious crime in the air force. Well Ray and I were giving this chappy the silent cont and the navigator said, ‘Stop being a bloody fool.’ He was a good deal older than we were and eventually this chap storms off and we thought, ‘Oh that’s shown him.’ A few minutes later he’s back at the head, the head of a posse and they’re obviously, obviously intent on doing us serious bodily harm but fortunately there was, there was a train on the other side of the platform. Now, whether it was a troop train or not I don’t know but half a dozen soldiers got out and ranged themselves between us and the, and this crowd and our two Luftwaffe chappies whipped us down the stairs, along the corridor and up another platform and hid us in a room that was obviously used by guards full of red and green lamps and flags and so on and we hid in there until our train arrived and then ran back as fast as we could and got put on the train. But it was, when we thought about it later we were very nearly hanged or beaten to death or kicked to death or something very near but it was only, it was only those soldiers who saved us and that was contrary to Hitler’s orders.
BW: Because the RAF crews at this time presumably were being christened terror flieger.
PB: Yeah. Oh yeah.
BW: And so the civilians were -
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: Properly against them.
PB: Well there were a hundred Bomber Command people were killed by Germans and more than two hundred Americans because Americans, there were a lot more Americans. They had ten to a crew.
BW: And at this point in a station as you mention they’ve reunited you with the navigator and -
PB: Yeah. Well they were in the police station. Unknown to me at the time.
BW: Yeah.
PB: I met them when we got out of the police station. But before I left they gave me a shave. A fierce little barber came in and then he got out this razor and I thought, ‘I hope to God the air raid sirens don’t go off.’ [laughs]
BW: Yeah ‘cause he might, he might stop shaving you and decide to use the razor for something else.
[laughs]That’s the only time I’ve been shaved with a cut throat razor. I don’t want to ever experience it again. [laughs]
BW: So they’ve tidied you up and reunited you as a crew.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Presumably they didn’t interrogate you at this point even though you were in a police station. The Luftwaffe officers took you over and put you in a transport. Is that right?
PB: Yeah. We were taken, we were taken to Dulag Luft at Frankfurt and there I was put in a cell there. Quite a big cell really. It had, it had, it had a very long radiator attached to one wall and there was a bed attached to the floor alongside a radiator and there was a table and two chairs and there’s a bucket in the corner and two windows with shutters on from outside and a very dim light. No ventilation and all I could do was lie flat on my back with these ribs and although it was mid-September the heat on the radiator was turned up full. So I lay there for three days getting hotter and dirtier and stickier and the air getting fouler and fouler and then suddenly somebody opened the shutters. A very smart Luftwaffe officer walked in with a couple of files under his arm, put them on the table opened the windows wide and motioned for me to join him, poured two cups of English tea, a plate of English biscuits, a packet of English cigarettes and then the interrogation started.
BW: And at this point is there just you and this Luftwaffe officer?
PB: Yeah.
BW: In this cell?
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so he’s expected you to get up from the floor to the chair to sit in front of him. Nobody has assisted you at this point?
PB: No. No. No.
BW: So presumably your body’s quite stiff as well.
PB: Very very stiff indeed. Very stiff. I never -
BW: Well -
PB: I never had any medical attention at all. Never. I’ve got a great knob of bone there that will never heal.
BW: And so the interrogation begins and presumably, from what you’re staying, this is daytime at this point.
PB: Yeah. When he put these files down on the table there were two of them and the top one said Royal Air Force Bomber Command 149 squadron. I thought, ‘How the hell does he know 149?’ I said, ‘I wonder if the others had been forced to talk,’ and I had pictures of Humphrey Bogart being tortured by [laughs] but it was obvious the rear part of the fuselage wasn’t burned and the letters OJ. So, he gave me, he have me a great deal of information. First, generally about the air force and then specifically about 149 squadron.
BW: And because the letters on the aircraft had not burned through.
PB: No the -
BW: So the squadron’s code OJ were still visible.
PB: OJ means 149. They knew that so as I understood it he was trying to do two things. He was giving me a lot of information most of it factual but some which he picked up and he hadn’t had checked yet [or someone had corrected] and from my reaction [he got?] and then he picked up bits from me that he could put. That was the whole purpose of it. I don’t know what did affect the war effort. I don’t think very much. Anyway, eventually he finished and this was the middle of September and he said, ‘Are there any questions you want to ask me?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘What’s been happening in the war in the last few days?’ He said, ‘Italy has surrendered.’ I said, ‘Oh good. One down, one to go.’ [laughs] Well he didn’t like that [laughs] so he picked up his files and he left.
BW: You weren’t tempted to salute him either.
PB: But when we, when we were being transferred by cattle truck from Dulag Luft to Saxony to Stalag 4b we were in these cattle trucks and we had a German guard in with us and we had with us at one stage the only German I ever felt sorry for. He’d been born in Germany and when he was a very small child his people had gone to America. He’d been brought up in Brooklyn. He had a tremendous Brooklyn accent and he’d, they’d never taken American nationality and early in ‘39 or late in ‘38 they’d come to Germany on holiday and he was immediately conscripted and there he was [laughs]. Oh dear. So I’d never known anybody feel as sorry for himself as that poor fella. He said, he described his comrades, he said, ‘Bloody mother f***ing, c**k s***ng krauts,’ and those were his comrades [laughs].
BW: And they didn’t speak American -
PB: Deary, deary me,
BW: So he got away with it.
PB: Oh he did feel sorry for himself. And I’ve often wondered what happened to him because when the Ardennes offensive took place Hitler put a lot of American speaking Germans into American uniforms and of course they were shot immediately if they were captured. He was an absolutely perfect candidate for that job.
BW: Yeah. Quite possible.
PB: So I don’t know what happened to him but oh deary me he did feel sorry for himself
BW: And so it seems a fairly, alright it’s uncomfortable but it seems a fairly civil interrogation from the Luftwaffe officer before you -
PB: Oh it was very friendly. Very friendly very friendly. I mean I’d been lying in there for three days thinking about Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and it was nothing like that [laughs]. No, he was charming. Really charming.
BW: And how soon after the interrogation ended and he stormed out did you then leave for er -
PB: Well I left the cell then went to the main part of the camp and stayed there for about a week until there was enough of us to make up a wagon load.
BW: And this was still at Dulag Luft.
PB: Yeah.
BW: In Frankfurt.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so you’re there a little while longer transferred to Saxony.
PB: Yeah and we were lucky and we were unlucky. We were unlucky in the fact that all the luft camps run by the Luftwaffe were full and so we were sent to the biggest prison camp in Germany which was run by the army. It contained about ten thousand permanently and it had scores of working parties attached to it so that prisoners used to come in and get recorded and then sent out to work in mines or factories or quarries or whatever so there was a regular turnover. There was about ten thousand of us there permanently but a tremendous lot of Frenchmen, a couple of thousand Russians who were starving to death and various other nationalities and of course the German army didn’t have the same relationship with us that the Luftwaffe personnel would have had. In fact they hated us.
BW: Was there any, any ill will directed towards you because you were air force?
PB: They didn’t like us. They told us, they said, ‘When Germany wins the war you’ll spend the rest of your lives building the cities that you’ve destroyed but if Germany lose the war you’re soon to be shot.’ That was their attitude.
BW: And even though this was an army camp they, it sounds as though they weren’t just, were they just military personnel? The ten thousand French and Russians were they soldiers that were captured?
PB: Well I don’t know what they were.
BW: So they could have been.
PB: They were dressed in civilian, some in civilian clothes,
BW: Yeah.
PB: Some in bits of clothes. Some were in military uniform but we were lucky too because this was September. Italy had retired from the war. The Germans had taken over the Italian prison camps and they set up two new compounds in 4b. An RAF compound and an army compound. Now, a couple of thousand Desert Rats who’d been prisoners in Italy came in just as we did. Now, without them we’d have been in a right mess because the Germans gave us nothing.
BW: So you were on low rations and you were, were you made to work at this stage as well?
PB: No. No. They couldn’t make us work. Not with our ranks.
BW: Right.
PB: But you know we were put into a hut which has three tier bunks to sleep a hundred and eighty men. They gave us a sack which contained something or other which was supposed to be a mattress, two pre- First World War blankets and that was, that was all they gave us. No knife, fork, spoon, no cup, no plate. Nothing. And yet the food comes up, a great big vat of soup and all you’ve got’s your bare hands. So the army helped us a lot there.
BW: Presumably because they were allowed or brought with them their kit and they shared it.
PB: They brought with all their kit, yeah. Yeah. I mean they’d been prisoners years some of them.
BW: So they knew, they knew how it worked.
PB: They knew the ropes so yeah they knew the ropes alright but the difference between the army and the air force was, was, was incredible. The army compound was run like a barracks. There was a sergeant major in charge of each hut. Total control. And each morning at 7 o’clock there was roll calls outside in decent weather. The roll call in the army compound took fifteen minutes. The roll call in the RAF compound could take two hours. That was the difference in our attitudes. The army would say, ‘We’ll show them what real soldiers look like.’ and we’d say, ‘We’ll cause them so much bloody trouble they’ll wish they’d never been born.’ Different attitude of mind altogether.
BW: And so this is the, the British army in their compound.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Organising themselves to do their roll calls -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Like that.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the RAF took the view well we’re there to -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Make a nuisance of ourselves.
PB: That’s it exactly. One day the Germans got so exasperated they brought the senior sergeant major and they stood him there and we’re all lined up in fives and he starts telling us we’re a disgrace to the bloody nation, we’re a disgrace to the air force and the replies he got. He’d never been spoken to like that in his life before. Never, ever, ever. He just went redder and redder and redder. Eventually, he turned on his heel and went and we never saw him again.
BW: Gave that one up as well.
PB: I know we really, we really did everything we could and we tamed the Germans eventually and it went whenever a German entered our hut whoever saw him first would shout, ‘Jerry up’ and whatever you were doing you could get away. At the end of the war the German would walk in to the hut, he’d stand at the door and shout, ‘Jerry up’ and wait two minutes before he walked in.
BW: It’s interesting you, you made a comment just before that although the Germans gave you nothing they didn’t make you work either because of your rank.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the thinking was in the, in the early days with the RAF aircrew was that if they were all sergeants they would be treated better in prisoner of war camps.
PB: Not treated better, just treated differently in that they didn’t work.
BW: Right. So it was a case of you’re not made to work you were just -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Well you were just there and you exist, sort of thing.
PB: Yeah and the food of course was disgusting. The flour was ten percent what the Germans optimistically called wood flour. Which was sawdust. We, we, we had soup at lunchtime. A great vat of soup. We had [minute?] soup which was disgusting. We had [mara?] soup which was even more disgusting and most disgusting of all we had a soup that apparently was made from what was left of sugar beet after the beet er after the sugar had been extracted and we got a handful of boiled potatoes, usually rotten. That was the midday meal and then in the late afternoon you got a piece of bread to be divided between five people and a blob of white stuff which was supposed to be butter, it was about ninety percent water, and a spoonful of jam apparently made from beetroot or swede or some such and you’d get this piece of bread and it’s not a big piece of bread and it’s got to be shared between five people and every, every one of the five pieces had to be absolutely identical with the other four so we picked the man with the best irons and steadiest hand and he cuts the bread up and he gets last choice and the five pieces and he gets the last choice.
BW: And it went on like that for days.
PB: But we had the Red Cross parcels fortunately.
BW: How often were they delivered? Were they regular?
PB: Every Monday we got a Red Cross parcel.
BW: And were they delivered intact or were they interfered and inspected by the Germans.
PB: They were delivered intact until it was decided that they were being used in escapes and so after that they were all opened and every tin was punctured so that it had a limited lifespan. You couldn’t, you couldn’t store it up.
BW: And you see in war films, popular war films, the sort of black market operating in a prison camp and trading and bartering. Does that, did that ever happen?
PB: Oh yes, it was all, with cigarettes you could buy anything. Now in the RAF compound we had two people. We had an English and an Italian name. A chappy called [Gargini]
BW: [Gargini]
PB: Now he was, he was a skilled technician in British, in BBC television and he was an absolute wizard with the electricity. He built at least two radio sets and he also made a succession of heaters, immersion heaters, which you could put in a cup of cold water and fire up in no time at all. And we had another chap who was in fact was a civilian. Terry Hunt his name was. He worked for British Movietone news or some similar company and if you went to the cinema in England during the war from time to time to time on the newsreel you’d see shots taken from the nose of a light bomber during attacks on France. Now Terry was one of the men who took those photographs. He was given a degree of training. He was given an RAF uniform, he was given a RAF number, an RAF rank just in case he was shot down and captured and he had a camera. He had it inside a hollowed out bible with a little hole in the spine through which he took his photographs. Two quite remarkable men there.
BW: And that, that bible with the camera in he used in the aircraft and he kept with him in the prison camp did he?
PB: No. He got it whilst he was in the prisoner.
BW: Oh made it in the prison right.
PB: How he got through well cigarettes you could get anything with cigarettes. You could buy a woman for three cigarettes but there were no women.
BW: And in that case there must have been some sort of interaction with the German guards at that point -
PB: Oh yes.
BW: To be able to bribe.
PB: You waited. You waited until after dark and then you went out and found a guard and said [?] ‘Yah yah yah,’ out it came from a bag in his gas mask case gave him this bit of bread ‘[?] cigarettes?’ ‘Nein. [?]Nein. Deutschland caput’ [laughs]
BW: A piece of bread for twenty cigarettes.
PB: But you could buy anything with cigarettes.
BW: And did you partake in that yourself, did you?
PB: Oh yeah I was out most nights if I had cigarettes buying bread. It was, it was much better bread than we had. It was rotten bread but it was much better bread than we had.
BW: And did you, did you feel able to strike up a rapport or even an element of trust with some of these guards. Were you always meeting the same one or did you have to interact with others?
PB: No, whoever happened to be walking around the compound at the time. Some relationships must have been, must have been formed because big items were bought and of course if there were ever workmen in the camp all their tools were raided. They soon [? ] their tools.
BW: So there were, there were guys in the camp who were raiding the Germans’ tool sets.
PB: Yeah you see we, we had, you know, you got hundreds of air crew. You’ve got a couple of thousand senior NCOs in the army. You’ve got every talent. You’ve got architects, musicians, dancers, journalists. You got all sorts of people and it was amazing what could be done.
BW: And I believe they had classes in the prisoner of war camps as well to keep the men occupied.
PB: Oh yes. We, we had a little library in each hut. Some of them manned by professional librarians, we had lecturers. We had, we had a theatre group and a radio theatre group. We had people who went around individually giving lectures. The most popular lecturer was a chappy, an army man, who’d worked for a very prestigious London undertaking firm and the stories he had. Oh deary me. Deary, deary me. He was a popular lecturer he was.
BW: And so was your days, were your days regulated in any sense? Was there a structure put to you?
PB: No. You had a roll call in the morning, a roll call in the evening. That was it. And then you had the food arriving at mid-day and again about tea time and other than that you were on your own.
BW: So would you have about two meals a day then? Your main midday meal and a meal in the evening?
PB: I don’t think we ever had a meal at all really [laughs].
BW: Well, yeah.
PB: But yeah that’s the way it worked.
BW: Yeah.
PB: On Fridays, on Fridays, Friday was a big day. On Friday you got pea soup and pea soup was so good we didn’t get any potatoes on Friday. Well pea soup was the only soup we ever really ate. The pea soup was quite good.
BW: And do you still like it to this day or does that remind you?
PB: I like pea soup. Yes.
BW: Yeah.
PB: But we Lancastrians had a Red Rose Society. The Yorkists had a White Rose Society and there was a motoring club for people interested in cars or motorbikes. There were all sorts, all sorts of things set up. Every hut was given the name of a British football team. My hut was Wolverhampton Wanderers and a league was set up and matches were played and points scored and then in the RAF compound we formed the rugby pitch as well, I played a lot of rugby.
BW: Even, even though you’d had a bad injury from parachuting you were still able to play rugby.
PB: Eventually. It took, it took, it took about six months until I felt really free but -
BW: Did you manage to get any medical treatment from the British -
PB: No.
BW: While you were in the camp?
PB: Never. Never. I never bothered the British. By then it was healing. They even, even tried to play cricket but that didn’t work. The ground was too soft.
BW: What sort of ground was it? Was it sandy?
PB: It was sort of sandy soil, yeah.
BW: So and we’ve probably all have an image here of Sagan and the Great Escape -
PB: Yeah.
BW: And the sandy -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Sort of soil
PB: Yeah.
BW: And it was pretty much like that was it?
PB: When I played rugby every time I I got a graze and there was any blood it always went, always went rotten. I always had to go and get it, get it drugged up always, always went rotten.
BW: And what sort of drugs could they give you? Was there penicillin?
PB: Red Cross. Red Cross I don’t know what they were but the Red Cross provided drugs and we had, we had certain medical. We had a couple of army doctors as well. We had an English woman in the camp.
BW: Do you recall her name at all?
PB: Well we knew her as Mrs Barrington. She was an English woman. I don’t know whether she was divorced or widowed but sometime in the 20s or very early 30s she had a son called Winston and they had a holiday in Switzerland and met a German who got on very well with and they went back again a few months later and she married him and she and her son went to live in Germany. And then when, when 1938, ‘39 came along and war was obviously imminent she sent her son back to England to live with her parents and in due course he joined the air force in Bomber Command, got shot down, wrote to her where she was living in Vienna and she wrote back and eventually she decided she wanted to be nearer to him then that so she left Vienna and went to live in Muhlburg which was about five kilometres from the camp.
BW: Muhlberg.
PB: Muhlberg yeah and by this time her husband was a very high ranking Luftwaffe officer and when she moved to Muhlberg her husband came with her and we know that he visited the camp and we know that he met the commandant but we don’t know what happened there of course. We don’t know whether some informal arrangement was agreed between them or whatever but it was a fact that airmen were never allowed outside the camp because they’d just disappear but Barrington got outside the camp with French working parties several times, met his mother in Muhlberg and by early 1945 she was getting worried about what her fate would be when the Russians arrived and he reported that to the, to the escape committee and they decided she should be brought into the camp and the next time he went out he took some spare clothes [and met her] she came in to the camp, put in to RAF battledress and was hidden away under the stage in the theatre and stayed there for a few weeks till the end of the war. Not only until the end of the war but until we got away from the Russians but it took us a month to get away from the Russians.
BW: So you mention there about hiding her under the stage in the theatre -
PB: Yeah.
BW: In RAF battle dress uniform.
PB: Yeah.
BW: How did the, the tide of war affect you because many prisoners were forced on the long march but presumably if you were in Saxony in sort of lower -
PB: Yeah.
BW: South eastern Germany. Were you part of that of that -
PB: No.
BW: To evacuate the camps.
PB: No we weren’t in Poland. We were in Germany. Now, by this time the air was full of British and American fighter bombers. Everything that moved was attacked and the commandant gave us the opportunity, ‘If you want to be marched west across the Elbe we’ll take you,’ and the Poles of course jumped at that chance. They didn’t want to be with the Russians. And we said, ‘No. We’ll stay where we are until our allies arrive.’ [Laughs] Our allies.
BW: So you all managed to stay in the camp without being evacuated.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so this Mrs Barrington stayed in the -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Theatre at this time.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Under your protection.
PB: Yeah she kept hidden. Eventually, when the, when the Russians arrived they made no arrangements whatever for us and so all we could do was break down this perimeter fence and stream out into the countryside to search for food and that went on for about three days and then the Russians got themselves organised and clamped down on it. We came and got a bargaining counter. They held thousands of British and Americans and there were tens of hundreds of thousands of Russians in the west and the Russians wanted them back. Many, many of them even wore German uniforms and they knew if they went back they knew what their fate would be so they didn’t want to go back so there was a lot of bargaining and we were part of the Russians strong hand and then they marched us out of the camp, marched quite a considerable distance and they put us into what was obviously a big maintenance depot full of huge workshops and we were billeted there and still nothing was happening so we began to drift off in twos and threes and tried to make our way across the river on our own which eventually we did. We, we were relieved by the Russians on St George’s Day, the 23rd of April and I reached the American lines on my 24th birthday. The 23rd of May. Exactly one month later. And then it was like moving from hell in to heaven. I lived for a week on steak and ice cream.
BW: You didn’t, you’d been on such bad rations there was no problem moving to that sort of -
PB: No. No. Never had any -
BW: High protein diet.
PB: A lot of people spent a lot of time sat down with their trousers around their ankles [laughs]
BW: You obviously had a tougher constitution.
PB: Yeah -
BW: So it didn’t affect you.
PB: It didn’t affect me. But oh it was great with the Americans. Even went to the cinema. They had a mobile cinema. I saw a film about a book which I’d read whilst in Germany. And then, then we were flown by Dakota to Brussels and handed over to the British. We arrived in Brussels on a Saturday afternoon. The British gave us a ten shilling note and a handful of Belgian coins and turned us loose on Brussels for a Saturday night [laughs]. And the next day we climbed on board a Stirling and flew back to Kent and from Kent we went up to Cosford which was a receiving centre and Cosford had been my first station in 1940.
BW: So this was almost a reverse of your trip out there because you’d gone out on a Stirling.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And then you were flown back from Brussels to Kent in a Stirling.
PB: In a Stirling.
BW: How did it feel to be back on your old sort of type of plane again?
PB: Oh it was funny really. About, about four Stirlings and one Lancaster landed and everybody but me and two other fellas ran for the one Lancaster. [laughs] I was more than happy to get into a Stirling.
BW: And that, that night in Brussels when you’d got a ten shilling note in your hand.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And a few Belgian pennies that must have been pretty memorable. How did it, how did it feel?
PB: I had a terrible emotional shock. There was a great big underground convenience and I was stood in there weeing away and in walked two women cleaners [laughs] and that rather set me back. I don’t remember much about what happened that night actually. I know I’d no money left at the end of it.
BW: Justifiably lost in celebration I think.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And so you were only twenty four at that stage.
PB: I’d just had my twenty fourth birthday, yes.
BW: And you, I guess you got, in retrospect, you got back to the UK pretty quick. I mean the war had only been over sort of three weeks when you were then passed over to the, to the British.
PB: Yeah.
BW: In May.
PB: Yeah.
BW: ‘Cause obviously some guys in service had to wait a long time to be repatriated.
PB: Oh some didn’t get back until well after the September.
BW: And so when you get back to Cosford.
PB: Yeah.
BW: What happened then? Were you able to, I mean, were you still in touch with your other crewmates at this point in your -
PB: No. No. Long lost them somewhere along the way. We were, first of all we were made to give a written description of how we were shot down which seemed to me to be to be a waste of time and then we were medically examined and bathed and haircuts and kitted out with new uniform and then we were sent on six weeks leave on double rations and by this time of course I’d been, I’d been qualified long enough to have become a warrant officer. And I had a lot of back pay. Got paid all the time.
BW: And how, how did they pay you? ‘Cause now it goes straight into your bank account but then did they give you cash?
PB: Cash.
BW: Or did they give you a cheque?
PB: I can’t remember. I can’t remember. I didn’t have a bank account so I don’t, I don’t really know. I know I had a lot of money to come. Several hundred pounds. I’d earned it. [laughs]
BW: Absolutely.
PB: I’d done more damage to German morale as a prisoner than I ever did as - [laughs]
BW: If I can, if I can just hop back to a point you made in the camp. You said there was an escape committee.
PB: Yes.
BW: And as I say they’re sort of impressions of, of “The Great Escape” come to mind. Were there any escape attempts made there?
PB: Oh yes there were people escaping all the time.
BW: Successfully?
PB: A couple of hours, two days. Maybe a week if you were lucky.
BW: So there was quite an active escape -
PB: Oh yes, yes.
BW: Committee from the RAF there.
PB: Oh yes there was a lot of escaping. What, what, what was a popular thing from time to time a British soldiers would come through the camp to be registered and recorded and photographed etcetera and then sent out on working parties and some airmen got the idea it would be easier to escape from a working party then from the camp and so they exchanged identities and this in the end caused tremendous confusion to the Germans because there was a New Zealand soldier, a Desert Rat who’d been captured and held in prison in Italy and he’d escaped and got in with a with a group of partisans and as he was the only professional as it were amongst the partisans he soon became their leader and he carried out minor acts of sabotage and he became a sort of Robin Hood and rumours were circulated about this new Zealander who was doing this, that and the other and the Germans got to learn of this and eventually they captured him and they decided to send him to Germany for trial but it wasn’t known whether he was to go to Berlin or to Leipzig so as 4b was about halfway between the two he came to 4b and was locked up in the [straflagge] and there he made contact with French working parties. French used to work in there regularly and the French notified the British and it was known that if he went to either Berlin or Leipzig and was put on trial he’d be found guilty and he’d be shot and so they decided that he had to be rescued and a plot was formed and the French removed a window from the room where the showers were in the [straflagge] and put it back in a temporary position and he was briefed that when it was known that he was going to leave he was to insist upon having a shower and he was to go in to the shower room and escape from this window and be smuggled in to the camp and one day quite out of the blue we were all told to get over to the French compound as quickly as we could and to start a riot and we all got there and started fighting and jostling and messing and shouting and all the German cars were rushing to the French compound and this chappie escaped and he was hidden above a ceiling in a hut up in the dark, in the rafters and remained hidden until the end of the war. And the gestapo arrived and they made our lives hell for a week and they tore the camp to pieces and eventually we put about the rumour that he’d now left the camp and was on a train going to Switzerland so they all moved out to Switzerland [laughs] to the railway lines then and we were left in peace but he remained in the camp until the end of the war and eventually got back to New Zealand.
BW: Wow.
PB: Remarkable story.
BW: I mean yeah he was -
PB: I’ve got his name somewhere in a book but I can’t remember it off hand.
BW: It would be interesting to, to find his name and look him up.
PB: Well I can get it for you.
BW: Doesn’t, doesn’t need to be straightaway. We can get that afterwards.
PB: I can get it for you in a flash.
BW: Ok well just pause the recording for a moment.
PB: So we’re just looking at a book here called “Survival In Stalag Luft 4b”
BW: Yeah.
PB: And his name is Tony Hunt.
BW: Terry.
PB: Terry.
BW: Terry Hunt.
[pause]
PB: 136
[pause]
PB: Frederick William Ward he’s called.
BW: Frederick William Ward.
PB: Yeah. Born in February 1912. Captured in North Africa in July ‘42. [pause] That will tell you about him there.
BW: Yeah.
PB: Fred Ward and this is, this is in the book by Tony Vercoe um which I’ll look up.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Um it says that he, he was captured and then interrogated and then will go into more detail about the activities with the French workers as you say. There’s a description there.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And then this lady you mentioned is called Florence Barrington.
PB: That’s right. Mrs Barrington.
BW: With a thirteen year old son, married a German photographer and that also gives us the correct name of, just so that I’ve got it right, Muhlberg M U H L B E R G so that helps identify -
PB: Yeah. Muhlberg.
BW: The camp.
PB: Muhlberg on the Elbe.
BW: Yeah. What I’ll do if you don’t mind I’ll have a look at this separately and sort of off air of the recording.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But that, that’s great that is good information.
PB: Yes. You’ve got the full story there.
BW: So we were talking just briefly before about some of the escape attempts and how you’d helped to rescue this New Zealander from, from being shot.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Were there any other memorable attempts at all?
PB: Yes. Yes, there was one other memorable one. I had a friend, Fred Heathfield, who was a Halifax pilot with 51 squadron. He’d been shot, he’d crashed landed a Halifax on three engines in the pitch dark in Belgium and lived to tell the tale and I think the only thing that kept him alive was that he had his parachute on his chest and that took the main force of the impact. He got two black eyes and a broken nose. He was eventually captured in an hotel in Paris but he was, he was a pilot. I was a flight engineer. There was a Luftwaffe field a few kilometres away from the camp and Fred and I decided that if we could steal a JU88 we could fly at low level to Sweden and we, we started to try to get some information about German aircraft but by this time the Germans had issued a warning to all prison camps saying that because of the seriousness of the war situation there were certain areas of Germany which could not be identified but which were of importance to the, to the safety of the country and anybody caught in such an area without authority would be shot out of hand so we decided not to bother and we gave what information we had to an Australian pilot. What was his name? I’ve got a book by him in there. Anyway, this Australian pilot had a Canadian bomb aimer in his crew and I think he’d been brought up in the French speaking part of Canada because he spoke French like a native and also had quite a good knowledge of German and they decided that they would put this plan into operation but instead of flying to Sweden they would fly east and land behind Russian lines and give themselves over which to me sounded like a suicide note. And they left the camp. They went they went out with a work, we agreed to provide cover for three days so for three days the Germans wouldn’t know they were missing and they went out with a working party and disappeared and it was the night of Dresden. The night they went out was the night of Dresden and they, they, they walked. They were stopped several times and were able to convince whoever stopped them that they were French volunteers who were being moved from one job to another job and were on their way there and they got to this airfield and they lay up in the woods surrounding the airfield to watch what was going on and a JU88 landed and it was refuelled and they thought that’s it. So they find a log of wood and they picked it up and put it on their shoulders and marched to the edge of the airfield, put it down, got inside the JU and, what was his name? Anyway, he sat in the cockpit looking at the instruments and the controls and sorting out what’s what and the ground crew come back and said, ‘What are you doing in here? Foreign workers aren’t allowed in German aircraft. Clear off.’ And they got out, they picked up their log of wood. They walked back to the camp and I remember it plainly I was stood at one end of the hut and the door was at the far end and suddenly, Geoff his name was, Geoff and his bomb aimer Smith come walking down the hut and the Germans never knew they’d been away. Never knew they’d been away. And they’d been sat in a JU88.
BW: And they’d nearly got away with it.
PB: If they’d landed. I mean the Russians didn’t ask questions. If you got out of a German aircraft they shot you.
BW: Yeah.
PB: It was the daftest idea I’ve ever come across in my life but that’s what they’d decided on. Geoff Taylor. He was, he was, he was a journalist in Australia and he wrote a book called “Piece of Cake” which had a forward by Butch Harris of all people. I’ve got a copy in there and that was the most audacious escape but of course like all other escapes it came to nothing in the end.
BW: And were there quite a few others who tried and -
PB: Oh yes. It was sport.
BW: Captured.
PB: It was sport. This notice that the Germans issued said escaping is no longer a sport but that’s what it had been. When you read about people who spend all their time organising an escape they’re just a bloody nuisance to everybody. They ruin life in the camp. Everybody has to give way to them. They’re not going anywhere. They might be out for a week but they’re back.
BW: And in the meantime everybody else is perhaps suffering.
PB: Everybody’s inconvenienced, yeah.
BW: Yeah but they’re getting more inspections presumably.
PB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To have a fella like Bader in your camp must have been hell. Absolute hell.
BW: That’s why they decided to put him in Colditz.
[pause]
BW: And you hadn’t been tempted to try yourself. You were making yourself a nuisance in the camp you made life -
PB: Only this -
BW: Miserable for the Germans.
PB: Mad plan we had to fly to Sweden which we gave up on. It was impossible. But we had an Australian pilot killed in the camp in a flying accident. This Luftwaffe camp was only a few kilometres away and once the airmen there realised that there were now airmen in 4b occasionally they’d come over and give us a bit of a, a bit of a thrill. They did and they’d come across in a JU86 which was an obsolete bomber based on a, on a civil aircraft. It was a bit like a Hudson it was and it were coming over the camp in a shallow dive right along the full length of the French compound which was the biggest and climb away and all the airmen in the compound would be going like this.
BW: Waving.
PB: And the army went mad. The army said, ‘You’re going to kill us all the way you’re going.’ You know, these lads know what they’re doing. Anyway, one came over one day and it wasn’t an 86 it was an 88 a powerful, big, powerful machine and he came perhaps a bit steeper than usual and when he pulled up his tail mushed in and his tail went into a wire fence and it dragged about twenty feet of wire and two or three fence posts with it. The tail plane hit this, hit this Canadian pilot who was walking around the compound. Killed him instantly. One of the posts hit his companion and badly injured him and I was in our own compound and I could see through the French huts and I saw this thing. It was no higher than that. I don’t know why the airstream wasn’t tucked in the ground and eventually it climbed away with all this wire streaming behind him and the Luftwaffe gave a splendid funeral to this Australian and we were told that the pilot had been stripped of his brevvy, stripped of his rank, and posted to the eastern front as a common foot soldier. I think, it think they just told us that to pacify us. I can’t believe for a moment that that’s what happened but that’s the story they gave us but to be killed in a flying accident walking around a prison compound it’s a bit much isn’t it?
BW: Yeah and as you say there’s got to be some for the tail wheel to be that close to the ground that there’s got to be the plane itself has got to be very, very low.
PB: It was no higher -
BW: Ten feet or less
PB: Than that. I don’t know why the airstream wasn’t hitting the ground.
BW: And that you’re indicating’s about two foot -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Three foot.
PB: Yeah I just saw it go I could see it between the huts.
BW: Wow.
PB: And then it just climbed away with all the stuff just trailing behind it. Beautiful piece of flying. Wonderful skilled bit of flying.
BW: Just unfortunate consequence.
PB: Yeah. So we did get excitement from time to time.
BW: How did it feel when the Russians came to liberate? I mean -
PB: Oh -
BW: You must have had a pretty limited amount of information getting through and an impression of what the Russian forces were like. How did it feel when they -
PB: Well -
BW: Came into the camp?
PB: Well the first thing on the newsreels I’d seen pictures of refugees in France and suddenly early in April we got German refugees going past the camp and it was, it was an incredible sightseeing German refugees like that and they were streaming past the camp to get over the Elbe. And then we could -
BW: The Elbe must have been quite close to the camp
PB: Oh it was only about five kilometres and then we heard gunfire and then on St George ’s day early in the morning someone rushed into our hut shouting, ‘The Cossacks are here,’ and we went out and on the main road there were four of the scruffiest most dreadful looking men I’ve ever seen in my life. On horseback. Oh they did, they looked murderous, every one and they were loaded down with sandbags full of food and ammunition and God knows what and they just sat there and later in the day the infantry arrived and they made no provision for us whatsoever. Nothing. So we just broke out of the camp to steal food and steal drink as well and steal women as well no doubt but the Russians clamped on that and then they started to register us and they were going to send us to a Black Sea port, Odessa or some sort of place, and sail us home from there they said. When the Americans are only five miles away. The other side of the river. And they started to register us and they had great big women, great big fat women, tables outside, taking the records, and they got some funny ones. There was a Micky Mouse and James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and it became chaotic and eventually we just said oh blow this and they packed it in and then they moved us, as I say, out of the camp and up into this maintenance depot.
BW: So they realised you were giving them some spoof names -
PB: Yeah.
BW: And not helping at all
PB: We sat in this maintenance depot about five of us who were all together and suddenly the most horrible screaming and I said the Russians have either got a woman or they’ve got a pig let’s go and to find out which it is. So we followed the noise and we came to a place and there were two Russians. There was one dead pig lying down and there’s another Russian with a pig like a cello with his hand way inside of it and the pig screaming away and we sit and we watch all this and we’re thinking they’ll give us something and we watch and we wait and eventually they killed it and they cut off the ears and gave us the ears. They took two pigs and gave us the bloody ears off one of pig.
BW: And kept the rest for themselves. And in general when they, as you put it, got their act together in terms of organising the camp presumably they re-erected the fence post that had been torn down.
PB: It became a far, far, far worse place than it had ever been.
BW: Yeah.
PB: They turned it into a punishment camp for German civilians. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of Germans died in that camp over the next five years and so the natives at Muelburg are attached to us really. We both suffered in that camp. It was a dreadful place. What it must have been like when it was dreadful when we were there. What it must have been like.
BW: And they weren’t bringing the civilians in while you were there?
PB: No, no.
BW: They presumably -
PB: No. It was after, after they’d repaired it and repaired all the damage we’d done.
BW: Yeah.
PB: And I think it was about five years they had it as a punishment camp. Must have been hell on earth. Hell on earth. Hundreds if not thousands died and this was just because of complaining about some regulation or other that the Russians had imposed. Anything at all, straight in there. Shocking that.
BW: But they didn’t, did they impose a regime on you as RAF crew waiting to be repatriated during that sort of interim period of April, May.
PB: Well it was all chaos. It was all chaos. I had quite an experience on VE day. They had their VE day a day later than ours because apparently they weren’t satisfied with the arrangements that the west had made so they decided to have their own, their own VE day the next day and I was, I was walking in the German town. Why I was alone and not with any of my friends I don’t know but I was alone and I was walking through this town and suddenly two Russian officers grabbed me and took me to their mess and gave me a huge meal. All, all looted German property of course. Animals, vegetables. The lot. And a particular sweet which I learned later was made from sour milk and it was absolutely gorgeous and after the meal they took me to a public hall where there was to be an address by a general followed by a concert and it was full of full of Russian soldiers, men and women, in all sorts of different uniforms and this general came onto the stage and I got, I got an example of what it was it was like being in a totalitarian state. He made a speech and the only words I heard were Churchill and Roosevelt every now and again he’d pause and somewhere at the very back of the, of the gallery [clapping sound] and immediately everybody’s clapping and immediately they all stopped like that.
BW: As if somebody was coordinating it.
PB: Someone’s coordinating. The whole thing was coordinated and eventually the speech finishes and we had this concert and it was absolutely fantastic. Oh the music and the dancing and the singing unbelievable. Unbelievable concert. It was terrific. Now what happened when it finished I’ve no idea. I haven’t a clue what happened to me that night. Not a clue. Not the slightest idea. I know I joined up with my friends the next day but what happened that night I don’t, I’ve no idea but I’ve never seen anything like the performance that these women who seemed to just move like that.
BW: Gracefully across -
PB: No, no leg movement at all.
BW: The stage yeah.
PB: And the Cossacks down on their heels kicking. Oh it was a fantastic concert and the singing and the balalaika playing. A night to remember that was. And that was VE day. VE day Russian version.
BW: How had you managed to celebrate it in the camp at all? You mentioned it was quite different to our celebration were there any –
PB: Well we didn’t know. We didn’t know it was VE day.
BW: So the only indication you got was from the Russians when they -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Held their celebrations.
PB: And as I say by this time we weren’t in the camp and in fact we’d broken and were trying to get across to the Americans on our own.
BW: And you mention you were in the town at this stage in Muhlberg.
PB: Ahum.
BW: What, what was it like what was your sense of being in the town? Were there, firstly, was it damaged but also were there German civilians who might be hostile.
PB: No.
BW: To the RAF at all.
PB: The civilians couldn’t get us in to their houses fast enough. We were never we were never short of somewhere to sleep or somewhere to wash.
BW: Right.
PB: Because I think the theory was if ten drunken Russians hammered on the door at midnight looking for women we would go to the door and say it was under British occupation you’ll have to go next door. It never worked out in practice [thank God] but that was the theory I think. They couldn’t get us into their houses fast enough.
BW: So a bit I suppose a bit of a protection there for them if the -
PB: Yeah.
BW: If the Russians had seen western RAF aircrew in a house -
PB: Yeah.
BW: They would be less likely -
PB: Yeah. Yeah.
BW: To interfere with it.
PB: And we slept we slept on a feather bed with a feather bed on top of us with a great big bed oh it was wonderful.
BW: And the Germans managed to put you up in the sense that they would feed you as well.
PB: Yes. Yes,
BW: Even though they would have probably been rationed at this stage and -
PB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they couldn’t do enough for us.
BW: And did you get to go back to Muhlberg in the intervening years?
PB: No, because I don’t know where we were. I don’t know where the Russians had moved us to.
BW: Right.
PB: The, the Stalag 4b Association organised trips to Muhlberg later and they became very popular because the Muhlberg people themselves were in the same boat but I never went. In fact they had a trip this year starting off in Berlin and moving down to Muhlberg.
BW: And when you came back to the UK we picked up the story at Cosford and we picked up the extra pay that you’d been awarded.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you were washed and brushed up. What then happened to you sort of post war from Cosford?
PB: Well I was given three options. I could come out immediately or I could go to oh what’s the Yorkshire town, the spa town?
BW: Harrogate.
PB: Harrogate. On a rehabilitation course and then come out or I could opt to stay in until my normal release date. Well I thought there was still a chance of getting back on flying and getting out east and bombing Japan so I opted to stay in and I got posted to a, to a Mosquito squadron near, near Newcastle and there, there I became in effect the squadron warrant officer. I sat in an office all day doing nothing but we had a very, very good rugby team. Our sports, our sports officer was a first class scrub half and we had a very good rugby team and we won the group cup without any difficulty and we got drawn in for the semi-final of the national cup and we got drawn away against Ringway and we came down to Ringway and we found that although paratroopers are army the people who trained them were airmen and practically every one of them was a rugby league professional. So, we turned out on a rugby pitch at Ringway about six hundred red cap paratroopers lying around the pitch cheering their side on. We were up against these great hulking fellas who were fit like butchers dogs. Oh they murdered us. Absolutely murdered us.
BW: And do you still retain an interest in rugby league despite that? Do you follow -
PB: Not rugby league. I don’t like rugby league but we were, they were playing rugby union but they were rugby league professionals.
BW: Right.
PB: But when we got back, when we got back to Acklington I thought that’s it. There’s nothing, nothing doing for me now so I asked to be released and I was released within days.
BW: And was that in 1945?
PB: That would, no, it would be 1946.
BW: ’46.
PB: Yeah.
BW: From Acklington and from then on what happened in your civilian life?
PB: Well, I couldn’t settle.
BW: Your post war life.
PB: I couldn’t settle. I got I got a job as a clerk with a, with a big chemical manufacturing company and I was in this office with about six other people who were as dull as ditchwater, been there forever and all I was doing was calculating lorry loads [eight car loads used to go there and six car loads to go there?] making up that and oh it was absolutely soul destroying. I stuck it I think for three months and then I thought I can’t, I can’t, I can’t settle to this so I then decided I thought the only way to get some companionship again, get some comradeship again was if I joined the police force so I went to, I went to the police station in Burnley and they said, ‘We’ve no, we’ve no vacancies but we can put you in touch with our central organisation.’ So they did and I was called for interview at Wallasey and got into the Wallasey force with three other people and when we went to the police training school we found that three people on the course were Burnley recruits. Burnley. But this gave me my first insight into the police they were recruiting people but they wouldn’t recruit Burnley people. They wouldn’t have anybody who lived in the town going into the police force. So that was the first lie from the police. I worked hard. I came out top of the class and we got to Wallasey and for the first fortnight I was sent out on patrol with another policeman who’d been on patrol for years and I learned how to, I learned which cafes you could sit in the back rooms of and drink coffee and I learned all sort of tricks that really you shouldn’t be doing and it was a complete and utter waste of time and in a small force like Wallasey the opportunity for promotion were very, very few and far between. You had people who had been pounding the beat for fifteen years. They’d passed their sergeants examinations, they passed their inspectors examinations and they were still pounding the beat and the only way you could get on was to curry favour. Start oozing up to some officers and telling tales. It was the exact opposite of comradeship. Everybody’s telling tales about everybody. I thought I can’t stick this so I resigned from that and I was playing rugby in Burnley then and one of the team was a cotton mill owner and he said, ‘If you ever want a proper job I’ll give you a job in a cotton mill,’ so I went to work in his cotton mill and that was no good. And all the time I’m in touch with my bomb aimer’s father. Had regular correspondence and I said to him, ‘I can’t settle I’m going to go back into the air force.’ And he said, ‘Well don’t do anything for the next fortnight,’ and I received a letter -
[interview transmission interrupted]
BW: Alright, so we’re only, we’re only a couple of minutes from the end and I was just asking Mr Phillip Bates that after the end of the war in conclusion he’d said that he’d had a good war but it had had its moments um that were not entirely enjoyable but that overall he’d enjoyed it, his service in the RAF but I was asking just about the commemorations and the national, now centre, at Lincoln and you mentioned that you’d been down to London for the unveiling of the memorial there.
PB: Yeah.
BW: At Green Park.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And you got to meet Camilla as well did you say?
PB: Yes Camilla and the Prince of Wales. I got to shake both their hands. The Prince of Wales surprised me really. It was probably, it was probably the hottest day of the year and everybody had taken his blazer off and I was wearing my Raf Ex-Pow Association tie and the Prince of Wales came along and immediately recognised my tie which surprised me. And as he shook my hand he said, ‘Where did they keep you?’ I said, ‘Stalag 4b, sir.’ He said, ‘Were you a digger?’ I said, ‘Oh no I wasn’t a digger, sir. No. I left that to other people,’ and he was quite jovial and then of course he moved on and made his way down the line but I was amazed that he recognised my tie instantly.
BW: That’s a very nice point that, you know, he’s identified you by that.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And spoke to you particularly because of it.
PB: And part of the Royal Air Force. I’ve got photographs of it all.
BW: And how about now that there’s a centre for Bomber Command in Lincoln?
PB: Well yes he’s lost his football again. I was due to go there and a friend of mine, Dominic was taking me but when it came to it I wasn’t fit to go. I couldn’t have sat in a car for three hours. I just couldn’t. And then another three hours coming back. And Dominic also had a cold so we were ashamed to admit it and then again it’s Lincoln. It’s Lancasters. Bugger the Lancasters I say.
BW: Well perhaps it didn’t prove as reliable as the Stirling because it didn’t fly. They were trying to get the Lancaster flying for the Friday unveiling but they didn’t and I think it may have flown -
PB: Yeah.
BW: The day after but -
PB: What annoys me they chopped up every Stirling. Now, you think they could, it was the first four engine aircraft we had. You’d think they could have had two or three for museums wouldn’t you?
BW: Ahum.
PB: But no they chopped up the lot and that really does grieve me.
BW: And even now they’ve got a Halifax in Elvington.
PB: Oh I’ve seen that.
BW: Which is nicely renovated and so on.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Doesn’t fly.
PB: And it’s got, it’s got the Stirling’s engines in it as well. It hasn’t got Rolls Royce in it it’s got Hercules. It’s a mark iii. It’s that one. The mark iii.
BW: That’s the picture on the wall yeah. And there is a Halifax that they dug out or pulled out of a Norwegian fjord in 1973.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And that is in the Royal Air Force Museum in London.
PB: Yeah. Well for years we hoped that they’d would find a Stirling somewhere but er somewhere in Holland but they never did.
BW: Ahum ahum.
PB: A great shame because it was a beautiful aeroplane.
BW: Could take, from what you were saying, could take a fair bit of punishment and keep flying.
PB: Yeah it was a lot bigger than a Lancaster of course but it had some disadvantages you see. It couldn’t fly high and it couldn’t carry big bombs. It didn’t have a bomb bay. It had three separate ones which gave immense strength to the fuselage because you had these girders running the full length but you could only get a two thousand pound bomb in it so we mostly carried incendiaries.
BW: So just thinking in brief terms about the structure of a bomber formation in that case because you’d see that the pathfinders were going first to mark the target.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Presumably the Stirlings would then go in with the incendiaries.
PB: No. No, we were our main raid was either five or sometimes six waves.
BW: Right.
PB: And the Stirlings were always in the third wave. We got some protection from the first two waves going out and some protection from the last two waves coming back because we were a bit slower than they were. So we were always in the third wave.
BW: Right.
PB: Except, except Peenemunde. Now, that, that’s a terrible story. The night before Peenemunde we went to, we went to Turin and somewhere our radio packed in and we didn’t get the message telling us that East Anglia was fogged up and we had to land in Kent or Sussex. Wherever we could. We didn’t get that message so we arrived back at Lakenheath and asked for instructions to land and they said. ‘You can’t land here. It’s totally fogbound but if you get over to Oakington you might just get down.’ Well, we got over to Oakington, the other side of Cambridge and we just landed. They closed the, closed the airfield immediately we landed and they debriefed us and fed us and provided us with beds and in the early afternoon we went down to the airfield and the Lancasters of seven group were being bombed up and we knew we were on again that night and we were going on leave the so next day so we weren’t anxious to go bombing that night. Anyway, we’d no choice we started the port outer. Come to the port inner, nothing. The starter motor was dead. The starter motors they had in Oakington would fit a Lancaster, it wouldn’t have fit us so we rang Lakenheath to tell them. Eventually a lorry arrives with some fitters and a new starter motor and we landed at Lakenheath just as the squadron is taxiing out for take-off and we were very, very happy because we were going on leave the next day and then I discover we’d missed bloody Peenemunde and at Peenemunde the Stirlings went in first at five thousand feet in brilliant moonlight and all the fighters were circling in Berlin because Mosquitos were dropping target indicators on Berlin. The Germans got away scot free. Eventually the Germans twigged what was happening and got the fighters over and shoot down forty Lancasters and Halifaxes. Stirlings, scot free.
BW: And because you, they’d have been in the first wave.
PB: Yeah.
BW: They got away with it.
PB: There were three, there were three targets. The first one was at the very southern end was all the housing and the Stirlings destroyed that and then the next waves destroyed the science laboratories and then the assembly works and we missed it and it’s grieved me the rest of my life. I’d have given anything to have been on that raid and we were so happy that we weren’t. Oh, a friend of mine got shot down that night. No. I’d have loved to have been on Peenemunde.
BW: I mean that was, that was announced at fairly short notice. It was, you know sometimes a raid has to be planned quite well in advance.
PB: Yeah.
BW: But this was because of the intelligence about the weapons.
PB: Yeah.
BW: They were developing their short notice.
PB: The crews weren’t told, they were told that they were attacking an experimental place for new radar [and the better job of the radar they’d better defend themselves because they destroy all the latest airborne radar] that was the story that was given to aircrews.
BW: Interesting.
PB: Oh I’d have given anything to have been on that raid. Anything. Five thousand feet, brilliant moonlight and you were the first in.
BW: As you say it’s how fate goes isn’t it?
PB: Yeah.
BW: But -
PB: I’ve just been to the funeral of a friend of mine. George. He trained in Canada as a navigator. As a Mosquito navigator which is a specialised navigation job. He qualifies, he gets his brevvy, he’s ready to join the squadron and the war stops. They never even, he never even saw a Mosquito. Oh what a terrible thing to have happen to you. Terrible.
BW: Gone through all that. Well, I was reading in the prep really that they launched a raid on Peenemunde.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And just looking here at some of this um yeah it says here that 149 squadron took part in the early offensive against Germany.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And took part in the first thousand bomber raids with Stirlings.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Made a significant contribution to the battle of the Ruhr, Battle of Hamburg and the raid against the V weapons experimental station at Peenemunde.
PB: Yeah.
BW: And then between February and July ‘44 and in addition to dropping high explosives on the enemy the squadron helped supply the French maquis with supplies, arms and ammunition by parachute.
PB: Yeah.
BW: Of course that would be after you’d been shot down.
PB: About eight weeks after we were shot down Stirlings were taken off German targets completely. Some of them converted to Lancasters. Those that kept their Stirlings were used to drop supplies in France and to do mine laying and later to tow, to tow gliders but they never went to Germany again. The loss rate was unsustainable. I’d been on raids where we lost one in every five Stirlings. You can’t, you can’t keep that up for very long.
BW: No. No. Not at all. Do you think there was a particular weakness perhaps in the Stirling that the losses were so high or was it just good -
PB: You couldn’t get any altitude.
BW: Just because they were restricted to -
PB: Yeah, yeah.
BW: Low ceiling.
PB: Altitude. I mean, I had friends who flew at twenty two thousand feet. On a good night we would get thirteen. On a poor night we would get eleven. Everything that was thrown up reached the Stirlings and everything that was coming down reached the Stirling as well [laughs].
BW: I think you mentioned at one point a bomb hit your aircraft. A bomb -
PB: Yeah.
BW: Dropped from the aircraft above.
PB: This was the Nuremberg. I think it must have been a thirty pound incendiary because it went straight through. If it had been a four pound I think it would have stayed in the wing and burned. If it had been [eighty] it would have taken the wing off. Left quite a sizable hole.
BW: I would just like to show you this. There’s a photo here of a Stirling crew of 149 squadron based at Lakenheath.
PB: Oh.
BW: And I just wonder whether you might recognise any of the names. It’s only a longshot.
PB: Oh.
BW: But there’s -
PB: As I say we never bothered with other crews really.
BW: No.
PB: Except the ones we trained with at -
BW: But it looks like it’s outside the mess at Lakenheath that picture.
PB: Yeah I don’t recognise the photograph. Crowe, that’s a familiar name, Crowe. Oh he was a POW that’s why I know him. Was he a flight engineer? I knew a Tweedy in prison but he was a soldier. I don’t recognise the faces at all. Don’t know why their wearing uniform instead of battledress but there we are. Battledress were far more comfortable. That’s interesting. 27th of September. Oh well they would have been newcomers on the squadron when we were there. The average life expectancy was only six weeks. I had two friends, both on Halifaxes -
BW: Thank you.
PB: Both shot down on their first trip and my friend who were in training, a flight engineer on 15 squadron did four operations and got shot down twice.
BW: Right. I think that sort of brings us to the end as I say unless there is anything else you want to say.
PB: Well I hope I haven’t bored you.
BW: Not at all sir. No not at all there’s plenty of information. Some really interesting and diverse experiences. It’s been very kind of you to share those with me.
PB: It’s a pleasure.
BW: So thank you very much -
PB: A pleasure.
BW: For your time um what I’ll do is I’ll come to the signing of the release form now and a couple of photos so I’ll end the recording there and we’ll sort out the paperwork.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ABatesP151009
Title
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Interview with Philip Bates
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:13:03 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated S Coulter
Creator
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Brian Wright
Date
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2015-10-09
Description
An account of the resource
Philip Bates grew up in Lancashire and joined the Royal Air Force in 1940. He served as ground crew with Coastal Command before remustering as aircrew. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 149 Squadron until his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Poland
England--Lancashire
England--Suffolk
Poland--Tychowo
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
149 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb struck
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
displaced person
Dulag Luft
entertainment
fear
final resting place
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
home front
incendiary device
Ju 88
Lysander
Manchester
Me 110
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Nissen hut
prisoner of war
RAF Lakenheath
RAF St Athan
RAF Waterbeach
Resistance
Scarecrow
searchlight
shot down
Stirling
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/509/8411/ADobleRG151117.1.mp3
445d6be24eaf87a7eca4d9a422544675
Dublin Core
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Title
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Doble, Ronald George
R G Doble
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Doble, RG
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Ronald George Doble (3030256 Royal Air Force) his log book, service documents and photographs. George Doble served as a wireless operator / air gunner with 97 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Requires
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Andrew St.Denis
Sergeant Ronald Doble – 3030256. Was born in London and initially served in the Air Training Corp, No,336 Squadron before joining the RAF aged 18, towards the end of WWII. Starting training for Radio Operator and Air Gunner, but switching to focus on Gunnery, this was on Wellington’s at Morton-in-Marsh. Completing training at No.1660 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Swinderby and then No.1653 HCU at RAF Lindholme, both in Lancaster’s the war in Europe had finished. Joining No.97 Squadron at RAF Hemswell, flying in Lincoln’s he flew as a rear gunner and took part in equipment tests such as Rebecca/Eureka, Radio Navigation equipment. After leaving the RAF Ronald entered an apprenticeship as a panel neater, building body’s for Talbots and Sunbeams at Rootes Group.
Factual ‘CV’
20 August 1945 – 9 November 1945: No 2 Air Gunnery School at RAF Dalcross – Aircraft: Wellington.
10 November 1945 - 1 November 1946: 21 Operational Training Unit at Moreton-in-Marsh – Aircraft: Unknown.
1 November 1946 – 9 November 1946: 1660 HCU at RAF Swinderby – Aircraft: Lancaster.
10 November 1946 – 26 March 1947: 1653 HCU at RAF Lindholme – Aircraft: Lancaster.
27 March 1947 – 1 July 1947: 97 Squadron at RAF Hemswell, Lincolnshire – Aircraft: Lincoln.
Biography
Born in Hammersmith, London to a working-class family, Ronald George Doble recounts his service in the RAF before leaving in 1947. Doble left school, aged thirteen, to work behind a guillotine cutting metal. Upon witnessing the bombing of London during the Second World War, Doble joined the fire watchers, tasked with dealing with the fallout of oil bombs before making the choice to join the RAF, beginning at the Air Training corps. Soon after he was sent to Grove court air crew receiving centre. Here he recalls a memory of a group of him and his new friends playing around with a mess tin which flew through the window and fall onto a flight sergeant with fifty men on parade. Doble was then sent to Yatesbury, where he was picked up as a wireless operator air gunner, undergoing a nine-month course.
Finding that there was no longer any use for his position, Doble went to Clapham, London where he took an educational course in preparation for taking the aptitude test at RAF Regiment Locking. Upon passing the test, he was posted to the Initial Training Wing at Bridgenorth. Once completing training at Bridgenorth, Doble was moved to Dalcross Air Gunnery school before proceeding to move to Moreton-in-Marsh, 21 operational training unit, then to the 1965 HCU and then finally ending up in Hemswell in Lincolnshire. However, when he and other gunners began to be de-ranked, they made the decision to leave the RAF and chose to continue an apprenticeship in Filey, making Sunbeams, Talbots, and Humbers Bodies. Within this job, Doble would get lead poisoning before being left without a job and finishing his career as a panel beater on car repairs in Haddenham.
This collection including an oral interview, with reference to stories ranging from attempting to carry a piano out of a building during a bomb attack and getting stuck and running out of oxygen whilst attempting to do a drogue firing. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/8411 There are also multiple photographs detailing the different services he was part of and the men he served with, as well as some of the aircrafts he flew. One such photograph shows Doble as well as other RAF airmen being introduced to King George VI and his family with an ‘x’ added by a fellow airman to show Doble amongst the men. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/17743 The collection includes an article about a Bomb Aimer and Navigator who refused to fly, destroying their maps in the process. Despite being allowed to fly after this event, they did so again and was ultimately charged with Lack of Moral Fibre. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/17746 Finally, Doble’s log and service and release book shows his service across his entire career as well as the aircrafts he flew in each place, something which he explores within his oral interview. Upon his release, Doble was described as an ‘extremely capable and efficient worker… of a very pleasant and cheerful nature’, and once again his interview serves to reflect the type of man he was and still is. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/17747
Amy Johnson
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: So this is the introduction to the interview that I’m having with Mr Ron Doble. My name’s Chris Brockbank and we’re at [omitted] Haddenham, and we’re going to be talking about his experiences, er, in training and, er, in life in general with the RAF and what he did afterwards and he was with 97 Squadron. So Ron, would you mind starting please with what your earliest recollections were, your family and how you came to join the RAF?
RD: Well I was born, er, in London, in Hammersmith, um, from a very working class people, my family, er, my father was a driver on the Great Western Railway and my mother was an ex— believe it or not, nun, who was kept by the nuns and ill-treated etcetera, which is something, but there you go, um, and she left or got out of it and met my father and they both got married. Then I was born and that was it. I lived in Richard’s Street, which was, um, very near the Gaumont British Studios where the film stars used to come and I used to look down there and see some of them getting out of their cars, very interesting actually. From there I, I left school, at, er, just nearly fourteen and the war had just started. I didn’t do a great deal regarding that but I joined the ATC, Air Training Corps, 336 Squadron it was, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there [cough] beg your pardon and, um, during this time of course the war had just more or less started and, er, all we could think about was, or all I [emphasis] could think about, was to get into the RAF and do flying and be a great heroic person [laugh] and shoot down thousands of aircraft and how wonderful it would be, not realising really it would have been a nightmare in some cases, maybe not for the likes of me myself personally but for the likes of people that I know, have known and known very well, great friends. I then went to — oh dear, where did I join up in London?
CB: At Lords.
RD: Yeah. Went to Lords, had a bit of breakfast, got kitted out with the stuff and then sent from there to Grove Court [background noise] to Grove Court which was, er, Air Crew Receiving Centre and while we were there we were put to really rigorous, um, oh dear, discipline [emphasis] but being all youngsters, of course, you always had a bit of fun altogether, sort of thing, and one thing or another, and it was a great laugh in a way. In other ways it wasn’t but there you go. So what happened, one of the things that happened there, we were put into rooms next to each other, this lot in this room and us lot in this room, and we thought we would go and have a little mess around with the other lot, not anything violent or anything like that, just a laugh. So away we went and, er, somebody joined this mix-up, er, picked up a biscuit, a set of biscuits, which were three mattresses that were on the bed for you, for your sleeping, and he, he just got into this crowd of guys all messing around but within that was a mess tin and, unfortunately, the mess tin took off and went through a window, and we were all flabbergasted so we all shot to the window and looked out, low and behold, the grass and things had fallen on a, a flight sergeant with, with fifty guys on parade down below. So we thought, ‘Oh my God.’ So we went to our rooms quickly but that wasn’t not quick enough because the next second up come the flight sergeant, Chiefie we used to call him, and, um, we were all put on a charge. So that was a good start [laugh] for the start of our — whatever. Anyway we were marched in front of the, um, guy in charge of the place, group captain, and it was quick march, quick march, left right, left right. Walked in and saluted and he said, ‘Right disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful going on. This is not what we do or should do.’ So he said, ‘Therefore I’m giving you five days confined to barracks and each one of you will pay threepence halfpenny for all the damage that you’ve caused.’ So we thought, ‘Right.’ Left, right, left right and out we went, and that was the end of that. The confined to barracks was nothing really, let’s face it, because we weren’t allowed out or went on relief from there for the period of time we were there which was, er, about six weeks. [cough] What happened then was we were sent to — that’s right, Yatesbury. I was because I was picked as a wireless operator air gunner. This was a nine month course, um, which was to take me nearly to the end of the war. But anyway, what happened then was we all, well not all of us, part of us went off to Yatesbury. We did a radio course and learnt the Morse code and things and then we were suddenly told that they didn’t want radio wireless operators anymore. So that curtailed my training there and we were sent back, typical business, but sent back to Scarborough which was another receiving centre for aircrew. And while we were there the powers that be thought, ‘Right we’ll give them something to do.’ So they put us on a so-called aptitude test and this aptitude test was to determine whether you were fit and able to be aircrew or other things, OK? So away we went. We had to march so far, run so far, swim. Swimming, by the way, um, I should always remember being in the little place where you changed and then waiting to see whether they gave you a slip, and the slip was like a little loin cloth to cover your vital parts up but the flight sergeant came along and said, ‘What the hell are you waiting here for some of you guys.’ And we said, ‘Well, where’s the slip? He said, ‘No bloody slip here.’ He said, ‘You get in that water.’ He said, ‘And the swimmers will help the non-swimmers.’ So we all jumped in and did our bit and then got out [cleared throat]. We had various, various things, mental things as well. One of them that really struck me was the fact that put in front of you was, was a box, in the box was squares of wood, painted on top was half black and half white and you had so many seconds to turn these things round to see how many you could do, and what surprised me quite a bit was that some of the guys turned them round completely so at the end of it there was hardly any score, which was amazing really. Anyway, that went on and then we were told, ‘Right, you’ve done that. You’re going to Locking, RAF Regiment place, Locking.’ We got there and we were kitted out with army stuff and boots and gaiters and given, um, a rifle — and, er, didn’t know what to do with it but, um, anyway while we were there we were put to different things such as crawling through tunnels [background noise] and one thing or another. So we got through that and then posted on the — at Scarborough posted on a notice board would be exactly what you, your aptitude made of what you were capable of. But I must stress that when you joined up you knew what you were going to be, or supposed to be, if you passed the test, but with this thing you went to it and it was just luck of the draw, that’s all I can say. Because some of us got through and much to my amazement, I was really chuffed, I got through as an air gunner, fine, three-month’s course, yeah? So — but some of them didn’t get thorough, didn’t reach these — full [?] marks so they were designated, believe it or not — don’t forget that we were all volunteers — they were designated to be Paratroops, um, down the coal mines or in the Army and then there was a big clear out then. And then we were posted to ITW, Initial Training Wing, at Bridgenorth.
CB: Right, we’ll stop there just for a mo. [interview stopped at 0:13:42:9 and restarted 0:13:45:07]
RD: Before we went to ITW, sorry I’m getting a bit mixed we were sent to [ cough] Clapham, in London, Wandsworth and we were put on an educational course [slight laugh] and we went to the — we were stationed at Victoria Rise, which was a, a block of, um, rooms on the hill, and we were marched from there to the tram and the tram took us down to Wandsworth College and we went in the College and we’d do four or five hours learning different things, which was, which was quite good actually and, of course, big head here put his foot in it again because on, on the desk [cough] beg your pardon, was a, a pressure thing, what do you call it? A U-tube and he was showing us the way you, you varied the pressure. So big head here thought, ‘Oh well, I’ll have a go at that.’ So instead of blowing carefully I went there and went like that and the whole lot of mercury, well part of it, shot out the top of this tube and went all over the place and mercury is like little ball bearings. So we got all the lads to go round and pick up all these little ball bearings and put it back in the tube before the teacher come back. We thought it was funny but I didn’t at the time. Just something, one of the bloody stupid things I normally did. So there we go. So what happened then was we were there and we done that and then we were going on to ITW but, a big but, during this time we were sitting there and all of a sudden this aircraft, er, came over and it was quite low and quite noisy. And we thought, ‘Oh good God, I wonder what that is.’ And the thing cut out and went down and we were on the hill and then we just saw a big bang and, er, that was the V1. So the V1 thing started coming over then. What happened then was the course was abandoned at the college, as normal, and we were given, four of us, each, each of us four, four lads were given a truck with a driver and we were told to go to these bomb sites and help out with rescuing people or helping in general. Well, regarding rescuing people that was ridiculous really. I mean, you’re walking over, er, debris and stuff and, er, I know it sounds awful but it [background noise] probably did more damage than [unclear] anyway we were taking off of that and told us that, um, we’ll be responsible for all valuables and moveable objects in these bombed out buildings, er, and one instance was whilst we went to a four storey building, we looked around for valuables, we took those and I must impress none of these guys, none of us kept one penny of anything that we found but [cough] it was handed over to the van driver so, OK, and he had to report back and hand that in, um, anyway we got to the — one of the points was we got to the top story of this four [cough] four-storey building and there was a grand piano there. So we were told we’d have to move the grand piano and the only way you could move the grand piano was to put it out of the shattered window. There was no frame or anything and lower it down on straps. Well, the guy that was with us was supposed to have been a removal van, man so we put the strap around. It was one strap and a couple of ropes and we, we managed to lift this piano up and put it on the ledge of the window [cough] and then the guy said, ‘Right give it a little push and then we’ll lower it down.’ So we gave it a little push and, low and behold, the piano just disappeared down. The ropes went through our hands, we couldn’t hold it, and it hit the bottom of this place in the area and made a lovely booming sound but that was the end of thing. So really and truly we didn’t achieve a lot there. But we did, we did help, I must admit we did help. So then we were, we were went to ITW at Bridgenorth, Initial training Wing Bridgenorth, and then we did our ITW there and then from there I went on to Dalcross I think, which is now Inverness.
CB: Airport.
RD: Dalcross, um, I forget the name of the — similar[?] something — Air Gunnery School and that was really something, that really was something, but by now of course the war was getting very close to the end. So got in these Wellingtons and, er, it is most odd but I got a picture up there, you can see later, you probably know anyway they were just, er, lattice work and fabric [cough] but very very strong, very reliable, anyway I got in that, my first time in there I was given a suit and, er, all the bits and pieces. And away we went and we had to do drogue firing, and, er, air to sea firing and also, er, camera work with Spitfires and Hurricanes, um, that’s right, yep. Spitfires and Hurricanes, um, that’s right, yep. Well, this course was to me the, the height of what I had to achieve because I didn’t want to fail this. This is what from a little lad in the ATC up till then I had to get in that Lanc or whatever and do, um, some work. So anyway the end of that came and I did very well, um, and they made a new idea of, of drogue firing which was called a quarter cross under. And, amazingly enough, I got a hundred and sixteen hits out of six hundred rounds and another one I got what? Thirty-two hits I think. It’s in the logbook. And when I got — passed all the tests and I did very well actually and, er, the guy handing out the wings congratulated me on my scoring, sort of thing, so I was quite chuffed about that. From there we went to Moreton-in-Marsh which was 21 Operational Training Unit and again on Wellingtons but these were really doing the job, flying around and God knows what. So I’d only done about twenty odd hours at Dalcross and nothing high altitude so when I got there I was put amongst a pool of half a dozen guys and there was a chap there called Squadron Leader Corbesley [?] and, and his crew [cough] and they were well into their course but their gunner was sick with appendicitis so, low and behold, out come the boss of the gunnery section and said, ‘Right Doble, you done well on the final test you can do well on this I’m sure.’ So he put me in the crew with Pete Corbesley, um, oh I forget their names now, bless them. The bomb aimer Ted Heywood [?]— anyway, so away we went. Now this flight was a high altitude bombing flight and also a night-time drogue firing. Right, so I’ve got all the kit on and everything and I’d never done this before. It was a four hour or five hour trip [cough] oxygen and all the rest of it. So in the turret I got, which was good. I managed to get in that. That was OK, lovely, and away we went on our, on our, on our, um, job. We did the bombing and all the rest of it and then I had to do the drogue firing. Now, nobody had told me much about what to do because I’d missed that part of the course or I’d been shoved in halfway through. What I had to do was to get out the turret, put the little emergency bottle on, put the drogue down the flare chute and let it out on a winch, and then get back in and look for the drogue, which was — had a little light inside, fire at it when I’m finished, come back, wheel it in and do it. Right, I went out, I got in the turret, looked and I thought, ‘That’s funny, where’s the drogue?’ And then I saw this thing doing a complete circle behind the aircraft [slight laugh] and the drogue had gone out there and hadn’t streamed so it was just like a parcel. And when I looked and this thing’s whirling round I thought, ‘My God.’ All I could think was whether it would cut the tail off. Obviously it couldn’t but I thought, ‘Oh gee whiz,’ so and the skipper said, ‘You OK gunner?’ I said, ‘Yeah I’m just starting now.’ So I fired a few rounds and all the rest of it and then I quickly got out, put the bottle on and had to wind this thing back. So I wound it back and then I had a nice silk scarf and that got tangled up winding in the wings. So I had to wind it back a bit and get the scarf out and fiddling about and then suddenly I felt a bit woozy but anyway I managed to get the drogue in, undid it and — yeah and then I thought, ‘Right I’ll get back in now.’ But I felt a bit odd. So as I tried to move I couldn’t really move properly and I looked down and this little bottle I think had, I think they had about fifteen minutes, I’m not sure but I think they had, um, and it had run out. So there so there I was stuck halfway down at the end of this dark tunnel, um, gasping for breath and there are things on the side where you can get it in but you can’t really see them. And lucky enough [clears throat] the navigator pulled his curtain back and had a look and I said, er, you know, ‘Can you help me, you know?’ Sort of thing. So he come down and looked and said, ‘Oh yeah,’ and plugged it in and said then I was OK. I got back in the turret and away we went. We did the job and got back and I thought, ‘My goodness me. That was the [clock chimes] first long range high altitude trip and it was a nightmare.’ [laugh] All because of my own fault possibly but there you go. That went on there and there was another a bit of a thing. The Wellies were getting a bit old by now and, um, one little thing was in the turret I felt a bit of wet and God knows what and when I looked the hydraulic pipe had broken and saturated me with hydraulic oil. So that was one thing and, um, the next thing was, on another trip we did, um, I was in the turret and a big cloud of smoke and stuff come up through the turret and I thought, ‘Oh my God. It’s going to catch alight.’ [clock chimes] So I quickly got out the turret and I said to the skipper, ‘Skipper, it looks as if the turret’s on fire.’ [slight laugh] I mean, I know it sounds funny but it’s not funny, it’s not [slight laugh]. So he said, ‘Well is there any flames? I said, ‘No, no, no there’s no flames.’ So he said, ‘Right, well stand by it and see what happens.’ And then I said, ‘Oh, it’s alright now.’ The smoke had disappeared. So he said, ‘Oh good.’ He said, ‘OK then. Carry on. Get back in your turret.’ Well, I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’m not getting back in there.’ I said, ‘Because if it’s on fire this thing might fall off or something.’ I said, ‘No, I’ve had enough of that’. So he said, ‘Yeah, OK gunner come up front.’ So I went up front and it was a twin flying thing, a Wellington with twin controls, and I sat in there in the — this seat and the skipper was there and [cough] I finished, finished that. He let me fly the thing but I couldn’t ruddy fly it, you know. I sat there and he said, ‘OK, you take over governor and see how you get on.’ So it was night time so I didn’t know what to do. I thought, ‘Well if I hold the stick still then the thing just goes.’ So I held the stick still and then all of a sudden all the dials started going round. Well my little brain said, ‘Oh blow me, I’m over speeding, there’s too much power.’ You know, so I leant forward to get the throttles and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Well I’m throttling back.’ ‘Don’t do that.’ He said [cough], ‘Look out there.’ He said, ‘And you’ll see the horizon, even though it’s dark.’ He said, ‘Where’s the horizon?’ And of course the horizon was up there [unclear] long way down so he, he sorted that out and we landed and that was the end of that. OK. [background noise]
CB: Yeah, you only had yourself to look after.
RD: Absolutely, you know, it was your responsibility. If something happened well that’s it. It was just bad luck. But getting back to my opinion about it all was the fact that — I know for a fact that lots of these aircraft were, were, um, destroyed. I mean, Nuremburg I think was one and another one, Leipzig, um, where you got ninety-five aircraft knocked down in one night.
CB: Yeah.
RD: Um, that is one of the reasons why we went on all this business to start of my career, if you can call it that. They wanted air gunners. Oh and something I missed out by the way —
CB: That’s OK.
RD: I’m sorry about that.
CB: No don’t worry. We can pick it up. What, what did you miss out?
RD: Well, what happened was, when we were at St Johns Wood, at the ACRC, um, they called for volunteers but air gunners. Now we were all different grades. Well, obviously I went down ‘cause I wanted to be an air gunner and so, being stupid, [noise] it’s only a three month course or something like that and I’ll be on operations, um, so we all queued up and along came the groupie [?] and he talked to some and talked to some and he come to me and he said, ‘How old are you son?’ I said, ‘Eighteen Sir.’ He said, ‘Well bugger off!’ And, er, I went with a few of the others, you know. So he was quite human, put it that way. I mean I was only a kid wasn’t I? Let’s face it. We were all kids, high spirited and, er, mind you we learnt quick, well I [emphasis] didn’t. The people that did these ops, hundreds of ops and things, tours, they were incredible people. The other thing that strikes me as well — can I go on? Was the fact that, as you know, if you didn’t do the op — [background noise]
CB: Now here’s your tea Ron —
RD: Yes, thank you very much.
CB: So some of these people —
RD: [noise] Shall I carry on? So, some of these people, as you know, I’ve known an instance of a guy who done thirty ops and he was told he’d got to do an extra five, um, you know, before he was taken out and he said, ‘I’m not doing it.’ He said, ‘ I’ve had enough. I’ve done my bit and that’s it.’ And that’s where this business of LMF comes in and they were sent to Eastchurch, where the LMF place was, and they were demoted, AC2s, and, er, I don’t know, just, used as spare parts I suppose. But it was awful really, absolutely terrible, um, and quite a few, quite a few did that. I don’t know and that’s, that’s what gets me [emphasis]. If I’d done quite a few ops, how would I have felt? I don’t know now. I would love to have known but you don’t know. But there you go. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, OTU. So we finished up at OTU. My pilot, by the way, was a squadron leader. He was quite important and he was a Spitfire photo reconnaissance pilot originally and he was on a high flying operation over Italy at the time and he was, er, shot down and he was captured by the Italians and put in a prisoner camp. But the, the Italians surrendered and left the Germans there but when this happened he got away and he was transported back to England, believe it or not, and that’s when he came onto the OTU for multi-engined aircraft to go back, back to that and he was getting on a bit as well, so that’s it. So from there we went to 1653 HCU. I can’t quite remember.
CB: At North Luffenham?
RD: It was Lindholme, Lind— I don’t know. Some of them we were — one of them in there in my book we were sent to the Heavy Conversion Unit there and then moved halfway through to another operational place, airfield.
CB: OK. 1653 was North Luffenham.
RD: Yeah, was it? Oh well, I might have it wrong, I might even have it wrong, it was North Luffenham. But anyway, from there we went to, um, a squadron, that’s it, in Lincolnshire.
CB: Just before we get on to that could you just explain what you please did at the HCU?
RD: Oh, yeah, well what we did at — sorry. Obviously — what happened at the Conversion Unit was, you come from Wellingtons, which were rather a sparse looking aircraft, but ground [?] crew very reliable, to the Lanc which got a bit more room, er, the turrets weren’t much better than the old, er, Wellington, um, and what we did there was, um, touch and go and all the rest of it. And then, um, high flying and bombing etcetera and when we finished that we went on to squadron, I think it was — yeah, the squadron I was at was Hemswell in Lincolnshire. Hemswell, that’s right and when I got there I my pilot [unclear] and the crew but he had a heart problem, poor old boy, and, er, he was demoted from squadron— from wing commander down to squadron leader, sorry, and, er, we never saw him again. So I was left again without a crew. So again I’m the spare Charlie. So we all sat in the gunnery place and then along pops the gunnery leader and said, ‘Right, Doble, you’re flying with so and so. Right, Doble, you’re flying with so and so.’ And I flew away with Squadron Leader Bretherton. I think this is a well-known name, I’m not sure, but he was a nice guy. [clears throat] But all this time, all this time, things are moving regarding the air crew itself. Um, a — and I can understand it really, with the sergeant ground crew were sharing their mess with youngsters, sergeants, um, with nothing like their service or whatever. And it wasn’t, wasn’t a very happy scene at that time and they were obviously looked at, it was looked into and the powers that be said, ‘Well, as from — whatever date it was — you won’t be sergeants any more, you’ll be gunners in grades. There’ll be Gunner 2 and Gunner 1 and Master Gunner and your rank would not be there. It will be there but it will be a crown with, um, G2, G1 or Master, Master Gunner.’ And that was equivalent to sergeant, flight sergeant and warrant officer. The war had ended and I still hadn’t got into it and that was — that did it for me as far as I was concerned [cough]. I was pushed from pillar to post, didn’t do a great deal of flying and I got a bit fed up. So I thought, ‘Right I’m going to leave.’ So I left. We all got together actually and said we were fed up with this business and, I don’t know, about twenty of us decided we’d leave the RAF and — oh sorry, during this time the thing that came out was you could serve three years or five years if you wanted to, early on, and we had all signed up for three years and you were given fifty pounds a year for the three years, for a five — no, for the three years, that’s right. So we signed up, fine. Sorry, this is before things happened, sorry, before the squadron. Sorry about that. So we’d all signed up so what happened when we got to Hemswell, the war had ended, we were messing around and we all decided then — they’d de-ranked us and we were fed up with it. So we thought, ‘Right what we’ll do we’ll leave.’ And there was a clause in the thing that you signed that said if you had an apprenticeship, um, you could say that you want to continue with your apprenticeship and you’d be let off the signing up [cough] so about twenty-five of us turned up outside the office and we all marched in one by one into the boss and we all said, ‘We want to continue with our apprenticeship serg.’ And there was no messing about. It was, ‘OK that’s it, OK that’s it.’ And that was the end of it. I was sent to Filey, near Scarborough, kitted out with my suit and trilby hat and stuff and, er, released from the RAF. And then I came home and I was fed up really, I really was and, um, the other thing was coming back into Civvy Street was most strange because I was only a kid when I went in and I’d lived with loads of people and then suddenly bumph you’re out and you were on your own. And living in London there wasn’t much going on there as far as I was concerned and money was tight. So, um, that’s what we did.
CB: Where was your apprenticeship? Where was your apprenticeship?
RD: Oh sorry, yeah, that was at Rootes, Rootes Group in Acton, and we were making Sunbeams, Talbots and, um, Humbers bodies and during this time I was there, of course, I was working on all these things. I was a panel beater. And, er, there was lots of lead used on these old bodies. They don’t use it now, but what it was was when they were assembled they were hand assembled, so there was no real strict conforming, so when they came off the body with the doors the doors wouldn’t fit. The body was all weird. So it all had to be jacked out and messed about and then the joints were, were spot-welded, so that had to be covered with lead and I got the job of, amongst other guys, finishing lead so I did that and, um, got lead poisoning. So what happened then was my teeth started feeling awful and my gums — and I couldn’t at a piece of bread. So I went to the hospital and they said, ‘Well there’s only one thing for it. We’ll have to take all your teeth out.’ So they took all my teeth out and by then Rootes, Rootes Group had shut down their production on Talbots and we were out of a job but my union [emphasis] had taken up the lead poising business because there were others obviously. There were some that were really bad. They could hardly walk with this business. It got into their bones. So, um, that was it and then what happened then was I got a letter from the union with a cheque and the cheque was for a hundred pounds which I suppose nowadays would be — what, a thousand? And that was it, in settlement of my claim but obviously some of the old boys never made it I don’t — anyway that was it. So we left that. What did I do then? [cough] Um, oh that’s right, I took up motor cycling. I mean, that was good. My little bike was passing cars on the road and the rest of it. So I took up motor cycling. I met my dear wife and she used to sit on the back and terrified but she liked it. But we had good fun and I met lots of people and I, I got a job, er, as a panel beater on car repairs in Haddenham, where we are now, across on the estate, industrial estate, and I did that until I retired. And then when I retired I took up the Air Crew Association and I met some lovely people. Ah they were great guys. They are now [emphasis]. Look at, look at my mate here, you know. They are, they’re so helpful and lovely, all of them. And that’s what I done and I became the welfare officer. At one time we’d left [unclear] when I was squadron bomb aimer and, er, we used to go round all the guys and cheer them up or have a chat, exactly, more or less like you guys are doing really, all voluntary, but well done and absolutely loved doing it. And then, er, as time went on and I gave that up. I used to organise lots of trips, didn’t I? And one of the trips I, I managed to get was I wrote to, um, the Mem— Memorial Flight, Lincoln, and they wrote back and said, ‘Yeah, come up and we’ll give you a flight.’ So I went up with two of my mates [cough] I think that’s [unclear] there and, low and behold, and we got a trip in a Lancaster, which was quite nice. What else did we do?
CB: I’m going to stop it there because your drink is —
RD: Oh yeah —
CB: [background noise] Now after refreshments we’re just picking up on a few things now. So Ron, er, it’s difficult to understand when you haven’t experienced it what it was like in gunnery training. What was the first thing they did to teach you how to shoot from an aircraft?
RD: Right, so what they did was, um, you first go on the rifle range, obviously, at the gunnery school and then you would go to a turret, um, which was fired into the butts and then you sat in that and, er, you operated it and you fired it and that was fine. Then you were taught, um, the amount of deflection you gave to each aircraft, so you had to learn — yeah, really — I still — you had to learn the wing span of the aircraft. So you had to identify the aircraft. If it’s an ME109 — I forget now, I’ve got it somewhere, it’s thirty-odd feet, and then you had to, um, in your mind, give a little bit of leeway or whatever there and then the other thing was — it was silly really, in my opinion, but I’m, I’m probably wrong, but all the training was done by what they called curve pursuit. That’s what they called it. It’s in the book somewhere.
CB: And what did that mean?
RD: Curve pursuit — it meant you fly here and the aircraft would come here, the Spitfire or Hurricane or whatever, and supposedly a German aircraft, and it would come round and then it would —
CB: In a curve.
RD: Start firing and then break down or break down that way. So you had to give your deflection and it would be — I forget now, um, anyway you had to gradually bring it in to the, to the dock and the dock would be when that’s right astern.
CB: OK.
RD: But the attacking aircraft would never get into that positon because they come along that like and then they dived down and away. They wouldn’t make a dead, a dead shot.
CB: OK but if I can just ask you another question there though because these are technical phrases really? So what do you mean by deflection?
RD: Well deflection is when the bullet leaves the gun you got — it’s got to go from there to the aircraft and also the aircraft is moving at a speed so you’ve got to fire —
CB: Ahead of it.
RD: In front of the aircraft all the time and gradually decreasing it, you get what I mean? There’s the sight there. It starts off there, um, and you’re gradually decreasing the, the deflection until its zero right behind you.
CB: Cause as it gets close —
RD: But you get —
CB: Yes but the further away it is the greater the deflection because the bullet has to go further.
RD: That’s right and then the bullets wouldn’t strike anyway really. The proper, proper range, where you can do damage really was two hundred yards but you opened fire at six hundred yards.
CB: Rihgt, OK. And how many rounds were there in — for each gun?
RD: Oh, there were hundreds. There used to be in the old aircraft there used to be a can and they’d fill it up but these aircraft, the Wellie as well, they found there was not enough bullets so in the aircraft hallway up there’s a big, um, storage thing —
CB: A drum.
RD: A steel box, steel box, and they’re laid like that, flexible links [cough] and they’d go down this chute onto the power, power roller sort of thing, right, that drags them along and it would go along there, quite a good, a nice job, under the turret —
CB: This is the rear turret?
RD: Yep. And then to the guns so you’d have one, two, three, four, four of each, and once you’d put them in the breach and locked it down then, when you fired, the strength of the round going in pulled the bullets along so, you know, they just kept feeding in, sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, OK.
RD: [cough] Very uncomfortable, um, and the controls were like a motorbike controls, um, left, right, up, down and triggers. No heating, um, but they did have one plug which would be for an electric suit and if you were lucky enough you got an electric suit. They did have them but they were a bit troublesome. But anyway, on this particular night, I had an electric suit and we did a high, high trip and it was absolutely freezing cold, um, your eyes ice up and you got to watch the oxygen because, er, your spittle sort of goes in the oxygen tube and then it ices up, so you got to make sure it’s clear by cracking it, you know, so you can breathe. How many people passed out or whatever I don’t know but that’s what you had to do, um, what else was there?
CB: So the gunsight itself, what is like that?
RD: Oh yeah, it was the old-fashioned one —
CB: Was a circle, was it?
RD: It was just a little round thing like that with a hood, that’s all, with a sight that’s projected by light at the bottom, know what I mean?
CB: So there was spot in the middle of it, was there?
RD: A dot in the middle.
CB: Yeah, a dot.
RD: And a circle.
CB: Right and —
RD: And when the aircraft got close, um, you got it right on the outside and you gradually decreased it. It was all luck of the draw really. And then — oh, yes, that’s right, the electric suit — so this one — another drama — I plugged in the suit and, er, when you’re high up you tend to sweat a little bit, believe it or not, just on the back of the neck and things and, of course, this bloody suit when I moved my neck like that it was going [buzzing sound] it was sending a small charge through. Oh dear and this part here was beautifully warm, really, really, really warm. This was there so I had to keep turning it off and get freezing cold, turn it on and get it warm and everything. Anyway what happened when I got back I complained, took it off, and low and behold, my jumper had — a big polo neck thing had a ruddy big hole in it [laugh] and it went through that and it went onto my battle dress [laugh]. It didn’t burn my skin but what was happening it was shorting out there [cough] and burning my clothes [laugh]. That was another saga and that was it.
CB: You were lucky not to get fried.
RD: Well yeah [laugh] but it was, it was so damn cold. It really, really was.
CB: So what temperature would it have been outside?
RD: Jesus, I don’t know, I don’t know, minus twenty?
JL: Probably more than that, depends what height you were at.
CB: More likely to be minus forty.
RD: Forty yes, you know, that is —
CB: But very cold anyway.
RD: That’s bloody cold. But one plane I flew in at the Conversion Unit had been an ex-squadron Lancaster, it’s time had expired or whatever, and it been sent to the Conversion Unit and I saw pictures of this as well, it did happen. The visibly with perspex and the turret visibly really is very limited because the guns were there, the sight’s there, and you’ve got panels, so what they did they cut the hole, um, glass area off —
CB: The back.
RD: So yeah. So when I got in this thing you were literally sat there with nothing, just obviously the guns and stuff, but, um, cor that must have been bloody cold but they did it. Thing is they had to do it, didn’t they? Because, you know, they were losing aircraft left, right and centre. And the other thing is, the silly thing that I think is, um, quite a while before, um, these ops become more frequent, um, they were losing aircraft. They couldn’t understand it. What was happening, as you all know now probably, was the fact that they had these Messerschmitt would, would up and firing cannon at an angle. Well, you’re sitting here and you can’t see down there, and these things used to come along like that and just blast the old cannon into the aircraft. And that’s it, you — well they’d always put it into the wing, not to the fuselage, because with the bomb load they could kill theirselves — put it into the wing, engine caught fire and that’s it. They knew about this but the thing was to put a turret in — the first Lancaster, the very very first Lancaster built — I don’t know whether you know this — but there was an under turret. But the powers that be, they were on about bomb load, so they took the turret out and made more space for a bomb bay [cough] so they were coming underneath there and doing that. So, um, one squadron, I think it was 77, a Halifax Squadron, um, they cut a hole and put a .5 drill on the mounting, um, to make sure that they could see what was going on underneath but I don’t think that was very good. But that was where most of the casualties were, underneath, firing, not direct, not this silly curve pursuit thing. They wouldn’t do that, that was daft. Then the Lanc, er, the Lincoln was a stretched Lanc really, very nice, different, a little bit of comfort and in the turret totally different. There were 2.5s [cough] pardon, two half inch Browning and, er, a little desk. It was amazing really. You could put your hands out and a single column which fired by a button on top and you could do all this and that would do all that instead of doing all this and the sight was, um, what they called a gyro-sight. It was on the front — was — it had ME109, FW190, Heinkel 111 and the idea was you identified the aircraft you turned this thing round to whatever aircraft you identified, which would feed into this system, the wing span, and the sight itself would be, I think — let me think, yeah, diamonds, yeah, you understand?
CB: Yep.
RD: Little white diamonds, one in the middle, and when you moved the turret these diamonds in this screen would, would — were black. You know what I mean? You know, you would start off there, they were black, and when you come astern it would — and that was the gyro-sight, which is quite successful really, but how many were shot down like that I don’t know. It was quite a nice sight and the heating was incredible, there was heating as well, um, quite comfortable actually, very good [cough].
CB: OK. Just going back to gunnery school, how did they teach you to do deflection shooting before you got in the turret?
RD: Well — no —
CB: Clay pigeon?
RD: Yeah.
CB: So how much of that did you do?
RD: That’s it.
CB: How much of that did you do?
RD: It was quite a bit and you know it’s the usual thing you’d start behind there so the clay went out like that. You had to deflect, you know, because the thing’s dropping isn’t it? Fire and then you go on the quarter which is again, er, more or less, a detraction and then on the beam, which would be, um, full [?] deflection and then on the spar [?], which would be going the other way, you do less. It’s quite — you know, it was fairly easy because you didn’t sight it. Well people must know, you just covered the clay, you know what I mean? And — but you had to follow on and that was the thing.
CB: It was to [unclear]
RD: So many, you know, so many would sight it up and stop and pull the trigger and, of course, it was too late but it was the flow. That’s it.
CB: And that, that taught you the importance of flow?
RD: Yeah. So that was it.
CB: And fast forward when you went to 97 Squadron.
RD: Sorry?
CB: You went to 97 Squadron. Did you — so was the war in Europe over by then?
RD: Yeah. We were called the —
CB: The Tiger Squadron.
RD: Tiger Force.
CB: Tiger Force.
RD: But of course that fell through, didn’t it? I think, I think it was a good thing too because the Lincoln wasn’t, wasn’t sorted for that sort of thing. You know, um, what the [unclear] forces were doing — they were doing — what two or three thousand miles, fifteen hundred miles, you know? And the old Lanc — well, it, it was alright. And of course what the fuel you put on then it lessened the bomb load and that’s why they did away with this under-turret and why didn’t fit one. They knew what was going on. I know for a fact. I‘ve seen photos of the Lanc wing with bullet holes in it and they put rods through and it shows you that the, the cannon shells were going in at an angle underneath the aircraft.
CB: Did they, um, tell you about that?
RD: No.
CB: What do you understand about scarecrow?
RD: Yes, well that didn’t take place. I’m sorry, it didn’t take place, in my [emphasis] opinion. I’ve spoken to many people and seen different things [clock chimes] and, er, no they were flames, explosives. They’d been hit in the bomb bay and, er, just — but they thought they were scarecrows, big, big, big guns firing scary things up them and big explosions, you know. But that’s in my opinion. I mean, I’m just saying.
CB: There was, there were lots of different situations in, obviously, in the war but how did you get on with the people who joined up with you and did you keep in touch with them for a period?
RD: Yeah, I kept in touch. I’ve got a photo there, see. Yeah, I had great friends. Fred Davies, he was a Welshman, he was a nice guy. Yeah, there was no, no animosity, nothing, right? None whatsoever, in, in my lot, put it that way. [clock chimes]
CB: The crew went together well?
RD: No animosity or anything. Really lovely. [clock chimes]
CB: And as far as mates were concerned, how many of those did you lose on the way?
RD: Well, I lost two, that’s right, yeah, two gunners, well two crews and that was the course at OTU.
CB: What happened to them?
RD: [clears throat] Well one of them was coming into land on the runway and at night. [clock striking] This was the thing, at night, and, er, it landed short and went in the forest. I’ve got some pictures of that somewhere and, er, smashed a tree [?] and that was it. And the other one was a friend of mine and Sandy and I go to Botley because that’s where they’re buried. And this crew — they were nice. There was Robin, Robbie I called him. He was rear gunner and there was the navigator. The pilot was called Ferdinando and they also had on board instructors so I should think there was probably on board five —eight people. And what it was, we, we, were on the way back to the aerodrome at Morton and a big weather front came in and we were told — it said by radio, you know, watch it there’s a bit dodgy weather and we managed, believe it or not, got in fine. We landed, perhaps because we’d got a good pilot, Pete, you know, he’d done it before. And while we were standing there waiting for the truck to come along and load our stuff in, in the distance on the hill — it was only six hundred foot high, apparently, they found out afterwards — there was a big red glow come up and died down quickly and we all thought, ‘What the hell’s that?’ And, er, I thought no more of it. And then in the morning of course when, when we went for breakfast there was, um, pictures of this and there was the Lincoln [?] and they were all killed and Robbie was too. He was a great character. Yeah.
CB: So next you went to the HCU and the HCU you went to 97 Squadron but the war finished. So how did everybody feel about that?
RD: Well we stopped [laugh] sorry. That’s the reason why I left anyway [cough]. Not only that they’re demoting you and bringing in these new grades and chucking you in — you hadn’t got a mess then I suppose. I don’t know where you went. They didn’t have a gunners’ mess, whatever, I don’t know. You just felt let down. You know what I mean?
CB: Let down because —
RD: Well I was —
CB: Because you hadn’t seen the action, is that what you meant?
RD: There was that to it but it was the way you were treated after the war — it was, it was just falling to bits, you know, I mean, as you say, the aircraft — the economy [?] of it was time-expired bloody Lancs and squadrons. The Wellingtons were well on their way out really. And also the morale was there. I mean, when you’ve got a group of guys together and they’re doing something, you know, dodgy [laugh] flying and — you don’t know what’s going to happen, put it that way. Then you become very close but then, as I say, look at myself. I was told to fly with them and fly with them and fly with them. I didn’t even know the crew. Then when Pete left so there was nothing, as far as I was concerned, and the war, that had ended, and I thought, ‘Well, what is there?’ And they started coming out with these aircraft that could — jets, you know. Oh yes, that’s right, sorry. There’s a little thing I must tell you as the fact that when we was there on the Lincolns we were told that there would be an exercise with Canberra’s, you know, so we got in the aircraft, I got in the aircraft and that was it. Then these Canberras were going to do a diving attack on our aircraft. So I’d got this gyro-sight, so the Canberra was way up there, carrying on the same course, and I’m looking at that and thinking, ‘Right, when you come down I’ll get you.’ And, er, he came down. I went like that and the gyro-sight toppled, get what I mean?
CB: Absolutely.
RD: It was, it was too quick. So that’s another thing, I mean [laugh]. Useless, isn’t it. What can you do?
CB: Sure.
RD: You know, you get the 262s, you know, and had you got plenty more of them they could have done a lot of damage.
CB: What sort of experiences were fed back when you were in the HCU? Because a lot of the crews had been on operations. So what did you get from that?
RD: Well they were quite happy, you know, really, I suppose but, um, I never doubted that, they’d done their tour or whatever, um, yeah, we were alright. But of course the thing is, with the older people in the RAF — I’m not talking about peacetime, wartime as well — the older people in the RAF. I mean, we were, we were at a dance, er, I forget where it was. Anyway, I was — I’d got my buddy [?] and things. It might have been Morton or somewhere and [cough] the guys were having a few beers like everybody else and enjoying it, lovely, and then in the morning we were told to go to the cinema, all sergeant aircrew to go to the cinema. So we went to the cinema and there was the CO and he said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘I’ve never seen such a disgusting display of behaviour by all you people at this dance.’ He said, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’ And I heard it at school as well. They used to tell me, ‘You’re nothing like your fathers and your people before you.’ ‘You’re a disgusting young people and to pee in the middle of a bloody dance floor.’ He said, ‘It’s just the top of the thing. That’s disgusting.’ So we thought, ‘Yeah, that’s nice isn’t it? That’s typical of what’s going to go on.’ So we left there and it turned out it was a ground crew sergeant that pissed on the floor. So there you go. Not that I’m saying anything about the ground crew. They were lovely. We all had our moments, I must admit.
CB: How did the air — the crew of your aircraft get on with the ground crew?
RD: Lovely, yeah, but then again you didn’t see a lot of them unless you walked around and spoke to them. Yeah, they were fine, um, but you read reports of course that they were not fine, you know. They were — you know there’s a bloke, his statement I got upstairs [cough] written by some — in my opinion — brain has gone — about ground crew, he said they — a whole list of it, they hated us, they did this, they did that [cough]. It’s all rubbish. That’s how it, um, came about, you know, by their state of mind. Obviously they must have had a bad time or something like that and that was it. I don’t know whether that’s —
CB: Did you keep in touch with your crew after the war?
RD: Yes. Yeah. I’ve got some photos there —
CB: I’m going to stop this now. [background noise]
RD: All the pictures that you see of the Lincoln now. They’ve taken the gun turret out, mid-upper, I don’t know why.
CB: Just on this topic. We are talking now about gunnery again about equipment. How did you feel about using point 303s instead of .5s? Because the Lincoln had .5s.
RD: I used to think at that time that was, that was OK because, um, if I remember rightly, I think at six hundred yards, no four hundred yards, you get an area of a twenty two foot six square.
CB: A cone.
RD: So, you know, you’ve got a chance of hitting but a little 303 like that [cough] on the under plate on the front of these aircraft would just bounce off unless you got a lucky hit, which they did, they did at times, I must admit they did. But the 20 mill that was alright, my God that was — phew, bloody hell, that was a thing that was. And to load them you had to get in the turret and, and drop a, an arming tool down a hook and you had to drop it down to the breach, hook on the 20 mil cannon shell, and then pull it up, um, into the breach.
CB: This was the belt, the belt of shells.
RD: But the thing was you had to be very careful because some of the shells were impact used and if you got hold of it and pulled it like that you could blow yourself up. [cough] I think they discontinued those anyway. But they did with the turret. It was too much. I was as deaf as a post anyway.
CB: Ok. Thank you. I’m going to stop it now. [interview paused at 1:23:14:01 and restarted 1:23:16:2]
RD: Now we’ve glossed over [background noise] what you did after leaving school before joining the RAF. So you left school at fourteen Ron, what did you do before you joined the RAF and where did you live?
RD: At fourteen I went to Rootes and they were building, at that time, the stern frame and the centre section, wing centre section, of the Blenheim and, um, my first job there was to put behind a guillotine, which I had visions of one of these French guillotines coming down and chopping my head off, but it was a machine obviously and it cut metal, and I was the holder-upper on the guillotine, and my job was to go behind the guillotine. The guy operating it was there and I used to hold it and, er, it would cut and then I would put it down and cut, put it down and —
CB: This is aluminium sheet is it? Sheet aluminium?
RD: Alclad.
CB: Alclad.
RD: Alclad. Yeah, I used to do that and then there was guys going round with rivets and the rivets had to be normalised and, um, they were put in salt baths for a certain amount of time and all us guys had trays and at certain times of the day, and when I was free from this guillotine, you were given these rivet, rivet boxes and you had to go round to each guy, take his old rivet box and give him new a rivet box and that would go all the way through the cycle so that the rivets were always soft, yeah? And would harden with age. And then I was offered a job, sheet metal work, right, and I was taken on by the union as a, as an apprentice for sheet metal work and I used to do a bit of riveting and a bit of this and a bit of that, and shaping things and that, and, um, I think that was — that went on for — oh how long? Three years, that’s right, three years. By that time I could do a pretty good job at, um, panel beating. I was knocking out dents or whatever in the aluminium stuff and that. And then of course the end of the time came and, er, I got my calling up papers. I went to — what’s the name of the place? The house in London?
CB: What, to Lords?
RD: No. It’s a building. Oh God, Air Ministry RAF place — it’s got a name. Anyway, I went to there and that’s where all the things, medicals were done, and I went to that and then in my log book you’ll see A3B, A3B, NL what it was I got to do this thing, the length of leg, and I think it had to be thirty, thirty inches, yeah, and when they shoved me up — it was very crude in a way. They shoved me up against a, a back wall and then they would measure your leg length and mine was twenty-nine. So I got one guy pushing me back like this and the other guy pulling my legs to try and get the extra inch but it didn’t work out. So I could, according to that, I could never be a pilot because I didn’t have the leg length [cough]. [unclear] Of course, er, there was a little guy who used to fly, um, Kittyhawks and stuff and I used to take him to the Air Crew Association and, um, his job was to liaison with people, with these aircraft, and I always remember a little tale he said was, er, when he was in the Far East, he was told to fly from — I don’t know where it was, Libya to Malta, and he was told in — where the headquarters were — but this was a special message for the admiral in Malta, so he said, ‘ I’ve just come from a trip.’ And they said, ‘No you cannot worry about that, get in the aircraft and do this job because it’s very, very important.’ OK, gets in his Spitfire, flies off and lands in Malta and he said, ‘I’ve got a very special secret message for the admiral.’ So he had — was escorted to the — I don’t know where it was, the naval base, and went in front and saluted and gave the admiral this, er, this envelope [cough] and, um, the admiral went over there near the window and sort of opened the thing, ‘Oh, jolly good, jolly good, yeah. I bet the odds on that will be really great.’ He said, ‘OK, you can go and get yourself a meal now.’ And it was a tip. [laugh]
CB: For racing.
RD: For horse racing in Malta.
CB: [background noise] Ron was, um, in London during the war before he joined the RAF so what was it like Ron when you were in London and experiencing the air raids?
RD: I was only fourteen at the time [clears throat] and the war started. The sirens went and everybody panicked and run around, and got under tables and things, but then it was the all clear. And then nothing happened at all for quite some time, until one day above, in the sky above us, and over London itself there were vapour trails, loads and loads of vapour trails, and aircraft way up high, and then a smudge of smoke from where we were on the horizon. If you got upstairs and looked out you could see a smudge of smoke and that was when they first started bombing the docks and they caught fire, several of the granaries and other places along there, which really made a blaze, and all this was going on in a relatively small area of London called the East End [cough]. Unfortunately, that is where the real English people were, the cockneys, the, the miners, the coal — you know, the dockers, all sorts of things, and, er, living a very frugal life. But these bombs came down and wiped out a lot of the East End and then the fire got even worse and you could see the red on the horizon. I thought it was a good idea but — it’s silly again — but me and my mate said, ‘Let’s have a bike ride up there and see if we can see what’s going on somewhere.’ But we, we rode up there through London itself, near the East End, and then we were turned back because the police were there and God knows what, um, and then at night, they started to bomb at night, and this went on for, oh dear, four or five months maybe, maybe more. But every night, without doubt, without any problem, the siren would sound and then the bombers would come over. Then in the morning when it got light the all-clear would go. There was no guns, nothing. They just came over and did what they did. Then one night, one particular night, we were all there and waiting for the sirens to go and the sirens went, and we had an Anderson shelter in the garden and we went down there, sort of thing, and then the guns started. You never heard [cough] anything like it [chime] and all the guns down south were created in London, you know, mobile guns and everything and, um, they just fired hundreds of shells up in the air but they didn’t, they didn’t, they couldn’t target anything. They didn’t know anything about where they were or anything. They just fired everything and the idea was, apparently, I found out, was to raise morale of people — ‘cause every night they sat there and the bombs were coming on top of them and nothing was happening. So this, er, lot went up and — but they still carried on bombing and, er, we had a few two roads up that, um, dropped and killed some people and then they hit the gas, a big gasometer there, which was quite something that. That went up in a big flare [chimes]. It was a good mark but quite frankly I didn’t see, where I was in the west of London, I didn’t see a great deal. The one thing they did drop was an oil bomb which was a barrel full of crude oil with a detonator on it and that come down in Shepherds Bush Green. It didn’t do any damage but it made a mess, black muck everywhere. I can’t — that’s it as far as I was concerned, er, and then I joined the ATC and through that I used to cycle to the ATC and come back. And then I joined the fire watchers [slight laugh]. They brought out a thing, dousing the incendiaries, because this is what, what caused so much problem in London and everywhere, thousands of incendiaries came down, burned the roof and burned the place out. So they brought out voluntary fire parties and what you did you got together as a neighbourhood and you were issued with a stirrup pump and a bucket and, er, told how to put these fires out by laying on the floor and pressing the thing and one thing or another but if you pressed — put water directly on it it would just explode so you had to be very careful [cough]. So I did that for a while and then, as I say, I joined the ATC and used to go there and then the bombing receded then because that was the time, I believe, that the Germans were going into Russia. They wanted all their aircraft over there, most of them, and that was it. Then I joined the ATC. The V1s that caused — I’ve spoken to you about, at Clapham, when we were on the preliminary air crew training course, er, that was another sort of thing. Oh and by the way, um, when I was home, home in London I had a five-day leave — Chiswick was quite near us — but there one tremendous great explosion and, er, it blew some houses down and things and, er, people didn’t hear any aircraft or anything. And that was the actual first V1 rocket that hit the, hit the ground in London.
CB: First V2.
RD: V2, sorry, V2, yeah.
CB: Were there many refugees from the east of London coming your way. What happened with them?
RD: They all went in hotels and things along what they call Bayswater Road, which runs along Hyde Park, and they were all put in there, loads and loads of them, quite a lot from Malta to help them out, um, very good actually. They really looked after them I must admit, um, what was I going to say? Oh, the other thing is, what surprised me was after the war, er, Malta had, had been saturated with bombs and so many killed and this place was just wrecked. But they began to build it up and there was a guy apparently, I think called Mintoff, which was the president of all of them, the boss, and he asked our government for a million pound to help with the job and it was refused. Typical politics I suppose I’m afraid. But that’s life. Thank you very much.
CB: Thank you Ron. [recording device stops at 1:39:12:6 and restarts 1:39:17:01] This is just a summary of Ron’s situation. Even though he joined the RAF on 31st of January 1944 at Lords and Grove Court he never became operational during the hostilities. He’d chosen to be an air gunner and, er, was sent on a wireless operator course, with a view to then going to air gunner. However he ended up being shunted from pillar to post instead of actually going to, er, straight squadron operations. So various training he undertook included RAF regiment and educational training. He eventually left the RAF in 1947.
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Interview with Ronald George Doble
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-17
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Sound
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ADobleRG151117
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Ron Doble grew up in London and joined the Air Training Corps and the fire watchers when war was declared. He volunteered for the Air Force when he was 18 and trained as an air gunner. He talks about the conditions in his turret and the mishaps he had with his crew. Ron was never operational and left the RAF in 1947. He then returned to his former job as a panel beater were he stayed until he retired. When he retired be became involved in the Air Crew Association.
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
Cathie Hewitt
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--London
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
1947
Language
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eng
Format
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01:40:15 audio recording
1653 HCU
21 OTU
97 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
displaced person
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lincoln
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Dalcross
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Yatesbury
Scarecrow
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/8757/PMooreWT1506.2.jpg
ba450a2587f7d4bdd809b39eda3c5fa9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/8757/AMooreWT160318.1.mp3
06f88d173f760d9f30a9e3038f1f9794
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
Moore, Bill
William Tait Moore
William T Moore
William Moore
W T Moore
W Moore
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Three oral history interviews with William Tait "Bill" Moore (1924 - 2019, 1823072 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He served as a navigator with 138 Squadron.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-28
2016-03-18
2016-07-06
Rights
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Interview Agreement Form - Moore, WT, William Moore-03
Identifier
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Moore, WT
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 18th of March 2016 and I’m meeting with Bill Moore who was an Observer with the RAF and he is accompanied by his friend Tony Boxall. And we’re going to talk about Bill’s life from the earliest days to the periods after the war. So, Bill, could you start by telling us about your early days?
WM: Well, I was, I was born in a town called Dunoon in the West of Scotland in 1924 and I was, at that time, I was the eldest of three children, I became that, and then of course what happened? We moved house from a little single ended cottage and we moved in to a brand new council house. And of course we gradually became a family of five. I was the eldest of course, as I said, with —
CB: Keep going.
WM: With two sisters and two brothers. My, my father was a slater and plasterer, Builder, and my mother had been what later on in life people called them Land Army girls because she’d done that during the First World War and my father had been in the Royal Scots Fusiliers right through, right through the First World War. And later on he, he was, he was taken on ship board to India where they, they actually were the garrison at various towns for a, for a few years up to there, you know. Alright. And then, and then of course what happened was that he came back to Dunoon and met and married my mother and as I say he also then went back into the building trade, you know. That is the sort of life that people did, they were in the army and then back into Civvy Street and later on in life that’s exactly what happened to us. Now, I, I attended Dunoon Grammar School all the way though, Right from the infant class right through into, into High School and I enjoyed it. I was never a person who didn’t enjoy school and at the same time after school I worked in various sort of capacities like in butchers shops and deliveries and all these sort of things that, in those days, people had to do to help augment the family incomes. I left, I left school when I was thirteen. The reason why was because the incomes that they could draw at that time wasn’t sufficient to keep the family going and being the eldest one I was out of school, as I say, at thirteen and I [pause] I was employed. I was employed by people called the Richmond Park Laundry which is, or was at that time, the biggest laundry in Glasgow but which is now gone. Then what happened then was, was that the war clouds were coming and I joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps. The Air Defence Cadet Corps was the forerunner of the Air Training Corps. And of course to do that we had to go to Abbotsinch, which is now Glasgow Airport and that was where we, we got the feeling for the Royal Air Force. Also that was where I saw my first Wellington and we certainly fell in love with it because all the other aircraft that we had seen from there, there on for many years was all the old ones that had been scattered around the country. Then of course, when the, when the Air Training Corps started we changed over, we volunteered for that and on the, on the Tuesday night I joined up and signed up. I went back again on the Friday night and the Friday night I became a flight sergeant which was instant promotion. And the reason for that was, was that I had been in the Air Defence Cadet Corps. We er, what we did was we, we had courses run in the Dunoon Grammar School by teachers who had become officers in the Air Training Corps and one particular gentleman there — Mr D. J. McDermid was the one that I’d looked up to for many years through the Boys Brigade and other organisations like that. And also a Mr Oswald Brown. And Mr Oswald Brown was the mathematics teacher and of course he was the one who actually taught us the rudiments of navigation. And we did that until we were old enough to, to volunteer for the Royal Air Force. Now, during, during that time we sat the examinations and all the way up through till we were actually ready for the aircrew selection. When I was old enough I went to Edinburgh and I was on the selection course there. I come out with very high marks and I got my little silver badge and I then became a member of the Royal Air Force. We, we didn’t get a number but we had various facts and figures written down about what we were. Then of course you had to wait your turn until such times as, as they had space for you. Well that’s what they said. So you got called up and then of course you were VR. And we eventually went to London and, of course, with that of course that was ACRC and that was at Lord’s Cricket Ground along with many other people which was quite strange. I met one or two chaps that day from all over the country, Some of them that I was with for quite a long time and before we actually finished at ITW. From, from London of course we went to ITW and my ITW was Number 17 in Scarborough based at the [pause] now what was it? Based at one of the, one of the hotels in Scarborough. And likewise of course in Scarborough there was about five other different ITWs. My, my hotel that I eventually landed up with was the Adelphi Hotel which was right above the Italian Gardens in Scarborough itself. In the Italian Gardens there was all the swimming pool and all the little offices attached to the swimming pool and that is where we did all the navigation and training like that, in the actual [pause] actual course at Scarborough. The gymnastics, the PT and all that other stuff was held at Scarborough College which was a very good asset. We had our own swimming pool in the Italian Gardens so that was also very good for us. Most of our drill and disciplinary actions was taught on the esplanade in front of the Adelphi Hotel and above the Italian Gardens. We [pause] we had a small, a small flight, and a few days after we were beginning to settle down, we got quite a surprise and we had a group of Belgian boys came across and joined us. They joined us there and it was a very good experience because most of them had been through High School and their English was very good compared with our limit in French or whatever dialect they said that they spoke. But it was very good because we got a good background of the continent which most of us had never had. Well, on completing of the ITW course I was given a job which was a temporary thing, I became the rations officer and I used to deliver all the foodstuffs from the main offices in Scarborough to all the different ITWs and that lasted for a couple of weeks. It was very good to get a responsibility like that because you really had to make sure that everything was right on the button. Otherwise, the sergeants and people in charge of all the kitchens as you went around certainly were very tough on you. During, during that particular time we, we went round all, all the various ITWs in Scarborough and as a matter of courtesy we actually visited one after the other and they did the same to us. And then of course we used to always go on a journey, see all the different church parades, you know. And an aside to one thing was my great friend here — and Ernie Taylor his name, who later became a fighter pilot in Spitfires and Hurricanes and Mosquitos, and although we were in Scarborough at the same time and been on parades at the same time and did various other things we never actually met up and we didn’t meet up officially until I came here in nineteen eighty — [pause] I beg your pardon, in [pause] yeah, 1983, when I returned from Africa. But that’s a different story, I can come back to that one. When people had vacancies for us then we went to different places from Scarborough. Well the first place that I went to was to Scone, Scone in Scotland. Just outside of Perth, and that was where we were, we were flying on Tiger Moths. We did the course there And anybody who has ever been to Scone Airport always remember that they had a bump in the, in the runway and when you went down there you lost the horizon, then all of a sudden you were airborne, and if you missed the bump you were always in trouble. But that was it, it was a good thing to know. And the instructors there were mainly, mainly chaps who’d, who had served all over world with the Royal Air Force. A lot of them had been out in the desert, various ones, And they had been recalled for to train people like us. Especially at Scone near where we were. Well we, we actually graduated from there and in those days you said that you were a LAC, Leading Aircraftsman, Which was quite good, It meant that you got a few more shillings in your pocket but that was about all it was. Sometimes they didn’t even have time to issue the propeller to you, but before you knew where you were you were away doing something else. But anyway, what happened to us, I say us because there was a few from 17 ITW, we, we went to a place called Broughton-in-Furness. Now Broughton-in-Furness — that, that was a, like an escape course, or a commando course or whatever you wanted to call it but really and truly it was like an escape course and you were taught all the rudiments of, of the bush. Well, as a matter of fact being a country boy I quite excelled in that and I got the red lanyard again which I already had when I’d been at Scarborough which gave you a little bit of authority, but as soon as the parades were off you took the lanyard off and that was it. But the lanyard, lanyard was just to give you that bit of authority for parades etcetera, etcetera. From, from there we went to, to Manchester, to Heaton Park. Now, Heaton Park you were either billeted in the Nissen huts which was standard accommodation, about fourteen men to a hut, or you were lucky enough to be billeted outside in somebody’s back room, Or front room, And we enjoyed that for, for a couple of weeks. We were actually put in to a lady’s front room, Two of us, And that was a chap called Alec Kerr and myself, And Alec was one of the ones that, from Peterborough, that I had met on that first, first day in London. It seemed to be that we kept bobbing up wherever we were on, maybe because Kerr and Moore was near enough on the alphabetical list. But anyway we shared the room there and if we gave the lady a half a crown a week each she used to leave the window open so that there was no bother about coming home at night time. But that was, that was more or less just across the road or nearby to Heaton Park. We never took advantage of it, always made sure that we were in before midnight although you were supposed to be the same as the camp, in about half past ten, you know. Well once we got over that stage we were called up into the park and put into a Nissen hut, the same as everybody did, and then we did some more drill and discipline and listened to the Royal Air Force tunes that was drummed into you so that you’d know whatever was being sounded was what you did. And of course if the, if the tunes came up to a certain degree then you had to — whatever you were doing — you had to march to attention, and if you got caught not marching to attention when these tunes were being played you found yourself on KP or something else like that. I managed to avoid that so I was quite lucky. Maybe it’s because it was drummed into my head that you always smartened yourself up whenever these tunes were played. Anyway, we, we eventually got we didn’t really do a lot of, we had a lot of talks on various things but we didn’t do any stuff for examinations. But all of a, all of a sudden you began to, you began to assemble in to different groups, your name was put here and then was put there and it wasn’t alphabetical either and the next thing you knew that you were ABC or DEF or whatever else it was, and eventually these groups were how you were going to be posted away from, from Heaton Park. And with that at Heaton Park — Heaton Park I was, I was KL and KL and M was quite good for me, I didn’t know too much about it and neither did anybody else. But one day, one day we were fitted out with kit and we were told that we would probably go to Rhodesia, And everybody said, ‘Oh. We’re going to Rhodesia. Oh that’s — that’s a cushy number there. You go all the way in the boat and then you go to Cape Town and then you go on a train and you go all the way up to either Salisbury or Bulawayo.’ Well everybody thought oh this is, this is good, anyway , that was a special uniform you got for going to Rhodesia, it was different from those who went to South Africa. Anyway, what happened then was that we, we started assembling in these groups. So the groups one day were 12 o’clock noon, the bell went and we formed up and the next thing we were told, ‘Get your kit together. You’re off.’, ‘Oh. We’re off. Where are we going?’, ‘We’re not telling you where you’re going. You’re off.’ So we got all this kit and we went to Liverpool and [pause] a little memento here of a ship called the Andes, A N D E S, which was a brand new ship just before the war. That ship had come up the Clyde in to the Holy Loch in all its glory because it was supposed to be on the South American run. And it was a beautiful ship, all brand new, And we boarded this ship in Liverpool. And who was beside me? Alec Kerr. Oh, ‘Alec. How did we manage this?’, He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He says, ‘Just the names seemed to come up again and we’re here together.’ I said, ‘Oh good.’ So, anyway we went down to K deck, I thought it wasn’t bad, it was well down in the ship but being a new ship it was quite good. Anyway, we, we stayed there overnight. The ship didn’t move. And we had another fellow with us there and his name was Ted Weir, and Ted Weir was thirty three. Thirty three. And we were only leaving UK. So he said, ‘My God,’ he said, ‘my wife’s expecting a baby,’ and we said, ‘What? You’re an old man for having a baby.’ He said, ‘Yes. I’ve just got word.’ I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ He said, ‘I’m going to slip off tonight and go and see the baby. In case I never get another chance.’ I said, ‘Alright. Alright Ted. How are you going to do it?’ He said, ‘I’m going to go down the anchor [inaudible].’ I said, ‘Well if you don’t come back you’re in big trouble.’ Anyway, about 2 o’clock in the morning and he came back. We hadn’t moved. So Ted Weir, thirty three plus, had seen his baby, a little boy with ginger hair like him, so he was quite happy. But we never saw the baby, we never saw photographs but we were told plenty about him. So anyway around about mid-day the next day the Andes took off. So anyway away we go, away we go down the Mersey and around the top of Northern Ireland. We were sailing well and it was good weather, we went, ‘Oh this is a piece of cake. Nice cruise we’re on on a ship.’ So there we go. Judgement, you know. I said, ‘We’ve left. We’ve left Ireland now. We’re heading for the Bay of Biscay.’ Anyway, that night we were up on a deck and I said to, I said to Alec and Ted, I said, ‘This ship’s going the wrong way.’ And they said, ‘You and your Clyde navigation.’ I said, ‘Me and my Clyde navigation. We’re going the wrong way.’ So, in the morning we were back in Liverpool, right back where we left. Anyway, we wondered what was going to happen there, so we were told to keep our kit all close together and all the rest of it. Anyway, I looked across from where we were, out and I said to, I said to Alec, I said, ‘The 534.’ And Ted Weir said, ‘What’s the 534?’, I said, ‘I’m not telling you. You might be a spy,’ you know. He says, ‘Come on Bill. Tell me. What’s the 534?’, ‘Oh a 534’s got three funnels hasn’t it?’ He said, ‘Yes.’, ‘Well that’s the Queen Mary.’ [pause] So we, we were twelve hours later, we were on the Queen Mary and the next thing we knew we were heading west. So where did we go? We landed up in New York. We were only in New York about twenty four hours, a bit longer. We had a great crossing, everything was fine. And as I say we got in to New York and we had a bit of shore time which was unusual. We were given strict instructions that you would be in the chucky if, if you didn’t come back in time. So anyway they trusted us so off we went, came back, and we, we were taken to the train station as they call it there. And we were all put on these lovely trains with beds and everything, you know, so, oh this is ideal. Anyway, it was American trains and sometime, sometime the following morning we pulled out and we wondered where, where we were going. There was all sorts of bets on, we were going to Arizona, we’re going to this, we’re going to that. No, no, we didn’t go there. We went to Moncton, New Brunswick, in Canada. And that’s where we, where we started getting a bit of trouble because we, we didn’t have much uniform. Some of it, we’d changed some of the stuff, you know. Typical Air Force . You weren’t allowed this if you had that and things like that. Anyway, we walked around there and the saying up there was like a squaw and later on in life I used to call like a ‘Matabeleland nanny,’ you know. Anyway, we got up there and Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick was the centre in Canada where, where people were sent all over Canada and sometimes down to the States etcetera, etcetera, you know, so once we get up there then we found out what we were actually going to do. Anyway, Alec Kerr and Ted Weir and myself, we were still together and, well it was more luck than judgement, and we didn’t do much there. As a matter of fact we learned, we learned all the names for Canadian names, American names for things. Pie a la mode for a sweet and this, that and the next thing. All the fancy things which we thought we might be getting to eat. Although the diet there was terrific compared to what we had in the UK, the UK diet was excellent. Plain Jane and no nonsense but when we got to, we got to New Brunswick we even got ice cream and things like that. Anyway, one day we, our names appeared on, on a notice board and we were deftly got different parades as people called it in the Air Force , you know. Now, when you join the Air Force you volunteer, butthat’s the last time you ever volunteer for anything, so by this time we were just told what we were going to do. So some people were down for pilots, some people for navigators, some people for wireless operators, all sorts of different things come up, you know, and then of course there was various other bits and pieces that came up, you know. Anyway, we went off in the train and about five, about five days later we got to Winnipeg. We changed trains in Winnipeg, all the way across to Canada to there. We’d actually been in one train and one bed and we used to get off and stretch our legs and get an hour or so while they put new coal and stuff on the, on the train and then we went back on and away we went to the next station. And we had quite a wee bit, and there was one, there was one time I was off and somebody says, ‘You’d better have a haircut’. I said, ‘Alright. I’ll have a haircut’. So I went in and typical me, you know, I went in and I said, ‘Can I have a haircut please?’, ‘Yes. How would you like it?’, ‘Oh I don’t want it, I don’t want it too short and I don’t want it long otherwise I’ll be in trouble’., ‘We’ll give you a Canadian one’., ‘Ok. Fine’. Anyway, I got settled back in the chair and the next thing I knew it cost me fifteen bucks because I went to sleep. I’m still a person who could go to sleep with just sitting, sitting around for a few minutes. Anyway, when I woke up, he says, ‘Yes. You agreed. Every time I told you what you wanted you nodded your head’. I said, ‘Oh. Thank you very much’. So I was fifteen bucks short. Anyway, that was alright. Well, eventually from from Winnipeg we went up to Manitoba. Dauphin, Manitoba. Right up, right up in the top of Manitoba itself, right up north, Dauphin and Paulson and various places like that. And we looked around for the town. It was a hamlet. Dauphin wasn’t too bad but Paulsen, I think it was twelve, twelve houses that was there, you know and we had, we had more people in the camp then there were civilians around us, you know. Anyway, that was quite good. We, we went training there and we did, we did the basics of gunnery there, and started off with the, we had 22s and we did a lot of clay pigeon shooting in the hangars because by this time there was six feet of snow outside, you know. And we didn’t, we didn’t go very far, but we got one or two flights in those Ansons, the early ones, so that wasn’t bad. Getting us accustomed to, to flying as they called it and then, and then of course what happened after that was that they began to tell us what we were going to do. Well some of the chaps, some of the chaps were down as pilots and they went off to another ‘drome nearby. Some of us took in navigation, and some, some took in wireless and gunnery. But what we did was we did the whole lot, we did POSB, you know. And that was, that was the, we all took the full course pilot — pilot, observer, navigator the whole thing, you know. We were beginning to find out what it was all about. It was very gentlemanly, there was civilian pilots and civilian instructors, things like that. All sort of chaps in their early thirties — early forties or thirties and they were our instructors. Anyway, about a few weeks later we were divided up again and this time it was a full, a full gunnery course that we did, everybody had to do that. We had a full gunnery course, and then we had a wireless course, and that kept us the whole time. Even the gunnery course kept us going the whole time. And you might, you might have, instead of maybe having five or six courses for gunnery or something like that they slackened down so you were beginning to realise what you were actually going to do. So what we did then, what we did then was we went across to the pilot’s school. They never told you whether you failed or otherwise. They would say we need seven pilots and that was seven pilots. The first seven in the list became pilots and the rest of us then went in for, for navigation and bomb aiming, and we still carried on with the wireless and we still carried on with the gunnery. Then of course we went up and the next thing, the next thing what we knew was we were concentrating more on navigation than we were anything else although we still carried on every now and again, keep our hand in at wireless, at wireless and gunnery. Well we actually graduated in each of these places and were passed on to different, different sections there and then we had a big change. We went over to Dauphin. Dauphin, Dauphin was quite, quite a town by their standards, there were shops in the village and places like that and we got quite friendly with the local people, and I got friendly with a couple who’d come out from Scotland many years ago. And they had a grown up family of a son who was already in the Air Force and a daughter and there was another girl who stayed with them and she was the fiancé of the son. Anyway, that’s another little story. Anyway, we were quite friendly with them and visited them when we could and had the usual, we had our Christmas lunch there for a start. We went to dances, we went to everything in our spare time, the usual sort of thing. Made ourself, we were told to mix which was very good. And then of course we went up through and you actually, you actually graduated or you failed. If you didn’t graduate and you failed then you were sent to a straight gunnery school and that was, that was to be, that was just to be on a gunnery course. There was no shame to it, it was a good course. Other people went to wireless operator and gunnery, that was also a good course but certainly a little bit different. Anyway, we did, we went on to the straight navigation course and that was, that was fine. Then of course we graduated. You didn’t get any, any stripes, you didn’t get any. You just, just moved out and of course by that time they had, they had AC2s and AC1s instead of the, instead of the LACs so we never did get these props, but we were changed from LACs to AC1s. Anyway, the next thing we knew we had, we had a week’s leave, a week to ten days leave and which was very nice. We got rail warrants for where we could go and all the rest of it, that was ideal. And then we came back and when we come back from there we actually got posted to different places and I got posted to a place called Portage la Prairie. Now Portage la Prairie is a very special, a very special school. Portage la Prairie was Number 7 Observer School. In other words you are doing things slightly different from navigation and we concentrated a lot on [pause] on different, different subjects and one of them of course was low flying and be able to map read. That was quite easy in Canada but, anyway, later on it was a different story. But that was, that was Portage la Prairie. Now Portage la Prairie is still going today and every four years the commandant of Portage la Prairie comes across here to the UK and he and his family take up residence here, and I have, I have met three different families now that came from Portage la Prairie. Anyway, going back, going back to Portage we did this specialised training, navigation etcetera, etcetera like that and observer training and then we, we went in to, we went into Winnipeg. We went to Winnipeg and we attended various courses in there which we didn’t really know what it was all about but it was courses that we were really specialists in. That was what it was, we were specialists in different things, you know. Then we went back of course to, we went back of course to the main station again, and then we got leave. We got some leave and I managed to, I managed to get to see quite a bit of Canada. And then the next thing we knew we were back in Moncton. Moncton, New Brunswick. In Moncton, New Brunswick we had, we had maybe a week or a couple of weeks or whatever, whatever was, until we actually got sent back to the UK. Now, when, when that, when that happened you were called in to a room and we were allowed two big full size kit bags. One that you could take your Air Force kit in and one that you could put all your civilian stuff in, including all the things that you’d bought when you were in Canada and the States and things like that. [pause] And then of course what happened, you were told that you might have a preference of flying back which meant that you could only take one, one kit bag with you and that would, that would be your service kit bag and the other one would come later. On the other hand if you, if you went by sea, returned by sea, you could take the two of them. So at that time everybody thought, ‘Oh well. Everything we’ve saved up for is in that other kit bag.’ [laughs] So we opted to try and get back by, back by sea. So anyway that did happen and we went down, we went down to, [pause] we went down to the railway station this day with all our kit and there we were heading towards the sea. So we went down and when we went down there, there was a ship there. And this ship that was in the dock, I recognised it, and I was just saying to the fellows that were with me, my other two friends had gone, but other ones, I said, ‘This looks like the Empress Line, you know’, ‘Oh. Empress. How do you know that?’ I said, ‘They used to sail down the Clyde every Friday night and we used to watch them, you know. So, anyway, this one turned out and it was named the Empress of Scotland, you know. As I was walking around it I picked up a little bit of information. It used to be the Empress of Japan and during the war they had changed it, changed it from the Empress of Japan to the Empress of Scotland. So, that was Halifax that we were in. So what we did was one day we up-anchored and away we went and of course as we were going out there we were, we had some little ships, something like the corvettes that we had in the UK, and they followed us out quite a bit in to the Atlantic. Then one morning they weren’t there, so you were on your own. Anyway, we, we were sleeping once again away down in the depths of the ship and we said, ‘You know, if we go down there and we are in the mid-Atlantic and we get torpedoed I don’t think we’d ever get out of there you know’, because we timed it and the timing was pretty good because we’d done two or three different runs. And we said, ‘Oh bugger it. We’ll try and sleep up on deck’, but by this time it was summer weather so we actually slept up on deck. And then one day I looked up and I said, ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I know where we are’, I said, ‘We’re heading for the Clyde’. And we did. And we sailed right up the Clyde, up to Gourock and we lay off Gourock there and I saw a lot of the older men who were working on the boats there that I knew from my home town. Dunoon area. But we weren’t allowed to talk to anybody. We were told, ‘No, No, No, No, We don’t want anybody to know where you’ve come from or anything like that.’ So we got down and got onto a boat which was called the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Mary 2 was a passenger boat that used to ply between Gourock and Greenock and Dunoon on the Clyde but she was bare by this time and she was painted grey the same as the rest. But she was used to ferry people from the liners across to Gourock or Princes Pier, and what happened then was that you went on a train to somewhere, you know. And of course eventually, eventually we did that. And we landed up, landed up in, we landed up in Yorkshire, that’s where we got to, you know. And we got there and we were billeted in one of the colleges and that was great. There was running hot and cold water and things like that and at night you could get out and you could go up to the pub because you’d already been given some money, British money, and we had two or three days there, you know and during this time this friend of mine and I’d met up with Alec Kerr again and we, we went in to this pub and I looked in this big mirror, you know and I said, ‘Look, I know that chap, that Canadian over there’. He said, ‘No you don’t’, I said, ‘Look. I’ll bet you a couple of pints’. He says, ‘Are you sure? Alright I’ll take you on’, ‘Alright’. I said. I said, ‘Yeah. I’m sure. Are you betting against me?’ He said, ‘Yeah. You don’t. There’s so many Canadians here’. Anyway, I went up to him and I said, ‘Oh by the way that was a nice wristwatch that you gave to your girlfriend at Christmas’. He was just about ready to put his [inaudible] up. He said, ‘Why?’ I said ‘Because I took her to a dance’, you know. And I said, ‘Draw that back’, I said, ‘Your names Nicholson, you know. And your, your girlfriend is staying with your mother and father because your parents are working on the railway’, you know. [laughs]. So what he was going to do to me, you know. Anyway, it was quite fun. We had, we had these couple of pints and we had a good night and he had to go his way and we went ours, I never saw him again after that. But it was quite strange. By the time I got home my mother and his mother had been corresponding, you know and she knew all about him and all the rest of it and that was it, you know. And apparently, apparently, the other one knew all about me, you know. [laughs] But from there, from there we, we were, we were back in the Royal Air Force, you know. It was entirely different again you know. Back in the Royal Air Force. This time we were shipped, shipped down to [pause] where would we call it? [pause] My kid’s staying there at the moment. I’ll get back to it. Let me get this. [pause] What — it was a station. The station is Halfpenny Green, you know and we, there were several of us went there, about a half a dozen, but other ones were scattered all over the place, you know. And once, once we get into Halfpenny Green we discovered that we were on specialised training of low level flying on the, on the new Anson, you know. And we did all sorts of stuff but this time of course it was Royal Air Force pilots and they were a lot of chaps who had actually been on service and they’d been lucky enough to have done a tour on something or someway and landed up there on the same as us, low level flying. But as I say most of them were actually stationed there and knew they were there for a while. Anyway, we went, we went there and we actually wondered why we were doing this because really and, really and truly it was just about the only thing we did. We did the night flying and we did this, we did that. We was also a lot of it was either moonlight or daylight. Anyway, what happened then was, of course what we didn’t know was that we’d been selected, selected for duties where, where your low level flying and stuff like that was good, you know. Of course, anyway, by that time that was one of the things we wondered why but you never asked too much. And then of course you had some night flying where you’re up flying low over Wales and all the rest of it and going, actually doing bombing runs under different bridges there and things like that just to keep your hand in, and then eventually we went to, we went to different, different stations again, you know. From [pause] from there [pause] sorry about that.
CB: Do you want to stop for a mo?
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
[Recording paused]
WM: I had a break there.
CB: We’re re-starting.
WM: Fine.
[pause]
CB: Ok.
WM: From there we were actually transferred to a secret ‘drome. We didn’t believe it was secret until we got there. As a matter of fact on the way everybody was saying it must, it must be like an ordinary station, and then as we, as we get nearer there with the talk that was coming back to us it really was secret, and that turned out to be Tempsford. Now, the big thing about that was, was that the first thing you did when you get inside you get lined up and you had a nice, sort of friendly talk. And they said, ‘Right you’ve now got to sign the Secrets Act again but this time it’s for real.
CB: Right.
WM: If you talk about anything and it gets out anywhere you will be shot, that’s how serious it is. And as a matter of fact a couple of times the little pub there — The Wheatsheaf — was closed because they thought that it might have been that some information might have been getting out through the pub. There was always the chance that somebody might have said something, although , as I say, we were sworn to secrecy. Now, what we didn’t realise at the time was what we were going to do because nobody told us and nobody would tell us. Now, after, after about a week I think what had been they were actually assessing our characters as they could see them there. They began to take confidence in us and give us that little bit of confidence, you know, and then we found out what it was all about. At that time the CO come in and he spoke to us and he told us what it was all about. And then we realised to what extent the secrecy was demanded because not only was the fact was that the people you were taking in to the occupied countries were in danger of their life but you also were. And what was given to us was, ‘You don’t communicate with them, and they don’t communicate with you’. I do know for a fact that the Americans later on when they started getting into things they used to call the people Joe’s and things like that, but we were not for that at all. We did not say, we did not take, if you turned around and say, ‘You’ve got a bunch of Joe’s there’ well right away people would know you had a bunch of people and where they come from. But the big thing about it was that in most times you just went out on one aircraft to one airfield, and that wasn’t too bad at all. Although there was a couple of occasions where about twenty agents who had been rounded up and all shot out of hand by somebody who had given, given them away, and that happened to be a person of the same nationality. We don’t like to say exactly what it was, I know people have written about it. But on the other hand is this, that we don’t like to think that, that the people helping our agents once on the ground was people that gave them away but it’s a sad story to say that it was. The worst part of that from time to time was in Holland, you know. And the bad thing about it was that the man who was responsible for so many deaths at one time was actually based in London, you know. He was, he was a, he was a Dutchman, yeah, and of course the Dutch people are still horrified about that, you know. That their own people could give them away, you know. Anyway, what did happen was that we were told exactly what was going to happen was that you would be allocated a pilot because then by that time I was classified as an observer. You had your pilot and you and he actually spoke over about what was going to happen. Once we knew where we were going and how many people we were liable to be taking. Well the thing is this. You can all imagine about Lysanders, they can’t carry very many people, but the lighter the people were the more we could actually take and that was a fact. And of course we were, we were told all sorts to keep our weight down. Now, I can assure you that it wasn’t too hard to do that but at the same time you had to make sure that you kept within limits. Now, when, when an operation was on, whatever was going to happen, however you wanted to count it or name it then everybody, everybody who was concerned once again knew what was going on. They knew how secret it had to be, they knew that people’s lives were depending on it, whether it was the team flying them out or the people going out. Now, what did, what did happen was that going back, going back to the time of navigating and taking everything on the map-readings and being able to do that. Nine times out of ten we were jolly lucky but sometimes you might have been landing in a field which was next door to the one that you were supposed to be landing, and the ground wasn’t exactly good. But, of course, the fields that we were landing on had, nothing had been done to them since the pre-war days and one or two of them had been glider schools that people had been taught to glide from, because then these fields had been disbanded and walked away from, you know, and people kept away from them. But they were the kind of fields that were the best for landing on. They had been, they had been more or less gone over in early days because gliding, gliding in Europe was quite a sport before the war. It wasn’t too, too strong in the UK but in, in Europe it was very strong from time to time, you know. And of course, as I say taking, taking people in it was the big thing was to make sure where you were going, how long it would be and as much as possible you had to be exactly on time because a few minutes either way could have cost people their lives because there was people that was coming in to meet the ones that was being taken in and there was also people further along the lines to receive them, so everything had to be timed exactly. If you had strong headwinds going across to the continent and you might have lost twenty minutes or things like that. That was too bad but at the same time, at the same time you had to try and do something about it. And the best thing that we used to do was to try, try and get that little bit extra speed and keep down as low as we could, then of course you had, you had more dangers than you normally would have with wires and all the rest of it, you know. But everything was done more or less by moonlight and that was as best as we could do it. The big, the big thing about it was trust. Now, with the early, the early days there was quite a few of the chaps who were flying there had, had been flying over that area either as people who had money and could fly about etcetera, etcetera or they were people who had been in flying clubs, so they were the best people to get some of the ideas from of how you could do it. Now, the big thing too was that we had, we had some officers with us who were exceptional in whatever it was, whether they were pilots or whether they were navigators or whether they were doing exactly what we were doing, you know because [pause] when they, when they told you about things you certainly listened to them.
[pause]
WM: After a while we actually got, we got some twin-engined aircraft from America and with them they were quite good because they were actually designed to land in the Prairies in Canada or America and their undercarriage was strong. That the likes of the fields that we were operating on they could be taken in and that was, that was one of the good things that happened there. Now there was one particular night and we were loaded up with guns and ammunition and all these sort of things for the Maquis and we had our target where we had to take it to. Anyway, we set off and we had just the three of us in the aircraft. There was the skipper, myself and another chap who, well, nowadays you would call him a loadmaster or something like that. He was the chap that made sure that the load was alright, well maybe that was where the name came from, I don’t know, but that was what he always had to do. Anyway, this particular night we came in to this ‘drome which had been an airfield for, for the [pause] I beg your pardon, an airfield for the gliders. As we came up and we turned around we began to sink. And we felt, well, that would be alright. Nobby turned around and said, ‘Its alright Bill. Once we get rid of this stuff we’ll rise alright’. you know. So Jim, in the back, shouts, ‘Well I bloody well hope so. I don’t want to be kept around here for a while’, you know. Anyway, what did happen was that the Maquis came there with their person in charge, they got all their stuff away and off they went into the bush and that was the end of them. They were gone. Anyway, we tried to get out and we hadn’t got out at all, we’d got out a little bit. Not bad. Anyway, the leader of the group on the ground, and it was a lady, and what she says was, ‘We’ll get you out. Don’t worry. We’ll get you out.’ And we said, ‘How?’, ‘Oh we’ll get you out’. So she actually went to the village and she rounded up everyone in the village and of course they weren’t supposed to move, they weren’t supposed to go out after dark, but man, woman and child all came out to help get us out and of course they had to try and find articles that would help. Anyway, when they were half way up they met a German sergeant, and the German sergeant said, ‘Right. You people. You shouldn’t be out at night time. What are you doing?’ Or words to that effect. And she says, ‘We’re trying to get your big black aircraft out of the mud and the Gestapo’s going to shoot us all including you if we don’t get the job done’. So he says, ‘That’s alright. I’ll go and look after the village and you can get the aircraft out’. So, anyway, he went back to the village and they got us out, but that was about an hour and a half on the ground instead of, at the most, twenty minutes. And as I say when we took off that was one of the best take-offs we ever had because we made sure that she was up and ready to go. But the only thing, time, well, what used to happen to us was we used to get the odd chap on the ground who heard an aeroplane coming and you used to hear ‘bang, bang’ and he would shoot at us with a rifle or something like that, or sometimes even thought it was somebody with a shotgun because we didn’t know it at the time but when you got back again you found the results on your aircraft. And these old aircraft, they could take it you know which was, which was a big thing. But that that was the nearest that we got to ever being interned because we were, we were very lucky. I put, I put it down to each of us doing our own work, you know and able to do the job that we set out to do. There’s the big black box down there if you want to take it home and use it. Would you like to use it?
CB: Yeah.
WM: [laughs] Do you know what it is?
CB: No. What is it?
WM: What is it Tony?
TB: I don’t know. What are we talking about?
WM: In there. Around this side. [pause] Down.
TB: That. No. Where am I looking?
CB: We’ll have a look in a minute.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Over there.
TB: Ok.
WM: No. The big thing. The big thing down there.
TB: I don’t know.
WM: It’s alright. It’s been shifted. The girl shifted it. Sorry. I beg your pardon for this.
CB: That’s alright.
WM: It’s —
TB: Not this.
WM: No. It’ not that, Tony.
CB: We’ll have a look in a minute.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Sorry. Sorry about that.
CB: That’s alright.
WM: Ok. Not to worry Tony.
TB: Oh.
WM: I know where it is now.
TB: Oh.
WM: She shifted it. I’ve got somebody that comes in, I beg your pardon, anyway , as I say between, between our training and respect for each other and what we did, I reckon that is why we survived. And not only that but the code of silence that we had. Now, what did happen was that later on, later on, once, once it started getting where they didn’t need so many people on the ground in Europe then we moved over to Tuddenham and then to Bomber Command, you know. And then later on all the station and everything else moved away from Tempsford across to Tuddenham, you know. And what happened was that the chap that I was flying with in the beginning, a chap called Murray, by that time he was, he was our wing commander. And he was the wing commander for 138 Squadron after the war as well for quite some considerable time, you know. Now, what happened, what happened to me was that on Bomber Command we did, we did thirty six ops on Bomber Command over and above what we did for the other ones but from time to time, our people just called them trips, there was no such thing as tours with us. It was if the old man let you off for a few days you got off for a few days. If he couldn’t afford to let you go you didn’t get, that’s how it was and you also had to make sure that you didn’t talk about what you were doing there. And that wasn’t just on the oath but that was also on the comradeship that we, that we had there, you know. Anyway, after that, after the end of the war the next thing we did was to fly back, fly back all our ex-prisoners of war and we were flying them back and also we were designated to take displaced persons down through France, down to the South of France, you know, and they had special camps there for them, to help them get rehabilitated, you know. And one of the biggest ones was at Istres you know.
CB: The who?
WM: Ist ISTRVS. In the south of France.
TB: Istrvs.
WM: Then of course, after a while there was three crews selected with their Lancasters and their ground crews and we went to RAF Benson. And we didn’t know what we were doing at first but eventually we found out what it was and one of the things that Churchill wanted was to have everything photographed from the air. The likes of London and cities like that we photographed them all from two thousand feet, then smaller towns. went I down gradually to about ten, fifteen thousand feet, and then of course the countryside was at twenty thousand feet. We didn’t only do the UK and Ireland but we also did right from the North of Norway all the way, right down to the Mediterranean and as far around to the east as we could go and come back on the fuel that we had. And that was an operation that had been put in place by Churchill when he was still in office, you know.
CB: So this was coastline? Coastlines?
WM: Sorry?
CB: Just the coastlines.
WM: No. No. Internal cities. Everything.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: Now we had bases, we had bases in Norway, we had bases in France, we had bases all over. And that was 138 squadron.
CB: Then what?
WM: Then I went. I was told I wasn’t going to get made up to another rank that I thought I was going to get and —
CB: What was that?
WM: A warrant officer then. And I didn’t get that and by that time instead of going out on class A, I took class B which was an early release for anybody who had been in the building trade and essential industries like that and that’s what I did from there, I took that and back in to the building trade.
CB: So what did you do in the building trade?
WM: Well we, we started, we revamped the family business and carried out many jobs, many contracts, but in the end we were finding out that all the spivs were getting the jobs instead of honest contractors. And then one day I decided now that enough’s enough and I said to the family, ‘Right’, the younger brothers, ‘You can take over the business. I’m going’. I didn’t know where I was going to but eventually I landed up in Africa with the African, what it was, was that the, the Mandela, Mandela, which was a trading store in Africa had started up a building section and they recruited me to go and take over a dozen sights there, you know. And that’s when we started building the schools and the hospitals and the universities and all sorts of things like that. First of all in the Nyasaland, as it was and then, and then in the Rhodesias and then that became the Federation. And then that went ahead by leaps and bounds until the UK government gave the countries away. And then eventually I came back here after fifty years.
CB: Where did you retire to?
WM: Well I retired here because I retired supposedly in 1980. What happened, my wife didn’t want me around the house so I went consulting, and I was a consultant for the Zimbabwe government, Zambian government and Namibia and Mozambique and Northern South Africa wasn’t it? [pause] Yeah.
CB: What made you choose this area?
WM: Well, what happened was that I came, I used to fly around here but also the fact was that I came back here in 1991 when one of my nieces and nephews were staying here and he’d been given, got a job as a bank manager from Africa to be here. And I rather liked it, and eventually my wife and I decided to come here, you know, and now that all my family are either in here or down in the Bournemouth area.
CB: How many children have you got?
WM: Three. Three children and then six, six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Yeah.
CB: What was your wife’s name?
WM: Phillis. P H I L L I S. Like that.
CB: Yeah. Ah fantastic. Yeah. And when was she born?
WM: On the 1st of February 1926.
CB: When were you married?
WM: The 3rd of January 1947.
CB: So when were you actually demobbed?
WM: The end of February 1946.
CB: Ok. You talked about a lot of interesting things and one of the questions really is, we haven’t touched on is, what were the planes you were using when you were with 138? On the agent’s side.
WM: The twin engines were Hudsons.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. And then of course we had the single engines then.
CB: Did you, did you fly in Lysanders?
WM: Yes.
CB: You did. Right.
WM: Yes.
CB: How many people could you take in a Lysander?
WM: Well it all depended on the weight that you were carrying, you know. Yeah.
CB: But if it was just agents.
WM: Well that was, well that was, you could get three in, you know.
CB: As well as you and the pilot.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok. And in the Hudson?
WM: Well the Hudson mainly was, we took quite a few people on board, yes, about ten of them but we were mostly on the Hudsons taking in supplies to the Maquis.
CB: So how often did you air drop the supplies? Or how often did you land them?
WM: Well on the air drop, on the air drop was between, between fifteen and twenty, yeah, and then the land drops. The land ones, we landed with them, the special stuff. That was about five or six. Five or six.
CB: Six people.
WM: No, No.
TB: Six times.
WM: Six drops.
CB: Six drops. Yeah. Right.
WM: Yeah.
TB: How many Lysander trips did you do?
WM: Eh?
TB: How many Lysander trips did you do?
WM: About twelve altogether.
CB: Twelve Lysander trips. Ok. And Hudson? Because sometimes you didn’t find the location did you? So —
WM: No, we went, no well, we always seemed to, always seemed to be quite lucky that way. We were, you know. You know turn around and say it might have been the field next door or something like that but it wasn’t far away. We always managed to get our targets and get our stuff away.
CB: But it took exceptional navigational skill in the dark to be able to get to these places.
WM: It was.
CB: So what was the, what was the real key to that?
WM: Well they told me I had a countryman’s eyes.
CB: Because not everybody could do it.
WM: No, that’s right. As I said right at the beginning when I told you about the Clyde and the Clyde navigation.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The stars and things like that. You know, as a, as a boy I used to wander the countryside in the dark and it didn’t matter what the weather was.
CB: Right. So you had an eye for it.
WM: Oh yes. Aye.
CB: So the navigation itself. What were you flying? What height were you flying on the transit?
WM: Well the, no more than a thousand feet.
CB: Right. So that made it difficult.
WM: It did.
CB: To see laterally.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And when you got to the target then, where you were going to land, how did you do approach that? Did you do a straight in or did you fly over and around or —
WM: It all depends. If you recognised it and the code looks right you went straight in. Sometimes you buzzed it a couple of times because you weren’t sure whether it was a decoy or not. Because once or twice where the Jerries had set up decoys.
CB: So you were warned off were you?
WM: Yeah. Well it was the people on the ground you know.
CB: That’s what I meant, yeah.
WM: They always seemed to manage to do something that upset the Jerrie’s decoys. However, there were one or two chaps [pause] that didn’t.
CB: Yeah. The, so you’re coming at a thousand feet. Is this a wooded area or does it tend to be open country?
WM: Well most of them were open areas that we landed in, you know. Oh yeah.
CB: And how would they know you were coming in practical terms. At the last minute.
WM: Oh well. I would say they had a rough time of when we’d be there. That was what it was.
CB: So were they using lights to identify?
WM: Sometimes you had lights because we used to even take the lights in to them, you know. And sometimes the remote areas — sometimes they, they had little bush fires.
CB: Right.
WM: I call them bush fires. That’s from Africa, bush fires.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. So in landing they were fairly small strips.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: So how did you know, because you’ve got wind to consider?
WM: Yeah.
CB: How would you know which direction to approach for landing?
WM: Well, well you’d try and find your winds on the way through.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: And what navigation aids were you using?
WM: Well mostly, mostly, most of it was the navigator’s computer. There was a computer on the knee. But nine —
CB: The Dawson Computer.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Nine times out of ten, nine times out of ten it was just the old fashioned hit and run, you know.
CB: You didn’t have Gee.
WM: Oh no, not at that time. We never got Gee until we were flying in, we never had Gee until we, we flew in Lancasters.
CB: Right. Ok. So when you, when you were loading up to leave in the winter what was happening? Was the aeroplane sinking in? Is that what you were talking about earlier?
WM: Yeah. That’s what you had to watch out for.
CB: What did they do to help that?
WM: Well our people were very good because you know they made sure everything was alright for us but the ones on the other side as much as possible they had firm ground for us, you know.
CB: So you land the aeroplane. You had to taxi back.
WM: Yeah.
CB: In order to take off again.
WM: That’s right.
CB: How long are you on the ground between?
WM: Well, as I say, about twenty minutes.
CB: Right.
WM: Well, some, some of these trips. Other ones were a wee bit longer you know.
CB: The Lysander could get in a pretty small spot could it?
WM: Oh yes. Yeah. As a matter of fact most of the first groups — they used to land on the roads.
CB: Oh did they?
WM: Oh yes. Aye. Used to land on the roads.
CB: Between the trees.
WM: Yeah. ‘Cause you could do that with the Lysanders. Aye.
CB: What was the loss rate? Did people tend to —?
WM: Well I’ll tell you about it if you give me a few minutes.
CB: Yeah.
WM: I’ll give you it exactly, you know.
CB: Right. I’ll stop just for a moment.
WM: Yeah. Sure.
[Recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re talking about the loss rates in 138 in the flying over Europe.
WM: 138 Squadron. The Royal Air Force Association. The Royal Air Force, I beg your pardon. Royal Air Force. At Tempsford, during the time we were there we lost nine hundred and ninety five agents.
CB: Blimey. So when. When’s that from when to?
WM: That was right through the war.
CB: Right.
TB: When you say lost do you mean —
WM: Lost.
TB: What? Captured by the Germans.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: We dropped twenty nine thousand containers.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We dropped seventy, we dropped ten thousand packages.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And there was seventy — seven zero aircraft lost.
CB: On the SOE operations.
WM: Yeah. And there was three hundred air crew lost. The motto for 138 squadron is “For Freedom”. “For Freedom.”
[pause]
CB: Right.
WM: It may be that you’ll come across some day — the United States Air Force 7th Airlift Squadron came to be with us and they actually adopted our motto — “For Freedom.”
[pause]
CB: Now, what were the aircraft used? Because we’ve talked about the Hudson —
WM: Yeah.
CB: And the Lysander.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: But were you using bigger planes as well?
WM: Oh yes. Of course. We used, used Stirlings and Halifaxes.
CB: In the squadron.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Part of the same squadron.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: So they had lots of different aeroplanes. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. We used Whitleys. We used everything.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We used to say that the junk that the old man didn’t want they used to pass it down to us.
TB: How did the Stirlings and Halifaxes get off then because they needed quite a long runway didn’t they?
WM: Yeah. Well that was, that was fine there at Tempsford.
CB: Tempsford had a long runway so that was ok.
TB: But the other end?
CB: It’s a standard A airfield.
TB: The other end then. How did they didn’t actually — they didn’t actually land in those?
CB: They didn’t land those.
WM: No, no .
CB: They didn’t land at the —
WM: No. They were for the heavy stuff they were dropping.
CB: Yeah. So fast forward then to going to Tuddenham.
WM: Yeah.
CB: That was because the SOE bit stopped.
WM: That’s right.
CB: What did 138 do from Tuddenham?
WM: Well we were on Bomber Command.
CB: Yes. So what type of bombing were you doing there?
WM: Well we were on a lot of the big ones that was available at that time. Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: Including, including the various ones like [pause] Where was one? There was the Kiel one.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The Kiel. Then there was, was —
TB: Did you do Cologne?
CB: And a, so you did a lot of different raids there.
WM: Yes.
CB: What, what about D-day because you got the Legion of Honour.
WM: Yeah. On, well, apart from the Legion of Honour wasn’t only just for D-day.
CB: No.
WM: That was for all the stuff we were doing for the French, you know.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: But during D-day time what we were doing, we were dropping H2S. It seems a funny thing for us to be doing a thing like that, but H2S and you did so many trips during that particular time they just called it one. One day. One day. They didn’t call it, didn’t call it so many trips.
CB: Right.
WM: That was one day.
CB: Right. Ok. So what were you actually doing? What were you actually doing at that time?
WM: That was, we were dropping, we were actually dropping, dropping —
CB: Window.
WM: Window.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But at the same —
CB: Not H2S.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Because H2S is the radar isn’t it?
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Well H2S is our side.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Whereas, whereas the window was against the Germans so —
CB: Yeah. Quite.
WM: But of course, on the other hand we’d divert and do a short bombing run somewhere else. Somewhere, somewhere else.
CB: Oh as well.
WM: To try and convince them that we were all over the place.
CB: Yes. Yes.
WM: So one flight might go off after twenty minutes, another one after half an hour and go and drop something, and things like that.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So just on timings. When did you start with 138 squadron at Tempsford?
WM: When?
CB: When was that?
WM: When. In Tempsford? Well we went back to Tempsford at the beginning of March.
TB: What year?
WM: Yeah.
CB: Nineteen forty —?
WM: 1945.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: But originally when did you go to Tempsford?
WM: Oh Tempsford. Not Tempsford, no, that was Tuddenham.
CB: Yeah.
WM: That was Tuddenham.
CB: Yeah. So when did you go to Tempsford?
WM: ‘41, ‘42
CB: Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right. And from then you went to Tuddenham.
WM: Tuddenham was at the end.
CB: Right. What did you do in the middle?
WM: Tempsford.
CB: Always Tempsford.
WM: Always Tempsford.
CB: Yeah. Ok. Good.
WM: It didn’t matter what job come up, we were a Tempsford squadron. Yeah.
CB: Ok. Good. Thank you very much.
WM: And that is, that is and that was very important was that we were. Well 219 Squadron came and joined us from time to time you know but I had nothing, I had nothing to do with them, you know.
CB: The same idea. You don’t talk to each other.
WM: Much the same idea. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Right. So when you were at Tuddenham and you were in Lancasters, how many sorties? How many ops did you do?
WM: That was thirty six.
CB: That was thirty six. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So that that until the end of the war.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Ok. And how did the crew get on?
WM: Oh, we had a great crew. What we, what we did, we went back to a place called Langar.
CB: In Nottinghamshire. Yes.
WM: In Nottingham. And that’s where we, where we picked up the rest of the crew.
CB: Right.
WM: And also there was one funny one we picked up, and what he was, he was the youngster, just come right out of university and we didn’t know how many languages he could speak but he could speak just about everything on the continent. And he used to carry his black box with him wherever he went and he used to, he used to speak into that. We never knew exactly what he was doing but we had an idea that he was talking to the German control.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And everything else like that.
CB: Yeah.
WM: A very important job, but as I say he was just straight out of university.
CB: But he was completely detached from the rest of the crew.
WM: No, no, no.
CB: On the ground I meant.
WM: He was a part of the crew.
CB: No. On the ground.
WM: Oh, on the ground. On the ground, yeah. He’d his own, he had his own station on the aircraft. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Where was that?
WM: Yeah. He was behind the radio operator.
CB: Right.
WM: Because they had to work together on it.
TB: But you dropped food stuffs into Holland as well didn’t you?
WM: Oh yes. That, we were on, we were on that drop.
CB: On Manna.
WM: Oh yeah.
CB: Operation Manna. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: How many drops did you do on that?
WM: We did, at the beginning we did three in one, three a day.
CB: Right.
WM: We did that for about fifteen days.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Aye. Yeah.
CB: And what height would you be flying for that?
WM: Well some of it we were just over, some of it, at the beginning there was about a thousand feet, then it was down to six hundred, you know. But there was one, one little story which is quite, quite a good one. We, it was the first Sunday we were on the run and we were on our second, second run, anyway what happened, As we were flying up, you see what had happened the ladies, we called it ladies, we used to call it ladies they had made white crosses like that.
CB: The WAAFs.
WM: Yeah. Well we said that was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We didn’t really know but the women used to say it was them.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And what it was that became our drop zones.
CB: Oh I see. Right.
WM: And that was inside —
CB: In Holland.
WM: Football grounds and thing like that.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Enclosed areas. Anyway, what happened was as we were coming in and just about ready for the drop and I saw this other Lanc coming in like that.
CB: Oh.
WM: And I said, ‘You’re bringing sprogs, you know’, and we went a little bit that way and dropped because we couldn’t do anything else, we’d already gone, you know. More or less gone. Top they went and the stuff went outside and landed here.
CB: Right. On the outside of the designated area.
WM: On the railway, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Yeah. Anyway, what happened was that years later we’d just opened a rugby ground in Africa and I was saying, I said, yeah, I said one of the stories I was saying, ‘And there we were, we dropped the food’. This lad came across. ‘And the stuff fell outside on the bloody railway line’, you know. And I said, ‘It looked like a whole lot of little black ants around a sugar lump, you know. In Africa that was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: All of a sudden I had a hand on my shoulder, and I looked around and somebody bigger than Tony, or he seemed bigger than Tony. I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘You nearly killed me’, I said, ‘What?’, ‘You nearly killed me’. I said, ‘How?’ He said, ‘That was, I was that first lot of black ants’. And there’s another lady here, she was at church with us on Wednesday and she was five year old then and what happened was that her mother heard the bombers coming in and she, her granny said, ‘Hide under the table. Hide under the table. We’re going to get bombed. Going to get bombed’. And her mother said, ‘They’re very low’. The next thing they saw these funny things coming down because that was before the arrangements were made.
CB: Oh.
WM: And that was on to like a golf course. An open area. It wasn’t any good for landing.
CB: No.
WM: It was undulating stuff, you know. And what, what happened was that as I say she was five year old and that was the stuff landing right in front of her, you know.
CB: Amazing.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And she’s here.
CB: Is she? What an extraordinary thing.
WM: And the number, the number of people that I’ve met is terrific. Well Tony was with us.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Tony was with us. I had a photograph here. Well it’s not a photograph.
TB: Yeah.
WM: There’s a painting done by a Dutchman, you know that was bigger than that.
CB: Right.
WM: No. It’s not there now Tony. It’s gone, my daughter’s got it. Like that. A great big mural, yeah. And he had it, he gifted it that day we were up there at Lincoln and it shows you the Lancasters all coming in, dropping the food and all the rest of it, you know and he actually gave me one just bigger, a little bit bigger than that envelope there.
TB: But the Germans were allowed to eat the food as well that was meant —
WM: Oh yes.
TB: There were people.
CB: They were starving too.
WM: Oh yeah. Well that was one of the reasons why, why, well, do you know the story behind it? Right. The people in Holland, both indigenous ones and members of the German armed forces, were starving and two young Canadian officers, lieutenants, had been talking to their CO and said, ‘Hey man, can’t we do something about that? These people are starving’. And he says, ‘We’ve got plenty of food’.
CB: These were army officers.
WM: Yeah. ‘We’ve got plenty of food. Let’s give some to them’. He said, ‘How are we going to do that?’ He says, ‘Let us go in and see the German. See if he’ll allow it’. He said, ‘They might, you never know’. The two of them. No guns, no nothing like that, no knives, and they went in and they walked right into the German headquarters and demanded to see the number one. So they got in there and they put their case to them that the aircraft coming in wouldn’t drop bombs as long as you didn’t shoot at them, and we’ll drop food and you can share it. Of course he thought that was a good idea. You can share it. Anyway, that happened. So the first thing that people said was, ‘Where are we going to get containers?’ Everybody said, ‘138 squadron. They’ve got hundreds of them’, you know. And so we had. And what they, did they next thing we knew there was American, American trucks, Canadian trucks, all of that coming on to our secret ‘drome, you know, with food. And of course they were all loaded up and taken to us and put in these containers. That’s why I’m saying about contained looked like. They must have had quite a job trying to get into it of course, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But that, that was the first lot of containers that were been dropped. Then they used to drop them in the reinforced mail sacks, you know. Well they were, they were run up special. People were running up up them special night and day to drop, so we could drop, so we could drop them.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Some of them were great big things. They weren’t small, you know. Aye.
CB: So even at six hundred feet the power of the drop would have been —
WM: Oh well.
CB: Difficult for the —
WM: Well that was, that was —
CB: They were breaking.
WM: Well, that was the chance. Yeah. But most of our containers were alright because —
CB: Yeah.
WM: They were used to being dropped, you know.
CB: No. Quite.
TB: [inaudible] Lancasters were dropping the food?
CB: Eh?
TB: Were they using Lancasters?
WM: Lancasters. Yeah.
CB: Lots of squadrons did it.
WM: Oh yes. There was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Aye.
CB: Right. What was the most memorable thing about your experience in the RAF?
[pause]
WM: It was when we were dropping the food to Holland and the response that we got. Yeah.
CB: What? What was the response?
WM: Oh terrific.
CB: In what way? How did they demonstrate it?
WM: Oh well. The crowds. Hundreds of people come out and waving to you and everything like that. And the, and the messages that was coming across, illicit radios and everything else. The airwaves were full of it. Aye.
CB: Were they?
WM: Aye. Oh yes.
CB: And then after the war did anybody go back to Holland to see? What?
WM: Oh yes. Yeah. Not only that, for quite a number of years they held food drops there, cheese drops. I was, in the beginning, alright but then I was away for fifty years. It still carried on during that time, and what used to happen was that the Dutch people came, came across on light aircraft and they brought all these little parachutes with these, you know these wee round cheeses and used to drop them at the various Royal Air Force Association homes on one special day at one special time. Yeah. And that was the food drops.
TB: ‘Cause you’re got a Dutch reward haven’t you as well? As well.
WM: Aye. I’ve got a Dutch medal. Yeah.
CB: What’s that called? What’s that called?
WM: Would you like to see it?
CB: Yeah.
[Recording pause]
CB: So we’re talking about your Dutch award for Manna. What’s that called?
[pause]
WM: I’ve got it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it.
CB: What’s it say?
WM: Thank you. “Thank you Canada and Allied Forces. Awarded the Medal of Remembrance. Thank you Liberators. 1945. To Mr W.T. Moore.”
CB: This is a plaque on the wall.
WM: Yes.
CB: Yes. Framed.
WM: Yes.
CB: Yes. And then after the war there were regular contacts but you were abroad.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So you didn’t get involved.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Since I’ve returned I’ve been highly involved with them.
CB: Yes. That’s really good. And this year, on the seventieth, last year just gone, the seventieth anniversary. Did you go to Holland?
WM: No. I didn’t. I didn’t manage to go.
CB: Right.
WM: But I had quite a number of Holland and Dutch people come here and saw me.
CB: Did you? Fantastic.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Can I just wind things back a little. Tell me about the crew. How, at Langar you crewed up. How did that happen?
WM: Well [laughs] it was an old RAF system.
CB: Go on.
WM: Open the hangar door, everybody goes in and they shut the hangar door and you’re told to, to crew up. In other words you have to try and find a crew. And well we were alright, Nobby and I were alright, we knew each other.
CB: That’s the pilot.
WM: That’s right.
CB: What was his name?
WM: Noble. Noble.
CB: Noble. Right.
WM: Yeah. Because I had a few pilots before that but he was the one they were going to fly Lancasters with, you know, and so then we —
CB: Who took the initiative in selecting the rest of the crew?
WM: Well, it just happened that, happened to be we that were standing around and this old man came around, you know and we said, ‘Oh he looks alright. He’s got experience. What’s your name?’ ‘Graham. Graham Wilson’, ‘What are you?’, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m a tail gunner’, We said, ‘Oh bugger off. We don’t want, you’re six feet and odd and you don’t tell us that’, you know. ‘You’re something else’, you know. Anyway, Graham Wilson became the tail gunner. He was, he was already twenty five plus twenty six.
CB: Yeah. An old boy. Yes.
WM: I know about that but —
CB: Yeah.
WM: And of course, then of course we had we had Jimmy Dagg. Jimmy Dagg from New Zealand and he became, he became our, [pause] well what he, what he actually did was he was our radar man. He was a radar man. He looked after all the radar equipment, and operating that as well. And then we had, we had radar, we had the wireless operator. We had a wireless operator and he was a signaller, Wireless Op/AG. He was a signaller as they called themselves, and he came from across the Clyde from me and his name was Dave Mitchell. [pause] Then of course the mid-upper, the mid-upper gunner, well he come from Canterbury. Peter. Peter Enstein and he and the family have a, have a hotel in Canterbury still, you know.
TB: You met up with one of them at the ITV do didn’t you?
WM: Sorry?
TB: You met up with someone at the ITV do.
WM: Yeah.
TB: Who was that?
WM: Well, that was that, that was the same ones that we met later on in life. Yes.
CB: Who was the flight engineer?
WM: The flight, the flight —
CB: Flight engineer.
WM: The flight engineer was Gus. He come from, he came from London, you know.
CB: Gus.
WM: Yeah, Gus Mitchell. Not Mitchell [pause] Oh what was his second name. Gus. Oh I’ll come back to him in a minute.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
WM: Sorry about that.
CB: Right. Now, anything else that we need to cover that comes to your mind particularly?
[pause]
WM: Well, just about [pause] Well I think we’ve been covering it in general. We’ve covered in general, you know.
CB: Yes.
WM: We haven’t gone into designated drops and designated flights and —
CB: Ok.
WM: Where people got shot up and things like that.
CB: Yeah. Well that’s —
WM: I haven’t done that.
CB: No. Can you do that?
WM: I haven’t done that on purpose.
CB: Oh right. Ok.
WM: I haven’t done that on purpose.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We were quite lucky. We were quite lucky. We went in, in to Bomber Command as a crew and we come out as a crew. We were lucky.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We, the pilots I had earlier on for the small and light aircraft and things like that the most memorable one to me was this chap as I say when I started off he was a, he was a pilot officer, you know, and he finished up as the, as the wing commander. And with that he [pause] he actually, well to me he was a person who deserved everything he ever got because he was, he was a first class team leader, he was a first class gentleman. If he told you a thing then he meant it, he didn’t elaborate on it, you know. And his name was Rob Murray. Of course he had various, various high decorations during his time.
CB: Yeah. Such as?
WM: Well he got all the high ones.
CB: DSO, DFC.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And bars?
WM: Well he did. He did, yes.
CB: So, when you were on operations, what was the most challenging thing on that? So you’re on the Lancaster —
WM: Well on a Lancaster the main challenging thing was to watch out for night fighters.
CB: Right.
WM: You know, by that time your navigational aids were good but the worst thing about it was the German night fighters. Because there were so many young crews, as I call them, shot down before they even left the UK. The likes of chaps just about ready to shove off the cliffs there, you know, they got shot down, you know.
CB: The night fighters were in that close were they? On the way to meet you.
WM: Oh yes. Now then and also at night time on the return trips. That was also the night fighters rejoice.
CB: Right.
WM: Oh yes. You don’t hear a lot about that but there was a lot of chaps were actually shot down here.
CB: Yeah.
WM: On the return.
CB: Yeah.
WM: On the return journey.
CB: And what about the British night fighters that were counteracting those?
WM: Oh well that was up to my Jimmy Dagg and our boffin boy to do that. To try and, try and keep our special signals going. Aye.
CB: So Jimmy Dagg was, where was he operating? Behind the signaller.
WM: Yeah. That’s right.
CB: And who was your bomb aimer?
WM: I did the bomb aimer as well as that because I did, I did the navigating and the bomb aimer.
CB: Oh did you? Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok. Right. And so when you were on the sorties in the night obviously.
WM: Yeah.
CB: In the squadron. Then what, you were in a stream.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Did you ever see other aircraft while you were there?
WM: Oh yes, yes. Oh yes, we did.
CB: How close did any of them get?
WM: Well I think sometimes within a hundred metres. And other than that you had to watch out for chaps who were either too low or too high. Or too quick on the bomb release. Yeah.
CB: Any coming down from above you?
WM: Oh yes. But you know the thing is that if you went straight through on the guidelines of what you were told to do you were much safer than if you tried to do something different.
CB: Right.
WM: Aye.
CB: So because you’ve got the extra person on board then you’re doing the bomb aiming as well as the navigation.
WM: That’s right. That’s right.
CB: So the practicality is on the run in. How far out from the target are you doing straight and level.
WM: Well a lot of that depended on the territory and the terrain and how it was at night time you know. But generally, generally in later days when the pathfinders were going it was twenty, thirty miles and more.
CB: And you are, you are not. You are releasing the bombs as the bomb aimer.
WM: Yeah.
CB: But you’re not controlling the aircraft. Is that right?
WM: No. Well you did control the aircraft.
CB: Oh.
WM: Because you were controlling the pilot.
CB: That’s what I meant, you’re telling the pilot.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Rather than having the remote.
WM: Yeah. Oh yes.
CB: Yourself.
WM: Oh yeah. The thing is as I often joke about coming out of the road here at night time I say to people, ‘Left. Left. Left. Left. Right.’
CB: Yes.
WM: You know.
CB: And then you had to do the photoflash afterwards. So how soon would that be after you’d released?
WM: Well that. All that, that depended on how the target was.
CB: Right.
WM: But what you did was you counted in. You say each, each lot of bombs were [pause] were going to go off at different heights because they were different types of bomb types you were going. It wasn’t just all the same type
CB: Ok. So what were the types?
WM: Well you had everything from the small incendiaries, well the nuisance bombs, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The big incendiaries that used to drop and probably set two or three buildings going you know.
CB: Right. So your load would be a mixture of high explosive.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And incendiaries.
WM: Normally was.
CB: So the photoflash was to illuminate the target.
WM: Oh to try and, yeah.
CB: And when did the camera fire. How did that happen?
WM: Well that was timed, that, we didn’t —
CB: Automatic.
WM: We didn’t actually do the timing.
CB: Right.
WM: That was actually arranged ahead of time you know.
CB: So if you weren’t at the right height for the original calculation.
WM: Yeah.
CB: What happened?
WM: Well then, then of course they could give you, could give you, you know say whether you were actually within that area or not, you know.
CB: Yes.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Ok.
WM: A lot of people turn around say now that it was scattered and all the rest of it but a lot of them didn’t realise that you might have had a change of wind. The wind might have went up from fifty or sixty knots to about a hundred knots.
CB: Right. And how did you detect that change?
WM: Well, well what you did was you were finding your winds all the time and that. You had to try and allow for that you know.
CB: But you’re not using a sextant.
WM: That was the old days.
TB: Looking out the window.
CB: So you’re using Gee.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Are you? And GH.
WM: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: And GH?
WM: And of course. Yeah. And otherwise H2S, you know.
TB: H2S. Yeah. Just a quick one —
WM: Once you, once you started on H2S you know it was a different story entirely.
CB: So what could you see with H2S?
WM: Well if you had water around you it was excellent. If you were going up alongside a canal you had excellent because the more water you had around you the better it was.
CB: The contrast.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So how did you use H2S? For navigation? Or could you use it for the actual bombing?
WM: Well we could use it, could use it for navigation. You could use it for bombing as well. Oh yes.
CB: But what was the downside of using H2S?
TB: The tracking.
WM: [laughs] You should know what that was.
TB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: That was as bad as the night fighter.
TB: Yeah. Yes.
CB: So the practicality of it is that you’d only switch it on occasionally.
WM: Well the trouble was the better you were on the other instruments, the better your crew were on the other instruments, the safer you were.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Once you got the run ups and different things like that you then you were taking your chances.
CB: Yeah. To what extent were you aware of the German system of upward firing guns in night fighters?
WM: Well the thing is, the thing is this. With that —
CB: The Schrage music.
WM: It was something, it was something your rear gunner was dreading because after a certain angle he’d no control over that at all but if he, if he was on his, on his proper lateral defences for the aircraft, fine . Now, it’s, you couldn’t turn, you couldn’t turn around, turn around and say that the rear gunner missed something you know because it was a big bit of sky you know.
CB: How many times did you get fired on from a fighter?
WM: Very seldom. I dare say we actually got fired directly on with the other ones but we were aware of them, you know.
CB: And did you do many corkscrews?
WM: Oh yes, quite a few. Quite a few of them. Yeah. That that was a lot of the targets like Kiel and places like that that was when you did a lot of corkscrews was on that.
CB: Yeah. And they were using box flak were they?
WM: Yeah. Well you see, along, along the canals and that you had your pockets because, you know, the canal was where there had been several good attempts or big attempts at different things. Like one night we went out on the Friday nights and we bombed this battleship, you know and we actually put it on its side, you know. And the Sunday night we were called up again and somebody said, ‘you’ve got to go and so and so’. And a voice chipped up and said, ‘Hey are you wanting us to right and put it back up the way it was before?’ [laughs] That was a fact, that’s what he said. That was actually recorded as being recorded. [laughs]
CB: So when you were bombing shipping what bombs were you using?
WM: You had a medium height bomb you know but we weren’t in for the shipping direct we weren’t in a lot of these special ones.
CB: Right.
WM: But dropping bombs. Dropping bombs in the submarine pens, nowwe had the big ones for them as well.
CB: You did carry the big ones.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: But you see the thing is this. We had a modern, we had a modern Lancaster, the most up to date one, yeah, And the thing about them was, was that you were, you were dropping. Later on what we were doing although we thought we were dropping on submarine pens, it wasn’t. We were dropping them because the V2s and the V2s were in there and at the beginning we didn’t even know that there was V2s and V1s, we just thought they were submarine pens because the amount of damage that the government believed was going to come on the London area was going to be horrendous and there could have been, you know. It was bad enough the likes of people down this area knew about the V2s and V1s and things like that.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right. Do you want to stop there for a mo?
TB: How did they discover, the Germans discover —
[Recording paused]
CB: What was the role, the difference between you, sorry, the wireless operator and Jimmy Dagg. So Jimmy Dagg —
WM: Well the wireless operator had, as you say wireless.
CB: Yeah.
WM: He had his official work to do.
CB: Yeah. Signaller.
WM: Yes.
CB: Right.
WM: When Jimmy was doing this other thing you had, you had lots of stuff that was introduced that Jimmy used to use, you know. A lot of it, we never touched it, we never touched it, you know. Same as the, same as the youngster with his black box, we never saw what was inside that.
CB: So, Ok. Who was the youngster then?
WM: Eh?
CB: Who was the youngster?
WM: Well, he was young Weir.
CB: Oh he was young Weir was he?
WM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: But we never, well maybe a bit [laughs] [coughs] we didn’t, we didn’t treat him as a kid, you know, but we did actually look after him, you know, because by the time we were doing that we were, you know, we had quite a few things under our belts sort of thing, you know. Yeah.
CB: So he only came in later did he?
WM: That’s right.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Where did you meet your wife and when?
WM: Oh I met my wife in 1944 in Dunoon, in Scotland.
TB: Up there.
WM: There it is. There. Up there.
TB: Yeah.
WM: That’s the picture up there.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But what it was, was we got, we got some leave and I managed to persuade the old man to give us a few days extra. And I said, ‘It takes us two days to get there and two days to get back again, you know’. And he said, ‘Ok’. So we got about ten, got about ten days and that, and that was the July of ‘44. As I say we thought we deserved a, we deserved a bit of a rest after what we’d been doing for D-day and all the rest of it, you know.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: And how many other bombers did you see blow up?
WM: Quite a few actually but you were never sure whether it was your ones or the enemy that had been got at, you know.
CB: How do you mean your ones?
WM: I mean, I mean our aircraft. Some other Lancasters.
CB: Which, whether it was a German plane that blew up.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Or a British one.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Ok.
WM: Sometimes they went, they went puff too. Yeah. But no, no, it was hard to say.
CB: And your rear, Graham Wilson in the back.
WM: Yeah.
CB: At six feet he was squashed in. Did you have the later .5 machine guns in the rear turret?
WM: Yeah. Yeah. We had that. I’ll tell you what we did, I never mentioned this with —
CB: Previously.
WM: At one time from [pause] this was one of the sort of trips that we did from [pause] from Tuddenham. We, we went up to Abbotsinch and we got new engines put in, you know, and , well they turned around and said these ones were getting a bit old and so they were but we got these new engines put in.
CB: More powerful.
WM: Powerful. We could fly faster, fly further, fly higher, all the rest of it. Anyway, there was only three. So anyway we went up there and we got up to Abbotsinch which is now Glasgow airport, you know. I knew it as Abbotsinch as a kid, you know. Anyway, we left that aircraft. We had taken our own ground crew with us.
CB: Oh.
WM: We were told to do that, they also got leave, and we went home and all the rest of it. We didn’t scatter because everybody came and stayed with my mother, you know. Anyway, we got back and they had these new engines and the ground crew were back. They also had a couple of Scotsmen in the ground crew and we had to test these new engines and fly them around and give a report. So we used to take the chiefy, if you know what a chiefy is. Do you know what a chiefy is?
CB: Yeah. The chief technician. Yeah.
WM: No, no.
CB: The ground crew chief.
WM: No.
CB: Oh. Which one?
WM: No. A chiefy was a flight sergeant.
CB: Oh.
WM: [laughs] That is where it came from.
CB: Yes.
WM: The equivalent from the, from the Navy.
CB: Right.
WM: Was the chiefy.
CB: Right.
WM: And the flight sergeant became a chiefy. But anyway their chiefy came along and we got these engines back and had to run them up, so we did that and we had a couple of days flying around and one night in the, in the mess and the naval boys were shooting a line about HMS Forth and the submarines in the Holy Loch and they said that nobody could get near them, you know. Well, I’ll tell you what, I just, I never said a word and I’d told the crew already you don’t mention anything about. They might have guessed my accent a bit but, you know. Anyway, so anyway what we did we went into Paisley and we got a whole lot, a whole lot of little bags of lime, you know, and we loaded it up in the Lancaster and we took off. So, we had, we had permission to fly anywhere we wanted as long as it wasn’t in one of these defensive barrages, you know, whatever they call them. Anyway, we decided that we’d go and see The Forth. So we got in, we revved her up, we took off, we went across the Clyde to Erskine. We went up in to Loch Lomond and flew up Loch Lomond and flying low, used to flying low, then we jumped. We jumped over the section where the Norsemen used to draw their boats across Loch Lomond to Loch Long. And we jumped across there, down Loch Long, moved over into Loch Eck, down Loch Eck, Glen Massan and then we just opened up the throttle. Full throttle right down the Holy Loch and dropped all this stuff on HMS Forth and all the submarines and got the hell out of it, you know. Anyway, we got, we did, we went away down the Isle of Arran and all the way around about, the bottom of the Clyde, you know, and back up again about an hour later, you know. So, eventually we landed and this lieutenant commander sent for us, and we paraded in front of him, all scraggly buggers, you know. None of us had proper uniform on, we’d just what we used to use around the aircraft you know. Anyway, he says, ‘You’re all on a charge’. ‘Why sir?’, ‘Well it’s my Lancaster that did this, AC-Charlie, and I won’t have it’. I said, ‘What do you mean your Lancaster, sir?’ He said, ‘Well they’re based here and they’re my Lancasters. I’m in trouble for them’. I said, ‘Oh. Why’s that?’, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You made a mess of the Forth’. ‘Don’t you remember the other night in the mess? All these naval boys were saying it was impossible, you know’. ‘Well. Dismissed. We’ll see you later when you come back from your next job’. So we went up and went up north and we loaded up with bombs and eventually the idea was to go up into Leningrad, you know, so called Leningrad then, you know and the siege. A lot of people thought the siege was just like across the road there you know but it wasn’t, it was about forty or fifty miles away, you know, but at the same time old Jerry had it all wrapped up, you know. But the Russians had their great bunkers there that you could land a Lancaster on. Well they had, they used to say, ‘Watch the bloody holes in the runway’. But they used to fill them in all the time. Anyway we landed there, got under this big, what was supposed to be bomb proof shelters, you know. Well we knew what we were doing the other side but anyway that was it. So we stayed there until the wind changed because we couldn’t have the wind that we came in on otherwise we’d be flying over the Jerries’ lines immediately, you know, at low level. So we waited until the wind changed, right, Gulf of Finland, away, good.Back up were Russian bombs then, Back right down we dropped the Russian bombs. Now this was all his majesty’s ideas and I don’t mean the King either. This was Winston Churchill’s ideas to show what, what we could do, you know. Anyway, we went back to Lossiemouth and back again and back again and we were lucky, you know. We had a few chips and things like that. Anyway, the last time we got to Lossiemouth they said. ‘No. It’s finished. You did enough’. ‘Oh thank you very much. Where do we go now?’, ‘Go back to Abbotsinch.’ Back to Abbotsinch and all the boffins came up from the, from a factory which is, well the factory’s about twenty minutes in a motor car, you know. About five minutes in a aeroplane, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But that’s where they used to make these engines, you know. Anyway, all the boffins were there. Took the, took the engines off, took them away again and then we went up to see the old man as we call a lieutenant commander. So we got up there and I knocks on the door. No lieutenant commander, full commander. And I said to the boys, I said, ‘Oh this is alright. He’s been posted somewhere’, you know. He wasn’t posted somewhere, he’d been promoted to full commander which is just under a captain in the Navy . Yeah. So I saw his secretary, a very nice young lady, I got on well with her, you know. Anyway, we said to her, ‘When can we see the boss?’ Well, she said, ‘I’ll make an appointment for you’,’ Alright’. The next morning appointment everybody had their best blues on, shining, buttons polished, boots polished. She led us in. He was out in his other office. ‘Come in. [pause] Morning gentleman. Why are you here?’ I said, ‘Beg your pardon sir. You’re the one who told us to come back here when we come back and you would sentence us to that escapade that we had’. ‘Don’t know anything about it’. I said, ‘But —‘, ‘I don’t know anything about it’. He said, ‘Good trips boys?’ ‘Yes’, ‘And they had theirs?’,’ Yes’. ‘My Lancasters’. So there it was. Nothing happened about it.
CB: That was lucky. Yeah.
WM: But the, there was a great friend of mine. He’d got a book, another book I think over there somewhere. Anyway, he’s written it. Peter. Peter Lovatt, you know.
TB: Oh that’s the bloke you met at the what’s name isn’t it?
WM: Sorry?
TB: That’s the one you met at —
WM: Oh right
CB: Is it there Tony?
TB: Yeah.
WM: Eh?
TB: Yeah.
WM: One on submarines, and one on this, and one on that.
CB: Yes. Lots of captains on HMS Forth.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yes.
WM: And [pause] and of course as I say what happened was that I lost touch. And you know the Millies? [pause] Well the Millies are sponsored by the ITV and The Sun newspaper and one of the first ones that was done I was asked to go on it. Anyway, I’d been, I’d been speaking to a young lady at the Bomber Command luncheon on the Sunday.
CB: Yes.
WM: And this thing was going to happen about ten days later, you know. But at that time I didn’t know. So, anyway, what happened was that I couldn’t, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I’d written to him, we’d lost touch and that was it, you know. Anyway, I even got a letter from him. It took fourteen years to come to me, I got it though. Fourteen years to come to me. Anyway, I tried to find him, couldn’t find him. Anyway, on the, on the Saturday [pause] no, I’ll tell you a sad thing that happened was on the Sunday I’d been at the Bomber Command luncheon and my wife was dead and my children said, ‘No dad. You must go and we’ll see to everything at the moment.’ So, anyway on the Friday we had the service and on the Saturday morning my daughter got a phone call saying that I was wanted for something special for the Millies. We’d never heard about the Millies. Anyway, she got to know a bit more than I did and then apparently this lady went to work to try and find Peter and she found his son playing golf and then that led to them finding Peter. And then of course on the Wednesday I got a car that came here for me. I was warned about this. First of all they said black tie and wearing black tie is fine. The next one was lounge suit, yeah, that’s fine. Next one was blazers and badges, that’s fine, you know.Anyway, what did happen was that I took the whole lot and I got dressed here in the dickie suit. All the way down to London, just myself in this green tomato carriage. The next thing I knew we stopped at this hotel. ‘No. Keep in where you are’. ‘Where are we going now?’ ‘Just you wait and see. I’ve got my orders not to lose you’. I said, ‘Oh. Thank you’. So they took us to Number 10. So that was fine. So we had a photographic session and shaking hands and all this. And then we got taken back to the hotel. We went to the Dorchester first and we, we had drinks there and then they said, ‘Time up. Everybody in’. And we had buses by this time, great big buses, you know, and the driver had already told us that, ‘You sit in the place where you are because I’ve got you on camera and you don’t dare go and move. Or another bus’. Anyway, we got back to the hotel and somebody says, ‘How about dinner?’ ‘No. You’ll get dinner where we’re going’. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘We’ll take you there’. So we don’t know where we’re going. So all done up in dickie suits and medals and this, that and the next thing. And we get there and we’re at the War Museum and it’s all lined up like Hollywood. All these searing lights and all this thing and we get escorted up. Once again, in the bus they said, ‘Have you got your number?’ The bloke next to me, he keep talking away to me and he turned out to be with, he was the boss of the Royal Navy you know. And he was down in the dumps because they’d just took his aeroplanes away that day, you know. He wasn’t very happy with them, you know. On the other side of me was a young pilot officer who’d a brand new DFC up here, you know. Anyway, that was fine. Anyway, we got there and they said, ‘Right. As you come up if you get a green ticket you go to the right. You get a red ticket you go to the left.’ Alright. I got a red ticket. I’m going this way and all these film stars and all these other high [unclear] and had a great run ‘cause you meet everybody because that’s the idea of the two lots. Then all of a sudden somebody shouts out. ‘Ready. The doors will be open in five minutes ladies and gentlemen. And after you get in through the doors there’s toilets on the right and the left that you may use’. [laughs] Anyway, we get there and then of course they tell us what table we’re at. Then I find out that I’m with another five Bomber Command boys. Bomber Command. Five. Five and one is six. Something wrong. Anyway, we go back. We go, we sit down and we get our nibbles and this, that and the next thing and that’s the beginning of a good evening, you know. Plenty of wine coming around you know. Very nice. Good stuff. Then the next thing I noticed that there were people going up to the platform. So this man went up and this lady went up and this man went up and eventually, ‘Bomber Command. Table Thirteen.’ We go up. There’s still six. Anyway, we get up there and as we get up one of the chaps, about his size, what does he do? He falls down through the trapdoor. Honestly all you could see was he was down to about my size. [laughs] So, anyway, what happens then is that we’re beginning to get the idea there’s presentations going on. So we got this presentation, a beautiful glass ornament we’ll call it, a beautiful thing. We’ve got it. Anyway, what happened, we got that and everybody else had moved away when they got theirs and this presenter, that fella, same height as me, white hair and this young blonde girl. She was here and he was there and wouldn’t they let me move. No. Then the next thing was the roll of the drums. ‘Brrmbrrrm brummmm brmmm’. What happens?
TB: Peter comes in.
WM: They have it like that programme, “Your Life.” Eventually what happens, I get to see something. I thought to myself it can’t bloody well be. There’s Peter Lovatt there and of course they said to me, ‘What would you like to do tonight?’ I said, ‘I don’t know but I’m beginning to think my imaginations’, you know. Anyway, apparently my accent was broader than it should be. Anyway, what happened, It was Peter. They’d found him and they had him dickied up and they had him there after all these years. Yeah.
TB: [inaudible]
CB: Extraordinary.
TB: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
CB: We’re restarting. So what you’ve got is a plate here.
WM: Right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Now —
CB: So they presented to you.
WM: Now, when we went in to the, when we went in there, on the table, there were lovely sets of plates were all on the table and of course everyone was admiring them and reading them. And then of course when we came back from being on the platform they had disappeared, you know. But unbeknown to us they’d made up bags. Extremely heavy, strong, beautiful carved out, set out plastic bags. Now in the audience was my friend. Who?
CB: This is your pilot?
WM: Camilla.
CB: Oh Camilla.
WM: Camilla and her husband.
CB: Right.
WM: So, anyway, what happened during the time we were going around and they went outside and then everybody came back inside after the toilet, you know. What happened then was that we were at the tables and the VIPs came around to greet us although everybody told us we were the VIPs and not the ones coming to greet us. So, anyway, the Prince of Wales and his good lady was coming around and they got to me and I was told that, you know, we could talk to them. They’re here, we could talk to them. You’re the VIPs and you can tell them any stories you like so long as you don’t go on too long, you know. Maybe they knew me. Anyway, what happened, when they came to me I said, ‘Good evening ma’am. Good evening sir. Thank you very much for coming tonight. We’re very happy to see you here’. I said, ‘By the way can I tell you a little story about your granny’. That’s to him. And Camilla takes out a wee book, I’ve got one of them here, yeah, h, a little book like that, you know, and her pen. I said, ‘This is a story’, I said, ‘In 1960 I built a race course for your granny and I was given ten days to build it while she went on a cruise up and down Lake Nyassa in Africa’, and of course then the ears were going but I hurried the story up. So, anyway, anyway Camilla’s busy writing and she says, ‘This is going to be our story at Christmas’. Christmas is only a few days away, you know. ‘This is going to be our story. Nobody knows that one’, you know. So, anyway she writes down all this stuff about what I told her and all the rest of it, you know. And I said, ‘I hope you can read that’, and she said, ‘Yes. I better’. I says, ‘Ok’. And Charles is watching her. Anyway, the next thing that happens, the next thing that happens is he says, ‘Is that all?’ I says, ‘Aye. I can tell you a lot of stories about your mum if you like too’, you know. He says, ‘Another time’, he says. I said, ‘Alright, we’ll make it another time’, [laughs]. Anyway, I’ve met them several times since. Anyway, what did happen the people on the platform turned about to these ones? Yeah. Now, he’s a secretary for Bomber Command and has been for generations. There’s myself there and this was my nominated girlfriend for the evening. Well the thing is this, she’s married now and got a baby now. [laughs] And this is the one that fell down the hole. Well there you are.
CB: Fantastic.
WM: This is us shaking hands on the — yeah. That’s my friend Peter Lovatt.
CB: Yeah.
TB: Have you heard from him since? Have you heard from him since?
WM: Oh yes. Aye.
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 Bill Moore. Two
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-18
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMooreWT160318
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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02:45:48 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Moore joined the Royal Air Force after spending time in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, qualifying as an observer. He tells of his family history in wartime and his transatlantic trip, landing in New York before heading to Canada for his training. He went to 138 Squadron and tells of his time flying Lysanders from RAF Tempsford, taking members of Special Operations Executive over the France and also of dropping supplies to the Resistance. He also tells that on one of these operations, his aircraft had to be helped by local villagers to get airborne again. As well as Lysanders, William flew in Hudsons, Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters in Bomber Command. Bill tells about 138 Squadrons part in Operation Manna - he received the Legion of Honour from France and also a Dutch Medal of Commendation. He also tells of his time after the war when he returned to the building trade working in Rhodesia and Zambia.<br /><br /><span data-contrast="none" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW153699638 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW153699638 BCX0">Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.</span></span>
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
Canada
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
France
France--Istres
Netherlands
Zimbabwe
Zambia
138 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
displaced person
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Hudson
Lancaster
Lysander
observer
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Benson
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tuddenham
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/640/8910/ASmithBM170118.1.mp3
80a4542cbc4605b7e4b258e8665a4cee
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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Smith, Barry
Barry Michael Smith
B M Smith
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Smith, BM
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Barry Smith (b.1929, 582398 Royal Air Force). He was an aprentice at RAF Halton and served as a fitter. Also includes service memoir and a photograph.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Barry Smith and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 18th of January 2017 and I’m in Bierton with Barry Smith who went to Halton and then served a long time in the RAF. So what are your first recollections of life Barry?
BM: Um, Stotfold in Oxford — in Bedfordshire, um, which was where my father and mother moved to when my father was posted to RAF Henlow, um, which I think was about twelve months — um, sorry.
CB: That’s OK.
BM: That was silly.
CB: I’ll just stop for a mo [interview stopped at 0:00:57 and restarted 0:01:00]. OK Barry, so what are your earliest recollections then of life really?
BM: In Coppice Mead in Stotfold, which was a row of houses that were built by a Mr Turby Gentle [?], twenty four houses and we occupied those in round about 1935. My father was at — posted, stationed Henlow, at RAF Henlow, and was an airframe fitter and, er, we stayed there until 1940 when he’d moved to RAF Brize Norton, um, on 30— 6MU and we moved subsequently to Witney in Oxfordshire, er, into a set of new houses that had been built especially for the Ministry of Defence called Springfield Oval. My record — my recollections of that include my mother calling me out of bed one night into — to look out of the window of the bathroom across Witney to see some — a big fire in the middle of Witney. A stray German bomber had dropped a stick of three bombs in Witney and, er, they’d set alight a row of army trucks that were on the church green and, er, my mother was really quite worried that the Germans were there. It didn’t bother me at all of course because I was unaware of the risks involved in bombs dropping. Pause. [interview stopped at 02.55.9 and restarted at 03:02:1]
CB: Before you went to Brize you were in Stotfold. So what are your experiences there?
BM: Um, well I recall starting school and walking to school with a little girl who lived down the road and she used to come and call for me, a lady, young lady named Pat Trafford, and we used to walk to St Mary’s Infants School and they moved to Cardington, um, near Bedford, and I continued going to school on my own and then we moved, age of seven, I moved up to the boys school in Stotfold, Stotfold County Boys School, it was called I think. And I used to walk there called Glen Wogan, who was my — our next door neighbour and we were usually late, late back from lunch because, er, we used to pick conkers and chestnuts and walnuts and things on the way back to school after lunch. So we invariably got the cane for being late back to school, um, and Mr Thomas who was the — was our teacher at that time used to wield an inch thick mixing stick that he used to mix the Horlicks with and that hurt, um, and we used to get three of those on each hand if we were late and thought noth— thought nothing seriously of it. And then we moved to — as I say we moved to —from Stotfold subsequently we moved to Witney. Hold it. [interview stopped at 0:04:51:0 and restarted at 0:55:7:00]
CB: So you lived in Witney. What, what were the houses?
BS: There were fifty houses that were built, semi-detached houses, built in Springfield Oval for the Ministry of Defence. We lived in number three so my dad got off the mark fairly early apparently but most of the people round there actually worked — the men worked at Brize Norton.
CB: For the RAF.
BS: For the RAF and — but they were all civilians and, er, I remember Mr Glaister walking to the bus in the middle of winter in his Home, um, Home Guard uniform, he was a lieutenant I think in the Home Guard. And he subsequently died as a result of his chilblains, um, going up —
CB: Because of being on duty in the cold weather.
BS: Insisting on wearing his boots and, and gaiters and so on and so forth and he had, as I say, chilblains and they got the better of his legs and he subsequently died as a result. My dad never joined the Home Guard a. He was too short and b. I think he felt that they were toy soldiers which was naughty really but he was [emphasis] the air raid warden so we housed all the spare stirrup pumps and buckets and, um, all that memorabilia for fighting fires. So we learned how to handle incendiary bombs if they fell. I don’t know where they were going to fall but we didn’t get any. As I say, the only three bombs we got were dropped in the centre of Witney which was a mile and a half a mile away across the valley. [background noise]
CB: Your father was originally in the RAF but he was on a —
BS: A seven and five year engagement.
CB: Which meant what?
BS: Seven years and five years, seven years in the colours and five years on the reserve.
CB: OK.
BS: And his seven years would have ended in 1935, um, and he and Mr Trafford that I spoke of earlier were employed as civilians at RAF Cardington by then and subsequently was — he was posted from Cardington to RAF Brize Norton, um, but as far as I know Mr Trafford carried on working at Cardington, as far — you know.
CB: And what did your father do at Brize Norton?
BS: He was a civilian air raid — airframe fitter.
CB: Oh, he was. Right. So, how long did he work there?
BS: Oh, until he, he retired in — at sixty I think and got — or was made redundant around about aged sixty and got a job as a postman and delivered the, the mail around Witney for a few years.
CB: When the war, when the war came was he not recalled to the RAF?
BS: Because he’d got a reserved occupation at Brize Norton.
CB: He was in the reserves but he had a reserved occupation?
BS: Had reserved occupation so he wasn’t called up.
CB: How extraordinary.
BS: So he was really rather fortunate.
CB: Yes. OK.
BS: And during that time he used to bring home for me bullets and bits and pieces that he’d picked up on the airfield and I used to strip them down and used the contents to make fireworks which was a little bit naughty but, er, we did, and I learned while I was at school in Witney, um, how to make gunpowder. And that was rather convenient because the chemist would always sell us, um, potassium perm— potassium nitrate because you could use potassium nitrate for curing rabbit pelts, um, which was why we bought the potassium nitrate but, of course, we made our own charcoal by burning willow twigs in a chocolate, a cocoa tin, and we got our sulphur from Early’s Mills because Earlys used to use — they’d got big wooden sheds that they used to hang the blankets in to bleach them and they bleached them by burning raw sulphur and, of course, there was always a lot of odd bits of sulphur sticks hanging around and we used to get our sulphur from that. So the combinations we had to work out of sulphur and charcoal and potassium nitrate, we had to work out what the thing was to make a sensible bang, which we succeeded in doing.
CB: To what extent did your teacher know about these activities?
BS: He didn’t. He didn’t. He didn’t even tell us the combination of the — um, making the gunpowder. We had to work that out ourselves but I did take an interest in chemistry while I was at, um, that central school in Witney. And my gardening master, Mr Goldsmith, er, was a German Jew refugee, who taught us gardening and he was superb. He roused my interest in chemistry and biological, um, chemistry and that sort of thing and roused, as I say, roused my whole concept of chemistry, especially biological chemistry, which I never followed up. But um —
CB: So how long were you at this school for?
BS: Until I was fourteen, until I was — and then my — I had an extension. I was the only one — there were two of us, um, had homework for a number of years and two of us managed to stay on or were invited to stay on for an extra year, so I was fifteen by the time I actually left, but there was only two of us in school who stayed on ‘till fifteen. [cough] And my mum then got me a job with Mr Mallard who was an optical manufacturer or a — and I was employed as an optical lens maker.
BT: Grinding up.
BS. Grinding lenses, um, for prescriptions for glasses and I worked there. I’d taken the exams to join the Royal Air Force which was my father’s oranis— organisation, um, he had guided my studies at school and guided the fact that I had homework and nobody else did, um, and made arrangements for me to sit the Halton apprentice entrance examination which I think had he not been in the service I wouldn’t have got through to the, um, invitation stage because I’m sure I didn’t pass the exam and, er, I got to Halton, as I said, in February 1945.
CB: OK. [background noise]
BS: The day war broke out —
CB: Yes?
BT: [laugh]
BS: It was a lovely summer’s day and I came — it was a Sunday and I came in from the garden, having been digging an air raid shelter, to find my mother in tears.
BT: In tears.
BS: And I wondered why she was crying and she said told me, she said, ‘Because we’re at war.’
CB: And then what? What happened then?
BS: Well she stopped crying eventually and, er, we carried on building or digging this air raid shelter and putting some, um, corrugated iron over the top to put a lid on it, um, but it wasn’t a very good air raid shelter and we didn’t follow it up to —.
CB: Did you ever use it?
BS: No. No.
CB: Right.
BS: There was no evidence of the war in Stotfold while we were there and we went to — as I say we moved to Witney in Oxfordshire in 1940 anyway, late 1940, and I think that when those three bombs dropped in Witney it was an aircraft returning from Coventry, um, and didn’t want to go home with his bombs so he just ditched them so he could get home quicker, which you can’t blame him for I suppose.
CB: Right, so you were close to Brize Norton airfield which still operational —
BS: Five miles away.
CB: Yep. And so were — how were you aware of what was going on? Did it become busy and did it get bombed? Or what happened?
BS: No. I — we became aware of it getting busy at Brize Norton when they starting practising towing gliders, um, Hamilcars and —
CB: Horsas.
BS: Horsas, yeah, and Hectors, but the little small ones that they, they practiced with, and, er, they were towing those with Albemarle aircraft and, and we were aware of them training with those gliders. No concept of what they were for, of course, um, but that was the only evidence really we saw. I do remember going to boy scouts. We used to go to boy scouts on a Monday night and I remember that during one of the winters but I can’t remember which it would have been, ‘42 perhaps, ’4—, can’t remember but I remember standing outside autumn-ish, so it was a cold dark night and standing outside the scout hut and my patrol leader saying, ‘Ah, they’re Jerries you know.’ We heard the drone of these aircraft flying overhead but we didn’t see anything but I’m fairly confident they were on their way. We would have been on the route to Coventry and it might well have been one of the raids in that direction that we were aware of but no idea of what it was all about. But that was the only connection really. During the war we got, er, evidence of, um, Americans in the town, stationed, and they were stationed on the church green I remember and we used to scrounge chewing gum off of them and, um, that sort of thing but they, they didn’t stay there all that long but I remember there was an air raid shelter in Witney, um, hard by the church green I remember and we were rather concerned that if a bomb dropped near that it might well not be man enough to hold up and, er, I remember hearing around about that time of a, an air raid shelter that I imagined to be very similar actually being hit by a bomb and I don’t quite — that would have come in the news but I can remember picturing the event and what would have happened if the bomb had hit that particular air raid shelter, um, which was — yeah, eye opening, but that was the only concern.
CB: At, um, school to what extent did the pupils discuss the war?
BS: Not very much. No, very, very little. We were very only slightly concerned. We used to dig for victory of course. We had one half day a week at the allotment that the school ran, um, and my father I know was keen on cultivating food in our garden and he also took a, an allotment on, fairly close to where we lived and, of course, rationing was of some consequence. I don’t remember ever being hungry, um, and I do remember later on going down on my dad’s bike to do the shopping on a Saturday morning and going from shop to shop to find out what they’d got under the counter, um, like chocolate and sweets and so on and so forth and I used to go down on a Saturday morning to buy exotic, as far as I was concerned, exotic cakes, cream cakes and jam sponges and things and I used to buy a quantity of these for the neighbours and cycle home with this half a dozen or so cakes but they were only available in this one particular bakers which was rather fascinating. [background noise] [laugh]
CB: So being a commercial minded sort of chap did you have a little business running on this sort of thing?
BS: No. What I, I did do, I used to go down to the River Windrush and catch crayfish and my mum used to cook them, drop them into a big boil— boiling vat, a saucepan of boiling water, and cook these crayfish and I’d go round these fifty houses and I used to sell them at a penny each. So yes I did, yeah.
CB: And what was rationing like?
BS: I was never really aware. I, you know, I wouldn’t know what an ounce of butter looked like anyway, you know. I don’t ever remember going short. If I wanted a slice of bread I had one. If I wanted — you know. Alright we used to get a bit of dripping here and there and — to go on the bread but you lived as it came, didn’t you? You know, you lived as — I, as I say I don’t ever remember going hungry. And we had rabbit of course and, and we used to — we bred our own rabbits, or at least my dad did, so we used to have a rabbit fairly frequently.
CB: Did you go out catching them as well?
BS: No. I think we may have — my mum may have bought a rabbit from time to time but I, I’m not really very — much aware of that.
CB: So you were due to leave school at fourteen.
BS: Stayed on.
CB: But you had an extension until you were fifteen but you had an extension to fifteen —
BS: Yes.
CB: What was the purpose of that?
BS: Um, the essence was that I was qualifying or training, if you like, to be able to pass this exam, this entrance exam for the RAF and, um, I could take the entrance exam when I was fifteen and a half, um, and my dad wanted to be sure that I was capable of passing it. So yes, I stayed on to train for the examination I suppose for the entrance exam for the RAF.
CB: And what happened when you took the exam?
BS: [slight laugh] I wish I could remember. As I say, I was called forward in the February of ’45 to come to Halton for interview and attestation, if that was to be, selection if you like and attestation, um, and we were all marched into the — what is now the Trenchard Museum which was the Henderson Grove Gymnasium at the time, for sorting out and, um, allocation of trades, and I had applied to be a radio technician and by the time they got down to me they’d got all the radio technicians they wanted and they said, ‘No. There isn’t a vacancy for you. Would you like to be an electrician?’ So I said, ‘Yes please.’ But it wasn’t my first choice but I think I was rather lucky to get that.
CB: So then when you’d got that how did that work? They had, er, an initial interviewing and kitting out and then what?
BS: Well, well initially of course we had to get kitted, kitted out. We were put, we were into groups which they’d labelled A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I ,J, K, parties of about sixteen, a roomful of about sixteen chaps who had been given their trades, and then we were moved into — we got our kits and so on and had to stamp them all up with our service numbers and, er, and then we were allocated rooms according to trade and, er, most of my electrician mates went into two rooms but there wasn’t room for myself and my mate John Rouchier [?]. We were in another block and then subsequently [emphasis] moved, fairly quickly actually, but moved down to another room full of engine [emphasis] fitters so we were the only two electricians in a room of elec— of engine fitters, er, which was in some ways disappointing but it didn’t really matter. We still got matey with the people who were in the room and you know —
CB: How many people in the room?
BS: Sixteen.
CB: And this is in a block?
BS: Of six rooms.
CB: Of six rooms, OK.
BS: And with an inside bunk and an outside bunk which was occupied by a senior apprentice NCO apprentice. Normally you had a sergeant apprentice in the inside bunk and then, um, a leading apprentice was in charge of the room outside, in one of the — in the first bed by the bunk, if you like, but then the sergeant apprentice who was in charge of the block would be in one of the outside bunks.
CB: And, and this was part of the process with a senior person to keep control?
BS: Oh yes. A, a senior entry of course, um, which made sense. They were almost like schoolboy monitors I suppose.
CB: So there were several barrack blocks, um, with this?
BS: We occupied two barrack blocks.
CB: OK. So how many people in total? This is your entry, number —
BS: Fifty at entry.
CB: Number fifty entry, yeah.
BS: Well about two hundred and — I can’t recall now. About two hundred and fifty of us stayed at Halton. About fifty more actually went to Cranwell as the RAF — as the radio and radar fitters. The precise numbers of course I’ve got recorded there.
CB: In your book. Yeah. So here you are —
BS: Go on. OK.
CB: Yes, so here you are allocated accommodation. What did, what did you do? You, you were conducted into the RAF in a sequence so how did that work?
BS: Oh the attestation sequence you’re referring to. We were taken up in groups, essentially room groups, into the upstairs of the NAAFI, um, and sat at a desk on which there was our attestation papers which we had to read and sign and we were obliged to, to do the oath of, um, allegiance to the Crown and we were allocated at that point our service numbers of course. [background noise]
CB: Uniform?
BS: Oh, we were in uniform by that time, er, that was before we were issued with our uniforms, yes of course, yeah.
CB: So then you had to get your uniforms and how distinctive were those? OK.
BS: I need time. [background noise]
CB: The reason I asked you about the clothing because it’s distinctive within the trades in some ways and within the speciality of being an apprentice. So how did that go?
BS: The significant thing about uniforms initially was that the only distinction we had that we were apprentices, other than any other kind of member of the Royal Air Force, was that we were issued with the four-bladed propeller wheel badge which we was to sew onto our left arm, um, of our tunics. We were issued with two tunics and when we got our kit wheel badges to go on the great coat and our two tunics and cap badges, of course, to go on our forage cap and our service dress cap, the peaked service dress cap. We were also issued with a coloured band to go round our service dress cap and one to go round our forage cap which determined which squadron we belonged to and we became D Squadron of 1 Wing with a brown, um, a chocolate brown band, which was fairly soon changed because of objections to, um, a chocolate brown and orange checked band and that was then changed to a pale blue one when we became A Squadron of 2 Wing. Then we moved to 3 Wing and got an orange band and a red disk behind the cap badge to indicate that we were A Squadron of now 3 Wing. So from being a squadron identification the band became a wing identification at that particular time. [pause] [background noise]
CB: So we’ve talked about your uniform, er, and the variations of it but in practical terms here you are in a. In a training establishment and b. In a technical training establishment which tends to be dirty. So how did they deal with that?
BS: Well we were issued with a pair of overalls we called them. I believe you called them —
CB: Overalls is fine. Yeah.
BS: And they were changed if they got dirty but essentially once a week, collectively, and when they came back from the laundry, um, you tried to pick out a pair that a. Fitted you and b. Weren’t too torn but, yeah, it was, um, pot luck what you got so, you know, so occasionally you finished up with a rough old pair of overalls that had got no buttons or method of fixing but those we wore at workshops, when we went to where we did the practical. When we went to schools, of course, where we did the academic side of the training we just wore ordinary uniform, er, even when we went into the laboratories in schools but of course we weren’t doing anything particularly grubby in schools and —
CB: When you say in schools it’s because there are departments of technical training that you call the school?
BS: The school was where the academic subjects were handled which were maths and science, um, mechanics. Science tended to deal with, um, your trade topics and the — we had a general studies which did the history of the RAF and the history of flying and general topics, um, including little bits of Shakespeare and, as I say, they were called general studies and one of our major tasks during the two years that we did of schools — ‘cause although the apprenticeship was three years only two years was spent doing academic subjects, and we qualified, those of us who were good enough, qualified for the First Ordinary National Certificate. But the task, as far as I was concerned, the main task we had to do in the academic line was to assemble an essay of, I don’t know, I don’t remember, five thousand words or something, fairly extensive essay we had to dream up and to those of us who hadn’t then or even now hadn’t a good command of the English language that was a bit of a challenge but there you go, I did one, and managed to pass. But as I say the school’s activity, academic activity went on for two years when we sat the First National Certificate which included at that [emphasis] time, um, maths and science essentially and, er, general studies wasn’t included, I don’t think but, er, as I say that, that was just two years, um, what was it? I can’t — [background noise]
CB: And we’ve talked about academic stuff and we’ve talked about practical but, to put it into context, there were lots of other things you had to do, like PT and marching and so on, so just take us through would you? A typical day. You wake up and what did you do?
BS: Well I think some of it can be put into context by a little rhyme that was actually printed in a 1939 issue of the “Haltonian” magazine, which starts off with, “In the dwellings of the birdmen and the barrack blocks behind them grew up the handsome air apprentice 5620 Hiawatha. Every morning at the sunrise baring, blaring bugles broke his slumbers, roused him from his iron bedstead, bestead hard and bedstead cruel, air apprentice for the use of. Next would find him, um, eating flesh, round the fleshpots.” No, no. “Bitterly —” I’ve ruined it. [laugh] [unclear]
CB: So you’d wake up in the morning and what would happen?
BS: With the, the reveille.
CB: Yep. Which is on the tannoy and the tannoy is a loudspeaker?
BS: No, it was a proper, proper —
CB: Bugle?
BS: Trumpet, proper trumpet, and you’d go and get washed and dressed and shaved, if you had to, and you’d go with your mug and irons (your knife, fork and spoon and cup), walk up to the mess (we had our own mess hall) for breakfast, and you’d queue up for your porridge and cornflakes or whatever and egg and bacon. We were very well fed actually, um, and normally [emphasis] they were issued — they were handed out by a mess cook, who was someone from the room who was given the duty of picking up a tray of eggs and bacon or whatever from the servery, and bringing it to the table to distribute to, to his own room at that table. After breakfast, um, we’d almost certainly be called out for parade, to form up to march down to schools or to workshops, most frequently behind either the pipe band or the brass band. We’d be carrying our books if we were going to school in our satchel, in our side pack, or if we were going to workshops we’d carry our overalls in our side pack, um, sometimes we would wear a cape as a — in bandolier fashion round in case it was going to rain. If the forecast was good then we’d just parade with nothing but we’d carry a cape if it was suggested it was going to rain, um, in bandolier fashion as I said, round our shoulder and, of course, if it was actually raining the cape would be open and we would be wearing it as you see it on the war memorial in Green Park. And we marched down to either schools or to workshop, schools which are now in a building called, now called Kermode Hall. Group Captain, Air Commodore Kermode was very responsible, very much responsible, for the development of the education of apprentices at Halton and very highly regarded too and, as I said, we were split into smaller classes because the classes were smaller anyway. We were split into classes of about thirteen. In my entry there were thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three electricians and we were split into three classes a, b and c, and we would all go, we would all go to school together and the days we were going to workshops we would all do the training but in, as I say, in the separate classes in workshops. [background noise]
CB: So after you return from breakfast and you’ve got everything you need for the day then what did you do?
BS: We would either dress to by paraded to go for — down to workshops or schools, in which case we paraded outside at trumpet call, um, we would be inspected to check that our buttons and boots had been cleaned and that we hadn’t — didn’t need a haircut or if we did we were informed that we would need to get one. And then, as I say, we would march down behind to — onto the square to march down to workshops or — behind the pipe or brass band. On the days that we were going to do PT, which would be probably two or three times a week, we would parade outside in PT kit and separately [emphasis] and then just be marched off to a venue, maybe on the square, maybe in the gymnasium, to do a series of, um, conventional exercises. On other occasions we would stay behind to do marching drill on the square with rifles and bayonets. We had eighteen inch bayonets at that time we were issued with, which again was a piece of equipment we had to keep clean, and we had the SMLE rifles which were kept in a room in a rifle rack with a Horsa [?] select — secured with a padlock by the leading apprentice and as I say we would go onto the square and do marching drill and practice and, of course, and initially there were several members of the entry who found it difficult to coordinate their left and right arms with their left and right legs but most of them overcame that difficulty. I suspect those that didn’t departed because occasionally there’d be an empty bed space which would be a bit of a puzzle and I remember that we occupied, John Rouchier [?] and I, occupied two bed spaces in the engine apprentices room 4:2, Block 4 Room 2 that is, and we occupied two bed spaces that had suddenly become vacant and it was many years afterwards I discovered that the two people who had occupied those spaces had actually had an early discharge from the Royal Air force and I know not the reason for that and neither did anyone else in the room. There were just two empty bed spaces and we, John Rouchier [?] and I, were moved out of one block into this block, into these two empty bed spaces, just to make up the numbers but nobody spoke about where the two lads had gone. Now that occurred to, I think, half a dozen or so people in the entry.
CB: Out of thirty-two?
BS: No, out of two hundred and fifty or whatever that I know of.
CB: Of the entry, OK.
BS: That I’m aware of, yeah, and when I was doing the research for the entry I identified those people who’d been, um, discharged very early on and realised that the empty bed spaces I became aware of had been occupied by these people because they were in the trade groups where the empty bed spaces appeared which was rather strange and I still l haven’t got to the bottom of that mystery.
CB: Just one question on that. We talked about after breakfast [clears throat] —
BS: Yes.
CB: You go back to the room. At what point did you make the bed and how?
BS: Oh we made that before we went to breakfast.
CB: Right, and how did you do it?
BS: Well the beds that we had were McDonalds which were cast iron frames with strip, wrought iron slats, across and three so-called biscuits which were, er, coir filled paillasse type things which, um, covered —
CB: As a mattress.
BS: As a mattress. A, a three-part mattress if you like.
BT: Come on everybody, I’ll have those. [sound of crockery]
CB: Yep, yep.
BS: And we used to match, marry one of them, wrap it up in a blanket as a seat and two of them married, the other two married up in a blanket as a backdrop and behind the backdrop would be the, the two folded sheets and a pillow and a pilaster which we had so the bed was made up armchair fashion, um, because the McDonald bed actually had four wheels on the front part and the half at the front pushed under the rear part and that made, with the two, with the three mattress biscuits, an armchair and, of course, your locker overhead, locker, your steel locker was occupied by your — one pair of your PT pants and a PT vest or singlet and a cap comforter and — I can’t recall what the other item was but there were four items that had to be laid out in pristine form, biscuit form almost, in your locker and your mug and irons delicately displayed beside it and nothing else on the shelves. You had a box, we had a box at the end of our bed, that stayed under the bed during the day of course, but the box at the end of our bed that contained the rest of our kit, um, which comprised of what? A couple of shirts and six collars and bits and pieces but that was kept in a trunk, if you like, a wooden trunk, at the end of the bed. Not, um, a particularly comfortable situation.
CB: No. So the, the idea of the bed folding the way it did was so that you really had a chair to sit on.
BS: I’m not sure if that was the idea but that’s what it became and of course what it did do was to reveal the rest of the lino, linoleum, which was highly polished.
CB: Right. So that’s the next question I was going to put. What was the means by which the barrack room was cleaned?
BS: Well, there was a list at the end of the room where each occupant was allocated a task, um, two or three people were allocated deck centre, which meant that the people who lived in the room were responsible for their own piece of bed space but the centre deck which was the part beyond the end of your half of the bed when it was folded was the centre deck and they were, two or three people were responsible for polishing that, putting down the polish and buffing it up, so you could almost see your face in it. But of course with dark brown lino, linoleum you couldn’t actually see your face in it. And the toilets were allocated to individuals. The wash hand basins was a separate job. Brasses was a separate job, that was door knobs and taps and that sort of thing, were a separate task and, as far as I know, the people who did brasses actually provided — or did they? Some of them provided their own metal polish. There was metal polish occasionally available. The same as there was always floor polish available in adequate quantities. And then of course we normally walked on the centre deck with floor pads, pieces of torn up blanket, so that you skidded over the floor on pieces of blanket to keep the polish on the floor. So yeah, one chap was allocated, for instance, to clean a bath and another chap — because there were two baths in the toilet block in the centre of the building, or centre of the floor. Two rooms shared a toilet facility, three toilets, two stand-up, er, urinals, I think two baths, um, with six wash basins I think, and a drying room, which was always heated of course, or usually heated, um, where you could hang your smalls if you happened to have enough soap to wash them.
CB: And then how was the polishes shininess maintained? What was the process?
BS: With the floor — essentially with the floor pads. I mean we did have a big bumper that was initially used, which was a big piece of cast iron on a stick, bristle stick, a short stiff bristle brush, which was dragged or pushed over the floor to rub the polish in initially but once the initial polish was there we tended to maintain it with using floor pads which we walked about or skated about on.
CB: And how was the level of cleanliness maintained and checked?
BS: Well it was inspected by the sergeant apprentice on that floor, um, and initially of course by the, by the leading apprentice of your room, who checked your individual tasks but, as I say, the sergeant apprentice for the block would inspect the three lots within the block on three floors and he would inspect the cleanliness of the whole of the block, essentially. I mean once in a while, I don’t know whether it would have been once a month, I don’t remember the frequency, but of course we’d get a squadron commander’s inspection but he didn’t inspect every day but the sergeant apprentice was responsible for the block and he would make sure that it was clean.
CB: So were these tasks to do and the ablutions were the less popular but was there a rota for people so everybody did it in the end? Or how did it work?
BS: Generally speaking they were voluntarily selected, yeah, generally speaking they — there were people who volunteered to do the urinals and there were people who volunteered to do the hand basins so generally it wasn’t difficult. Yes there were several that seemed more attractive than the others. There were several I avoided, um, without difficulty.
CB: So you were in an avoidance mode —
BS: Absolutely.
CB: So were there some people who pulled their weight better than others and how did the system work?
BS: You didn’t — yes of course there were but you didn’t really notice it because there were usually enough volunteers to do those jobs that seemed more distasteful to you, you know.
CB: So if you — were there occasions when you failed inspections or were they always successful?
BS: Oh there were rare occasions when something which would to the inspectors seem serious and you were invited to do it again so you would have a second “bull night” as they were referred to but, er, they didn’t occur very often.
CB: So just to clarify would you? What age are you or —
BS: Well we were allowed to join between fifteen and a half and seventeen and a half to become apprentices so when I joined at fifteen and three quarters I was one of the younger ones in the entry. Many of the other people in my entry were seventeen plus, up to seventeen and a half, and of course had been to grammar school and they’d got their school certificates and so on and were, educationally, streets ahead of me but I didn’t think I noticed at the time. Only subsequently it become obvious that I was less well educated than they were.
CB: Right we’ll pause there. [interview stopped at 0:50:57:1 and restarted 0:50:59.1 ] What about a bit of marching. You had to do a bit of marching in parades. How did that work?
BS: Well, initially it was tricky because at first for a hundred, or a hundred and fifty blokes, or whatever to coordinate and do everything on time without shouting out one pause, two pause, three, whatever, took a time to develop and I think most of us entered into it with a reasonable willingness, er, to try and coordinate it and I remember how proud I [emphasis] felt when we were actually at the Albert Hall and we performed the wheel of remembrance, or something, and we actually marched, the apprentices, for Lady Propeller[?] and we actually marched around in the centre of the Albert Hall, and I remember how proud I was to be part of that. And yeah, it was — I’d like to think, and nobody I think has actually said it, but I’m fairly confident that the origin of the Queen’s Colour Squadron was developed from the order-less, um, drill that we [emphasis] did at Halton, um, rifle drill and so on. We did practice for one of the events at the Albert Hall, command-less drill, rifle drill, and that was before the Queen’s Colour Squadron was formed. Now of course they do it expertly ‘cause they practice it every day.
CB: Yeah. Just to clarify, that the Queens Colour Squadron is the, um, parading —
BS: Royal Air Force Regiment’s —
CB: Go on.
BS: Representatives for celebrations —
CB: Special occasions.
BS: Ceremonial occasions.
CB: Yeah, and tend to be the people who receive dignitaries on airfields?
BS: Yes. Well that’s what they have done. And yeah, of course when they were stationed at Uxbridge with the Royal Central — with the RAF Central Band, um, and the RAF Central Band greeted all the dignitaries who visited this county anyway.
CB: Yeah, yeah.
BS: And, er, I think the Queens Colour Squadron, um, was probably more associated with the RAF Central Band than it was with the RAF Regiment which of course they were part of.
CB: So we’ve talked about your time at Halton. How long were you there?
BS: Three years.
CB: So that’s from February 1945 —
BS: Until March ’48.
CB: Right, and when you got to the end of the three years what was the culmination of that training?
BS: We thought that was the end of our training but we were actually posted, most of us, posted to RAF St Athan, 32 MU, where we were, supposedly, doing further training, continuation training, under supervision or guidance but we were actually doing our trade tasks. Initially I was servicing a flight simulator called a Link Trainer and initially I was responsible for the, er, vacuum motors that drove those machines and they were completely overhauled and serviced at St Athan. I subsequently moved to the Aircraft Electrical Servicing Squadron and I was then servicing the UKX generators, we were completely overhauling UKX generators, which were fitted to the Lancasters. They were the DC and AC, alternating current and direct current generators, that supplied the power for the Lancasters and we were completely overhauling those. And I was at the stripping down and scraping end and my mate was at the far end actually packing them up in greaseproof paper, um, ready to be taken back to stores to be reissued as new generators. But we also started to service E5A generators which were fitted to the North American Harvard which was used for air crew training, pilot training, at places like Cranwell and my boss required me to support that when we started to do them by producing a, a breakdown display of the E5A generators. So the first one we got I had to strip down and make the tools to strip it down with because, of course, it was an American machine so we hadn’t got the necessary spanners and tools to do it. And I mounted that on a display board to show everybody what all the parts were and then we started to service those generators and, er, we also serviced the control panels for the Lancaster, um, electrical control panels that is. That was a very pleasant time, yeah. My boss was a warrant officer, Lockheart, Tubby Lockheart. He was football crazy and I didn’t play football and the only thing that he and I had in common was that when he walked passed by my desk he’d say —, my bench, he’d say, ‘Have you got your — get your hair cut Smith.’ Which was something that plagued me for all my service career and has followed me through life, um, everyone I see tends to suggest, if they don’t actually verbalise it, they tend to suggest I need a haircut, which I think usually do.
BT: You do.
CB: So how long were you at St Athan?
BS: Just the twelve months before I was posted to RAF Cranwell, where again we were servicing KX generators, which were fitted to the Prentice aircraft, which were twin seats flying training aircraft, Percival Prentice, um, but that’s odd because we were servicing those generators but we weren’t servicing the E5As which were fitted to the Harvards, which they were also flying as trainers, advanced trainers. But in our workshop at Cranwell, as I say, we were servicing the KX generator which was the one fitted to the Prentice. And I was promoted to corporal. Took my LAC exam and passed that while I was at Cranwell. And then when they introduced the new trades’ structure I’d been promoted to corporal and my immediate boss was a flight sergeant, who had been a balloon operator, and had just come off course to be an electrician. So when I applied to become a corporal technician he was responsible for taking the trade test and he said, ‘I’ll take your trade test but will you bring your books along? And you can — I’ll ask you the questions and if you can’t answer them we’ll look them up in your book.’ Which we did but that was a very interesting interview we had and, yeah, I passed. He couldn’t really fail me, could he? He’d only just got you LAC himself.
CB: So when did you get the next promotion?
BS: Oh [slight laugh] not until I came back from Malta in ’54. I came back from Malta in ’54, um, I’d been turned down for my third in Malta. My immediate boss said, ‘First of all you’re never here and second you always want a haircut.’ My immediate boss, my proper boss, said, ‘I’m sorry about your promotion corporal.’ He said, ‘Had I realised you were in that zone for promotion you would have had a better assessment than I gave you.’ So my promotion didn’t come through while I was in Malta. It came through while I was at Honington, in Bomber Command and, er, and my boss turned that down but he didn’t give me a reason.
BT: Because your hair was too long.
BS: [laugh] In the meantime — probably because my hair was too long, um, but subsequently it came through again and, in the meantime I’d got my senior tech, which gave me more pay than I got as a sergeant anyway. And he said to me, ‘Your promotion to sergeant has come through. Would you like to take it?’ So I said, ‘Oh, I need time to think about it Sir.’ I went back later on and said, ‘Yes please.’ Because I thought well if at last you think I’m worthy of it I’ll have it so I reconverted from senior tech back to sergeant which was —
CB: In practical terms —
BS: An admin rank.
CB: Right.
BS: Essentially an admin rank.
CB: Yeah, so they’re both the same status.
BS: Yeah but one had more admin responsibilities than the other.
CB: This is still at Honington?
BS: At Honington.
CB: OK. So what were you actually doing at Honington?
BS: Well I was by then essentially a ground electrician, um, although I had been trained as an electrician to do aircraft electrics, when the new trade structure came in and I applied for my corporal technician board, they said to me, ‘What do you want to be, air or ground?’ And I said, ‘Well was trained as both so I’d like to stay both.’ ‘You can’t do that.’ Well the corporal tech pay was bigger than, higher than the corporals, so I said, ‘Well, what’s my choice?’ ‘Well you can be either, air or ground, but one or the other.’ So I said, ‘Alright, I’ll be ground. I don’t need the responsibility of signing Form 700 for aircraft and put my life on the line.’ So I backed out [background noise] and became a ground electrician, which essentially was looking after aircraft dead batteries anyway. So yeah but I didn’t have the responsibility of signing the serviceability rolls for aircraft which I wasn’t too sad about.
CB: What were the aircraft at Honington?
BS: Initially Canberras, er, being in Bomber Command, they had the front line bomber at that time which was the Canberra. Before I moved away from there in ‘56, ‘57, ‘57 I think, they were starting to have the, um, Vickers Valiant, the first of the V, V bomber force, yeah? I didn’t see the Vulcans or the Valiants come into service —
CB: You mean Vulcans or Victors. You saw the Valiant come into service.
BS: The Valiant come into service —
CB: But you didn’t see the Victors or —
BS: The Victors or the Vu— or the Vulcan.
CB: Vulcan.
BS: Yeah.
CB: Right. So when you finished, when did you move from Honington?
BS: Um, well I realised my service, my service was coming to an end and I thought I ought to sign on. I applied to sign on and they wouldn’t have me, presumably because my hair needed cutting [slight laugh], so I thought, ‘Oh dear what am I going to do at the end of my twelve years’ service. What am I going to do?’ So I saw an advert in our routine orders asking for people to volunteer for service with flight simulators, which I did, I applied for, and they said, ‘Well you haven’t got long enough to do.’ So I said, ‘How long do I need?’ ‘Well you need at least three years Chief.’ Sergeant, senior tech as I was then. ‘Oh well alright.’ So I applied sign on for three years and they took me. So I went down then to Redifon in Crawley and I was on detachment down in civvy digs for three, for twelve months. It was a three month course. It lasted six months. And then I stayed there almost on my own because the other people got simulators and moved on. My simulator got cancelled so I stayed in civvy digs in Crawley for twelve months, um, which was great, going to work at Redifon, virtually my own boss, and then one day I got a — somebody called, ‘Phone call from Fighter Command, somebody wants to speak to you.’ So I went to the telephone, ‘Good heavens.’ Said Brian Caplan, ‘Are you still there?’ So I said, ‘Yes Sir’. He said, ‘Well you can’t stay there. You’ll have to go back to your parent unit.’ Which was Coltishall at that time so I’d been posted when I moved onto simulators to Coltishall. I said, ‘Well, I don’t need to go to Coltishall. There’s nothing for me there, Sir.’ I said, ‘My family, I’ve moved my family down to Aylesbury, and I know nothing of Fighter Command or whatever.’ He said, ‘Well, where do you want to go?’ So I said, ‘Halton would be nice.’ And he said, ‘I can’t post you to Halton.’ He said, ‘It’s not in the Command.’ I’m now on the back foot. I said, ‘Well, surely Sir you can find me a little corner at Fighter Command?’ ‘Oh, that’s an idea.’ He said, ‘I’ll ring you back.’ He rang me back ten minutes later and said, ‘Pack your bags. You’re posted to Fighter Command with effect from Monday.’ So I went to Fighter Command at Bentley Priory and spent twelve — spent two years there on detachment in Fighter Command’s, um, aeronautical, er, aircraft engineering set up, Command Head Quarters, with some quite serious responsibilities which I thoroughly enjoyed.
CB: We’ll have a break there for a mo?
BS: Yeah, please. Wait a minute don’t, don’t switch the thing off. [background noise]
CB: You’ve done really well. Now when you went to Bentley Priory of course you had a different role altogether, so what was that.
BS: Absolutely. Well I was essentially the coffee boy for two warrant officers, a flight lieutenant and a squadron leader, who were responsible for the instrument and electrical activities within Fighter Command or all Fighter Command RAF stations. Warrant Officer Lendy [?] was the electrician expert and had come up from, er, previously come up from a Hawker Hunter squadron and had a lot of expertise with Hawker Hunters and in the map drawer in the office he had diagrams, electrical diagrams, for all the Hunters in Fighter Command with all the modifications that they’d had on the relevant diagrams drawn, up to date, with all the terminations marked so that he could actually see the, the modification state of all our Hunters in the Fighter — in the Command. He was pretty good. I know at one time we’d had problems from one station, um, about double power failure warning lights that generate a failure warning light, both of them coming on, and the squadron responsible had been checking for that, um, repeated failure and we kept getting defect reports in the Fighter Command and Doug Lendy [?], this latest one we had, he said, ‘This is ridiculous.’ He took home the diagram relevant to that aircraft. He came back to the office the following morning and he said to me, ‘Do you know about this?’ So I said, ‘Yes Sir.’ He said, ‘Well, read that report again.’ So I read the report. He said, ‘Right now point to the problem.’ I thought, ‘Good Heavens.’ So I looked at the diagram. ‘Well there’. ‘Of course it bloody is.’ He says. It was the earth bolt that took the two power failure warning lights’ negative leads to earth. That was the only point that they’d got in common so they could only both fail —
CB: Because of that.
BS: At that point. Checked up, rang, rang the flight sergeant on the squadron and he said, ‘Yes, of course we’ve checked the earth bolt.’ He said, ‘Well go and check it yourself.’ So he did and came back and reported, ‘Yes, it’s the problem.’ They’d stripped the earth bolt down which contained lots of other earth wires as well in a stack and progressively, as this fault had occurred, the electrician had gone out and tightened down the nut, cured the problem, tightened down the nut, cured the problem but of course each time he tightened it down on the corrosion, the burning and corrosion, and each time it was burning through. So he’d solved it at Bentley Priory several miles away. He’d solved the problem that they’d been struggling with for months.
CB: Because they didn’t do the job right.
BS: Because they didn’t do the job right. But they replaced all the — all the terminations on the cables and cleaned up the earth bolt properly and put it all back and tightened it down properly. Problem gone. So that was Doug Lendy [?]. A man I kind of admired, um, and then as I say —
CB: So your role was quite broad though.
BS: Absolutely broad, yeah, and one could argue it was outside my pay scale.
CB: OK.
BS: I had responsibilities way above my station [slight laugh] which —
CB: So you had to go on sorties to stations sometimes. What were they?
BS: Well, we started to develop electronic, um, combined electronic centres on the Fighter Command stations. Bomber Command had already done it for their, their stations. They had, Bomber Command, um, electronic servicing centres which did all the electrics and radio and radar and they started to develop one for Fighter — especially for Fighter Command and my boss was responsible, of course, for the layout of the power supplies and air supplies, electrical supplies, all of that sort of thing within the electronic servicing centre and where things were serviced and how power was taken to each bench, control panels and so on and so forth. And I remember making him little paper lozenges so he could lay them out on this map to decide how these pieces of equipment were going to be laid out in the electronic centre. And then he started sending me out to where these centres were being built, in particular one at Leconfield, and I remember at one stage I went up to inspect this situation at Leconfield and, looking at the electrical layout, I said to the foreman who was there, ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘There’s supposed to be a hole in this wall. There’s supposed to be window in this wall.’ ‘Not on my diagram.’ He said. So I said, ‘Well there’s supposed to be a window. It’s supposed to be this size and whatever, and it’s supposed to be double glazed for heat — for sound control and so on.’ Because the hydraulic generators were being tested in that room and this was where the test bench was observed, was observing it, but the hydraulic generators were noisy. They were to be powering the blue steel, um, equipment.
CB: The stand-off bomb.
BS: Yeah and — but why was that in Fighter Command? Anyway, never mind, um, that was, that was what was, it was the noise abatement thing — and, ‘Well,’ He said, ‘If there’s got to be a window if you draw it and sign it it’ll go in.’ So I drew it in. This was a Ministry of Defence document, plan, for this multimillion pound building and I’m drawing this, drawing this window in and signing it. ‘OK’. He said and it was done and it was incorporated in the other Fighter Command Control Centres. It was cheap tech. I didn’t have that authority but I gave the instruction and he was quite happy to take my signature.
CB: It was needed and you did it.
BS: It was needed and it was done. Nobody ever said anything.
CB: Then another thing you said you did was to do AOC pre- inspections?
BS: Yes, er, I did two or three of those and I’d be greeted at the guard room by a very, um, dutiful policeman. He’d say, ‘Oh good afternoon Chief and I’ll take across to the tech adj.’ Who would be a flight lieutenant and I’d go across to the tech adj with him and knock on the door and we’d, I’d walk into the tech adj’s office. ‘Come in chief. Sit down.’ We’d have a cup of tea, we’d have a cup of coffee. I thought this is not the kind of treatment I’d expect as a chief tech. Oh yes, I’d just come down from Fighter Command but it was just another posting to me but, yeah, I was treated like a man from out of space I suppose. It was really rather rewarding in a way.
CB: Sure. Job satisfaction is important.
BS: Absolutely.
CB: How long did that posting last?
BS: Well it wasn’t really a posting, it was only a detachment.
BS: Right.
BS: But I was there for two years so I stretched that out a bit but when that was coming towards the end I thought, ‘Well I don’t know what, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ And an Air Commodore Avery or Avis, was the chief technical officer in Fighter Command and he came to visit our office one day and he sat down on the only available chair, in the middle of the office, with the two warrant officers, and squadron leader, and flight lieutenant and he sat with is front to the back of the chair and just talked to me and said well you know, ‘Tell me about your career chief or whatever.’ I said, ‘Well it’s coming to an end Sir.’ I said. ‘Well why don’t you sign on?’ So I said, ‘I applied to sign on but they wouldn’t have me.’ He said, ‘Well, why don’t you apply again?’ So the upshot of that was that I applied to sign on and of course as he was the supporting officer it got signed so I was accepted to sign on until I was fifty-five years old, um, so I didn’t really look back but then of course, um, I knew that detachment was going to come to an end and I thought I ought to be trying to guide my career somehow and the opportunity to — they were looking for volunteers to join the Education Branch. They were short of education officers but they needed the Higher National Certificate. I hadn’t got that but I thought, ‘Never mind, I’ll apply anyway.’ And rather to my surprise they accepted me and I went on a three month education course at Uxbridge, to the School of Education at Uxbridge. Wonderful course, um, three months, taught me the psychology of learning and, um, educational techniques and so on and so forth, um, and spent two years in the Education Branch, initially at RAF Melksham, which was another fascinating experience because my boss came to me at one point. He said, ‘Oh, I’ve got something different for you to do Chief.’ So I says, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘Well, we’ve got, we’ve got a class of people coming in to study inertial navigation systems.’ So I says, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘Well there’s a film on in the cinema.’ He said, ‘Go and watch it.’ He said, ‘That will show you what, what it’s all about.’ OK, so I went and watched this which was run by a by Mr L C Agger who wrote a book on electrics which was used for training at Halton for many years and Mr Agger put this film on for me and it was an American major describing this whole process of inertial navigation. I came out of there ‘cause he was talking with a broad American accent. Don’t ask me which State he came from but a broad American accent that I had great difficulty with. I thought, ‘Well, I don’t know. I don’t understand anything of that.’ So I actually mentioned it to Agger and he said, ‘Come and watch it again.’ And a lot more made sense this time and inertial navigation, in case don’t know it’s all about, it all depends on three gyroscopes, rate gyroscopes, which detect where you are and if there’s any movement at all in any direction the rate gyroscope detect it and tells you where to and how much by so you programme into this complex where you are and if you move it knows where you’ve gone and that was the principal, basic principle, of inertial navigation. It didn’t last for long because we use satellite navigation, yeah? GPS. So that’s what that was all about and I took two classes of Vulcan aircrew because they carried the blue steel bomb, not the blue streak, the blue steel bomb, stand-off bomb, and that was fitted with inertial navigation, um, so yeah, I took two classes of those and when my — when towards the end of that tour they were moving the education system from Melksham, training system at Melksham, up to, um, somewhere in Norfolk, I can’t think, the name won’t come to me at the moment, but they were moving the training out and the education officer said to me, ‘Well, we‘re not taking the substitute education officers (which is what I was) you’re reverting back to your trade.’ So I said, ‘Well I’d rather not Sir. I’d rather finish my tour with the Education Branch ‘cause I’m enjoying it.’ And he said, ‘Well, what can you suggest?’ And I said, ‘Well do you think they need anybody at Halton?’ ‘Oh that’s an idea.’ He said. ‘Come and see me in ten minutes.’ I went back to see him. He said, ‘Pack your bags you’re posted to Halton with effect from Monday.’ Same resp— so I came back to Halton as a lecturer, teaching electrics and electrical mechanics, to apprentices and, um, when that was coming to an end I went to see Squadron Leader Abraham who was my boss. And he said, ‘They’ll be looking for somebody over the road because they’re going to train ground electrician apprentices. They’ll want somebody.’ He said, ‘Go and see Squadron Leader Blot.’ Who was in charge of the Electrical Squadron, so I went to see Squadron Leader Blot and sat down and he started going through my career. ‘Oh.’ He said, ‘Where were you during this period?’ I said, ‘Oh, I was at Fighter Command.’ ‘Oh.’ He said, ‘What were you doing at Fighter Command?’ So I told him what I’ve already related. I said, ‘But I was also seconded as the Deputy to Squadron Leader Goldsmith, same name, who was in charge of the new Lightning squadron we just started when we were taking up Lightnings and I became his second dickie, or his telephone operator, if you like.’ And, er, he said, ‘Oh, you know John Goldsmith do you?’ So I said ‘Well, yeah.’ ‘How did you get on with him?’ ‘Well, alright.’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s alright.’ He said. He picked up the sheaf of notes he’d been writing about my career, tore it up and threw it in the waste paper basket. He said, ‘Right.’ He said, ‘You start, start next week.’ [laugh] So I started setting up the original basic training for the first ground electrician apprentices at Halton. End, end of episode.
CB: How long were you at Halton?
BS: [sound of shuffling papers] I need to look at my notes. Until the end of my career. No, not ‘till end of my career ‘cause I went up to, went up to Brampton after that. [background noise]
CB: You did actually do an unaccompanied tour.
BS: In Muharraq in, er, Bahrain.
CB: Where was that? When was that?
BS: In 1969 to ’70.
CB: And what were you doing there?
BS: That was basically just on ground equipment. I was in charge essentially of the battery charging rooms. I had two, I had two, um, Bahraini technicians working in that room and two RAF airman working in the battery charging room.
CB: It was a RAF station was it?
BS: The RAF, the RAF station yeah.
CB: Right.
BS: One of the RAF Hunter fighter squadrons was on that station at the time.
CB: Oh was it?
BS: But it was the airfield for Muharraq, um, so it was a fairly significant, um, middle-eastern destination.
CB: Right.
BS: And yes, as I say, I spent twelve months there.
CB: So fast forward to Halton. So you finished at Halton?
BS: Yeah and I came —
CB: After you did the ground electrical servicing course?
BS: Yes, at Halton, did the Muharraq trip and then, when I came back from, from Muharraq, I was posted to RAF Benson.
CB: Oh yes.
BS: On 90 group, um, Tactical Communications Wing, and spent about twelve months there I think and, er, didn’t quite know where my career as going from there, um, and decided to do something about it and there was, er, a request for people to join the Trade Testing, Trade Standards and Testing Board, which I applied for and was accepted and, and was posted back to Halton where the Trade Standards testing organisation had been established.
CB: Right.
BS: So I worked there for Trade Standard and Testing for a while, um, setting up well trade tests for electricians, essentially ground electricians.
CB: Right.
BS: And then they moved the Trade Standard and Testing thing to Bram— RAF Brampton, near Huntingdon and, of course, I moved up with them and, er, carried on the same kind of work with, um, various ranks of ground electrician training and then they wanted me to join, or asked me to join, the team, a team of technicians writing skill and knowledge specifications which were, um, oh, qualifications couched in behavioural terms, um, for all the trades in the Air Force and although I wrote some for ground electricians I also wrote some for musicians and for marine engineers, or helped to write them for those people, but yeah, all of them started off with a trained man can [?] and then went on to describe how you tested the activities that these people had to do, which was an interesting exercise, and that took me up to 1975 when I left the Royal Air Force.
CB: So you didn’t go to fifty five?
BS: I did not and the reason I didn’t go, of course, was because, um, I felt sure at the age of fifty-five I wouldn’t be able to get a job outside anyway and I wasn’t going to get promoted beyond Chief Technician anyway, probably because I needed a haircut.
BT: No doubt at all.
CB: You never learned the lesson then.
BT: No, no. He doesn’t know what the inside of a hair dressers looks like.
CB: Right, so what happened then?
BS: Well —
CB: So 1975 comes —
BS: Well, 1974-ish they had been looking for people to volunteer for early retirement, for redundancies in certain groups and trade groups and age categories and ranks and I was looking for one of these so I could get out before I was fifty-five so I could get employment outside and in 1974, my birthday, my trade and rank came up as being eligible so I applied to leave and they let me go, um, so I got a reasonable redundancy return and left, as I say, in 1975.
CB: OK.
BS: Right.
CB: Then what did you do?
BS: Went — I was on the dole for six months on, er, previous age related unemployment benefit, um, doing odd jobs, odd little bits for people, bit of decorating here and bit of electrics there and applying for jobs around Aylesbury, in particular. I went, um, for one job was a training consultant with the Ministry — which branch of the Ministry I can’t tell you at this stage, um, but I didn’t get that job. I went for a job at — over at Haddenham, on the airfield there, and I was too well qualified for one job that they’d got and under qualified for another job they’d got so they hadn’t got anything to offer me. So I’m scratching around a bit ‘cos I was coming to the end of my six months and I had applied to go back to Halton as an instructor and I got eventually an interview and I went back to Halton for the interview and I got the job as a civilian instructor at Halton, and I went back actually teaching apprentices, whose a course I’d previously helped to organise, and, er, went back as I say training ground electricians as a civilian, yeah, and then they were going to move that training, the ground electricians, to RAF St Athan. I thought I don’t need to go there and they said, ‘Well, alright you can stay here but you’ll have to train, train aircraft electricians.’ I thought I don’t really want to go down that learning curve because there was some very complicated equipment on aeroplanes by that time and I thought, ‘Well, no I don’t want to go to St Athan.’ So I was struggling a bit and I spoke to my friend Mr Ken Hewer [?] and he said, ‘Well, why don’t you apply for a job at Southall Technical College.’ Where he worked. So I did and after an interview, which I spent a fair time talking about myself, I was invited to accept the job at Southall, and I worked there until I was made redundant from their aircraft department at Southall Tech and then retired and lived in the lap of luxury ever since.
CB: How old were you when you retired, aged sixty-five?
BS: No, I was only fifty— only fifty-five, fifty-six? Let me think. When did I actually retire? I don’t know whether I’ve got that down here. [sound of shuffling papers] [pause]
CB: You reckon you finished early, did you?
BS: ’85, ‘85 so I’d have been fifty-six? Yeah?
CB: You were at Southall you were teaching?
BS: Aircraft technicians from British Airways.
CB: Oh right.
BS: And some of Colonel Gadhafi’s Air Force and civilian airline personnel too.
CB: Right. So retired in ‘85.
BS: A little bit more meat on the bones in there.
CB: Just one final thing. What was the most memorable thing about your experience in the RAF would you think?
BS: ‘Struth. In some respects I think my tour of Malta from ‘52 to ‘54 but then that two years at Fighter Command Headquarters was an eye opener and a wonderful experience, you know, so looking back for favourites is really rather difficult because I had a thoroughly enjoyable thirty years really. Very few grey or black spots.
CB: Ok. Good. Well I really think we ought to stop it there.
BS: Well, I think we ought to.
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 Barry Smith
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
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
2017-01-18
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASmithBM170118
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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01:32:59 audio recording
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. Fighter Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Bahrain--Muḥarraq
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--London
Bahrain
Bahrain--Muḥarraq
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-02
1948
1975
Description
An account of the resource
Barry passed the RAF’s apprentice entrance examination in February 1945, aged 15, and went to RAF Halton to become an electrician. He discusses the three training which resulted in the First Ordinary National Certificate.
In 1948, Barry was posted to RAF St Athan No. 32 Maintenance Unit. He initially serviced a flight simulator, then moved to the Aircraft Electrical Servicing Squadron. After a year, he was posted to RAF Cranwell, servicing generators and was promoted to corporal. He passed his leading aircraftman examination. He spent two years in Malta before being posted to RAF Honington, where he became a sergeant.
Barry wanted to service flight simulators, did a course and was posted for two years to Fighter Command at Bentley Priory. He had a broad role in aircraft engineering at Command Headquarters.
Barry moved to become an education officer and did a course at the School of Education at RAF Uxbridge. He spent two years in the education branch, initially at RAF Melksham. He was then posted to RAF Halton to teach electrics and electrical mechanics before setting up the basic training for the first ground electrician apprenticeships.
Barry undertook an unaccompanied 12-month tour to RAF Muharraq (Bahrain) and was in charge of the battery charging room. A further twelve months were spent at RAF Benson on 90 Group Tactical Communication Wing before returning to RAF Halton to join the Trade Standards and Testing Board. This moved to RAF Brompton where he wrote skills and knowledge specifications for RAF trades. Barry left the RAF in 1975 and continued in teaching and training roles.
Language
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eng
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
childhood in wartime
displaced person
ground personnel
military living conditions
military service conditions
RAF Bentley Priory
RAF Cranwell
RAF Halton
RAF Honington
RAF St Athan
shelter
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/3627/Rutherford, Les.2.2.jpg
2a360ecc2c6bd3a2271901a17ad37fe7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/3627/ARutherfordL151005.1.mp3
9a7dc7bfbc9c6af528fc68fc6e2f2a05
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
Rutherford, Les
R L Rutherford
Robert Leslie Rutherford
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. The collection contains four oral history interviews with bomb aimer Robert Leslie "Les" Rutherford (1918 - 2019, 146263 Royal Air Force), his prisoner of war diary, material about entertainment in the Stalag Luft 3 Belaria compound and a photograph. Les Rutherford served as a despatch rider in the army, he was evacuated from Dunkirk and volunteered to transfer to the RAF. He became a bomb aimer with 50 Squadron and completed 24 operations. He was shot down over Germany on 20th December 1943 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Les Rutherford and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-09
2015-10-05
2015-06-05
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.
Identifier
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Rutherford, RL
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: So, this is an interview with Les Rutherford at Riseholme Hall. It is the 5th of October 2015. My name is Dan Ellin and this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. So, Les, you were telling me just now about how you came to be the owner of that. That book.
LR: Yes. The, the book originally came in the Canadian Red Cross parcels to be given to Canadians and the Canadian in the next room to me wasn’t interested in having it really. So, the currency, or one of the currencies in the prison camp was the chocolate bars that we got in the Red Cross parcels and he said he would sell it to me for three chocolate bars. Which, so, I gave him three chocolate bars for it. Quite expensive I would say in those, in those circumstances but it was well worth it in the long run. And so, I started this diary.
DE: Why did you want to have a diary?
LR: I thought it was a good thing to keep a record of what I was doing for future reference. And, of course, I had to start it. I’d been in the prison camp for two or three months then so I had to put the original part of it, the early part from memory but then I was able to record it day by day. Or when anything happened. Days where nothing happened of course. The boring days.
DE: Could you tell me a little bit about how you came to be in the POW camp?
LR: Well, I was flying on a mission to Frankfurt. It was my twenty fourth mission and a night fighter attacked us. We were shot down. He made three attacks and set the plane on fire. The pilot gave the order to abandon the aircraft and as he gave that order I began to put my parachute on, which was a breast tag parachute. Portable parachute. And at that time the aircraft blew up and the nose of the aircraft where I was — I was a bomb aimer — I was in the nose of the aircraft — was blown off completely. And I found myself — I was unconscious for a short while but it couldn’t have been very long because I came to and I found my leg was trapped a bit and I was having difficulty freeing it. I didn’t know how far I’d fallen. So, I pulled the parachute rip cord and the parachute pulled me out. I was on the parachute for a very short while before I landed so I always think that if I hadn’t done that I might have been too late. But then I buried my parachute and flying suit, the harness, the parachute’s harness and things under some bushes. And I landed in a wood, in actual fact, and then I made my way out of there and I walked as best I could. My leg was a bit damaged. I kept, it kept giving away under me but I walked most of that night and in the morning, as it was beginning to get light, I found myself in a large village and people were going to work in this village and passing me and saying good morning as they went past. ‘Guten morgen.’ So, I was just answering, ‘Morgen,’ and went on. Eventually — I was in flying gear, flying kit, you know — battle dress and everything. So, they just didn’t take any notice. Just heads down and going off to work sort of thing. And then I managed to get out of there and found myself on a river. On the banks of a big river. So, there was some bushes on this river and I hid. I hid up in the bushes and stayed all that day hiding in these bushes. Then, at night, I started walking again and I’d gone for quite a while and I was out in the open road and then all of a sudden I heard somebody shout, ‘Halt.’ And so, I thought I’ll try the old ‘morgen,’ trick so I just turned around and said, ‘morgen,’ and walked on. But it didn’t work. I think three soldiers, three as I remember and they came on and one of them shone a torch up and down and another one said, ‘Englisher flieger.’ Of course, the rifles came off the shoulders and my hands went up and that was it. I was a prisoner of war then. They took me to the headquarters, their headquarters and sat me at the table. I was sat on this stool at this table and this officer came up, in and he was questioning me or trying to question me, in very poor English. So, I was able to say I couldn’t able to understand him. You know, I couldn’t answer him. But then all of a sudden, I got this almighty clout to the side of the head. Knocked me off the stool onto the floor. And this German, German NCO said, ‘You stand up when you talk to a German officer.’ And I stood up and that was it. And he said — there was no mistaking this man, he could speak perfect English. I found out later he’d spent a lot of time in London and, he asked me my name, number and rank and I said flying officer. He said, ‘You’re not an officer.’ So, I said, ‘Well, yes, I am,’ you know. ‘No. No.’ He said, ‘Officers wear their badges up —’ Oh, he said, ‘Where’s your badge of rank?’ I said, ‘On the shoulder.’ Which it was on the battle dress. He said, ‘No,’ he said, ‘Badges of rank are worn on the sleeve.’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘On there. On the shoulder.’ And he said, ‘Where are your papers?’ I said, ‘I don’t have any papers.’ So, he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘When the Luftwaffe flew over Germany — over London,’ he said, ‘They took papers.’ And I said, ‘Well I’m not in the Luftwaffe.’ I said, ‘I’m in the Royal Air Force.’ And he — I said, ‘What I have got are my identity disks.’ You know we had two identity disks which we wore around our necks. And he looked at those and they were stamped on the back, ‘Officer’ and he said, ‘Oh, you are an officer.’ So I said, ‘Well. Yes.’ He said, ‘Well, no doubt you’ll be hungry and thirsty.’ He said, ‘I’ll just go and get you something to eat and drink.’ And off he went and he came with a plate of black bread which was filthy stuff and a glass of lager which I often say was the best glass of lager I’ve ever had because I’d had nothing to eat or drink for a couple of days. So, he questioned me for a while and then took me to have a, took me for a wash and brush up and what not. And then the next morning I was taken to Dulag Luft. Our target for the night where I was shot down was Frankfurt and the main interrogation centre for the RAF prisoners of war was in Frankfurt. Dulag Luft. And I was taken there and put in solitary confinement. Now, while I was there, after a couple of days, there was a chap came to see me. He said, ‘I’m from the Red Cross.’ I said, ‘Oh. Great.’ He said, ‘We want to get some information from you about — you know, so I can tell your relatives that you’re safe and sound.’ So, I thought that was fair enough. So, then he started to ask me about my name and number and what not and then he started on to, ‘What aircraft were you flying?’ ‘Which airfield were you at?’ ‘Who was your commanding officer?’ And things like this. And I said, ‘I can’t tell you that.’ In actual fact he wasn’t from the Red Cross at all. And so, then, after a few days — I was shot down on the 20th of December which was just before Christmas. Now, normally they put prisoners in solitary confinement for at least a week. Sometimes two weeks. And if you’ve been in solitary confinement for that length of time — it’s psychological really — you want to talk your head off when you come out. And this was the idea of course. But they took us out, took, well took me out of there and a lot more that they had there the day before Christmas. Christmas Eve they took us out. We were interrogated in the meantime and by proper bone fide, well fide German officers and that was quite an experience because one of the things they said to me — they said, ‘Well, there’s no harm in telling us what, you know, all about yourself,’ he said, ‘Because we know all about you anyway.’ So, I said, ‘Well, if you know all about me you know who I, you know, who I am.’ ‘Well, of course, you might be a spy,’ they said. I said, ‘Again, if you know all about me you know I’m not a spy.’ And they said, ‘Well, tell me, how did flight lieutenant,’ oh dear. I can’t remember his name now. Anyway, ‘How is he enjoying his squadron leadership?’ Well, this man had been promoted to squadron leader from flight commander the day before I was shot down and they knew about it which is a bit — shakes you a bit. You know. And you get — well they do know. Anyway, the rest of it went all right and they let us out all together in a big room. Something about the size of this and of course we all start talking straightaway until somebody said, ‘You know, this place might be set up for microphones.’ And so we stopped telling each other where we from and everything like that. And eventually we spent Christmas Day there and then early January, or late December actually we were taken on cattle trucks, on cattle trucks on the railway to Stalag Luft III which was on the Polish border. And so, I began life as a prisoner of war.
DE: And it was there that you were, after, after several weeks —
LR: Oh for several weeks.
DE: Purchased the diary.
LR: We had Red Cross parcels. There were Red Cross parcels supposed to be, serve one man for a week. We were getting them in not very regular periods and it was one parcel to two men. And later in the war when supplies were getting strict and not very regular it was one parcel to about three men and then it got to four and then [laughs] it got to none at all. But when I was shot down, when I was first in the prison camp after about oh, a couple of months, I should think, the Canadians received these logbooks in their Red Cross parcels which, this chap in the next room to me, he wasn’t interested in his log book at all and I decided to buy it from him. The currency in those days was chocolate bars and I gave him three chocolate bars for this log book. And so I started to keep a diary.
DE: Could you perhaps open it up and talk us through some of the pages?
LR: Yeah. Yes.
[pages turning]
LR: That was pages. It shows a flightless parrot. A coat of arms that we made up. Flightless parrot saying, “All talk and no fly.”
DE: Who — who drew those?
LR: Prisoners of war. Well, I copied that. It was — it was — I don’t know who the original artist was but I copied it as a start of the –
DE: Is that the first thing in the book?
LR: The first thing was the Sagan which is where Stulag Luft III was. It’s their coat of arms. I don’t know where I got that from. I didn’t know. I must have copied it.
DE: Did you copy or draw these things actually in the camp?
LR: Yes. Oh yes. Yes. I didn’t touch this book after I came home. That was PO Prune who always did everything wrong in the air force manuals. We had special information manuals and had this PO Prune and he was a well-known character.
DE: So was that drawn from memory?
LR: That was. Yes. Yes. This one is, shows Donald Duck behind bars saying underneath, entitled, ‘I wanted wings.’ And then these were black and — black and white. They’re pencil drawings. We weren’t allowed ink. Pencil drawings. And that was a Lancaster. And that one was a Halifax. That was a Wellington. And that was those three. Now, this one was, the goons were guards in the camp who went around looking for anybody that was doing something they shouldn’t. They would walk in to a room and then look around to see, you know, there was nothing illicit going on. And this is just a cartoon about that. This one was a cartoon about the kitchen. There was a kitchen at the end of each hut and you were allocated so long to do any cooking that you wanted to do over the food that we got and, in that time, you had to get that food ready. Ready or not it was, when your time was up you were out and that was it.
DE: So how many, how many people did you have to cater for in that? In that kitchen?
LR: In the kitchen? Well at first there was — how many? About twelve of us I think in the room and there were [pause] I’ve got it down here somewhere. Or I thought I had. Oh dear. And they were, I think two, four, six, eight. About eight rooms. So, there’d be ninety six, a hundred men in a hut and, as I say, you were allowed so much, so much time in the kitchen and that was it for a meal.
DE: And what sort of food was it? You say you had Red Cross parcels. What did you get in them?
LR: Well, we got things like spam. Tinned meat. Biscuits and tinned milk or powdered milk. Basic things like that. So, at Christmas time — we got special parcels at Christmas. This one was showing a fed-up German guard at the top and another man digging a tunnel. Which was —
DE: Did the goons come and look at your book?
LR: I don’t know. There was always the fear that they would. Well, not the fear but that was why we tried not to put anything in it that would, sort of, get their attention. At the end, when the Russians were advancing and when the, when the second front started we had maps. We drew some maps in but they were right at the end of the thing and we thought, well I thought, we’d get away with it if we did but we weren’t supposed to have. And there was always that thing that, you see, every now and then we had what they called appell in the morning which was a roll call. And we used to parade out on the, outside every hut. They would count us up to see everything was in order. Now, every now and then they would keep the men out, seal the hut up and then go through it and search everything. The German guards would search right through the hut and that was when they could possibly have looked at this. I don’t know whether they did or not.
DE: Did you keep it hidden?
LR: Sorry?
DE: Did you hide it?
LR: No. No. I just put it in the bed.
DE: I just wondered what they would think if they saw that cartoon on the previous page.
LR: Oh, they were, they were quite open minded about that sort of thing. We used to — we had concerts in the theatre. The [musical?] theatre. We had concerts in the theatre and we’d do skits mimicking the fuehrer and German officers and that and they used to attend these concerts and they used to laugh along with the rest of us. So, the theatre was quite a thing actually. There was a chap that was, there was a chap from our squadron — another plane from our squadron was shot down the same night as I was and the navigator of that plane and myself we knew each other on the squadron and became quite good friends. He was a master carpenter. And the Germans said, ‘There’s one empty hut there. If you want to make that into a theatre or something like that you can do.’ And this chap, apparently, we had the Red Cross parcels used to come in plywood boxes. You know. Tea chests. The old tea chests. They used to come in boxes like that and what he did he took the sides, took the sides off these boxes and made seats from them. And in the hut, he took the floor off and he lowered it at one end and with the soil that was taken out to lower it it made it higher at the other end so we had a sloping auditorium. And then he did all these seats and at the other end made a stage with exits and what not on each side. And it was quite, you know, a wonderful job really. And it took quite a while but of course he was working at, working at it all day. Nothing else to do. As I said he did a wonderful job.
DE: You haven’t talked about that page.
LR: This page? Oh, another chap did that for me. That’s a German film actress. And I asked him to put something in the book for me and he was the other guitarist in the band. There were two guitarists. Me and this chap. And he wrote that in. Or drew that. That is a poem called “Bomber Command” and this is the, “Lie in the dark and listen,” by Noel Coward. So, I had that but I did the illustrations around the sides of the various things. And, as I say, that was, it was read out at the, at the, the do on Friday.
DE: The opening memorial.
LR: The Memorial do. Yeah.
DE: So, did you have to write that poem down from memory or was it —? Did you —
LR: No. No. Somebody already had it. Had it written down. And they loaned it to me so I could copy it. And that was a chap that was shot down on Mustangs. Fighter pilot. And he drew that with apologies to my former, former drawings that I did. He did one like that to copy them. That was a drawing of the Tyne bridge. Being a Geordie that was a bit nostalgic. That was a Canadian. I drew that and as a matter of fact the [Barger?] girls who used to be very popular during the war and I drew that. And then a Canadian, who came to our room later on, he asked me to do another one. He said, ‘Could you put one of those —do that again in my logbook?’ And, he said, ‘But this time make her topless.’ [laughs] So I did. And that was another one by somebody else. It shows hunter dogs. It’s entitled, “The Kriegies on the loose.” Kriegie was short for Kriegsgefangener. Prisoner of war, in German.
DE: How did you decide what to put on each page? Or —
LR: Sorry?
DE: How did you decide what to put on each page? Some have been done by other people.
LR: Oh, just asked them to put a — you know. Get a blank page and asked them to put something on it. To draw something. This was, that one was drawn, “No rest for the devil,” and there’s somebody clearing a table. And that was done by the chap I was telling you about. The chap that built the theatre. This one was a parody on the poem “If” — If you can, by Rudyard Kipling and it was about escaping. You know, “If you can leave the compound undetected and clear your way. Clear your tracks nor leave the slightest trace and follow out the programme you selected you will lose your grasp or distance, time and place,” and it goes on to describe — “if you can do this,” you know, “Then you’ll reach home.” That was a drawing, a pencil drawing by somebody else. Somebody else did that one. Another chap. Oh, that one was — I did that I sort of designed and drew that in water colours and it was in memory of the — those men that were shot after escaping. The Great Escape. And I drew that in memory. There’s all their names in there.
DE: Were you —
LR: When that, when that happened [pause] we heard about it before the German guards did. We knew about it then. And we used to talk to the German guards and barter with them for, you know, a cigarette would get you, perhaps, one egg or something like that. You know. Barter. And when we heard about it we said, ‘Well that’s it. No more friendliness with the Germans. Cut them out.’ And the Germans couldn’t understand this. They asked, you know, ‘Why aren’t you talking to us?’ What was wrong? And eventually we told them what was wrong. And they wouldn’t believe us. They didn’t know about it. They wouldn’t believe us. They said, ‘Oh no. No. We wouldn’t do such a thing.’ And they were absolutely horrified when they found out it was true. So, mind you, the guards themselves, they were — not the goons, the goons were, or ferrets we used to call them as well. The ferrets, they went around looking for trouble. But the guards themselves — they were more or less the equivalent of our Home Guard. People who were too old for active service or medically unfit for active service so they put them on as prisoner of war guards. That was the squadron crest. 50 Squadron crest. That cost me a fiver that one did because on the crest actually there’s a cloak with a sword and it shows the sword cutting the cloak and I put it the other way around. The sword resting on the cloak. So I drew it from memory and I got it wrong and a chap, another chap said, ‘That’s, that is wrong,’ He said, ‘It should be cutting.’ So I said, ‘No. No. No.’ He said, ‘I bet you a fiver that’s right.’ So I had to cough up a fiver when we got back home. That was more or less a view of the camp. A sort of aerial view. From memory. That was another, another man did that for me. That was the motif that was on the front of the music stands for the band where I played because I played in the band.
DE: Yeah. You mentioned you played guitar.
LR: I played guitar. Yes.
DE: Where did —?
LR: When I got there I was — with my leg being a bit dicey I was in hospital for about three weeks. Two or three weeks. And while I was there this lad who was shot down with me told the band leader that I played piano. Now, I did but not very well. He came. The band leader came to see me and asked me if I would play in the band. I said, ‘I’m not good enough to play in the band.’ I said, ‘I do play guitar.’ So, he said, ‘Oh,’ he said, We’ve got two guitarists already.’ So he said, I said — well I said, ‘I’m not good enough to play in the band on the piano.’ So, we left it at that. And then this West Indian chap came to see me. He said, ‘I’m the other guitarist in the band,’ he said, ‘Now, I’m not interested really in the band music,’ he said, ‘I’m more calypsos and that sort of thing.’ He said, ‘If you’d like to take over the guitar for the band,’ he said, ‘I’m quite happy to hand it over to you,’ he said, ‘But I’d just like to borrow it every now and then to have a bit of a strum.’ So — and that man was, if you’ve heard of him, Cy Grant. That was Cy Grant. And every now and then we used to get together and I used to get the other guitar and we used to go off and find a quiet place and do a bit of — I would show him band rhythms and he would show me calypso rhythms and things. We exchanged that and then we’d have a bit of a sing song to ourselves but when, once we started singing or anything like that inevitably somebody would hear and there would be a gathering and then you’d get people, ‘Sing this,’ ‘Play this’ and, you know so, and it used to spoil it then. But we used to, did used to manage to get some time together.
DE: Wonderful.
LR: This was a —
DE: Can I, can I just hold you there while we pause for a minute?
[recording paused]
DE: So, we’re back recording.
LR: Back to this.
DE: Yeah.
LR: Well this page is entitled, “Prisoner of war,” and it’s by Churchill. Written when he was a prisoner of war with the Boers and I’ll read it to you. “It is a melancholy state. You are in the power of your enemies. You owe your life to his humanity. Your daily bread to his compassion. You must obey his orders. Awaiting pleasures, waiting — sorry awaiting his pleasures. Possess your soul in patience. The days are long. The hours crawl by like paralytic centipedes. Moreover, the wholesale atmosphere of prison, even the best and most regulated prisons is odious. Companions quarrel about nothing at all and you get the least possible enjoyment from each other’s company. You feel a constant humiliation at being fenced in by railings and wire watched by armed guards and webbed by a triangle of regulations and restrictions.” I think that puts it in a nutshell really. Of course, a wonderful man with words was Churchill, wasn’t he? That’s just a poem that somebody wrote about the second camp we were in. The man that did it, he was a drummer in another camp and he came to this camp and he was desperate to learn guitar and I used to show him a bit about it. He was pretty good actually. And he says, “Thanks for all the guitar gen.” That was a cartoon thing. A sort of cartoon about the march. The Long March which we did where there’s this man dragging his sledge behind him. That was a portrait done by a Polish officer. It’s supposed to be me. I don’t know. I suppose it is. And that one was a profile done by an American friend later on. And so we come to — that part of the book was finished. The photographs. They went missing some time ago when I loaned the book to somebody. Oh, this was the layout of the, the hut before there was. Oh, and this was the layout of the field. The camp. All the different huts. A garden. And yeah, the [abwor?], the toilet block and whatnot. That was the layout of the rooms. How many rooms were there? One, two, three, four, five, six. Twelve rooms. Twelve rooms. And there were about twelve in a room, I think. Was there? Fourteen. I was four out. Somebody was a bit careless and spilt ink all over it. These were various theatre groups. The band. With the membership. And the little, we used to have a swing quartet as well. Playing jazz and things. We had a tango section. And there was a classical orchestra. They used to scrape away at times, you know, with the violins. And these were all theatre productions which we did in the theatre. These were various shows that we did in the camp. We used to put these band shows on. Variety shows. Sort of, sort of Night at the Palladium type things. Some of them were very good. These were the Red Cross parcels. I told you what the Red Cross parcels had in them. Corned beef, meat gelatin, powdered eggs, Nestle’s condensed milk, margarine, sugar chocolate, biscuits, processed cheese, cocoa, salmon, jam and tea. It was quite a good selection. These were different recipes that we had. The main, one of the main topics of conversation we had in the camp was food because we were always hungry. And we used to tell with our mouths drooling over what we used to —favourite foods and recipes for making them and things. That’s another one that went missing. What we had for Christmas dinner. Well, is this a start of the — oh that’s, “A typical day at [Bolerea?]. [Bolerea] incidentally, was the name of the camp I was in. Stalag Luft III. When, when we went there I think we the first batch of new prisoners in that camp. They had taken some from the Stalag Luft III. It was part of Stalag Luft III. We could take some from the other camps to get it ready for us going in. For the new batch of prisoners going in. So we were one of the first lots in there. It was, as I say, it was a new camp.
DE: So, what was a typical day like?
LR: Where are we? It went back a bit didn’t it? [turning pages].
DE: I think it’s later on than that. I think you’re going the wrong way.
[pause — pages turning]
LR: Lost it. Sorry about this.
DE: That’s alright.
[pause]
DE: Perhaps you could tell me from your memory.
LR: Well, here it is. A typical day. 9am — get the, there was an issue of hot water for washing. 10am — appell. That was the parade. Go on parade. 2.30 — hot water issued again for tea and drinks. 4 o’clock — the afternoon count. The afternoon appell. 7 o’clock evening period. Dinner prepared and usually consists of potatoes and whatever vegetables the goons gave us. And with corned beef or anything else that we had to go with it. 10 o’clock was time for lights out. And I’m thinking down. Oh 12 o’clock was lights out. 10 o’clock was time on the stove to boil the water for a hot drink at night. And that was about the day. Nothing much. In between times I was lucky in as much as playing the guitar and being in the band — it kept me occupied. So that was, we were always arranging music and we got a lot of arrangements from the Red Cross. American arrangements. But we used to do special arrangements and practicing of course and when the brass section were doing the practice they did it on their own but they needed some rhythm so I had to go along and accompany them. And the same happened when it was the saxophonist’s section. You know. Used to go along and give them some rythmn to help them along. So that was all going, as I say, filling your time in. I was lucky with that. That was a review of Luckenwald. That was that drawing by Bill Reid. The VC. He did that drawing for me. He was in the room next to me. We became good friends. I don’t know when this started. This was the diary. This was just little thumbnail sketches about life in the camp.
DE: Can you talk me through some of those little —
LR: Pardon?
DE: Can you talk me through some of the little sketches?
LR: Tell?
DE: Can you talk, yeah. Can you talk about some of those ones?
LR: This one is two chaps walking around. We used to have the — we used to walk around the perimeter track for exercise. This was somebody playing netball which we did quite a lot of. That was one of the group captains. What’s he doing? Somebody else walking. This was when the water was up you were running to get the water. And then somebody’s done something wrong. Being sent to the cooler. This was Boleria air. Every now and then the — the toilets were open, just pits dug in the ground with quite big actually, it would be quite a lot of cubicles. Well not cubicles but divisions in it and every now and then they brought this great big tanker around and emptied it and it used to smell quite a bit. And somebody playing a game of soccer. Yeah. That was somebody with a peg on their nose when the abwor, as we called it, was being emptied. Somebody’s sitting in a tub having a bath. And then sweet dreams. Somebody climbing in there and dreaming. That’s washing up time. Half a man. He’s saying, “I’m only half the man I was. Ruddy half parcels.” And this is the new arrivals. See. Everyone used to crowd around the new arrivals and then it was question time after that. Asking them what was going on back at home and everything like that.
DE: Oh. So, they were, they were a link to, to home.
LR: yeah. But instead of getting it from the Germans. Course we had, we did have a radio and we used to assemble this radio every night for the 6 o’clock, BBC 6 o’clock news. And there’s a story to tell about that. You know, I said we used to barter with the Germans. Well, this radio was taken to pieces after the broadcast and distributed among different men. So, if a part was discovered it was just a part and, but there was one part went wrong one time. It was a balance in those days. I think it was a valve or something like that. Something important. So we said to one of the goons, ‘Would you,’ you know, ‘Bring this in?’ See. ‘Oh no. Too risky that is.’ Now, if a goon discovered something important like a tunnel he was given instant promotion and a week’s leave. So, we had started a tunnel but we never really got a tunnel really going at Boleria because the water was high. When we got down to a certain level we hit water. So, what we did, we took one of these that we’d started and patched it up. And we said to this goon if you tell us — if you bring that part in we will show you where there’s a tunnel. And of course his eyes lit up. Oh, a tunnel. Yah. Yah. You know. So, he brought the part in and we showed him the tunnel. He brought the commandant in. Went and informed the commandant. The commandant donned a pair of white overalls and came around to inspect the tunnel for himself. Came around all smiles. ‘Oh, you can’t fool us,’ you know. And the goon got his week’s leave and we got the valve. So, everybody was happy all around [laughs] so that was that. That was just through the ages. That was night school. We were playing cards. This was the [abwor] which was the toilets again. The [abwor] serenaders. We used to go in there. One place you could go in there and you wouldn’t get a crowd in bothering you. And then this was rumours. We started at the top with, I don’t know what they’re saying but it ends up as something entirely different. Rumours. Rumours. Rumours. We got those a lot. This was a letter from the camp commandant. Our SBO — the Senior British Officer to the Germans — to the Russians. When the Russians released us, they didn’t actually release us. The kept us still as prisoners. They let us walk a certain distance around the camp to the south end and west. South and west. And the other sides were too dangerous to go in but they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t let us be repatriated. They kept us prisoners. We were still. We were freed on — early in April. In April. In April. And we were freed the last week in May and in that time they still held us, more or less, as prisoners. We listened to the VE day celebrations in England on the radios and we weren’t very happy. And the Americans got to know that there was all these prisoners there so they sent a convoy of lorries to the camp to take us out and the Russians wouldn’t let us go. And some of the lads sort of ignored them and went to get on to the lorries and the Russians fired over their heads and made them come back and the lorries went away empty. So, it wasn’t very, it wasn’t very, it wasn’t a very good situation actually. And this was a letter that the senior British officer wrote to the Russians complaining about this treatment which I copied out. It’s a long letter so I won’t read it. But, in effect, he’s telling them that it was disgraceful that the treatment we were receiving was not anything like the treatment they had promised. But when they released us they promised us all sort of things and I think the only thing we got was a couple of radios. But we were going to get food and goodness knows what and we didn’t. So that passed by. Oh, this was, oh this was the start of the diary and as I said the first parts of it were written more or less by — from memory.
[pause — pages turning]
LR: March the 22nd I left the hospital. Which was in 1944. March the 29th we did our first band show. And then there was all the different shows that were put on. Things like that. But then [pause] there was, we put on a show at Christmas, the band did. And they did it on Christmas Eve. The first show, I think it was. And then we were doing the show during the week at odd times. And then we were having the show altogether where we wanted to invite our friends from the camp to the show and celebrate the New Year while the Germans allowed us to stop out that night. And the senior British officer came around and said, ‘Well, no,’ he said, ‘We’re not going to do that but what we’ll do, we are inviting all the senior officers to that and the Germans as well to the band show to celebrate New Year’s Eve. So, people in the band went on strike. We said, ‘No. We’re not going to do it.’ And at the finish we had to compromise. We had our friends and a few of the senior officers. So we went on strike. And then we began to hear the Russians. Just a minute. Oh, first of all we started getting refugees in. We got refugees coming in to the camp. And we woke up one morning — now, the huts at this particular camp — oh we did all the Long March first. At the end of December we could hear the Russian guns. We could hear the, all these guns going off, you know, all the — and the Germans decided to move us and we left the camp and marched for a week. We were lucky in our march in as much as we only did it for a week. In some of the other camps which were further away they did about three or four weeks, some of them. They really suffered. We suffered up to a point but nothing like them. And it was in the dead of winter of course. It was snow, ice, whatnot. It was, and it wasn’t very good because we were in no fit condition for marching anyway and we just, and at night we were sleeping down just where we could. Barns and places like that. And we eventually got to this, to Spremberg which was a rail junction and they put us on these cattle trucks there to go to the new camp. They used to pack us in these cattle trucks you know, so you really — you’d have a job to lie down sometimes. But the whole problem was that some of the lads had dysentery and they just couldn’t do anything about it. [They sat and did it?] where they were, you know. Which was not very nice. So, we had a day or more of that before we arrived at this other camp. And as I said we hadn’t been there all that long when the refugees started to arrive. Now, these huts — they were long huts and divided into two. The middle portion was [pause] there was a big concrete bowl with taps all the way around it. That was where we did the ablutions. So Fred and I got up in the morning ready to go. Off we went to do our ablutions. When we got there there were several women there. All semi naked having a good wash down and whatnot. You know. So, we sort of looked. What’s going on? We didn’t know about them. They had arrived in the night and it sort of shook for us a bit. Hadn’t seen a woman in a year and a half in my case. And, anyway, so after that we went off to the toilets. Or I went off to the toilets and the toilet block they had either three or four seats on one side and then three or four other seats on the other side facing them. No partitions or anything like that and I just got nicely sat down and a couple of women came in. No problem she said. Up with their skirts and sat down opposite us. We sort of looked, you know. There was another chap and myself in there who were looking at them and we daren’t move. And they eventually got up and went off and so did we. In a hurry. But It was something we had to get used to these women were just, had no inhibitions at all. They just went along with it. And then after the Russians released us one other incident was rather funny. Next to the camp there was a big park and there was a park lake and we were allowed in this park up to a point and we decided to go swimming in the lake. Half a dozen or so of us in the lake. So, we went in there. Stripped off and into the lake and had a swim. While we were swimming we heard a boom. You know. What the hell was that? We looked around. And then there was another one. And when we looked over there was some women soldiers. Russian women soldiers throwing grenades in to the water. So, I often say there were some swimming records [laughs] broken that day. We — and then of course we all scrambled out, run along the bank absolutely starkers. The women on the other bank, the Russian soldiers, laughing and jeering at us. So, we didn’t go swimming again [laughs] and that nearly gets us to the end of this, I think. Oh, we had this trouble with the Russians of course and when they eventually decided we could go the American convoy, the Americans were nearest to us. The American convoy came and took us over, took us to the river. I think to the river Elbe. Took us to the river. To the bridge. We got out of their lorries and walked over the bridge and on to American lorries and they took us to this aerodrome. It wasn’t active in as much as it wasn’t wartime active but they were ferrying prisoners out from there back home. And we had to take our turn of course. We were there about a week. But the first thing we did — we got over there and they took us into the mess hall. We had white bread. Oh heaven. White bread. Peanut butter. Bacon, eggs and everything you wanted. It was a wonderland for us of course. And we were warned, you know, ‘Don’t eat too much. Your stomach’s are not up to it’. So, we had to be careful. And they had film shows and anything we wanted while we were there. And then eventually we were taken aboard a Dakota and flown to Brussels. From Brussels — we landed in Brussels and it was oh late afternoon. They said, ‘Those of you who want to spend the night here and we will issue you with money. You can go into town and do what you like.’ If the others don’t want to do that there are some Lincoln bombers on the aerodome going back to England. You can go back with them. And so, we did. I decided to go back and the [pause] ‘cause I knew my mother was seriously ill. She’d been seriously ill for a long time so I wanted to go back. And we made a mad scramble for it. The first thing I did was make a bolt for the mid-upper turret. Of course in there you could look out all around and you could see what was going on. I got there at the same time as Bill Reid. It was a case of looking at one another, ‘Who’s going up?’ ‘Who is it?’ ‘You or me?’ So Bill said, ‘I think there’s room.’ They’d taken out the guns out of this turret. So he says, ‘There’s room up there for two of us. We can both get up.’ And we did. Both squeezed in to the mid-upper turret and flew back to England. Now, in England we wondered what the general feeling, this was a true feeling of prisoners about what sort of a welcome we were going to get when we got back home. Because there had been several Dear John letters about people. One letter in particular said, this girl writing to her fiancé said, “I’m getting married. I’d rather marry a 1945 hero than a 1943 coward.” So, and there was one or two letters in the same vein. There was some comical ones. I’ve got them written in here somewhere. Some comical letters but there was some in that serious vein. So it made us wonder now what will people think when we get home. So we got off the Lincoln bomber at this airfield. I’m not quite sure where it was. It was somewhere in Oxfordshire I think. We got out at it anyway and on the tarmac a crowd of WAAF and we all walked off, down to the, into the mess hall with a WAAF on each arm and [unclear] and they took us in. We were fed and deloused. You know. They put a tube down inside the tunic and dusted powder in for delousing. Not that, I don’t think we needed it but there you are. They did it. And then in the main mess hall there was, there’d been a dance going on and the band were all packing up their gear. And somebody told them about us so they set up again and played for another hour so that the lads could have a dance with the girls. So the welcome sort of reassured us. We thought, well, that’s something fine. And so, from there we was sent home. After interrogation. And that was it. And that’s — my diary ends. I think, with May the 26th my diary ends. That was, after that I didn’t put anything else in. And that was when we boarded the plane to come back to England.
DE: And did you go and get up — get up —
LR: Pardon?
DE: And were you then able to go home and see —?
LR: Yes. They sent us. One of the things that I shall never forget was we all, we were all different places of course. We had to queue in a hut to get our passes. The rail passes to get home and there was a chap in this little sort of cubicle and he was sat there. And people were saying — he was giving the passes saying, ‘Where are you going?’ And he was telling them you want such and such a train from here. You change at Birmingham or wherever and then you catch the next train. And he had all this at his fingertips. He never once looking at a timetable. And all they were all going to different places. He said to me, he said, oh if you get the train to, I think it was, I think it was Birmingham and then up to Carlisle. That was a route I’d never taken home. I always used to go up on the East Coast line. He said, ‘You go up to Carlisle and across from there to Newcastle,’ he said. And that was that. Went. No problem. As I say, he never even looked at a timetable. It was absolutely wonderful. And so, I got home. And I didn’t have time to send a telegram or anything like that. They didn’t know I was coming home. On the way home — no. Wait a minute, that wasn’t that. That was the demob when I did that. ‘Cause I went home from Oxford. Went home from Oxford and I did the East Coast line then. At that time. No, I’m mistaken there. The one when I got home was from Oxford and we were given passes. Always, when I went home if I was coming from this area I used to stop off at York. I had an aunt and uncle in York. My aunt was — she was a pastry chef at the De Grey rooms in York which were, at that time, famous. A big centre, reception centre and that sort of thing. And I used to go in by the back doors and down into the kitchens and she would have a meal on the table before I’d hardly sat down. And this time I called in again to see her on the way up and tell her I was back home. And she said, ‘Have you had any letters from home recently?’ So, I said, ‘No. I haven’t had any since the middle of the year.’ I said, ‘there was no letters came through.’ They were always blocked. ‘Oh, you don’t know then.’ So, I knew what it was. My mother had died. And so, I went home prepared for that as it happens. Well, when I got home. Sort of went to the front door, knocked on the front door because I didn’t have the key. They let me in. ‘God, what are you doing home? We got it all arranged.’ They’d got it all arranged. They’d got the horse and cart all decorated to meet me at the station when I got home. And I foiled that and I was thankful for it as well. I said, ‘Thank God for that.’ So that was it. That was my war.
DE: Wonderful. Thank you ever so much. I’m just looking to see if there’s any notes that I’ve made. Were you in the camp when the Great Escape people got out?
LR: Yes. But it was a different compound.
DE: Oh. I see.
LR: Not my compound.
DE: I see.
LR: Not the one I was in but a different compound. It was the north compound I think. And we heard about it the next day. The shooting. I don’t know how it got out but there was a wonderful telegraph system between the camps. Between one and the others. And as I said the Germans wouldn’t believe it when we stopped speaking to them.
DE: Did you ever consider escaping?
LR: Yes. We all considered escaping. What we would do. But of course, you had to have, you had to be able to speak German and [pause] not necessarily but you had to be specially equipped and everything. And, well, the occasion never, in our camp the occasion never arose because tunnels, we couldn’t build a tunnel because of the water level. So, although we always said, you know the first chance we got — the only chance we got was on the Long March really and, but we were in no fit state then for escaping. I think some people did go. But no. Anything to get out, out from the wire. We gave our parole up to go for walks. The Germans said if we give our parole they would take us for walks around, you know, outside. Under guard of course. And so we did of course. We gave up parole and then we’d done about two walks and then on the third one, I think it was the third one, one of the chaps left a note in the barrack block saying he was going to commit suicide while he was on this walk. Somehow. Going to. I don’t know how he was going to do it. And, of course, it was a panic. We were all hustled back in to the camp again and they never give, never give us another chance. So that was that.
DE: The other thing I think I’ve got jotted down here. I think you mentioned it when we’d paused it for the, for the camera. About getting your identity papers from, from the Germans.
LR: When the, we woke up one morning and the guards had all left. The Germans had gone completely and so we went, of course into the German quarters. We all stormed in there and had a look around and whatnot. Then we came across, and the officers came across these files with all the identity discs, papers in. A big card with all the details and a photograph. A photograph taken when we were shot down and all the details of what went on. And I had that at home in my logbook but somebody took it. Somebody borrowed the logbook and they’ve took that. I lost it anyway. Unfortunately. I would have liked to have kept that. But that’s reminded me of another incident actually. Saying about waking up and the guards had gone. Earlier in the year while I was at Stalag Luft III I woke up one morning and somebody came charging in to the room. ‘Oi you want to get out here. They’ve got British soldiers in all the sentry boxes and the Union Jack flying in the [forelager?],’ which was the German side. I said, you know, ‘It can’t be.’ And we went out and sure enough the British tommies all dressed up in the German, in the sentry boxes so, you know. So talking, you know, ‘Hey where are you from? ‘What are you doing?’ Nothing. Just sort of stony look sort of thing. And then there was a camera crew rolled up and they were filming this shot and what they were doing — they had a German dressed up as a sergeant in the army with a bandage around his head. In the German army with a bandage around his head and they were taking them. There was British soldiers of course — they were dressed as British soldiers. They brought them to the camp gates and sort of kicked them through the gate and we all stood there and we all laughed and cheered [laughs] and so they had to shoot it again. And the same thing happened again. They shoved him again and we all cheered. So, they decided to shove us all in the huts. We were in a big hut facing this, where this was taking place so we were shut in this hut and posted great big Vs on the windows and stood behind them with our thumbs up, you know. I don’t think they noticed after that because they got up. They didn’t do any more takes after that. Yeah.
DE: Fascinating.
LR: [unclear] a bit.
DE: I think that absolutely marvellous. Thank you, Les.
LR: That’s alright. How’s the time going?
DE: We’ve been going for about an hour and a quarter, so — that’s wonderful. How — how much do you think England had changed while you had been away?
LR: Not a lot.
DE: No. Still felt like home.
LR: My circumstances had changed [pause] because before the war I used to live with my grandmother who owned the general dealer’s shop, and a very good dealer’s shop. On the entrance to the big shipyards in Wallsend near Newcastle. She died in 1932 and left the business to my mother who had not much idea of running a business but I’d been helping in the shop at the time. I was fourteen years old at the time and I’d been helping in the shop. My mother set me up to look after the shop while everything was going on with the funeral and everything like that and then when it was all over she kept me there because in the meantime I’d left school. So, she kept me there and from then on running the business was what I did. I did all the buying and selling. Everything. All she did was signed the cheques and what not. And then came the war. And mother said, ‘Well,’ you know, ‘I shall have to come in.’ She came in to the shop I had to put her right on prices and everything before I went and she said, ‘After the war,’ she said, ‘I shall turn the business over to you and you will arrange a pension for me to retire.’ And so that was arranged. In the meantime, during the war, in 1944 she died of cancer. The executors of the will were two supposed friends of the family and they absolutely fleeced everything in this shop. We had points, you know, there was a points system and they’d taken, they’d used all the things like butter and cooked meats and things like that. Chocolates and things like that and sort of taken them among their friends and what not. Given them all free butter and what not, you know and in actual fact when I got back the business was bankrupt. So, I had to find a job then. I put a lot of my own money. When I got back, of course, when I got back I got a good amount of back pay. I put a good lot of that in to paying my debts and then the business had to be sold. And I had to look for a job then. Well, I had no experience. I mean, nobody wanted air force gunners, navigators, bomb aimers. So I had a look around and of course the only experience I’d had was in the shop which was nothing at all. So, I tried my hand as a representative at a fancy goods firm. I didn’t get on with that at all. So, then I took another job as a representative for United Dominions Trust. Commercial bankers. Covering just Lincolnshire. The previous job I covered the whole of the south of England. With the bank, with this other job I was at home all the time. And then I’d just got nicely settled in to that when they decided they were going to move me down the south coast to Worthing. And I said. ‘I don’t want to go to Worthing.’ And they said, well they called me to head office. In this big meeting. All the directors were there and they said, ‘You have to go. We said you’re going.’ And I said, ‘No.’ You know. I said. ‘When I was in the forces,’ I said, ‘I was told where I had to go and where I hadn’t to go.’ I said, ‘Now I’m a civilian,’ I said, ‘I decide where I want to go. Nobody else.’ And they said, ‘Well, it’s a case of go or resign.’ So, I said, ‘Well I’ll resign then.’ And the chief clerk came with me, out of the room, to take me out and he said, ‘I should give it another thought if I were you,’ he said, because, he says, ‘There is no way they are going to keep you in Lincolnshire.’ He said, ‘One of the director’s son has just come out of the army and they want Lincolnshire for him because it’s an up and coming place.’ At that time there wasn’t a lot but there was plenty of scope for business and they wanted the job for him. So, I said, ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’m not having it.’ So, I resigned and I was on the dole then for — oh I applied to go back in to the air force and they said yes, I could go back but I didn’t hear anything and I waited oh, six weeks of doing nothing. Nothing. Just on the dole and I was absolutely fed up to the teeth. And I got the offer of — they was setting people on with the engineering firm in Lincoln. I was based in Lincoln then. A big engineering firm in Lincoln who were taking people on and training them as machinists. So, I applied and got in there. And that’s where I finished up. Working in a Lincoln factory. Doing a dead-end job. Fed up. Yeah. So, when I came back I got in touch with a girlfriend that I had and we married in 1945. And she was from Lincoln and that’s why I came down to Lincoln for the first job. As a central point. So she [pause] she died young. Forty two, I think, she was. Died very young and a year and half, two years later I met my present wife and we were married. And been happily married ever since. Very happily married.
DE: Wonderful.
LR: And that was it. and she said if she’d been my wife at the time when I came out of the air force she says I should never have gone into the [laughs] in to the factory. She would have seen to that. And knowing my present wife she would have done. And that was [the pre-war?].
DE: I see. If you’re happy to carry on. Just a couple more questions. One, you started your service life in the army and I know you have stories to tell about the Battle of France. And then you obviously transferred into the RAF. Could you tell me how that came about?
LR: I was called up in to the army in 1939. October 1939. Into the 51st Highland Division. And after initial training we went down to Aldershot. Square bashing and that sort of thing. Getting organised. And in early January we went across to France. We were stationed up in Northern France for a while. Moved across country to Alsace Lorraine and the Maginot Line. That was an experience. Used to go in to the Maginot Line when they were doing all the bombardments. If you gave the French soldiers a cigarette they would let you fire their gun [laughs] Yeah. Free and easy the French soldiers were. Too free and easy. And then we moved from there when the Germans, while we were there the Germans broke through in to the low countries and we were moved very quickly across in to the north of France to — the idea was, at the time they were trying to stop the German army so they could get the other, the rest of the forces evacuated and the 51st Highland Division was one that fought the rear-guard action so that Dunkirk could be take place. And when Dunkirk had been successfully evacuated they just left us and we were left in France. And we listened to Churchill on the radio saying all troops left in the north of France must be given up as lost. And [laughs] there we were. So, we still went on fighting. The 51st. I wasn’t involved in the fighting actually. I was a despatch rider. But then we were trapped then. Forced back and back in, forced back to a small coastal town called St Valerie. And we were surrounded on all sides by the Germans and we had the bulk of the division around in that, in that area. But further along the coast was a place called Veules les Roses and they, they were managing to get some ships in there to get troops out. So, we were obviously, we’d been bombarded all day from the air and from the Germans around about and that. The town was ablaze. That was the first time I ever heard, you know, the ricochet from a bullet. You used to see it on the Westerns, you know. The first time, the first time I heard that ricochet of bullets going from the walls. And anyway, it was obvious we were going to surrender the next morning. It got towards night time. And I asked several of the chaps, if we got together I said there was a barn door. The barn. The side of a barn had been blown up. The barn had been blown up. And if we could launch that into the water it would hold several of us and we could get out and get in to that line of ships, you see. So, we set the deadline for 10 o’clock and when it came to the 10 o’clock they wouldn’t go. So, another chap said, ‘Well I would do it. I would go.’ So, I said, ‘Well, it’s just be the two of us,’ I said, ‘There’s a big door there so we could manage that across into the water and try that.’ So, he was, ‘Right. Let’s have a go.’ So, we went. Carried the door between us down to the rocks and launched it. And as we were launching it then he informed me he couldn’t swim. So [laughs] I got him sat on the door and I thought well I’ll stop in the water and I’ll sort of act more or less as propeller rudder and so off we set. Now, where we went. We paddled and paddled all night to get out of the way at ninety degrees. Out into the water. Into the sea. And I get into this line of ships who were coming out. These ships were going directly into the harbour and then directly out again. Right out to sea before they turned to go back to England and by the time by the time it began to get light it was, St Valerie was just a smoking ruin. It was a pall of smoke on the horizon. You couldn’t see it. We were way out to sea. And sometime in the morning when it started to get light we got into the line of ships as it happened. There were two to come. There were two trawlers. French trawlers. I think they were both French. The first one threw us a life belt as they went past. So, I said thank you very much sort of thing. And the next one picked us up. This chap on the raft he couldn’t move his legs. He’d been sat cramped up there all night and they tied a rope around his waist and they hauled him up and then they hauled me up. And the first thing they did they gave me a glass hot rum. And I’d had nothing to eat for a couple of days because we were on the move all over the place and I went out like a light. I vaguely remember them cutting my boots. My gaiters and my boots. And when I came to I was in a bunk somewhere in the ship and they were shaking me and saying, ‘We’re taking you to an English ship.’ So, I said, ‘Right. Fair enough.’ So, they wrapped a blanket around me. Took me to this English ship. Put downside into this ship and on the way, I found the chap who was in charge of the life boat that took us off and I said, ‘Can you tell me what happened to my clothes?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We didn’t bring any clothes over’. So, I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve only got this blanket.’ So, he says, ‘Well I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I can’t help you. I can give you a pair of socks to protect your feet.’ So, I landed at Southampton with a pair of socks and a blanket. And as it happened, good old British organisation again, they always called it but they had a warehouse on the docks and they got laid out with uniforms for people that were in similar situations. I just went out and picked out clothes and what not. Got clothes and took us back home.
DE: So, you had a close call from being —
LR: From there we were taken up to Scotland to report the division and so we just carried on duties up there and in 1941 they, there was an order came out on the part one orders a request for volunteers for air crew duties in the RAF. So, I volunteered and I was accepted. I did, I had to do education tests and health tests and all sorts of tests. I had to go down to Edinburgh for all this and came through. Was posted to Stratford on Avon where they changed us over from army to RAF with the different uniform and the different types of drill and what not. And from there to Scarborough where we were billeted in the Grand Hotel and one of the lasting things about all this was after months, well a year and a half really of sleeping on the floor we got — in Stratford upon Avon we had a bed with sheets on it. Wonderful. And the food was a lot different as well. It was a lot better. Anyway, from Stratford we went to Scarborough as I said. Did our initial training. RAF training. And then we were posted. First of all, I was posted to Florida. So, I thought oh wonderful. And then we got to the transit camp they found that they’d got two to many on the list so they took two off. There was me, Rutherford and another chap — Roberts. So they’d taken the two next to one another and took us off the course and sent us back to Scarborough. From there we were posted then to Rhodesia which is now Zimbabwe of course. Southern Rhodesia. And did our training in Rhodesia and then South Africa, in East London and then back home. And then in to Bomber Command.
DE: I see. So why did you choose to volunteer for the RAF?
LR: Well if I’d have had a choice at the beginning of the war when I was called up I’d have opted for the RAF. Of course, my brother and I were always interested. We were always, we knew all the first world war fighters and we were always interested in the RAF. Right through. And all the pre-war planes. We knew them all. And my brother, in actual fact, was in the Volunteer Reserve before the war and I thought well great, I’m going to try this. I might get in line with my brother you see. And I went home and told my mother I was volunteering for the RAF. ‘Oh great,’ she said, ‘That’s fine,’ She said, ‘You might get to go with Bill.’ My brother. I said, ‘Yeah.’ And while I was on leave I got a telegram to say he’d been killed. Well he was missing but believed killed. He was just finishing his training for the Coastal Command. He was almost finished and they crashed into the Irish Sea. He was based in Silloth. And my mother said, ‘Don’t you go in that RAF.’ So, I said, ‘No. Alright.’ [unclear] And that’s how I came to be in the RAF. The best move I’ve ever made I think.
DE: It was.
LR: As far as I was concerned. And I’ve always been proud of being in the RAF. And that was that.
DE: Ok. Why, why do you feel proud about your service in the RAF?
LR: Because of what we did. Not proud of what we did but proud of the part we played. I always feel that in some way we helped to end the war. Did our part in ending the war. I was proud to be part of that.
DE: What do you think about the way that Bomber Command has been remembered since the war?
LR: After the war Bomber Command was vilified. They called us aerial gangsters because of the bombing and what not. Killing innocent people. But that was total war. That was what it was all about. I mean let’s face it, the Germans had started it with Warsaw and then they bombed without any declaration of war or anything like that. They went in and they bomber Rotterdam and Amsterdam and all the low country places and invaded. And after that of course there was London and poor Coventry and all these places. Hull. So, I don’t know why we got the thick end. I think there was a lot of these do-gooders that said, you know, we shouldn’t have done it. But then heard nothing. There was no, sort of, anything ever said about Bomber Command. When, when the leaders of the various forces got their honours after the war they all went to the House of Lords except Sir Arthur Harris. He was Sir Arthur and that was, he stopped there. Nothing else. And as I say, after, after that, you know, later years nothing was said much about Bomber Command at all until the last three, four, five years when there’s suddenly been a sudden surge in the interest in the part that Bomber Command actually played. And I’m finding now that people are beginning to say, you know, what a good job we did. And it’s very gratifying. Very.
DE: Smashing. Thank you ever so much.
LR: It’s my pleasure.
DE: Ok. Before I press stop is there anything else that you can think of off the top of your head that you want to tell me.
LR: I think we’ve about covered everything.
DE: I’ll call that a day then. Thank you ever so much. Thank you.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Les Rutherford. Three
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-05
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ARutherfordL151005
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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01:42:32 audio recording
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
Les Rutherford joined the army and was in the 51st Highland Division which formed the rear-guard defence, allowing for the evacuation of Dunkirk. He escaped out to sea on a barn door and was picked up and taken to England by a French trawler. He later volunteered for the Royal Air Force and became a bomb aimer. He completed 23 operations with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe but was shot down by a fighter on his 24th operation. He managed to bail out before the aircraft exploded. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III. He discusses the diary he kept during his time as a prisoner of war.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
France--Dunkerque
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1940
1941
1942
1943-12-20
1944
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
50 Squadron
aircrew
arts and crafts
bale out
bomb aimer
displaced person
Dulag Luft
entertainment
perimeter track
prisoner of war
RAF Skellingthorpe
sanitation
shot down
Stalag Luft 3
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/266/17927/BGriffinDAJGriffinDAJv1.2.pdf
0afbe6b15e5e9db9c9cce9da8fba63c9
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
‘ONE MAN AND HIS TIME’
David A. J. Griffin
All the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
they have their exits, and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many parts.
AS YOU LIKE IT
ACT II SCENE VII
[page break]
SYNOPSIS
“I -INK”, the four-engined Halifax bomber had hit hard. Its bombs had cascaded down on the German target, and now it was home to an eggs and bacon breakfast.
However, the terse warning, “Look out” Skipper: Fighter to Starboard” is the beginning of the end for the gallant old Lady and six members of its crew: Pilot John Farmer, Wireless Operator Eric Springett, Mid Upper Gunner Alf Stewart, Rear Gunner William Musson, Bomb Aimer Jack Wilson, and Flight Engineer John Satchell.
The aircraft, a flaming torch, explodes and the only survivor is David Griffin its Welsh navigator, who
lands in Holland and becomes a prisoner of war.
David, with other unfortunates, becomes human flotsam, and during his nineteen month’s captivity is cattle-trucked hither and thither in search of a home, the prison camp.
In East Prussia, he is introduced to the raw life: the complete lack of privacy; the thousand and one
rumours and prophecies which are believed, because they are desirable, the indomitable Allied airmen in adversity; the effect of letters or lack of them from loved ones; the gnawing hunger and perpetual cold, life in the Lager with its humour, pathos, repartee and longing for freedom; and the illicit daily BBC News bulletin, and David finds himself in an army camp in Poland with Dunkirk veterans- the forgotten men of yesterday. He meets McLeod, a grizzled veteran who has soldiered all over the world, and whose stock-in-trade is relating sexual experiences.
The summer of 1944 is hot, the hunger pangs are assuaged, and one feels that freedom is near.
However, the Russian enigma, halting their advance in front of Warsaw, when they had urged the
Poles to rise and kill the German garrison was hard to fathom.
Again, they are forced to move westwards into the heart of Germany. The winter of 1944/45 is spent
without Red Cross food parcels, without cigarettes and showers, assailed by the biting cold and slush
mud, and the confiscation of the Paillasses, the last vestige of prisoner comfort, when the Gestapo
swoop in the morning dark. However, humour and optimism still prevail and the fluctuations and
vicissitudes of war are eagerly discussed and analysed by the prisoners. Finally, Montgomery’s
armies cross the Rhine at Wesel and the camp takes to the road on foot. Trials and tribulations beset
the marchers, and the problem is to survive. Finally, David accompanies by his friend, Welling’s,
escapes from the column and endeavours to make his way to the “front”, and link-up with the
advancing Allied armies.
They are recaptured near Belson, but regain freedom and finally security when they live with Polish
slave workers in a big barn. Freedom is theirs when the 11th British Armoured Division overruns the
area and David meets Sergeant Bill Woodward, Military Medal, who had fought in the North African
Campaign and helped to liberate Brussels.
[page break]
[photograph] Handley-Page Halifax B.MK II Series (RAF)
[photograph] Author: Warrant Officer David Griffin (1945)
[page break]
[map] Reference Locations in Germany.
[map] Reference Locations as located within 2017 international borders.
[page break]
CHAPTER I
It was just before midnight on 27th September 1943. Crump! Crump! Went the bursting venom of the
anti-aircraft shells, and the Halifax bomber seemed to buck and leap several feet in the air as the
explosion reached upwards to claw it from the sky. This sudden, feverish burst of activity subsided
almost as soon as it had begun, as if the German range finders, 21,000 feet below, now disclaimed all interest in their target.
'Christ! That was close,' exclaimed Alf Stuart, the mid-upper gunner, 'If that was their first attempt, I'd hate to be around for the second.'
'Me, too,' chimed in the bomb aimer, Jack Wilson, 'the sudden racket frightened hell out of me.'
'Okay, let's settle down then,' commanded the skipper, 'we've just crossed the Dutch coast and that was the welcoming committee. So stay off the intercom! By the way, navigator, what's our ground speed?'
'One hundred and seventy-eight knots, Skip. We have a headwind and a full bomb load, but I estimate we're bang on track.'
Communication and the cackle of the intercom were turned off by the clicking of a switch, and
everyone went back to his appointed task of keeping the ship airborne. The gunners, mid-upper and
rear, scanned the darkened skies for possible attack; the wireless operator, Eric Springett, fiddled with the W/T knobs and slowly turned the direction-finding loop antenna for a bearing; the pilot, John Farmer, and flight-engineer, John Satchell, carefully scrutinised the dials of the aircraft's controls; while the bomb aimer, Jack Wilson for the umpteenth time, checked the bombsight to ensure all was in readiness. The navigator, David Griffin, meanwhile, was on his hands and knees looking for the transparent, celluloid 360° protractor, which had slid off the chart table when the aircraft had been uplifted.
'Bloody thing,' muttered Dave, 'it's always slipping and sliding, and in this black hole it's impossible to find.'
His fingers groped along the aircraft's floor until contact was made, enabling him to slide his fingers
under the elusive protractor and return it to the table on which the Mercator's projection was pinned.
By, the faint beam of light, he viewed the table's unholy mess: the once blank map now rapidly filling
with straight lines, figures and E.T. As, the highly gleaming dividers for measuring distances; the
pencil perched on the edge and ready to do a vanishing trick; and the ICAN computer which provided most of the answers to the problems besetting him. However, something was missing.
'Where's the bloody rubber?' he asked himself. He knew the answer and was just about to seek it out in the darkness below the table when he heard the clicking of the intercom.
'Captain to Navigator, what's the E.T.A. target, and give me a course for home when we've dropped
our bundle.'
'Okay, skipper!'
Dave went to work with feverish energy. He drew straight lines on the map, measured distances
meticulously with the dividers, worked out the new wind speed and direction and then, with the aid of the computer, arrived at an answer.
'E.T.A. target, 2325 hours, skipper, and the course home will be 278° magnetic.’
[page break]
The captain acknowledged, and then there was silence save for the steady drone of the aircraft's four powerful engines drawing them irresistibly towards the target.
Dave checked his calculations for possible error and then transferred the findings to the log sheet.
Everything was shipshape so far and going smoothly. Once the bombs had gone and they'd cleared the target area, the danger of plummeting earthwards would slowly recede and the odds of getting back to base and an egg and bacon breakfast would look rosier. Still, there was many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, as Dave knew only too well, and the homeward path would be fraught with difficulties, especially the German night fighters who'd be waiting for them.
At briefing, the navigation officer had told them that the actual bombing of the target area was to be
completed within forty-four minutes - saturation bombing they called it - allowing each wave of 150
aircraft 11 minutes to perform its task. Dave's squadron had been allocated to the third wave, and as
the first wave was due to commence at 2300 hours, Dave knew he was bang on time and would be
away before the fourth and final wave did their destruction. In the early days of the war, raids had
dragged on interminably as solitary bombers found their way to the target area only to be
overwhelmed by the ground defences. Now, however, saturation meant that the greatest number of
aircraft was over the target at one time and the defences could not cope with the avalanche that swept down upon them. The intensity of the attack would ensure that the ground defenders would be unable to leave the shelters to extinguish the incendiaries and so the target would be well ablaze and, hopefully, out of control by the time the fourth wave departed.
Dave tried to adjust the thin pencil-ray of light above the navigator's table so that it would reveal the
elusive eraser, but failed. He bent down to commence a square-search of the blackness and his efforts were immediately rewarded.
'Got it!' he exclaimed triumphantly, and then his short-lived joy was abruptly terminated by his knee
coming into hard contact with the sextant.
'Jesus Christ!' he groaned, 'My bloody knee'. He sat on the seat and nursed the hurt, feeling very sorry for himself.
'Only birds and fools fly', he mumbled, and then added as an afterthought, 'and birds don't fly at night.’
However, his feelings of self-pity were short-lived when the cackle of the intercom was immediately
followed by: 'Navigator, I can see the PFF flares going down, and the target is ahead and slightly to
starboard. Well done!'
Dave knew that the Path Finder Force, the elite of Bomber Command, always went ahead of the
bomber force to ring the target with different coloured flares. The following bomber force bomb
aimers were instructed to bomb on a particular colour. I for Ink, the aircraft in which they were
travelling, was still thirty minutes away, but at 20,000 odd feet one could see for miles.
'Good stuff’,. we won't get lost now,' he mused, then laughed at himself for being self-congratulatory.
Then it was back to the Mercator, groundspeeds, tracks, courses, airspeeds and the ever-fickle wind
speed and direction. It was feverish and painstaking activity, but Dave knew from experience that the hairline between life and death depended on Lady Luck and the vigilance and dedication of each
member of the crew.
[page break]
CHAPTER II
Dave checked his figures and calculations. Everything was correct. In two minutes they would arrive
at the turning point, ten nautical miles north of the target, and then head due south to perform their
night's work. All aircraft had to obey this ruling so that the bomber stream would be flowing in an
orderly direction and collisions in mid-air would be minimised.
The cackle of the intercom broke the silence, 'Okay, skipper, navigator here. New course 184°
magnetic, ready, now!’
The aircraft wheeled to starboard as if it were a winged mallard avoiding a fusillade of shot, and then
settled down for the run-in. There was silence for about thirty seconds and then the bomb-aimer took control: 'Two degrees to starboard, skipper, steady, steady, bang on, hold it!'
Dave estimated that they would continue this straight and level run for six minutes and in that time the bombs would have gone, the target cleared and then they could turn for home, so at 2328 hours they would steer 278°. He left his seat and peered over the crouched back of the bomb aimer through the perspex domed-nose of the Halifax. The night was literally on fire and the red, lurid glow of the
holocaust below was doing its best to banish the enshrouding darkness. The target was festooned with flames and the glow of the tracer bullets was like lianas creeping up from below to entwine and
squeeze the marauders from the sky. The descending coloured flares of the Path Finder Force made the area a veritable fairy-ground, but the crump! crump! of the exploding ack-ack shells reminded the intruders that this was hell on earth and the beckoning fires were waiting to envelop and consume them.
'Steady, skipper! Hold it! Hold it! Bombs gone.'
The Halifax seemed to lift upwards as if relieved of a weighty problem, but still continued on its
straight and level run.
'Christ! Did you see that Lanc?' exploded Jack Wilson, excitedly. 'It almost crashed into us.'
'The bloody fool was going the wrong way,' chorused Bill Mussed, the rear-gunner.
'Keep off the intercom!' commanded the skipper, and then there was silence.
'Get ready to steer course 278° magnetic, skipper—now!' commanded Dave, and the four-engined
bomber slewed once again to starboard and hurried into the night away from the inferno.
'Thank God for that,' whispered Dave to himself, 'and now let's get home to those bacon and eggs.
Bugger this for a lark!' He settled down to his charts and navigation, plotted a few loop bearings to
determine position and discovered that for once the wind speed and direction were constant and no
course change was necessary. So it was going to be a piece of cake and another op nearer the magical twenty-eight and 'screening'. Each crew member, excepting the skipper, had to complete twenty-eight operational flights before being rested as an instructor at an Operational Training Unit, and this was the Mecca everyone strove to attain because it meant a well-earned lull where relative safety and longer life expectancy existed. Not that any member of aircrew felt that he was going for a burton. The consensus of opinion was that it just couldn't happen to them, and Dave thought, like every other member of his crew, that he was luck personified and untouchable. The gods would always smile in his direction, even if they were angry at times and vented their wrath on others.
'I for Ink' stooged on unmolested, although both to port and starboard the luckless ones were trapped irretrievably in the bright glow of the spider's web weaved by the German searchlights. The bomber force was on its way home, but there would be many an airman missing when breakfast was served.
The rules of the game were being observed. The invaders had hit hard and relentlessly, and the
German night fighters would do their utmost to wreak vengeance.
[page break]
'Look out, Skipper! Fighter to starboard!' excitedly warned Bill, and then, almost immediately, from
Jack: 'another coming in from port. Look out!'
The rattle and clatter of machine gun bullets ripping and tearing their way through the fuselage were
so sudden and unexpected that Dave stood as if movement would help avoid destruction. Then there was quiet, a deathly quiet, and Dave thought that he must be the only one alive, and was just about to click on the intercom, when, 'Skipper here. Are you alright, navigator?'
'I'm okay, skipper.'
'Are you alright, bomb aimer?'
'Okay, skipper.'
So the roll call was carried out, and the seven members of the crew were all unhurt.
'Well done! We're all still hale and hearty so let's get our heads down and get this ship back to base.
By the way, rear gunner, which fighter attacked us?'
'Both, skipper. The attack was simultaneous - the starboard fighter came across the rear, while the one from port struck underneath at the belly. Bloody miracle that we're all still alive and airborne.'
'Don't underestimate I for Ink, Bill, she's a tough old girl. Engineer, check for damage! Now let's keep
quiet. We've still a long way to go. Keep your eyes peeled for fighters!' So the excitement was over,
and it was back to work. Dave glanced out of the astrodome and, although they were miles away from the target, the fires were plainly visible and the distant sky was suffused with a reddish glow. The incendiary bombs had done their work and the explosions would go on all night as the conflagration spread.
'I'd hate to be down there,' thought Dave. 'The farther I can get away the better. God help those who bale over the target area, they'd get curry.
His thoughts and feelings of smugness and security were rudely shattered with, 'Skipper, the port
outer's on fire.' It was Jack’s voice and sounded so matter of fact.
'Flight engineer, skipper here, see what you can do with the fire extinguisher! Do you think I ought to
dive her to see if we can blow it out?'
'Hang on, skip! I'll give it a go first.'
Dave switched off the light above the table, pulled aside the small blackout curtain and peered into the night. Flames from the port outer engine were being swept back by the slipstream but, although this was a dicey situation, there was no need to panic as the engineer might be able to come up with an answer. However, Dave couldn't understand how the fire had started. Some time had elapsed since the attack, and it seemed that the aircraft was functioning efficiently. Still you had to be prepared for all eventualities in this game.
'I've tried the extinguisher, skipper, and it doesn't seem to have any effect. You'd better dive.'
The big bomber seemed to lurch forward, and Dave held on tightly to his seat as the aircraft's nose
dipped and the rapid descent began. However, the flames just wouldn't disappear and were still licking hungrily around the engine cowling and being swept backwards by the force of the slipstream when they attained, once again, the straight and level position.
'I'll give her another go, engineer,' and immediately the rapid downward motion began again, but to no avail. The flames were determined in their resistance.
'What's our position, navigator?'
[page break]
'We've just crossed the Dutch border, skipper, and within ten minutes we'll be over the North Sea.'
'What about 'ditching'? Engineer, do you think the kite will hold together until then?'
'I don't think so. She could blow.'
All the crew heard the conversation, and Dave knew that ditching would be preferred to baling out.
They had practiced baling-out drill when the aircraft was on the ground, but all had voiced the opinion that they wouldn't be keen on the real thing, believing that pancaking into the sea would be preferable, although they had never experienced the latter.
'Let out the trailing aerial, wireless operator, so that we can transmit an SOS before ditching. Then
they'll know our position.'
I for Ink, still fully operational, relentlessly ploughed its way homewards, but now the flames from the engine were leaping and dancing their way backwards in the slipstream current, seeming to reach half the length of the aircraft.
'Okay, skipper here. Bale out!'
The terse and dreaded command struck home forcibly. This was it, the real thing. It was to be obeyed immediately.
Dave knew the drill: he clipped his 'chute to the snugly fitting harness; upended the navigator's table, fastening it to the fuselage of the aircraft; then kicked the fallen navigational instruments out of the way so that he could get to the escape hatch in the floor of the aircraft. He bent down, grasped the ringed handle and tugged upwards, but it failed to budge.
Looking up he saw the bomb aimer, wireless operator and other crew members lined-up in the correct order for baling, then heaved once more. The hatch door shot upwards and he fell back on his arse with the wind whistling in, twirling and twisting the small navigational slips and the paper log. Holding firmly to the floor of the fuselage, he lowered himself out feet first, his back facing the
direction in which they were heading. His legs hit the full blast of the slipstream to move upwards and adhere to the underside of the fuselage. Then his knee-length suede zip-up flying boots slid off into the darkness, and he was left in the ticklish position of having his head, shoulders and arms inside the Halifax, while the lower portion remained outside. Taking a final look at his oppos, he heaved upwards with his arms and was out into the night, sliding below the fuselage and hitting and taking something with him. Feverishly, his hand sought the handle of the ripcord, pulled hard, and within seconds it seemed that he was going upwards towards heaven rather than earthwards. The quiet and calm of the night surrounded him and it seemed as if nothing stirred. Perhaps this silence and serenity were accentuated by the tremendous contrast between being a prisoner of the noise, tension and unceasing, feverish activity of the aircraft for so long and then being suddenly liberated from it all. He was safe.
The sky, the clouds and the filtering moon were his, but way below him, to his surprise, was the
flaming torch, 'I for Ink'. How it had got there was beyond him, because he thought his rapid descent
would have taken him below the Halifax. The blazing aircraft riveted his attention as if mesmerised,
and then the spell was broken by an explosion, accompanied by a sheet of flame, and I for Ink'
plunged relentlessly earthwards.
Dave closed his eyes. 'Jesus!' he whispered. 'What an end!' He knew that the bomb aimer would have had time to bale, but the other five members of the crew would be trapped in the flaming hell by gravitational force and would be incinerated before they reached the ground. The German defences had done their work ruthlessly and efficiently.
The parachute oscillated in the cold September air and Dave placed one stockinged foot on the other
for warmth. Clasping his hands, he realised that something was amiss as they felt sticky and wet and
[page break]
on examination, he discovered they were bloody. His right knee felt cold and as his hand slid down to succour it, it contacted the bare, sticky flesh.
'Christ!' he blurted, 'My trouser leg must have ripped. How the hell did that happen?' Then it dawned. It was the trailing aerial which he had hit and carried away and the flesh of his hands and knee must have been cut in the process. Still, that was nothing. He was alive and kicking and that's what counted.
The descent seemed long and so he had time to ruminate upon the situation. He had no boots and no escape kit, having left the latter in the Halifax, and would be landing in Holland. The Germans where there as in every other occupied part of Europe, so it would be a long walk home. But he felt he could do it, such was the confidence of youth.
Suddenly a group of trees became discernible and the ground came rushing to meet him. He was going to land on his back, so frantically pulled on the parachute’s silken lines to gain control.
Then bang! He hit, not the ground, but what seemed a tall, wired fence. It held him for a moment, and then he crashed to the ground.
'Oh, my bloody ankle! My ankle!' he moaned.
Releasing himself from the harness, he hobbled around in small circles and realised he wasn't alone,
but had a spectator. On the other side of the fence was a large bull, which snorted away and was most angry because his nocturnal quiet had been shattered by the billowing, white angel from the skies. 'Piss off!' cried Dave angrily, and then, 'Jesus, my bloody ankle!'
The bull moved away but Dave still kept moving around in circles as if movement would alleviate and
banish the pain. Finally, he gathered his life-saving silk and moved to a spot a few hundred yards away to bury the evidence of his arrival. It was hard work and a sense of dissatisfaction existed with his handiwork on completion. Still, it would have to do, as he couldn't afford to linger.
He set off in a westerly direction, keeping the Pole star to his right, hobbling and favouring his left
foot, the stars, the clouds and the night his companions, and the quiet and stillness making their
impact.
'So this is Holland,' ruminated Dave. 'It could have been worse.'
[page break]
CHAPTER III
He had only walked about a 100 yards and already his busted ankle and feet were killing him. His
ankle pained his every step, while the soles of his feet, were cold and sore. Then he neared a clump of trees surrounding a small cottage. Nothing and no-one stirred and, thus, emboldened, he approached the front door, paused for a few moments and then knocked loudly. The sound reverberated in the still night, but no-one answered the summons, save the shadows of the nearby copse which seemed to jump in the flickering moonlight. Dave knocked again, but it seemed that the whole world was asleep and oblivious to his plight. He was just about to knock a third time, when he heard movement from within and muted voices as if they were discussing a course of action concerning their nocturnal visitor. Then
there was quiet and Dave, fearing that they thought he had left, knocked loudly.
A voice called out in Dutch, and Dave, not knowing the language, interpreted it as, 'Who are you, and what do you want?' So he set about giving an explanation: he was a British airman who had been shot down and wanted a new pair of shoes. It sounded ludicrous, almost like a music hall joke, but there was no response from within so obviously they didn't understand what he was trying to convey. The humour of the farcical situation was lost on the inmates. Mutterings continued to filter through the door, and so Dave knocked again and repeated his requirements. Finally, the door opened slowly and a powerful, middle-aged man carrying an oil lamp emerged. He thrust it at Dave's face, blinding him temporarily, and then lowered it to scrutinise the rest of him. Having satisfied that all was correct, he motioned the airman to enter, closed the door behind, and then turned up the wick of the lamp to reveal the other occupants: a stoutish woman - whom Dave assumed was the mother - and two children, a girl, aged about thirteen and a boy about sixteen.
The mother motioned him to sit and there was silence as he became the cynosure of all eyes. They
examined him closely; the children his navigator's brevet and sergeant's stripes; the man staring
intently at his face as if trying to recall recognition, while the woman seemed to be fascinated by his
trousers. He thought something was amiss and glanced down to rectify and button up, only to see his protruding, dried, bloody knee. He moved his hands to close the gaping rent in the cloth and noticed his hands were of the same red hue. No one moved, and for Dave the quiet and intensity of the observation was both unnerving and unsettling. He moved his feet to create a noise and lessen the tension, which created a stabbing pain from his injured knee causing Dave to gasp in pain.
The emission of sound broke the trance and created a stir. The mother moved into the next room and returned with a bowl of warm water and some soap and, with the aid of the daughter, proceeded to wash and cleanse the flesh around the right knee and also the hands. Then she removed Dave's left sock, revealing a very swollen, puffed, blue-mottled ankle. A few words were exchanged, but communication was difficult because of the language barrier and it was left to gesticulation and signs. Then there was food, a glass of milk and two slices of darkish coloured bread with honey.
It was now the early hours of the morning and Dave could hardly keep his eyes open. He was sick
with tiredness and every part of his body hurt, from the soles of his feet to his aching head. His host,
realising this, beckoned him to follow and he hobbled and limped in his wake to an adjoining room
containing an alcove, where a makeshift bed existed. It belonged to the boy and it was indicated that
for the next few hours it was Dave's also. The lamplight was removed, and Dave stripped to his vest
and pants, climbed in beside the boy and within minutes, despite the aches and pains which plagued
him, was fast asleep.
The next morning he awoke to the sound of voices and dressed hurriedly. The pain from his ankle was intense and, in the light of day it looked as if it had been painted blue. The clock informed him that it was almost eight. So he'd made a late, bad start to the day and his resolve to be a successful evader would come to naught, unless he left the present scene immediately.
In the next room, Dave was introduced by his host to three strangers, one of whom spoke a little
English. This person informed him that they were neighbouring farmers who had come to see him.
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'No bloody good,' ruminated Dave, 'the whole neighbourhood must know I'm here.'
He pointed to his feet and asked for shoes, for it was time he went. If he stayed much longer he was a goner. The woman brought him a gaily painted pair of Dutch wooden clogs which fitted fairly
comfortably, despite the swollen ankle, However, when he stood it was difficult to move freely as the shoes seemed to want to stay in one spot, and his ankle hurt like hell. Nevertheless, he had to go and so extended his hand in farewell. However, the woman placed an arm around his shoulders and
pointed to the food on the table, insisting that he partake.
Dave was so grateful for her kindness, and, also he realised that the next meal may be a long time
coming.
He sat down and was just about to commence breakfast when two Dutch policemen were ushered in by the boy. They motioned Dave to finish his meal, and then carried on an affable conversation with those present.
The meal over, the police stood and motioned that he should accompany them, but before he could do so the visitor, who could speak a smattering of English, grasped his hands and began to apologise,
'Gestapo, shooting, concentration camp, in the night, finished', were words mentioned and from the
explanation Dave arrived at the conclusion that during the night the Dutch farmer, his host, had gone to the local police station to tell of his whereabouts. He had done this not for himself, but for his family. Harbouring or helping an evader was punishable by death and his host had to put his family first. Dave understood the predicament as he would have done exactly the same thing if positions had been reversed, so as he moved towards the door, he stopped, looked his host straight in the eye and proffered his hand. The farmer grabbed and wrung it warmly, and Dave thought he detected a tear in the eye. It was as if he were pleased to be forgiven. He was no Judas, but a man, who, rightly so, placed the welfare and safety of his family above all else. Dave smiled at the mother and nodded his head in appreciation for what she had done, then threw a friendly salute at the two children before moving outside to the waiting car.
A friendly atmosphere pervaded the local Dutch police station and Dave was extended every courtesy, being allowed to sit in the office with the policemen on duty, drink coffee with an acorn flavour and carry on a conversation in sign language. Then the ringing and answering of the telephone brought the euphoria to an abrupt end. The word Luftwaffe was mentioned and Dave was bundled into a cell and the door clanged behind him. Within minutes, the cell corridor resounded with approaching steps and Dave, for the first time, was confronted with the greyish-green uniform of the Luftwaffe.
'Bloody good communication system these Dutch have', reasoned Dave. 'they knew these bastards
were on the way'.
The cell door was unlocked, and the German officer motioned Dave to follow him to the office, where a Luftwaffe feldwebel awaited. A canvas bag was produced, emptied, and Dave was asked to examine the contents - the pitiful, charred remains of five members of 'I for Ink'. It would have been impossible to identify anything or learn to whom they belonged, except that Dave knew what he was looking for and on the blackened, burnt 'dog-tags' was able to trace a few letters, fill in the ones that were obliterated and so make a name which represented a member of his crew. It was as if he were
completing a crossword puzzle. The officer informed him that five airmen had been incinerated in the plane crash, while the sixth member had been found dead in a garden about a mile away, the parachute open and surrounding him. Dave was shown the patch of leather on which the airman's name was printed and worn by aircrew as easy identification on the squadron. It was the wireless operator's, Eric Springett. No reason was given for the cause of death, save that the airman had a large cut on his forehead.
One of the policemen exchanged words with the Luftwaffe officer, and the latter instructed Dave to
remove his clogs as they were to be returned to the owner. Then he was conducted, bootless, to the
waiting truck, placed in the back with three Luftwaffe members - part of the crew that had been
examining the remains of 'I for Ink' - and driven off.
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The journey lasted about three-quarters of an hour, and Dave tried to fathom the reason for the
wireless operator's death. He had baled successfully as evidenced by the open chute, so what could
have caused it? The only conclusion he arrived at was the exploding bomber must have been
responsible as the luckless airman would have been in close proximity when the blast occurred. What a way to die! Five of his oppos burnt alive and the sixth also dead. These crew members over the past three months had been like a family. They had lived together in their Nissan hut. They had flown eight previous missions all without incident. He thought of the Irishmen, Jack Wilson and Bill
Mussed, the Londoners, John Farmer and Eric Springett, Alf Stuart from Northern England and his
close friend John Satchell, with whose family he had shared a meal and the last words John’s mother
had said to him, was “Look after John”. The thought made him shudder and realise that but for the
grace of God and that he was the navigator, first in the baling order, he would be dead too
The journey terminated with their arrival at an aerodrome, and from the number of M.E. 109s and
110s, at dispersal points and sprinkling the runways, it was easy to conclude that here was the home of several fighter squadrons, which battled with RAF bomber hordes at night and then cut swaths in the marauding American B17s during the day. Dave was taken into the administrative block and given a pair of RAF flying boots, identical with the ones he had lost. However, when putting them on found that they were both left-footed. He stood and felt like Charlie Chaplin doing the 'can-can', as both his feet pointed in the same direction.
A voice in German drew his attention from the lower half of his body and looking up, he saw a young, fresh looking Luftwaffe pilot observing him. The pilot spoke a few more words and Dave believed he was commiserating with him on his misfortune of having been shot down. Dave just smiled, shrugged his shoulders, then pointed to his two left feet. The German laughed and, as he walked away, said, in an impeccable French accent, 'C’est la guerre', and Dave, who had a smattering of French in his education, knew that although the fortunes of war had been unkind, the gods had smiled upon him during the last twenty-four hours.
Escorted by two guards, he duck walked his way to the cooler and was locked in a cell. Strangely
enough, a sense of security came over him with the shutting of the door, as this was a haven from the recent, violent vicissitudes which had stormed around and over him. Here was a refuge where one could rest and recuperate for the gales and tempests ahead. He removed his two 'left feet', lay on the narrow bunk, pulled the blanket up around his shoulders and within minutes was fast asleep.
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CHAPTER IV
The train rattled its way across the tracks, and the uneven motion caused Dave to sway against the
burly, armed guard sitting next to him. The movement produced a smile on the face of the German
soldier sitting opposite, and he, for the umpteenth time, produced the remark, 'For you the war is over'. Neither of Dave's custodians could speak a word of English, but this saying had found its way into the German's vocabulary at some time or other and now he loved using it. Perhaps it was to show his command of the English language or to impress on the prisoner the futility and hopelessness of his situation. The carriage had seats on either side and an aisle running down the middle, so the passengers could walk freely to and fro. Consequently, the RAF navigator attracted much attention and the Dutch passengers wanted to converse with Dave and offer him cigarettes. The burly one, however, wouldn't allow this and gesticulated with his machine gun for the gathering onlookers to disperse and go back to their seats, while his comrade-in-arms just sat and smiled benignly on all and sundry.
The train made several stops along the way, but finally the terminus was reached - Amsterdam. Here, Dave was hustled through the commuter crowd going their divers ways and into a room at the end of the platform, where three Luftwaffe personnel, one of whom was a feldwebel, waited. The burly guard produced an envelope containing three forms, all of which were duly signed. Thus, Dave, was signed, sealed and delivered. His two former guards, their task completed, left, leaving him in the custody of the new arrivals. Then, escorted to a waiting car, he was whisked through the streets of the city to his destination.
Dave was never really sure where the Royal Palace of the House of Nassau-Orange was actually
situated, in Amsterdam or The Hague, but in late September, 1943, it was the Headquarters of the
German Luftwaffe in the Low Countries and it was to this place that he was driven and incarcerated.
Although only there for a day and a night, his stay was uneventful, save for a chance meeting with Ray Bolland, a Canadian fighter pilot. After about three hours’ imprisonment, he was taken to the urinal by a guard and encountered the indomitable Ray, who was relieving himself. Dave sidled alongside the big Canadian, undid his fly and commenced pissing.
'What the hell brought you here, for Christ sake?' demanded a Canadian voice, half-humorously, half sarcastically. Dave, turned to view the speaker. The left side of his face was badly burned and part of
his battle dress had been charred. His left arm was in makeshift sling and he looked in bad shape.
'Bloody shot down. That's what happened to me,' informed Dave. 'I'm not here by invitation. What
happened to you? You look like you've had a rough time.'
'Shooting up trains, when I bought it and crashed'.
One of the guards yelled out something like 'Shut up' or 'hurry up'.
'Fuck-off, you son-of-a-bitch!' was the Canadian's immediate reply. Then he finished his toiletries,
carefully and deliberately buttoned up his fly with his good hand, and then shuffled off to his cell.
The next morning, they were off early and on the train before 7.30 a.m. The party consisted of Ray
Bolland, Jack McDonald, three guards and Dave. Ray and Jack were both Canadians who had been
shot down a few days previously while shooting up trains. They belonged to the same Typhoon
squadron, which made, weather permitting, daily sweeps of Northern France and the Low Countries.
Jack was unhurt, but Ray was in constant pain from the burns he'd received when his aircraft had
caught fire. Nevertheless, he was always cheerful and uncomplaining, and one had to admire his spirit and courage. The guards were fairly decent and although in their forties and seemingly too old for active service, were afraid of being sent to the Russian front. Every time Ray would mention 'Ruskies', they would throw up their hands in horror. A stint on the Russian front was the last thing that any of them wanted. It was a fate worse than death.
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The train was now ploughing its way through the wreckage of the Ruhr Valley. Germany's life-blood
as far as the sinews of war were concerned. Here nearly everything was made for the German war
effort, from the largest cannon and shell to perhaps the coloured pins placed on maps to indicate the various fighting fronts and the progress the German armies were making. All Royal Air Force flying personnel were familiar with the dreaded Ruhr, nicknamed 'Happy Valley', because it was a spot revisited time after time by Bomber Command and its thirty thousand antiaircraft guns had exacted a heavy toll of the invaders. Now, however, the rubble and wreckage on both sides. of the railway line were ample evidence of the special treatment meted out to it by the bomber boys. The crews of the Lancasters and Halifax’s performed their work of destruction in darkness and never saw evidence of their handwork, and it pleased Dave that it had not all been in vain.
The engine maintained its pace until it came to a large junction, where the lines criss-crossed to such a degree that their train was forced to lose momentum and click-clack its way along, finally stopping at a fairly large station. Everyone disembarked and gravitated to the platform on the other side. There was a big crowd and, as the waiting minutes ticked away, the three airmen and their guards became the centre of attention. The hostility was very much in evidence as, in all probability, these onlookers had been subjected to aerial bombardment and some had lost relatives and friends in the almost nightly holocaust. The mutterings and threats increased so the guards moved their charges against the wall and then took up protective positions on the outside.
'Christ'. They'll lynch us if that train doesn't come soon', stated McDonald. 'These bastards follow each other like a flock of sheep - they don't think for themselves.'
Then to the fore came a grizzled, old, railway worker carrying a large hammer. He was obviously a
wheel-tapper and looked menacingly at the prisoners of war.
'If he comes at me with that hammer, I'll be over those tracks like a two year old', stated the
irrepressible Bolland. 'He's a mean-looking son-of-a-bitch.'
The arrival of the 'old one' seemed to give the crowd direction and purpose, so two of the guards
pointed their machine guns at the menacing crowd, while the third drew his pistol
Things looked dicey, then the long awaited train puffed its way into the station and so the crowd had
somewhere to go and something else to do and so dispersed. The six of them clambered into a vacant carriage and slammed the door shut.
'I hope my stay in this goddamn country improves!' exclaimed Bolland. 'Bugger a mob which doesn't
make you welcome,' and with that he plonked himself in the corner seat, stretched out his long legs
and closed his eyes.
The journey terminated at Frankfurt on Main at about ten p.m., and they were exposed immediately to the military might of the Third Reich. The station, with its huge domed-glass roof, was seething with uniforms as army, air force and naval personnel were either catching trains to the far-flung outposts of the expanding or contracting Greater Germany, or disembarking for well-earned leave. No-one took any notice of the newly arrived POWs, for everyone was intent on going about their business and getting to their destination. Then the banshee of the air raid sirens was heard and the momentum increased. It seemed to Dave that he was watching an old silent movie and the actors, the milling throng, flickered on screen momentarily and then disappeared. The guards prodded their charges into a canter and they went down several flights of steps, reaching a sort of basement where there were bunks equipped with palliasses. This, then, was their resting place for the night.
For the next fifty-minutes or so it seemed that all hell was on the rampage. The scream of bombs could be heard as they hurtled earthwards, chilling the marrow of the bones and squeezing the innards until they felt like water. Then there was the crump of the bursting ack-ack shells and the roar of exploding bombs. Twice the whole building seemed to rock and then gently settle down as if annoyed at such rude awakenings. Dave lay on his bunk and thought of how his position had been reversed. Previously, he had always been above dishing it out, but now he was on the receiving end and wasn't too keen
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about it. Only about ten days ago, he had been over Frankfurt hitting shit out of it, but now it was he
who was getting lambasted.
'Bloody, stupid war!' he thought, 'But for me the war is over', and then immediately queried this
assumption, for it seemed that it was beginning all over again, but this time he was on the other side of the fence. Finally, the all-clear sounded, and so it was to sleep and let tomorrow look after itself.
On the morrow the three of them were taken to an interrogation centre for aircrew, situated a few
kilometres outside Frankfurt. Dave was searched, stripped of all personal possessions - one solitary
Parker fountain pen with gold nib, and then placed in a small, monastic-like cell. The quiet of the
surroundings contrasted sharply with the bustle, turmoil and ceaseless activity of the last seventy-two hours or so. It seemed that a thousand years had passed since being shot down, not just a few days. The endless and feverish movement from place to place had prevented him from contemplating his present position or thinking of the anguish his disappearance must have caused to his family, especially his mother.
It was his mother who counted. His father was soldiering somewhere in India, while his only brother
was deep in Burmese jungles grappling with Japs. It was his mother who would receive the dreaded
telegram, 'MISSING IN ACTION' from the Air Ministry, and would have to sweat out the weeks, until
she received news that he was a POW. He felt dreadfully sorry for her, as she had borne,
uncomplainingly, the brunt of everything. She was indestructible, but the pain and worry of it all must surely take their toll. He remembered the end of his last leave, when she had insisted on accompanying him to the railway station, over a mile away, to catch the 4.30 a.m. train. They had walked in the cold, dark starlight morning, not saying very much, but she occasionally reiterating the phrase, 'Take care of yourself, David and he, in his youth and exuberance, feeling that there was no need for worry as nothing could harm him. Then the train had pulled away from the platform, and she had been left, a deserted and very lonely figure filled with thoughts of apprehension and trepidation for the future.
In the afternoon he was conducted to the administrative block and interrogated by a Luftwaffe officer with an American accent, who began the session with a request for name, rank and number. Dave replied: David Job Griffin; Sergeant; 2711131. Then there were further requests for information: such as squadron number, how many planes involved in the raid, where were you trained etc. Dave knew that the only information he had to supply was name, rank and number and so remained silent in the face of further questions. The interrogator was skilled and couched the same questions in different ways, but Dave volunteered no enlightenment. After half an hour, Dave was returned to his cell, fed, locked up and left to wrestle with his thoughts, sweet and wonderful. The image of the beautiful, vivacious Joan, came flooding to his mind, cascading and sweeping all other thoughts away. Her dark, long hair framed her face and he wished fervently that he could be with her now, instead of in this bloody, miserable cell. She'd know now that he was missing, but he always told her that no harm could befall him and together they'd laughed away the fears that tried to mar their happiness. During his leaves, Joan and he had tramped the Welsh mountains enjoying the grandeur of the rugged scenery and happy in the knowledge that they were together. Life on the squadron was just too hectic and to be away from it all, safe, body whole, secure and Joan at his side was perfect. Then there was a sense of peace and permanence, for on the morrow you didn't have to be airborne and fly on operations, not for another seven days anyway and that seemed a lifetime away. Thus lost in thoughts, beautiful and wonderful and oblivious of his surroundings and predicament, he fell asleep.
For the next two days no-one bothered him. It seemed as if they had forgotten his presence and, apart from being allowed out to relieve himself, he was locked up all day. While in the lavatory, he came across some English literature in the shape of the newspaper, 'The Scotsman', cut into rectangular shapes for bum wiping. It was interesting reading, the advertisements, the snippets of news, the society gossip et cetera, and Dave became so engrossed that he forgot the passing of time. The banging of the door brought Dave back to reality and he hurriedly completed the necessaries and then took a batch of the 'toilet Scotsman' and stuffed them into his pocket. They would make good reading material when he became bored and so would help to pass the time. He was escorted to the toilet about three times a day and so would return the read material and return to the cell with a fresh batch of sheets. He came to regard the toilet as a lending library, where he borrowed and then returned the not too crumpled sheets and hoped that none of the other prisoners objected to the crinkly, slightly-creased toilet paper.
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On the fourth day, he was once again interrogated, being accused of belonging to a squadron involved in dropping saboteurs and agents in Occupied Europe. Why did he come down in Holland? Bomber Command didn't attack Dutch targets? Halifax’s were used to drop agents and his aircraft had been a Halifax? He was not a member of Bomber Command, but belonged to a squadron intent on the sly, dirty business of dropping spies et cetera? Then the interrogator would change his tack and laugh at the way Dave had been caught by the Dutch police.
'All Europe is on our side,' the interrogator would rave on, 'you had no chance of escaping.'
Finally, Dave was returned to his cell to the reading of The Scotsman, his concern and fears for his
mother; and then at night he would escape his imprisoning surroundings and become lost in
wonderful, tender thought of Joan.
There were two more interrogations before he was released. Dave was herded into a truck with about twenty other Empire airmen, who including the two Canadians; Bolland and McDonald, and driven to a transit camp to await transportation to a POW camp.
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CHAPTER V
The railway cattle truck with the French words, '8 Chevaux ou 48 Hommes' painted on its sides, rattled and swayed its way along the tracks, while the twenty-nine Allied airmen, all newly baptised prisoners of war of the German Reich, sat on the hard, wooden floor, backs to the sides for support and bodies slightly rocking in unison with the motion of the truck. All the prisoners were shoeless; these having been confiscated in order to minimise chances of escape. Although the sun had not yet set, the interior of the truck was dimly lit, for the light could only filter through the narrow, barred windows near the roof and the slit-opening caused by the sliding door not being completely closed.
The journey was nearing the end of its second day and already the cold was beginning to seep through the boards and into the stockinged feet of the inmates.
'Shit! This bloody cold kills me, for Christ sake,' stated Bolland to those near him. 'Talk about Canada!
That frost last night gave my feet hell. I thought my toes would drop off.'
'Me, too,' subscribed someone else. 'I was bloody glad when it warmed up this morning. The frost
seems to come up from the rail tracks and attacks your balls. Trust the bloody Germans to think up
some new form of torture.'
At this there were roars of laughter and the tedium of the journey was broken for a while. Dave knew how cold the previous night had been. He had wriggled his toes endlessly within the woollen stockings and had pulled his knees up into the stomach for warmth. Jesus, he was tired and, in all probability, it would be bitterly cold again tonight and there would be little sleep.
Someone got up to relieve himself by sidling up to the narrow aperture caused by the slightly open
sliding door and pissing out on to the moving, shiny tracks below.
An hour later one of the three guards lit the oil lamp and then a slice of dark bread, accompanied by a piece of German sausage, was handed out to each prisoner and hungrily devoured. The meal over, a quiet settled over the group and each prisoner was alone with his thoughts. Dave thought of Bill and the other dead members of his crew. They had been together for so long and were like members of a happy family. On the squadron they all lived in a Nissen hut, and when not flying would go off to the local pub and enjoy the friendliness and bonhomie that existed. The bar would be crowded with aircrew types, all living it up. They were the 'quick' of today and were not yet the 'dead' of tomorrow, so they had to make the most of it while the gods still favoured them. Often the last bus would be missed because of an attractive girl's company, but Dave didn't mind for he was free of emotional entanglements, having not yet met Joan. He loved walking back to base under the cold, frosty starlight for it made his blood tingle and course in his veins. He was alive and that was what mattered. He believed in his indestructibility, but doubts would arise when he saw what havoc operational flying was causing to his friends. Large gaps were being literally torn in the fabric of the squadron and these were filled by the 'sprogs', who arrived to fill the voids. It was an awful way to live, but better than dying.
The frost was now beginning to bite and the wooden boards of the floor were really cooling to the
arsehole. He was hale and hearty, but there were those in the party who had had a rough time. The
frost must be giving Bolland's burns hell, and yet the Canadian never complained. Then there was
Blackston, a rear gunner, who had come down from 20,000 feet and survived. All his crew had been
killed, but, on impact, the rear turret had broken loose, being propelled away from the burning wreck. Blackston had been in hospital for several weeks, but was one hell of a mess and pain plagued him. Danzey, a bomb aimer, had been shot down over Dortmund and his collarbone had never really knit. Each airman had a tale to tell. They had come down from God knows what height and survived. They looked a motley collection, but Dave admired their toughness and cheerfulness.
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Dave's thoughts were interrupted by the soft singing of the words:
'Missed the Saturday dance,
Heard they crowded the floor,
Couldn't bear it without you,
Don't get around much anymore'
It was the diminutive wireless operator, Slater, who occupied one of the corners of the truck. He had
been singing the song, on and off, all day. Most probably it had romantic associations, but he was
quite right, he wouldn't be going to any Saturday dance or getting around much for a long time.
Dave was pleased to see the rising sun on the morrow, as the early hours had been bitterly cold,
allowing him to sleep only in fits and starts. It seemed that the train had been stationary all night and little progress had been made towards their destination, the prisoner of war camp.
After another half hour, there was stirring amongst the inmates, and utterances such as, 'Christ! It was a bloody cold night' and 'I believe train hardly moved. We'll be in this caboose until resurrection day' et cetera. It seemed that the prisoners, spawned by the war, were no better than human flotsam. Their degree of priority was nil, and so the engine to which their truck was attached was shunted hither and thither to make way for important traffic which ferried soldiers, shells et cetera to the frontline. Thus the cattle truck was left motionless in some siding for hours, while the airmen cursed their luck and nearly froze to death.
The sun was high enough in the sky now, so the locking bar on the sliding door was removed. The
prisoners, under the direction of the three armed guards, then trooped out of the motionless wagon and walked a little way off the tracks. The morning ritual was then performed: trousers downed, each man got into the crouch or sitting-down position, bared his arse to the cold morning elements and proceeded to relieve himself. Everywhere you looked there were either steaming, white bums or dripping cocks.
'I've seen it all now!' exclaimed one wit. 'The seven wonders of the world'. and another asked, 'If a
passenger train passed now, I wonder what the traveller would think was going on?' and quick as a
flash came the answer from a connoisseur of the world of experience, 'I bet he'd think he'd seen not
arseholes, but Red Indians smoking big, brown cigars.'
The ceremony over, it was back to the truck with the door locked in a slightly ajar position to
accommodate the prospective pisser. It was breakfast time now, the slice of bread and sausage,
followed by coffee, German style, tasting like burnt acorns. The food, coupled with the rays of the
warming sun, helped to dissipate the effects of the cold night and make one feel almost human again. Then the train started to roll, everyone became cheerful and Slater began singing, 'Missed the Saturday dance.' The airmen were used to activity and motion and standing still in a deserted siding or on some out of the way railway track made them champ at the bit like horses waiting for the barriers to go up at the start of a race.
During the day, Dave was able to assess his companions in adversity. He had long conversations with
the Canadians, Bolland and McDonald. Their squadron, equipped with Typhoons, harassed trains,
road movement and specific daylight targets such as factories, gun emplacements et cetera. Both were unmarried, but Bolland loved England and wished to settle there after the war. McDonald had been at university studying economics, but had decided that he wanted to fly, so joined the R.C.A.F. They had flown umpteen ops between them, and, although their planes had suffered damage previously and had limped home, this was the first time they had been shot down.
Slater, of 'Missed the Saturday dance' fame, came from Manchester where according to him, 'lived the most beautiful girl in the world', his fiancée. They were due to be married next month, November, and
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he was quite cheery about it all, 'just temporary postponement' was his summation. His crew had
consisted of all officers, excepting him, he being a flight-sergeant. Consequently, after being shot
down and interrogated, he had been parted from other members of the crew, they going to an officers' camp.
'We'll be home by Christmas,' he confidently predicted. 'We're giving the Hun hell, and the Russians
will shake the piss out of them this winter.'
Blackston, the rear-gunner, filled him in about his crash from 20 000 feet. They were attacked by
fighters on leaving Monchengladbach and he shot one of the planes down. The bomber, a Lancaster,
had gone into a dive. Blackston tried to bale by rotating the rear gun turret, but it had jammed. Then
gravity got him and he couldn't move. On crashing, the turret had broken away from the aircraft and
been hurled yards away. The Lancaster had caught fire and had blown up. Only Blackston had
survived. Eight weeks in hospital had followed, but he still had problems.
Danzey, a bomb aimer, had come down with the aircraft from 18,000 foot into a Dortmund suburb,
ploughing through telegraph wires and buildings. Only Danzey and the mid upper gunner had
survived, and the latter was still in hospital. When they had been extricated from the wreck, the
intention of the rescuers was quite clear, they wanted a lynching, but the pathetic state of the two
survivors had somehow softened their approach.
'You can't blame the bastards', Danzey had told him. 'We knock hell out of their homes, kill their
wives and children and we expect the red carpet treatment?'
Then he'd asked Dave, where had he been shot down? And on hearing that it was Holland, he
commented: 'Avoid that bloody target area. That's where they'll give you curry. An eye for an eye et
cetera.' Everyman had a vivid story to tell. The three guards were quite friendly and from them Dave
learnt the German words for 'thank you', 'food', 'bread', 'cigarette' et cetera. They all thought the war would go on forever and felt that the Russians were the danger. They even voiced the opinion that the Germans, British and Americans would, before the war's end, unite and fight the Russians, driving them back from whence they came. Their thinking flabbergasted Dave, who believed that Hitler and the German nation were the main stumbling blocks to peace and international harmony. One of the guards always stood by the slightly ajar door, but the aperture was too narrow for escape, being designed solely as a piss hole. At first there had been a lot of ribaldry concerning the unusual urinal, with such comments as 'You'd better watch the passing trains or your cock and balls will finish up in the West, while you'll finish on the Russian front completely euchred', but now no-one took any notice, familiarity breeding contempt and disinterest.
The journey continued its slow, eastward progress, punctuated by long halts and harried by bitterly
cold nights. Dave would look out of the narrow opening and watch the passing pageant, consisting of
seemingly fast passenger trains or slow, ponderous freight trains. The latter were either open wagons, loaded with tanks, artillery guns, motor trucks et cetera, or cattle trucks, like the ones they were travelling in. What amazed Dave was that it seemed that the Greater German Reich had filched rolling stock from every part of Europe. The French wagons had written on them ‘8 Chevaux ou 48
Hommes’, while the origin of the others could be identified by such words as 'Italia' et cetera.
On the fifth day, the landscape started to change. The soil became sandy and pine forests abounded.
The outlook became monotonous, dreary and depressing. They were now in East Prussia, although
Dave didn't know this. He didn't know where the hell they were going and didn't much care. All he
wanted was to get the hell out of this wooden rectangular box, bathe and have a good sleep. His wish was granted about four p.m. on the sixth day, when the train pulled into an almost deserted siding. The prisoners were unloaded and marched along a sandy narrow track, flanked by the ubiquitous pines. Then after about four kilometres, they were there, their new home Stalug Luft 6, consisting of two lagers, A and K, and ringed by barbed wire and tall, stilted, postern boxes where Argus-eyed German sentries kept guard.
Outside a tall, heavily-barbed gate, the main entrance, they were kept waiting for about an hour before being admitted to a fore-lager, where the administrative office block was situated. Here they were
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stripped, their clothes searched and they were given their ikriegsgefangenert, prisoner or ‘kriegie’
number. In the darkness they were taken through another gate to B Block within K Lager, their new
home. Eighteen of their number were accommodated in room B3, while the remainder went to B4. A meal of a quarter of a tin of corned beef and mashed potatoes awaited each of them and then it was into the bunk, wrapped in two Russian blankets, spoils of war, and to sleep.
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CHAPTER VI
The inmates of B3 were awakened by shouts of, 'Austrichten! Ausrichten!' as the door was unbolted
and the guards came stamping in. Within minutes the kriegies were up, outside and lined up ready for the 'appel' or roll call. The guards moved down the lines, counting as they went. Then, when all were accounted for, the prisoners were dismissed and allowed to return to their huts. Then it was grub-up. Two steaming jugs of coffee, acorn flavoured, were brought from the camp cookhouse and distributed, a mug full each. That was the lot, breakfast was over.
Hut B3 fitted snugly into B Block, which was a long, low building divided into twelve divisions of
drab, colourless huts, B1 to B12. So B Block resembled terraced houses in some, very poor neglected
suburb. Opposite was C Block, in every way identical with B Block, with its twelve huts. Separating
the two was a sandy thoroughfare of about 60 feet in width. Each hut had a cobbled stone floor and
down each side were arranged eighteen two-tiered bunks. Thus, being full, B3 had a complement of
seventy-two persons. In the centre of the rectangular but was a stove with an iron top, measuring about eight feet by six and used for the dual purpose of heating and cooking. At the far end there was a small alcove and here resided a very large, galvanised dustbin, used at night as a urinal. The interior of the hut resembled a large stable with the two-tiered bunks being the stalls where the horses were bedded down.
Dave looked at the miserable surroundings and decided to hit the sack. The Germans wouldn't allow
members of aircrew to work, so he had no pressing engagement. He stretched out on the lower bunk, but couldn't be comfortable. He arose and shook the palliasse, his mattress, containing wooden shavings, but found that they had shifted to either the top or bottom of the sack, leaving the centre part almost denuded. He redistributed the shavings and examined the 'springs' of his wooden bunk. These consisted of six wooden slats, each about eight inches in width. However, instead of being equidistantly spaced, they had slid to new positions. Dave rearranged them and thought that if he were to lie on them for a lengthy period his body would finish up snakelike, in and out of the slats. He replaced the palliasse carefully so as not to disturb his handiwork, then gave the sack pillow a pummelling to soften the shavings and climbed into bed. His rest was soon disturbed by the itching of his ankles and lower legs. His first night in the lager hadn't been a restful one, for his whole body had been given curry by being bitten. It was, although he didn't know it yet, the wood termites in the shavings which were responsible.
Unable to rest, Dave decided to have a look at the outside, the world enclosed by barbed wire. The
thoroughfare between B and C Blocks was fairly crowded with kriegies. Some were just sitting or
standing sunning themselves, while others were brewing-up using their home made tin blowers. Dave made his way until he passed the end of B Block and then encountered, about twenty yards further on, two detached huts, the first being the kriegies' administration block where the British Man-of- Confidence and his staff did their 'sums' and the other being the camp theatre.
Fifteen yards on was the ablution block, and then before you reached the end of the city limits - the
barbed wire - was the toilet. Dave, feeling the call of nature, entered the 'rialto' of the camp, so named because it was here that the prisoners discussed the world situation and swapped tit-bits of news. At the 'rialto' rumours were born, gathered momentum and then radiated to all parts of the camp, keeping the prisoners' hopes alive that the war would be over by Christmas. The festive season seemed the terminating point for all things, when the kriegies would be home eating turkey, plum pudding et cetera.
The toilet was a long, hut with a floor of about 20 feet in width running down the middle and flanked
on either side by plank seats, containing about 60 holes each. Beneath was a huge pit dug in the earth which received the daily droppings. Thus 120 kriegies could relieve themselves at one time, but when Dave parked himself it was only half full. Wherever he looked, to the sides, to the front, one was confronted with crappers. Some were staring into space, others concentrating on the morning ritual.
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There were those who were reading the most recent letter they had received from home, while others were just yarning. All this was quite an experience for Dave, for he was used to privacy.
'How are you crapping today?' asked a Flight Sergeant sitting next to him. 'My piles are giving me
hell. What I need is plenty of fruit. One must have fruit for a good, comfortable shit.'
Dave didn't answer this familiarity and felt uncomfortable. Then the neighbourly Flight Sergeant
leaned towards Dave, and stated in a whisper, but ensuring that those near would hear. 'I heard that the British and Americans are landing in France in a week's time, and Churchill believes the war will be over by Christmas.’
This statement made those within hearing distance prick up their ears.
'How do you know?' demanded one. 'Is it pukka gen?'
The Flight-Sergeant just smiled knowingly, and placed a finger to his lips as if he couldn't betray his
unimpeachable source of information.
When those around left, the Flight Sergeant burst out laughing, 'This place gives me the effing shits,'
he roared. 'You say something whilst you are in here and it’s all around the camp within twenty
minutes. When I get back to the hut, they'll tell me that the British and Americans have already landed and Churchill's with them. This place is full of bloody rumours and boy do they get bigger and
bigger?'
Dave and the Flight Sergeant left together, he to return to his hut, Dave to 'bash the circuit'. Bashing
the circuit was walking around the perimeter of the camp and a path or track had been beaten out bythe feet of the kriegies. The way around followed the 'warning wire', and was the extreme limit to
which a prisoner could go. Touch the wire and the itchy finger of the sentry in the postern box could
bring about death. Five yards on the outside of the warning wire was the tall, thick, barbed wire fence, the second line of defence, and interspersed in this prickly maze were the stilted, postern boxes and their sentries.
On the northern side was the fore-lager, where the German administrative staff was housed. However, encircling the camp was another wire fence and then on the very outside was a huge ditch or moat to prevent tunnelling. The would-be tunneller would have to burrow deep to avoid surfacing in the ditch. All kriegies bashed the circuit in an anti-clockwise direction so it was rarely you passed someone face-to-face. The prisoners walked singly or in pairs, seldom in threes. When you walked alone you escaped from the overcrowding, the lack of privacy, and the congestion of seventy- two in a hut and almost two thousand enclosed in a compound that was far too small for such a number. On your own, one could lose oneself in private thoughts and escape from the monotony of the diurnal round and the impact the barbed wire had on the outlook of the inmates. Thus most of the airmen walked their days away so that time would go and release would seem to come sooner.
On his return to B3 it was almost midday and yet a few prisoners were still bedridden. Once morning
roll call was over, there was no sense of urgency as there was nothing to do. Consequently, some of
those who had been in the 'cage' for a long period had taken to the 'pit' and were indifferent to all else, as if they had woven a cocoon for themselves in which to take refuge. At noon a tub of meatless swede soup arrived from the communal kitchen and was distributed, a cup full per person. Dave felt the hunger pangs.
Breakfast had consisted of coffee and now a cup of watery, swede soup did nothing to alleviate the
situation. He was bloody hungry and was pleased when the daily bread ration arrived at two o'clock.
Twelve loaves were delivered for the 72 people, so it was six to a loaf. Being portioned out as equally
as possible, playing cards, of ace, king, queen, jack, ten and nine were placed on each share. Then
those involved drew from six other cards, and if the ace was drawn you collected the bread portion
with the ace, and so on. This lottery prevented anyone from gaining an unfair advantage in the bread stakes. Thus the bread was parcelled out and Dave, having examined his share, cut it down the middle
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into two slices. He knew that his bread ration had to last twenty-four hours and there was need to
conserve, eating one piece with the evening meal and the other for breakfast. He nibbled a little, and soon one piece had disappeared. He was still hungry, however, and couldn't refrain from devouring the other slice. He realised that he had committed a cardinal sin and on the morrow he'd feel miserable on an empty stomach. Still it was a lesson he would remember and his appetite would have to be curbed or he'd always be hungry.
The second and final 'appel' of the day was taken at about four p.m., followed by mashed potatoes and a quarter of tin of corned beef per man at about 5.30 p.m. Then the doors of the huts were locked and the captives were left to their own devices. Some of hut B3’s inmates were veteran prisoners who had spent time in other camps and had been shifted from place to place; then there were those who had been in captivity for about six months; and the newly arrived of which Dave was a member. Familiarity and understanding had not yet been established and so there was general quiet with small groups conversing quietly and others just lying on their bunks. It was a quiet night for ex-members of aircrew, a far cry from the rip-roaring, squadron, salad days when one went to the pub and lived it up. Then the lights went out and everyone returned to his thoughts, escaping to a certain extent from the drab trappings of captivity.
As the night progressed, one or other of the kriegies would be forced to make the pilgrimage to the
big, galvanised dustbin in the alcove to relieve themselves, and sometimes the volume and noise of the waterfall so made could be heard by those in close proximity. This would often result in vehement protestations:
'I don't mind the pissing or the noise,' stated the first speaker. 'It's the bloody stink I hate. It's those
stinking bastards who creep down here in the middle of night and leave their visiting card. The 'pong' almost kills me, and then in the morning you see those big, black turds floating about in a sea of piss, and some poor bastards have to empty it.'
At this there were always roars of laughter and the thaw was broken. So the banter continued until
tiredness and a desire for sleep overtook the participants.
So ended the first full day for Dave’s internment.
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CHAPTER VII
The mail arrived at infrequent intervals, but when it was delivered to each hut and doled out, the
kriegies stood around in hopeful expectancy. There were those who received four or five letters and
would then retire to the 'pit' to savour and ruminate the contents of each one; while others just stood, received nothing, shrugged their shoulders and smiled it off. Soon the have-nots would leave the hut to bash the circuit and get the bitterness out of their system. The majority of these had been behind barbed wire upwards of three years and had become the forgotten men of the war. Their wives or girlfriends had grown tired of waiting for the war's end and had found consolation elsewhere, for England was swarming with Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen in the shape of Yanks, Canadians, Poles, Free French, Australians and New Zealanders, apart from British personnel. Males from the four corners of the world had converged upon the little island and women were in short supply. So the kriegies who were still remembered, read and re-read their letters; while those who had been letter less consoled themselves that everything would be rectified with the next mail delivery. There were also those who lay on their bunks indifferent to everything.
The circuit was crowded with walkers all going one way. If one didn't walk there was little else to do
and boredom set in. Dave tried to walk twenty circuits a day, ten in the morning and ten in the
afternoon and then he was buggered. How many miles a day he wasn't able to estimate, but it was a
long way for his legs felt like weights when the daily exercise was completed. Still he wanted to keep
fit and, although it was a chore, he did his best to ensure the stint was completed.
Around the 'messpot' board a big crowd had gathered to read the latest sensational news from home. Dave didn't stop for he wanted to complete a few more circuits before resting. The 'messpot' board was so called for here letters were publicly displayed so that the world behind barbed wire could learn of the infidelity and indifference of the women they had left behind. A 'messpot' was a letter from a 'loved one' stating that the relationship was over and done with, and there was a crop of final notices every time there was a mail delivery. The recipient, instead of keeping the news to himself and brooding, was supposed to display it and show the world his indifference. Whether everyone carried out this procedure was doubtful, but the 'messpot' board was always pretty full after the postman had been.
On the tenth circuit, Dave was able, the crowd having thinned, to stop and read the details of the letters displayed. They contained the usual details; You've been gone a long time; I'm tired of waiting; you're only young once; there is someone new in my life who is absolutely wonderful et cetera. Three letters however, made Dave chuckle for they were so unusual, bordering on the absurd. The first, after the usual preamble, concluded with 'so I'm having a baby by this American, but don't worry, Darling, he's sending you cigarettes.' Another stated; 'I've married your father, Love Mother'; and the third announced that the correspondent, a former fiancée, had married a sailor, who was not the jealous or possessive type, and she was certain that when the respondent came home they could resume their love relationship once again without any problems.
Dave walked on and thought what a topsy-turvy world it was. One day you were in England, in love
and loved in return, confident wedding bells were for you. Then the next, you were a prisoner-of- war, forgotten, rejected, and kicked in the guts. No-one could predict the future and, although Dave had been a prisoner for nearly ten weeks, he still hadn't received any mail as yet and so in the years ahead there was plenty of time for a 'messpot' to come his way.
As he approached B3, he was reminded by the presence of the hand-wagon, laden with Red Cross
food parcels, that it was Saturday. He helped with the unloading and was rewarded with a Canadian
parcel. The parcels came from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. It was
potluck what you received. All parcels contained two tins of meat, such as corned beef, ham roll, spam et cetera, but these had been removed to the communal kitchen so that the quarter tin of meat could be given to each prisoner for his evening meal. The Canadian parcel was prized for it contained a large bar of chocolate, a tin of butter, powdered milk called 'Klim', some sugar, a dozen 'dog' biscuits, a tin
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of jam and a packet of tea. There was also an issue of fifty cigarettes per man, so it was a weekly red
letter day for the camp. Dave buttered one of the biscuits and scoffed the lot. He then placed a little
sugar on a spoon, dipped in 'Klim', and sucked the contents. It was delicious. He reasoned that this was better than putting it in tea, for tea could be drunk without milk. He loved spooning the mixture of powdered milk and sugar, as his body seemed to cry out for sweet things. However, he had to observe restraint for there were seven days to go and one couldn't hog the lot and be hungry for the rest of the week.
He joined the group warming their backsides around the big stove and listened to the discussion about the wars progress.
'The bloody Ruskies will hit shit out of them this winter. They've already started their winter
offensive. Good old Joe, he'll get us out of here,' stated one Stalin enthusiast.
The kriegies were well-informed for every day a member of 'Big X' would come into the hut and read
the latest BBC news bulletin. The radio receiver's whereabouts was a top-secret and, in all probability, was only known by one or two prisoners. How on earth it had been made or smuggled in was beyond comprehension, but the camp was full of diverse and extraordinary talents and anything and everything could be accomplished.
‘We'll be out of here before Christmas. Maxie Clarke has predicted it. His latest is that the war will
finish on 23rd. December. Maxie's always been right,' chipped in an optimist.
'I'd put my money on Clarke any day. When he goes into a trance he comes up with the 'gen',
supported another Clarke supporter.
'Bullshit! You don't believe in that crap. Who's Maxie Clarke anyway? Some washed-out kriegie
living in B9, who goes down to the bog and has wonderful visions. Christmas is only three weeks
away, and you expect the war to be over by then. You all must be bloody crazy and around the bend.
Talk about barbed wire madness,' stated a realist.
'I'll put my money on Maxie,' retorted the optimist. Clarke says anything, because he enjoys being a
prophet. 'Talking about the bog, I need to go,' chimed in a disinterested bystander. 'That bloody place freezes the balls off you.
After the evening meal of a quarter of a tin of spam and spuds, the doors of the huts were locked and the long night began. There were bridge games, one hundred rubbers up as time was limitless and the same four people pitted their wits against each other night after night. Some played Ludo and others Tip-it. Cooking was going on at the stove, the Canadian biscuits having been enlarged by a long soaking were now being fried in margarine, supplied by the Germans, and then eaten with a dollop of jam on top. It was Saturday night and consolation was needed. On the squadron Saturday night was really enjoyed to the full. It was the pub, the dance, the girlfriend et cetera, but in B3 there were those just lying on their bunks, deep in thought of the Saturday nights of yesterday.
Out went the lights and on went the Saturday night's entertainment. The portable gramophone,
supplied by the Red Cross, started to churn out the music and the disc jockey for the night prattled on, while the ex-airmen relaxed in their pits.
'I'm a little on the lonely, a little on the lonely side,
I keep thinking of you only, and wishing you were by my side,
For you know dear, when you're not near, there's no-one to romance with' warbled Sinatra.
This was followed by Vera Lynne's:
'Yours till the stars lose their glory,
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Yours till the birds fail to sing,
Yours till the end of life's story.'
So it went on until the strain of, 'Whose taking you home tonight, after the dance is through,'
resounded through the hut.
'Jack! someone yelled. 'I wonder what Dulcie's doing tonight. I bet she's not thinking of you.'
'Once met, never forgotten.' replied the gallant Jack with a show of bravado. 'Dulcie will be waiting
when I get back. I'm number one.'
At this there were roars of laughter.
'Kidding yourself, aren't you?' quipped another. 'You'll be past middle-age by the time you get out of
here, and past it.'
'Not bloody likely', retorted Jack. 'Maxie Clarke has forecast we'll be home for Christmas.’
Then there were chortles from everywhere.
The night dragged on and the gramophone ceased to make music. Dave felt the urge to visit the 'bin'
and open his bowels, but although it was after midnight it wasn't a propitious moment to make the
long trek. Every night the conversation would finally centre on the bin and there would be grumbles
and oaths concerning the rotten, stinking bastards who had crept down in stealth and the dead of night to relieve themselves and leave the smell for those in the vicinity. Everyone used it at some time or other, but even if you had been one of the culprits the night before, you joined in the protest as vehemently as anyone else. Finally, Dave could hold it no longer and tip-toed towards the Mecca of relief. He unburdened himself and then, quickly but quietly, got back just in time to his neck of the
woods.
'Jesus Christ! Who’s the dirty bastard with the black, reeking arsehole? Saturday night in the lager
stinks!' exclaimed an angry kriegie. Of course, everyone seemed to stir themselves and join in the
tumult. The blokes at top end, away from it all, expressed righteous indignation mixed with muffled
laughter, while those in the path of the smell kept up the tirade.
Relieved and feeling a lot better, Dave pulled his two blankets closer to him and settled down for the
night.
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CHAPTER VIII
Christmas had come and gone and Maxie Clarke's prediction had failed to materialise. The winds were now bleak and chilling and the ground was iron hard and corrugated. There had been snow and rain about a month previously making the earth very wet, soft and boggy, and this situation had not been helped by the feet of nearly 2000 POWs pounding it incessantly. All this had changed, however, with the advent of icy frosts and drying, blood curdling winds.
The recreation or soccer, rugby, cricket ground was in continuous use all day. It wasn't really a
recreation ground, but was the only vacant area in the camp, being bounded by the back of C Block
and the warning wire on the southern side. In the morning there was always one rugby union match
played by the Kiwi enthusiasts against some form of opposition, while for the rest of the day the
ground was devoted to soccer. Each hut had a team in the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the Lager League,
and games were of an hour's duration. Then every afternoon about 2.30, a Major League game would take place. This league consisted of six teams, such as Arsenal, Leeds United, Manchester City et cetera, and only the very best players, generally professionals, semi-professionals or top class
amateurs participated. At these big games nearly all kriegies attended and a carnival atmosphere prevailed. The bookmakers would shout the odds and the currency was cigarettes. Everything was negotiable, providing you had the wherewithal, from a toothbrush to a Red Cross parcel. Over the years, individuals or combines had amassed fortunes, being sent cigarette parcels by relatives and friends, and it was whispered that some combines, consisting of three or four persons, had nest eggs of 40,000 cigarettes upwards. However, for the newly arrived prisoner the cigarette parcels had not yet started to flow and the individual was dependent on his weekly issue from the Red Cross. Dave couldn't afford a wager, for if he came unstuck then there would be no smokes until Saturday.
Although the ground was bone-hard and devoid of grass, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspurs battled it out to the very end. The standard of play was exceptionally high and polished, and the spectators,
although chilled to the marrow, stayed to the bitter end and then the successful punters gathered their winnings and bee-lined for the huts to thaw out. East Prussia and the Baltic area were, according to the kriegies, the place where the balls of the proverbial brass monkey froze.
The continuing cold ensured that the pangs of hunger were always present, as the only supplement to the Red Cross parcel was the meagre German rations consisting of the acorn flavoured coffee at
breakfast and the evening meal; a cup of meatless, swede soup at midday; the daily ration of bread -
about two slices; a small weekly portion of margarine and about two potatoes daily. The body cried
out for bulk, such as plenty of bread to fill one up and sweet, cloying substances such as syrup. The
cold seemed to attack the 'waterworks' and one was forever urinating. The cold was only one factor,
the other being that nothing really solid was being consumed.
The cold was so intense that after morning roll call many of the inmates of B3 would return to their
bunks and stay till midday. However, the Canadians in the lager were more active and in the afternoon would be busily engaged in pouring buckets of water over the hard ground, thus obtaining a layer of ice the next morning.
This was repeated daily, until about three inches of ice thickness covered the surface. An ice-hockey
pitch was then marked with red and blue paint, with a maple leaf in the centre. More water was then added so a further layer of ice resulted and the lines underneath plainly visible. Then, with the aid of the Red Cross ice skates, the hockey games were on with a vengeance. The winter sport attracted many an onlooker and when the hockey was abandoned because of injuries, the lager took to icesliding minus skates.
The winter was long, dreary, cold and miserable and everyone longed for the spring greenery and
harbingers of warmer weather. The camp theatre was in constant use with the artistes taking part in
revues, plays and potpourri shows. The camp boasted two dance bands: a soft lights and sweet music
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combination; and a 'big band', similar to Glenn Miller's, whose rendering of 'American Patrol' was
superb.
Somewhere in the lager a tunnel was being dug so that escape could be effected in the warmer days
ahead. The only indication that escape activity was in the air was the request for bed boards to shore
up the sides of the tunnel and the presence of the 'penguins', the disposers of the newly-dug sand. The difficulty with digging a tunnel in East Prussia was the disposal of the sand. The whole camp was built on a sandy plain and when the tunnelled sand was strewn on the surface of the compound its different colour was plainly visible and the Germans knew that an escape was in the offing. The job of the 'penguins', so called because they waddled about when performing their function, was to fill socks with sand, place these down their trouser legs and walk around the camp gradually releasing a little at the time, then pressing or rubbing it into the surface. It was a tedious job and there was a lot of sand to dispose. The bulk of the sand was placed between the ceiling and the roof of the ablution block. It might have been winter, but there was no hibernation for 'Big X' as it had its sights on escape and freedom in the spring.
The cold 1943-44 winter brought good news from the Russian front. The Ruskies were bounding
along westward at a quickening pace, and every time a BBC bulletin was delivered to B3 another
Russian town had been retaken and the Germans driven pell-mell before the Red Army juggernaut. All this was very heartening for the, 'we'll be home by Christmas brigade', but the towns mentioned were hundreds of miles away and this fact was sobering. It would be a long while before the return to Blighty, unless the Second Front was opened up.
The discussions on this aspect of the war were often and heated. The prisoners of the 1939, 40 and 41 vintage couldn't understand Churchill's reluctance to attack Hitler's European fortress. They argued that there was plenty of room from Norway to the South of France for a landing, and the much vaunted German coastal fortifications were a myth - a figment of propaganda. Then there were those who debunked this line of thought as they had been shot down in the amphibious assault on Dieppe and had received a bloody nose. Their verdict was that the Atlantic Wall was tough and there would be tremendous casualties on invasion day. However, all longed for the Great Day to arrive and concurred that the war would be soon over after the landings. One thing the kriegies had in abundance was supreme optimism.
Whenever a newly shot-down airman arrived he was the centre of interest for a few days while
questioned about the world outside. When was the Second Front going to take place? What was it like in England now? Was the place full of Yanks, and were they as successful with the women as rumours had it? It was a small world, especially the bomber world. Many of the new arrivals had served on the same squadrons as those who had been in captivity for years and so knew the same pubs, the same streets and, in some cases, the same women.
The afternoon roll call now took place at 3 p.m., as it was almost dark three-quarters of an hour later. Thus the confinement to the hut seemed endless and more time was devoted to the culinary arts. Each day Dave would trim the crusts off his two slices of bread and place them in a tin. For seven days he would do this and then on Saturday night he would have a big bust. The chopped up crusts would be placed in a container, the contents just covered with water, and the lot placed on the stove, heated and constantly stirred. Thus a watery mixture would be achieved or a type of bread pudding. A little sugar was then added and it was a feast fit for a king - or it filled the void in the gnawing stomach for five minutes.
Once a week it was down to the ablution block for showers. Each hut was allowed three minutes from the time the water was turned on to its turning off. Seventy-two airmen would hurriedly strip and rush to get a share of one of the 24 water outlets in the ceiling. On would go water as cold as ice and everyone would flee from the icy jets, only to remember they only had 3 minutes. So it was back to the showers. Then it was too hot, burning the skin, followed by hasty retreat. It was back to the shower, only to find that the water had been turned off as the three minutes was up. So it was another seven days wait until the next shower. Still, it was all part of a kriegie's life and wouldn't last forever.
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To relieve the monotony of the daily round guest speakers would be invited to huts to expatiate upon their roles in civilian life. To B3 came a big game hunter from Kenya who woke up the denizens with stories of elephants running amok, lions springing from rocks on the unsuspecting hunter, and
romance under the African stars with a beautiful woman on safari. It was all magical stuff and the
dreary and monotonous surrounds were forgotten for an hour or two. Then, another time, the guest
speaker had fought as a pilot in the Spanish Civil War and spoke of the barbarism and atrocities
committed by Franco's men. Perhaps the most interesting talk was given by a former Hong Kong
police officer who spoke about gunrunning, opium addicts, brothels, venereal disease, murder and
violence. The lager was chockfull of talented men who had lived life to the full and then had taken to
the air to wage war against Hitler's Germany.
The German guards were nicknamed 'goons' or 'ferrets' and they were always in and out of the huts.
Trading with the enemy was 'verboten' as this could cause a spiral in prices and so this segment of
commerce was in the hands of the 'Big X' committee. The members of 'Big X' would inveigle an
unsuspecting guard to bring in from outside something unimportant and he would then be rewarded
with cigarettes or chocolates. Then, as time progressed, the same guard would be encouraged to
smuggle into the camp more important things, until he was hooked and blackmailed into smuggling
cameras, wireless valves, a compass, a passport and anything that was required. Thus an inaccessible
and necessary item became available for escape purposes et cetera.
The 'Big X' committee was in-charge of all important things such as escaping, trading with the
Germans, tunnelling et cetera. Before any escape attempt could be made, it had to be approved and
sanctioned by the committee. They were the experts and decided if the plan was feasible or not. They offered advice on tunnelling and in some cases took charge of the project. They were shadowy figures and no-one really knew their identities. It was better that way, so security could be maintained and leakages minimised.
The camp's third lager C was opened in March, 1944, to accommodate the American flyers who were being shot down in droves in their daylight sweeps over enemy occupied Europe. The Flying
Fortresses had a crew of ten or more, and the long flights over Europe to bomb and then fight their
way back to base were fraught with hazard. The odds were stacked against them. At first they came in trickles, but soon the floodgates opened and the new lager was soon packed to capacity. A and K
lagers housed British and British Empire airmen, and A, being the longest established, was the richest not only in cigarettes, but in all things, K came a poor second, but poor old C was certainly the poor relation, having to start from scratch. The lagers were separated by barbed wire entanglements, and the Germans wouldn't allow visiting or exchange of goods et cetera. However, as the months passed, the affluence of the new arrivals grew with the arrival of oodles of cigarettes et cetera, and the roles were reversed, the British lagers becoming the poor relations.
Thus the winter gradually wended its slow way towards spring, and the prisoners looked forward to
the warmer days ahead when the sun would help to assuage the pains of hunger and the biting cold
would leave the bones' marrow to rest and recover. Warmth and release from captivity were what the kriegies wanted and they felt that the summer of 1944 would grant them their wishes.
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CHAPTER IX
Although it was fine, it was a cool rather bleak day for the 'Kriegie Lager Fair'. The show had been
advertised for a number of weeks, but the roll up was rather poor. In the thoroughfare between B and C Blocks, a number of stalls had been set up by enterprising entrepreneurs who not only wanted to entertain and provide recreation for their fellow prisoners, but had an eye on enlarging their cigarette fortunes. Some stalls concerned themselves with the throwing of darts - five cigarettes a go, score 75 or over to win, odds of 10 to 1. Kicking a football through a hoop at 15 yards' distance was another game of skill or chance, while if you threw three balls out of three into a bucket from about ten yards, 'the world was yours' according to the barker. The variety offered was excellent, and Dave enjoyed himself stooging from stall to stall as one could forget the menial round for an hour or so. He had received four cigarette parcels since being shot down so he wasn't too badly off, but still had to observe restraint or his small nest egg would disappear. He paid ten cigarettes in order to try kicking the football through the hoop. He placed the ball on the spot, kept his eye on the ball and head steady, then carefully kicked and followed through. The ball slewed off his right foot a thousand miles from the target.
'Shit! What the hell went wrong?' he queried angrily.
'Bad luck, sir!' commiserated the obliging barker. 'Have another.
'Bullshit!' retorted Dave. 'You can't kick a football with two left feet.' He walked away realising that as the weather was chilly he'd worn his flying boots to the lager fair. He had received from the Red Cross a pair of RAF lace-up leather boots and a pair of trousers, but still wore the warm, fleecy-lined flying boots when it was cold. It was time he decided to return to the hut and change boots and then he'd give the barker, 'Bad luck, sir.' Dave had played a lot of soccer and felt that he could augment the Griffin fortune, but it was impossible with two left feet.
He was busily changing shoes, when the cry, 'News up! Watch the windows and doors for goons!'
'Christ! The news is early.' Dave reflected. 'The newsreader generally does his stuff in the afternoon
about 4.30 p.m.'
'Today, at dawn, the Allied Forces under the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, began their
invasion of Europe. Beachheads have been established and our troops are moving inland. 6th June,
1944, will live in history as Deliverance Day,' concluded the excited newsreader.
There was a groundswell of excitement in B3, but it didn't erupt into cheers as the kriegies had to
maintain restraint. They weren't supposed to know anything about the outside world and would have to wait until the Germans released news of the invasion. The hut was agog with excitement and
bonhomie. Everyone agreed that the war would soon be over, six to twelve weeks would see the end. They'd all be home by September at the latest, so there'd be no more cold, bloody winters to contend with. Life was going to be sweet from now on, so the summer months would be enjoyed for at the end it would be back to Blighty.
Dave thought he'd celebrate. He had his shooting boots on and so took out of his store five packets of twenty. A hundred cigarettes would give ten tries at kicking a ball through a hoop and, besides, you didn't have an Allied invasion of Europe every day. However, it wasn't his day, and within ten minutes he was back in the hut, minus the cigarettes.
To round up the fair, there was an inter-lager soccer match between A and B. The Germans were
allowing the A Lager team, plus one hundred supporters, to visit K Lager and it was going to be a big
match. The bookmakers, in an attempt to induce bets on K, were offering odds of 4 to 1 and there were plenty of takers. Dave felt that his team had sufficient talent to win and, after much soul-searching and trepidation, plonked down one hundred cigarettes on the underdogs. If K could win then he'd finish the day well in front, but if they came unstuck then he'd have squandered away a small fortune.
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The game was fast and furious and the spectators were in fine fettle for they knew more than their
captors - the invasion of Europe had begun, but not a word was disclosed. A Lager won 3 to 1, and as
Dave returned to B3, he felt like an eighteenth century rake who had just diced away the family
fortune. He admitted he had been profligate, but what the hell, the war was as good as over.
He had only been in the hut a few minutes when there was a mail delivery. There were three letters
from Joan and two from his mother, all written about a month previously. He retired to his bunk and
read and re-read the mail. Joan was well and expressed the hope that the war would soon finish and
they would be together again for always. She was lonely and missed Dave, and longed for his return.
His mother's letters were brave and encouraging, but reading between the lines he realised that she was anxious, worried and concerned about her son's health and welfare. 'What a wonderful day it's been!' thought Dave. 'I've had five letters from the two people that really count, and the Allies have invaded Europe. To hell with the cigarettes, I can afford it.'
The weather grew warmer and the two left flying-boots became unbearably hot to wear. They were
decidedly unseasonable in the July sunshine and had out-served their usefulness and should be got rid of. This line of thought was reinforced by the D Day invasions. Admittedly, the Allied armies weren't making the rapid progress that was expected of them, being bogged down in the Caen area, but the prisoners were convinced that they'd be home well before the winter commenced. Consequently, he wouldn't need his flying boots again, so what was the use of keeping them? The plan was to raffle, despite the fact that they'd give the lucky winner two left feet. He sought out Don Slater of 'missed the Saturday dance' fame and did a deal. Slater was to be an equal partner in the project and would display one of the boots in each of the B huts and ask for ten cigarettes a ticket in the lottery. Dave meanwhile would parade the other boot in the C huts. Everything in the lager was raffled and very little salesmanship or peddling was required.
Dave took a cardboard box, some paper, a pencil, and one of the flying boots with him and started off in C1. It was dead easy, he displayed the boot, eulogised about its qualities and then mentioned the ten cigarettes necessary to be in it. A member of a combine would just throw a packet of twenty into the box and request two tickets. This went on in every hut, but the problem was when you were paid ten loose cigarettes and they were just dropped in the box. They would get crumpled, tattered, and a little worse for wear, but they were still legal lager currency.
After a hectic, morning's business, Dave had his box full and so did Slater. They counted the cigs. like
misers and then split down the middle with just over two and a half thousand each. Then they put the names in the box, drew the lucky winner, who hailed from C5, and Dave delivered the 'golden' boots.
On Dave's return, Slater enquired anxiously, 'Jesus! What did he say when you presented him with the two left-ones?'
'Bugger all,' replied Dave cockily. 'He didn't blink an eyelid and just thanked me. He did mention
though that he'd raffle them, as two left boots would keep someone warm.'
'I'll have a few tickets in that raffle, Dave,’ commented Slater, 'and if I win, then we'll raffle them
again.'
That afternoon Dave accompanied Bolland, the ex-Typhoon pilot, to the communal kitchen to see Jack McDonald. Jack had his bunk in B3, but spent all his waking time in the kitchen, ensuring that the coffee jugs were full for the first and last meals of the day and the spuds were cooked for the evening meal. Sometimes the potatoes and corned beef were mashed together into a hash and this added a little variety to the bill of fare. Jack enjoyed cooking and claimed that he would open a restaurant when he got back to Canada and to hell with flying and prisoner of war camps. Jack had adapted well to prison life, for working full time in the cookhouse had ensured that his boundless energy was channelled into a positive direction. Bolland would never change. He was still irrepressible and ebullient, and his repartee was always sharp and affective. His wit was much appreciated in B3 and would produce roars of laughter with his comments, once the lights had been doused, about the 'bin'.
'You'll be home before long, Dave,' stated Jack. 'They'll get that Welsh dragon out to greet you.'
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'I bloody hope so,' replied Dave, 'but the progress the Allies are making is so bloody slow that we'll be here for bloody Christmas if they don't speed it up.'
'Like hell you'll be here,' interposed Bolland. 'The way the Ruskies are advancing you'll either be in
Moscow dining on caviar or the Germans will ship you west and you'll be deep in the heart of
Germany.'
They were joined by burly cookhouse boss Bill McGuinness and an almost Dickensian looking
character attired in a black top hat and a morning suit. This latter character was the local chimney
sweep and one would think that he was going to a wedding rather than a big soot clean-up.
McGuinness spoke a few words to the three of them and then he and the sweep disappeared into the cookhouse.
'A tremendous guy that McGuinness,' commented McDonald with undisguised admiration. 'I'd like to have him on my side if the chips were down.'
Bolland and Dave said nothing, both knowing that McGuinness had performed a superhuman feat
about two years previously and had been 'gonged'. He and his crew had crashed into the sea, and
McGuinness had swum three miles with his navigator, who couldn't swim, on his back. There were
brave men in the lager, but McGuinness ranked with the best of them.
The doors of B3 were unbolted and the 'ausrichtens' were a lot sharper and more imperious than usual. There was no doubt that the guards weren't putting up with any backchat or tardiness, for it seemed that they were on edge and this wasn't an opportune time for fooling around. The kriegies dressed quickly and moved outside into the warming sunshine and lined up outside the huts to be counted.
Then it was the camp commandant's turn. He was annoyed, and the kriegies, having learnt a
smattering of German, knew the drift of his anger even before the speech was interpreted into English. Apparently, during the night, part of the ceiling of the ablution block had collapsed under the weight of the stored sand from the tunnel and he, the colonel, would seek out the culprits and it would go hard with them. The prisoners were obviously tunnelling their way out, but the escape route would be found that day and it would be bulldozed out of existence. There was no escape from this stalag-luft as it was escape proof. He, the officers and the guards would see to that. The prisoners must be very naive if they thought they could outwit the German authorities. The prisoners were stupid, ungrateful and if they left the security of the camp could expect no mercy. The kriegies listened in silence for their commandant was a real soldier and a man of authority, having fought in France and on the Russian front. However, on dismissal, they laughed and joked about the happening in the ablution block.
They knew the tunnel would be discovered, but it mattered not, as soon the war would be over, once Monty and Ike (Montgomery and Eisenhower) got their act together.
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CHAPTER X
C Lager, where the American flyers were housed, had grown apace not only in numbers, but affluence. The parcels - cigarettes, clothing and food had cascaded in from the U.S., making the lot of the American kriegie a lot happier. They were now either better off or at least on a par with the two British lagers, A and K, and felt that in keeping with their new status should entertain and throw their 'home' open to their British comrades-in-arms. They had decided on a boxing extravaganza to which three hundred guests from each of the other lagers would be invited. The program would commence at 11.30 a.m. and continue until 4.00 p.m., and the Americans would fight and take on the other two lagers at fisticuffs. The big bout was to be between the 'Bearded Wonder', the C Lager champion of champions, and A Lager's Bill Macey. Macey had proven himself previously when boxing matches had been arranged between A and K, and had waltzed through his bouts with ease, generally flooring his opponents. He was the undisputed reigning British Kriegie Champion, and a lot was expected of him by his supporters. The 'Bearded Wonder', on the other hand, was an unknown quantity having never fought a fight in the camp.'
Three weeks before the big day, the ballyhoo began. The A Lager scribes published twice weekly a
one-sheet newspaper with all news of the forthcoming battle. Macey was in tremendous shape and
rearing to defend the honour of A and K Lagers. The paper stated that the British hero was an exguards officer, who had forsaken the regiment to fly with the Royal Air Force. It was all bullshit, at
least that was what Dave thought, but still it was good publicity for the coming encounter. Then there was a column contributed by the Americans about the 'Bearded Wonder'. He breakfasted on steaks, disposed of six sparring partners daily and did miles of roadwork. His identity was a closely guarded secret and it was whispered that during the fight he would wear a mask so he wouldn't be recognised. The article concluded that in all probability the 'Wonder' belonged to one of America's top families, a Roosevelt or Vanderbilt, and his anonymity must be preserved as Daddy wouldn't approve of Junior's participation in such a violent sport.
The big day dawned and Dave, who was fortunate enough to be included amongst the guests, trooped over to C Lager. The Americans had really entered into the spirit of the thing and constructed a first class boxing ring, and had home-made movie cameras, which didn't work, standing on tripods everywhere. Above, these cameras were signs such as 'Pathe', 'C.B.C. News', 'Movietone' et cetera. Each contest consisted of 3 rounds of 3 minutes’ duration, and fight followed fight. The boys from the A and B Lagers were given a touch of glamour by being introduced as Johnny Jones from Nepal, Fred Stuckey from Hong Kong, Bill Haines from the South China Seas, and Bill Waring from the Khyber Pass, India, the far-flung outposts of the Empire being given much prominence. Then it was 3.30 p.m. and time for the big bout, again a three rounder, as the camp diet was insufficient to warrant a fight of longer duration. The camp celebrities were introduced from the ring: American Man-of-Confidence, British Man-of-Confidence, then a string of well-known personalities who had made the big time in civilian life and whose status had been reduced by the vicissitudes of war. It was a topsy-turvy world, up one minute and down the next.
The betting was high and the American bookmakers were offering four to one on Macey, showing that in a two horse race he was considered a non-starter. The six hundred British visitors were plunging heavily on their champion, for they felt that the odds were terrific and they'd go away with fortunes. However, it was not to be. The A Lager champion, despite background and guardsman's moustache, succumbed to the 'Wonder' in a points decision. Of course, there was a howl of protest at the decisionfrom the British contingent: 'We wuz robbed', plaint, but the 'Wonder' had won fairly and squarely.
So it had been a great day and the Americans had grown richer by thousands of cigarettes and had left the poor relations A and B far behind.
The weather was really hot and the kriegies' attire was becoming less and less. Some had taken to
sunbathing in the nude and this was becoming the vogue, until a rumour circulated that hot sun on the
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testicles rendered one sterile. So respectability was gained by the 'g' string and the inmates continued to enjoy the warmth.
The heat helped to drive the hunger pangs away, and there seemed to be more energy for other
pursuits, such as swimming. K Lager had a fire pool, which was as black as the ace of spades and full
of frogs, but it was hot and an enterprising prisoner considered it was time for a swim. Everything was contagious in the Lager and within an hour the pool's surrounds were littered with naked bodies all enjoying the amenities of the new-found lido, while the pool was jammed with bathers who emerged a darker colour than on entering. For two days the new attraction was allowed to prosper by the authorities, although the amount of water gradually decreased as the water was splashed outwards on to the muddy banks by the antics of the bathers. Then the Germans acted, it was declared a health hazard - typhoid being mentioned and the pool was 'verboten'. So ended the two-day interlude at the seaside.
The aquatic activities having been curtailed at the height of the season, it was on with another summer sport, cricket, and what better than a test match between England and Australia to capture and hold the interests of the men of B Lager. The English supporters stated that it would be a non-event, because of the limited choice available to the Australian selectors, but when one considered the number of Aussies in the lager it was time for reconsideration. Although it was true that the bulk of the POWs were from the British Isles, it was surprising the contribution made by Australia and Canada, considering their small populations. It was to be a three-day match with set intervals for lunch and tea, just like at Lords, despite the fact that there would be nothing to eat. Still tradition had to be complied with.
Australia won the toss and batted on what was supposed to be a perfect pitch, devoid of a blade of
grass. The dust heap had been swept and then rolled with petrol drums filled with water. The
Lancashire curator from C9 had declared it the best wicket he had seen outside Old Trafford, and there was a bag of runs to be had, but the English opening bowlers seemed to think otherwise and made the ball bounce and lift alarmingly.
Four Australian wickets tumbled for nine runs and then the boys from Down Under decided that it was time for bold tactics. They hit out lustily much to the crowd's delight and at lunch were five wickets for 113 runs, a useful start.
As there was no selling of scorecards, chocolates, cigarettes or matches during the break, the lager's
brass band entertained with such tunes as 'Colonel Bogey', 'Anchors Away' et cetera. Then some of the spectators, thinking that they could do better than the actual players, invaded the playing area and commenced a test match of their own on the holy of holies, the test wicket. This continued until the irate curator emerged from C9 and uprooted the test stumps in a bid to check the proceedings and force the invaders to take up positions behind the boundary. The abrupt ending of the game almost resulted in fisticuffs, but all ended well with the reappearance of the players.
The Australian batsmen pushed on, timing their shots and slogged the many loose deliveries, and were further aided and abetted by some poor English fielding - innumerable catches being dropped. So a respectable score of 197 was reached and Australia was well-satisfied.
The Englishmen batted as if they were at Lords, very correct and proper, but the wicket was
treacherous, bouncing, shooting and keeping ankle high, so were dismissed for a paltry forty-two.
Being forced to follow-on over 150 in arrears, they changed tactics and lashed out, but could only
muster 148. So the three-day match had ended in a day and the Aussies had won the test by an innings and seven runs. The blame was heaped on the ground staff and the curator, who had let the kriegies down. One day of cricket, when they were expecting three was poor and unforgiveable by anyone's standards.
The lights were out and the kriegies were relaxing in their pits after a day in the sun. The conversation generally centred itself on women, the war or the 'bin', but tonight the war took precedence.
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'I'll tell you what!' called out Bolland. 'For us this goddamn war will soon be over. The Ruskies will be
here and then we'll all go home via Moscow.'
'Bullshit!' interrupted Mackie, the Australian pilot who had topped scored in the recent test match.
'Listen mate, who the bloody hell wants to go home via Moscow? There'd be nowhere to go. It would be a dead end and they might keep us there for years.'
'We could no home via India or the Black Sea or some other route', explained Bolland tamely, who
had been temporarily set back on his heels by the Aussie's assertive statement. However, he gathered momentum for he was never nonplussed for long. 'Moscow will do me! Think of all those Russian women just waiting to meet a Canadian fighter pilot. I’ll be an instant success. Who the hell gives a shit where we go, as long as we get out of this bloody place?'
'I'm with you there, Canada.' replied Mackie. 'When you talk of 'sheilas', you're talking my kind of
language. We'll go well together, the perfect and irresistible combination. Me with my sun kissed body and you with your good looks. God! What a time we'll have!'
'What a lot of crap you bastards shovel around!' chipped in an interested listener. 'Mackie, when you
get to Moscow you'll be buggered. The lager diet makes you sterile and there won't be any women
interested in you.'
'Like bloody hell!' retorted the valiant Mackie. 'There's bugger all wrong with me. I'm as good a man
as ever I was. Who topped scored in the recent test? The old Bondi hero.' There were roars of laughter at this self-recommendation.
'Atta boy, Mackie! You give 'em heaps,' encouraged Bolland. 'We Aussies and Canucks must stick
together.'
Then the argument about possible evacuation continued far into the night, and the kriegies saw
everything through rose-coloured spectacles for hope sprang eternal in the prisoner's breast and the
'home by Christmas' mentality was very much to the fore.
The warmth and sunshine continued from day to day and the belief that for the prisoners the war was nearly over gained a stronger and stronger hold. It was inevitable that the Russians' westward drive would reach East Prussia in a matter of weeks, and so the intervening period was a time to be enjoyed and to prepare for freedom. However, fate can be unkind and it has a habit of jolting one's apathy and feelings of euphoria.
One night the kriegies were awakened by rifle shots, followed by a lot of commotion. The Russians
had arrived at last, but then things went quiet and returned to normal. It was discovered the next day that an American from C Lager had tried to escape by scaling the barbed wire entanglements and had been killed. The camp was saddened, for they felt that had he waited a little longer then rescue was inevitable. However, the shock brought to the fore the realisation that the war was not yet over and the casualties and deaths would continue to mount.
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CHAPTER XI
For two days a carnival atmosphere had pervaded the camp and an air of abandon possessed the
prisoners. The evacuation had been announced by the commandant at afternoon roll call, and the next day, C Lager had been cleared and the Americans dispatched to some unpronounceable place, deep in the heart of Germany. Within twenty-four hours, A Lager had moved out to an unknown destination, and these two large compounds were now empty, silent and ghostlike. Tomorrow was K's turn. The remaining prisoners were to be evacuated in two groups and sent their various ways. So now it was time for rejoicing, for it was the last day of incarceration and freedom beckoned in the guise that the war was as good as over. Admittedly, the kriegies' initial reaction to evacuation had been annoyance and frustration for hopes of deliverance had been pinned on the Ruskies and there had been visions of Moscow and a good time. Later, however, they had reasoned that the Germans must be on their last legs and had no hope of stemming the Russian advance westward, and further the overall position of an early release had been enhanced by the British and American successes in France.
Dave had been going over his few precious belongings and packing in readiness for the exodus.
Travelling space would be very limited and everything taken had to be carried, so one had to be
selective. The two blankets were a must, and so was the Red Cross food parcel which had been issued one to each person for the journey. Dave knew all about cattle trucks and the time taken to get from A to K. However, there would be a thousand prisoners involved this trip, and it could be a long time before the destination was reached and another issue of food given. The Germans wouldn't be catering on this trip - it was the food parcel and nothing else. Then there was the cigarette problem - how many to take? Dave had about 1200 in packets of 20, so he wouldn't leave any behind. He'd take those for they represented currency, but 60 packets of 20 made a bulky parcel. The knife, fork and spoon, plus the drinking mug and dish were vital, but when all were put together the luggage would be heavy, cumbersome and unwieldy. He possessed one pair of socks, a vest and pants as a change from what he was wearing, so they had to be taken too. The big question was, what to do with the RAF greatcoat, a Red Cross donation? At night it was his third blanket, but in the hot July of 1944 it looked strangely out of place and superfluous. If he took it, he would be weighted down like a packhorse and would sweat streams walking from the camp to the railway siding, their departure point. Then, again, he reasoned that the war was as good as over and there would be no second winter to endure. He rolled it into a ball, kept in place with string, and then loaded himself. The blankets and greatcoat went on his back, rucksack style, and the rest was carried by hand. He felt hot, buggered, and loaded to the gunwales. It would be hard work carrying his belongings in the heat of the sun, for it was bad enough just standing in the cool of B3. He debated with himself the necessity for the greatcoat's retention and decided to hang on to everything. If the worse came to the worse, he could throw the coat away.
Everything being ready for the morrow, he left the hut to join in the festivities. The whole world
seemed topsy-turvy. The Red Cross store had issued its whole stock of toilet paper rolls, as it couldn't be transported to the new camp, and so there was an abundance - about four rolls a person. The electricity and telephone wires were festooned with bunting as the rolls were thrown upwards draping everything and making a ticker-tape departure. Some of the bunting had even been thrown at the highstilted sentry boxes and now adorned these forbidding sentinels. Perhaps the drapery was symbolic of the contempt the prisoners had for Hitler's Germany and all it represented.
There were gramophone records or discs flying everywhere. Over the years the Red Cross had been
generous in this direction in an endeavour to cater for the musical needs of the deprived. In addition, many music lovers had preferred record parcels to cigarettes and so had accumulated vast stocks. It was impossible to transport these to the next camp, and so were being thrown in all directions, whizzing through the air like boomerangs. They were dangerous, too, so you had to tread warily or the head would go a-rolling. On the recreation ground one enterprising entrepreneur had set up a game of chance by sticking a piece of wood in the ground, draping it with a coat, and charging 20 cigarettes a go at trying to hit it at 30 yards’ distance with a record. The prize being 50 cigarettes. No one knew what he would do with the profits, for he certainly wouldn't be able to take them with him.
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The toilets seemed to have a very special attraction for the kriegies for, antlike and loaded with
cardboard boxes of cigarettes, they made pilgrimages to the 'bogs'. Here they would tip the 'currency' down into the shitty depths. They were throwing away fortunes which had, in some cases taken almost five years to amass, for it was no good to them now. They couldn't carry their loot with them and the alternative was to leave it for the enemy.
'Not bloody likely!' was the consensus of opinion. 'They'll get bugger all from me. If they want a
smoke, then they can have shit on it as well as arsehole aroma.'
The cigarettes were poured into this depository and the lager's wealth gradually disappeared. This
dissipation was a great economic leveller. The kriegies, who possessed fortunes, were now reduced to a common denominator, for wealth depended on the number of cigarettes you could transport, and after the essentials such as blankets, greatcoat et cetera, were taken into consideration, the amount of room for 'smokes' was roughly the same as everyone else's. Those who lacked lager 'gold' were now able to stock up from those divesting their fortunes in the morass and quagmire of the lager's 'rialto'.
Despite all the unusual things going on, tradition was hard to break and many prisoners were still
'bashing the circuit'. It seemed that years of habit couldn't be discarded overnight just because an
exodus was in the offing. Dull routine was an essential ingredient of lager life, and the swirling and
twisting records, plus reams of toilet paper strewn all over the place, couldn't deter the regimented.
However, the postern or sentry boxes weren't manned, and it was the first time that this state of affairs had existed so there was no-one to take a pot-shot at anyone infringing regulations, such as touching the warning wire et cetera. Indeed, down at the ablution block, scores of prisoners were doing their dhobi in preparation for the move and had cheekily hung the washing on the warning wire to dry, for there would be no retaliation.
The last night in B3 was full of speculation about the future. What would the morrow bring, and where were they going? Most agreed that it would be deep in the heart of Germany where they would come to rest and there would be no chance of escape. However, Mackie started an argument about repatriation. He tried to convince the inmates that the Germans no longer had the food to feed the prisoners in K Lager, and they would all be sent to Sweden, where they would remain until the end of the war. This line of argument was easy to swallow for everyone wanted it to happen, and so the more gullible gave Mackie their support. However, Bolland told Mackie that he was pissing down his leg and was being bloody stupid.
'Sweden! Mackie you must be joking.’ No-one knew whether Mackie was really in earnest, for he
often said things just to get a reaction and an argument going.
There was a lull for a few minutes as if everyone was contemplating the future. Sweden was just a
pipe dream, so the alternative was 'deep in the heart of Germany'.
'I'll tell you what, Mackie!' blurted Bolland. 'I know you give me the shits and the piles, but you're not a bad sort of bloke deep down. In fact, you'll do me, how about you and me staying behind tomorrow? Everyone pisses off, and we'll have the camp to ourselves, we could hide in the roof of the ablution block and wait for the Ruskies to come.'
'She'll be right, mate', came the Aussie's reply, 'but I wouldn't like to be stuck in the roof for a few
weeks. It would be too bloody hot. Besides your feet stink and I couldn't stand it and I'd give myself
up to the Germans.'
'We'll be in the ablution block, won't we?’ demanded Bolland.
'So I'll be able to slip down through the trap door and have a shower three times a day. Besides, it
wouldn't be a bad idea if you had a shower occasionally and then you could wash the piles out of your arse. They must give you hell. No wonder you're always scratching it.'
At this there were roars of laughter.
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'How about me joining you?' someone asked, good humouredly. 'What with the piles and the stinking feet, I feel you need a third person to keep up the morale.'
'Piss-off!' retorted Mackie. 'Me and Bolland want to be alone. Don't we? Haven't you heard we've got a thing going between us, and a third party would bugger things up?'
'For once I agree with you, Mackie,' was Bolland's laughing reply.
'We don't want anyone else. Two in the roof will be plenty.'
'By the way, Bolland, I see you've lost your mate, McDonald,' stated Mackie. 'Why the hell did he ship out with A Lager? Didn't he like you or something?'
'The cookhouse mob was moved out together with the A Lager bods, so McDonald went with them,'
was Bollard’s reply. 'I told him I'd see him when we got back to Canada, and the way the war's going,
it won't be long.'
So the banter went on until the early hours of the morning.
The next morning the men of C Block were counted, checked, rechecked, and then marched out of the camp - destination unknown. B Block received the same treatment about two hours later, and by noon were on their way to the railway siding about four kilometres distant. The day was hot and the August sun made Dave feel like a trussed rooster, especially with the blankets and greatcoat on his back and the Red Cross food parcel and other luggage to hand. It was hard work just putting one foot after the other and there were frequent stops for rests and the readjustment of luggage.
At the siding the cattle trucks were drawn up ready to receive the passengers, and on the platform were innumerable buckets of drinking water. Then the prisoners were herded into the trucks, the sliding doors closed, and they were sealed, signed, and ready to be transported. The instruction ‘8 Horses or 48 Men' seemed to have been stretched a little for there was precious little room for each person, without the accompanying luggage. Everyone was standing as if expecting the door to slide open, and the guard would yell, 'All change! All change!' However, there was no such call, and the train remained stationary at the siding, and the temperature within the trucks seemed to rise appreciably and the perspiration simply poured from everyone. It was sit down or fall down, and gradually everyone sat. The lucky ones had their backs supported by the sides of the truck, but those in the middle were less fortunate. The leg room was sufficient if drawn up, but once outstretched they brushed someone else or rested on top of another pair of legs, accompanied by: 'keep your bloody feet to yourself.'
Then the train started to move, and Dave heard Bolland say, 'Christ! This is where I came in. I've done it all before.'
'Me too, mate!' chorused Mackie.
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CHAPTER XII
The hot sun burned down on the weary, disconsolate marchers as they covered the distance from the railway station to the new camp. Although it was only four kilometres, the journey seemed endless, each plodding step requiring so much effort. The impedimenta; the blankets, the Red Cross parcel et cetera with which each person was burdened, seemed to weigh tons and became heavier with every movement, while the rays of the sun seemed to percolate to the very marrow to ooze perspiration all over. The long, bedraggled column limped its way along, watched only by a few disinterested pedestrians.
'So this is Poland!' mused Dave. 'The Germans can stuff it as far as I'm concerned.'
He felt exhausted and dispirited, despite the warmth of the day, for the journey had been a real bastard, Four days they had been cooped up in the cattle truck, only to be let out morning and evening to relieve themselves on the side of the railway tracks. The journey had been punctuated by stops and starts, and the stops had been often and lengthy. Once the sun had started to rise the temperature within the cattle truck rose appreciably until it became suffocating, especially if the train was at a standstill. The shortage of leg-room was acute for if you stretched out someone would place his legs on top of yours and so on, until yours were at the bottom of the pile and pins and needles occurred through lack of movement. Then they were extricated with difficulty and plonked on the top. This continuous game of musical chairs reminded Dave of a game he played as a child, when hands were placed on top of each other and the bottom hand was moved to the top in rotation.
In the end one would tire of the continual movement and withdraw from the contest by pulling the
knees into the stomach. However, when the knees and legs grew aching and tired in this position, the solution was either to stretch out again and become involved or stand up.
The water situation had also been a problem. Buckets of drinking water had been placed inside the
truck, but the movements of the train, especially the stoppings and starts had caused a certain amount of sloping and wastage. However, the urinal, the narrow gap caused by the partly open sliding door, was not in great demand for the perspiration was great and the warm weather placed no undue emphasis on the bladder.
The trek continued and Dave felt like discarding his greatcoat. Many of the prisoners had left theirs
behind in the lager or had dumped them somewhere along the route, feeling that they had a outlived their usefulness. The high temperature reinforced this feeling and Dave favoured the idea of following suit as it would make his load a lot lighter. He felt as if he were part of a mule train in a cowboy movie moving ponderously and laboriously towards the horizon. Still he had brought the coat this far, so he reasoned he'd hang on to it for another few kilometres.
Before entering their new abode, the prisoners were made to strip, their clothes searched, identity
checked by means of 'dog-tags' and then the gates opened and they were allowed to proceed. From
previous experience, the entry of new arrivals was always greeted by a large crowd who were
impatient to learn, at first hand, the latest news from home or, perhaps, were hoping to meet someone whom they had known, previously on the squadron or from their home town. Thus the intermingling of the old and the new was generally a slap-backing occasion with animated discussions. However, there was no welcoming party here, and there prevailed a complete indifference to the new arrivals. The prisoners were led along a sandy track and on each side, dotted here and there, were detached huts - a far cry from the terraced type of the previous camp. The compound was huge and seemed to sprawl endlessly, lacking cohesion and togetherness. This could be attributed to the lack of barbed wire. At the previous camp there had been lagers all separated from each other, thus giving rise to closely knit communities, but here there was no separation and one could wander at will.
Dave enjoyed his new home for the weather was hot and there was freedom of movement. The camp was for soldiers, but this ruling had been waived to accommodate the newcomers. Thus, in his
wanderings, Dave met men who had been far removed from his path in life. There were Dunkirk
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heroes, the forgotten men of yesterday, who had fought on the beaches seemingly years ago and had spent the intervening years in different parts of the Greater German Reich. There was McLeod, a
grizzled, old army veteran, who had served in India, frequented the brothels of Hong Kong, caught
gonorrhoea in Singapore and been baked to a cinder in Aden. Shipped home in time for the
commencement of World War II, his military career had come to an abrupt halt when captured in
France in 1940.
A very relaxed atmosphere pervaded the whole compound and here things differed considerably. It
seemed that one was allowed to trade with the Germans for there were numerous stalls about the place where one could purchase - providing you had the cigarettes - eggs, bread, margarine, vegetables and some fruit. However, the airmen's currency had dwindled and there were few buyers amongst the flyers. The biggest entrepreneurs were a combination called 'Burly and Bill', who owned a fairly large premise and seemed to have a monopoly on the more desired foodstuffs. Where they obtained it no one seemed to know, but at times they had small fish for sale and even one or two chickens. All the other traders seemed poor relations in comparison and didn't possess the contacts that the partnership had. Still, it seemed that racketeers existed everywhere, even in a German POW camp.
Most of the army prisoners were employed during the day on neighbouring farms or in local factories and this contact with the outside world helped to facilitate trade. Further, it was the essential ingredient that destroyed the rule of ' no trading with the enemy', which had prevailed and been strictly adhered to by the airmen when in East Prussia. The lassez-faire attitude which permeated the camp after the strict regimen of East Prussia was, at first, difficult to get used to, but, nevertheless, it was something new and tended to break the monotony of confinement.
The weather continued hot and dry, and so the hunger pangs assailing the stomach were appeased to a certain extent and Dave was free to wander over the sand wastes comprising the camp. The terrain reminded him of the dunes of the Porthcawl area back in his native Wales, where he had always spent his annual holiday as a boy. However, here there was no sea to bathe in.
The hut housing Dave was parked on its own and contained twenty-four two tiered bunks and the newfound freedom existed even here. There was no six o'clock curfew when the doors were locked and no piss-bin to generate controversy. One could sleep in the sand if desired and also use it as a urinal at night.
Most of the old B3 crew were still together in the hut. At night there were no longer a gramophone and records to entertain, so it was chit-chat about the new acquaintances and experiences.
'Jesus, I'd hate to be one of those Dunkirk wallahs. Fancy being in the cage nearly five years, it would
drive you mad. You wouldn't know what your cock was for after all that time. Their kids will be
grown up and married by the time they get back to Blighty, and God knows what their wives have
been doing,' stated Bolland in his nightly communiqué on the state of the camp.
'Bullshit, mate!' retorted Mackie. 'Most of the poor buggers are wire happy. When you've been behind barbed wire as long as they have you don't want to get out. This place represents security and when you grow old you don't look for challenges.'
'What a lot of crap you blokes spray about. If I were in this bloody country a hundred years, I'd still
want to get back to good old Manchester and the girlfriend,' interposed Slater.
'If you were here for a hundred years, it wouldn't be worth going back,' chuckled Blackston. 'You're a
cockless old wreck now without waiting all that time.'
'Talking about calling the kettle black!' retorted Slater. 'Yours almost disappeared under the 'waterfall' the other day.'
'Shit! That bloody waterfall would freeze King Kong's waterspout to the size of a peanut and make
him forget sex for six months. It's the coldest, bloody thing I've ever known. Jesus, you need to be mad
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to go under that,' joined in Bill Welling’s, a native of Liverpool, who had been a prisoner almost two
years.
Welling’s was a man of few words, but he managed to extract a laugh when he made a pronouncement.
The 'waterfall' consisted of a huge, iron, corrugated tank placed on a wooden platform about twentyfeet off the ground and supported by four large poles. In the base of the tank was a spring trap door from which dangled a piece of wire. The kriegies would shower by standing under the tank, hold their breath, and then jerk the wire. The icy water would cascade down, drowning the bather, who would be forced to release the wire, thus closing the trap. The water must have been pumped from the bowels of the earth for it was freezing and you needed an hour to regain breath and composure.
The lull in conversation was broken by Danzey's voice. 'Talk about waterspouts and sex, that bloody
McLeod has done everything and everybody and has caught a few surprise packets along the way. He was telling us about when he was stationed in India. The white women were all hoity-toity being
officers’ wives et cetera and the men of other ranks were left out in the cold. So he had to resort to the brothels, and, boy, were his descriptions vivid and colourful.’
'Did he tell you how he caught gonorrhoea in Singapore and the antics he had to go through to make
himself clean again? He must have felt like a bloody pincushion by the time the treatment was over,'
added Bolland. 'Christ! The poor old bugger must be sixty, and after nearly forty years of soldiering
he's still only a corporal.'
'What do you expect?' demanded Welling’s. 'He wasn't interested in promotion. His priorities were sex, brothels and clap, and now he's only got his memories. Poor bastard!'
'I knew a bloke like that back in Sydney,' reminisced Mackie. 'He'd strut about Bondi Beach in his
swimmers and all the sheilas would be crazy about him. He had sex for breakfast, lunch and dinner
and then he'd have it for afters as well if it were around. Jesus, he thought a lot of himself! Always
combing his bloody hair. He'd leave McLeod for dead.'
'What happened to him?' asked Danzey innocently.
'Poor bastard caught nearly everything going,' replied Mackie, 'and passed on most of it. He died early. Just couldn't stand the pace.'
'You talk a lot of horseshit, Mackie,' stated Bolland bluntly. 'This Bondi Romeo of yours just wasn't
good enough. He's dead, but McLeod's alive. So who's the better man for Christ sake?'
'You blokes are sex crazy,' interrupted Blackston, 'Let's talk about something interesting, like the war
and when we'll get out of here.'
'Hell! You're a bloody comic, Blackston, 'laughed Danzey. 'Here we've been having a bloody
interesting conversation and you have to get back to reality and ordinary things. You give my piles a
twist, and believe me they're sore enough as it is.'
'Talking about piles,' joined in Slater, 'my arsehole has been giving me hell lately. It's this bloody diet.
You get nothing to open up the old bowels. When I have a shit it's like trying to pass red hot daggers
through the eye of a needle.'
'You poor bastard!' sympathised Welling’s. 'I have the same problem so I know what it's like. If you
could get some ruddy ointment it would be a help.'
'Why don't you go and see old McLeod?' asked Bolland laughingly. 'He's got a cure for everything,
and they tell me he's a bit of a surgeon as well. He might be able to operate on you both in between
telling his life's history and his brothel adventures. It would add to his status if he could put up a sign
stating that he was a haemorrhoid specialist as well as a pox doctor's clerk.'
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'You're a real bastard, Bolland. You've no sympathy for anyone', said Mackie, entering into the fray.
'You can thank your lucky stars that you're tucked away in a POW camp or you'd be poxed up to the
eyebrows by now. The war's saved you, Bolland.'
'I don't know about the pox,' returned Bolland gallantly, 'but hells, bloody bells I want a piss. I'll have
to go outside and study the stars for a few minutes. Don't hold your breath while I'm away, and for
Christ sake give old McLeod a rest.'
Bolland exited to roars of laughter, and then a silence fell on the hut as each person took refuge in his private thoughts and world.
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CHAPTER XIII
Bill Welling’s and Dave were walking about the camp, neither saying much. The sun was hot and its
warmth comforting and soothing. Dave knew all about Welling's background. He hailed from
Liverpool and possessed the inimitable Liverpuddlian accent. Before the war he had worked as a clerk with a shipping firm and had hated the dull routine and regimen the daily task imposed. It was eight till five, and often no-one was prepared to leave until the head clerk had downed tools and quit. Then it was on to the RAF, where he had graduated as a bomb aimer. Mission had followed mission, and he felt that he had a charmed life and, like all aircrew personnel, was indestructible. However, a raid on Essen had proven his undoing. The bombs had been delivered and the return flight seemed a piece of cake, when the Lancaster had been mortally wounded by cannon shells from an enemy fighter. The crew baled out coming down in Belgium, but had been scattered. The next morning, while Bill was walking along a country road, he was approached by a young woman who asked in English was he a member of the plane that had been shot down the previous night. Being in RAF battledress and feeling that the girl was sympathetic and friendly, he admitted that he was. She then led him to a small house about 2 kilometres distant, where he bathed, ate and was given civilian clothing. The Germans had occupied nearly every Western European nation and the penalty for harbouring the enemy was death. Thus the family housing Bill was exceedingly brave. On the third day, Bill was given instructions to walk straight down the road for about a kilometre where he'd see a man standing with a bicycle and his hat in his left hand. He was to follow him at a respectable distance and on no account was he to communicate or make any sign of recognition. This person would lead him to his new sanctuary. The journey was quite long, but worth it for on arrival at his new abode he was reunited with his skipper and navigator, looking strangely out of place in civilian clothes instead of the customary officer's uniform. There was a joyous reunion and questions asked and answered about the other members of the crew. Apparently, all had baled successfully, but the rest of the crew had been picked up by the enemy who were still scouring the area for the three evaders. They were confined to the house for a week and exercised indoors, played cards, slept and ate. Then the escape routine was repeated by walking to the railway station - being previously provided with tickets - boarding a train that went to Brussels and so finishing up in the capital. This journeying from place to place went on until they reached an hotel in Paris, where the Gestapo swooped and rounded up not only the three in question, but also about twenty other evading airmen. Then it was to Fresnes, the Gestapo prison in Paris.
'Fresnes must have just about driven you mad, Bill? Dave said unexpectedly. 'I know I would have
gone bonkers if they'd locked me up there.'
'Dave, you've got no idea of what it's like. I tell you I nearly went around the bend. When you're
locked up in solitary with no-one to confide in, your troubles seem mountainous and insoluble. It's
either very quiet, not a sound, or you hear some poor bastard wailing or crying. The Gestapo were
either beating shit out of him or he'd gone off his head. It wasn't hard to do.'
'Did they beat you, Bill?'
'No, they didn't actually inflict any physical punishment, I suffered mentally. They interrogated me
about the Underground and where had I been? Whose house had I been in? What were the names of the people who had cared for me et cetera? Thank God I didn't know. No-one told us their real names or where we were, as they felt it was better that way. I was scared stiff they might take me back to where I was shot down and try and make me find the place where I went first. I freeze up when I think of it. One piece of information and they'd unravel the knot and then God help the Resistance.'
'Your six weeks must have seemed like years, Bill?'
'It was the longest and worst six weeks of my life. Jesus, I feel sorry for Docker, he was in Fresnes ten
months. No wonder the poor bastard is as grey as a badger and he's only twenty-three. They must have given him the treatment.'
'What do you intend doing when the war's over? Is it back to the shipping office?'
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'Like bloody hell! I just couldn't stand the monotony. I'd tell the head clerk to get stuffed. The
pompous arsehole. A little power makes some people drunk. He ought to be in aircrew, then he'd be
levelled out.'
The two walked on, and then Dave suggested, as they were in the vicinity, that they drop in on
Corporal McLeod and find out what crap he was shooting around. The grand old man, as usual
surrounded by his devotees or those who wanted a laugh to relieve the monotony, was expatiating
upon his favourite topic. He'd just been asked what gonorrhoea was like and how it affected one, and his reply was vivid, humorous and colourful. Then the crowd dispersed.
'How are you today, Mac?' enquired Bill.
'Bloody awful! I feel like my guts have been taken out, chopped up, salted and peppered, and then put back in and my belly sewn up with a red hot poker. Jesus, I feel sick!'
'It's your past catching up with you, Mac,' said Dave jocularly. 'They say that too much poking doesn't do anyone any good, and it tends to rot the guts and the penis.'
'Horseshit!' was McLeod's emphatic reply. 'There's nothing wrong with my cock. It's as good as ever it was, for it's been in retirement for five years, but my guts are giving me hell. It's this bloody food and the flies. They eat you alive and shit all over the food, so what do you expect? It's a wonder we're not all dead.'
'We'll be out of here before long, Mac, and then everything will be peaches,' comforted Bill. 'You can
go back to Singapore for another dose of clap, and I'm for Blighty.'
'You're a bloody optimist then. We'll be here for years yet, and the Japs will be in Singapore for
another decade. There's too much on our plate. Shit, my gut is killing me! I'm off to the quack. I
haven't time to educate bastards like you,' and with that McLeod took his farewell, leaving Bill and
Dave a little crestfallen at the news imparted.
They made off in the direction of their hut, neither saying much but ruminating upon McLeod's
prophecy of the war's ending. Dave felt he couldn't and didn't want to do another winter as a captive. The bloody cold went through you and your state of health was deteriorating. The diet and privations took their toll and this was evident by the number of repatriations. When X-rayed by the Red Cross doctors the incidence of tuberculosis had been high amongst those who had been prisoners for a number of years. There were too many problems ahead and Dave didn't relish the future.
Dave broke the silence. 'What do you think about McLeod's forecast!'
'You mean about the war dragging on? McLeod gives me the shits. He's always crapping on about
something he knows bugger all about. He should stick to sex and not make pontifical statements about the military situation.'
'The war news is good in the West. The British and American armies are screwing the balls off the
Germans and Montgomery is showing the Yanks how a modern war should be fought. It's the Eastern front I can't fathom. When we came here in July, the Ruskies were steamrolling their way eastwards and it looked like Warsaw would fall. And what happened? We heard on the BBC news the Russians had asked the Polish Underground to rise up, take over the city and kill the German garrison. The Ruskies were only about 30 kilometres from the outskirts of Warsaw at that time, and what have they done since? Bugger all! They've just sat on their arseholes and kept a friendly eye on things, while the poor old Poles are being slaughtered. Buggered if I can understand it.'
'Don't worry, Dave!' Old Stalin's a cunning bastard. He's most probably giving his armies a breather
and regrouping. You watch within a week they'll be on the march again.'
'He'd better pull his finger out then or there won't be any Poles in Warsaw left to liberate.'
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The news from the East was disconcerting and worrying for the advance from that direction had come to a complete halt in the Central sector. Both Dave and Bill hated the thought of enduring another winter in captivity. It was hot now, but in the bitter cold of a European winter your body cried out for nourishment in the form of a good meal and warmth in the shape of a bed and plenty of blankets.
'Jesus, Bill, McLeod said that the Japs will still be fighting in ten years’ time. We'll be a fine pair of
bastards if the European war goes on even half that time. It won't be worth going home, for no-one
will want us.'
'You can say that again, Dave. We'll be the forgotten men of yesterday, and even our girlfriends will
have given us the big heave-ho. Just my luck!'
'Don't worry. She'll be waiting for you, Bill, even in five years’ time. You told me that Mary was
something out of the top drawer, so there's no need for second thoughts on the matter.'
'I haven't had a letter for three months. A man's morale needs reassuring from time to time, and mail from home is the best booster there is.'
Dave knew this to be true for he hadn't received a letter for several weeks and felt discarded and
unwanted. Perhaps Joan had forgotten; found someone else; a mess pot was on the way et cetera. It
was a topsy-turvy world with everyone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Here he was in
German Occupied Europe while he longed to be in Wales. Then, again, the Yanks, Australians,
Canadians et cetera were in England and, he supposed, wished to be back on native soil. The thought of so many eligible men parading around back home gave rise to further apprehension – Joan could be married to an American by the time he was out of the cage. Everything was so uncertain and unpredictable. The war, according to the kriegies, was always going to be over by Christmas, but it seemed never-ending. If there was a definite date that one could look forward to then the uncertainty would disappear and the mind set at ease. However, each big military advance by the Allies buoyed the confidence, only for it to be seriously deflated by a reversal, such as the inexplicable lack of movement by the Russian armies in front of Warsaw. What could the Ruskies be doing? Surely, they ought to go on with the advance and help the Polish Resistance in that city? Dave felt depressed, but had no wish to convey his thoughts to Bill. Everyone had his problems, despite the bravado, the sexual anecdotes by McLeod, Bolland, Mackie et cetera, and the feigning of indifference when the mess pot arrived. However, Dave consoled himself that shifting from camp to camp wouldn't help the delivery of letters and, further, no mail had been received by him from anyone, so no news was good news.
'What's wrong, Dave? queried Bill. 'Got the shits or something. You seem unusually quiet.'
'Bugger all's wrong with me.' lied Dave. 'Let's go back to the hut for I'm going to have a shower.'
'You wouldn't catch me going under the bloody 'waterfall', it would turn my balls into ice-blocks. The
sudden change in temperature can't be good for them. I reckon you become sterile if you had too many of those cold showers.'
'How else do you shower then, Bill? There are no hot showers or they haven't told us about them.
These soldier wallahs might be keeping it a secret. Jesus, in the winter I'd just stink. I wouldn't be able to stand the waterfall. Too bloody cold.'
'Okay, let's go! And don't forget I warned you about becoming sterile.'
'Piss off! I'll tell you what? I'll consult with McLeod about the effect of cold water on the knackers.
He's sure to tell me an interesting tale,' laughed Dave.
The repartee about testicles, sterility and McLeod had helped to liven things up and make the two of
them forget temporarily their personal problems,
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CHAPTER XIV
It was early October and the kriegies had been in their new camp almost three weeks. The advancing
Russians had finally ensured the evacuation of the Polish setup, and the procedure repeated: the walk to the railway siding; the incarceration in the cattle trucks; the seemingly endless journey of four days; the confined and cramped conditions; the disembarking and walk to the new camp; and, finally, the checking of identity and search et cetera before admittance. It was like seeing the screening of a movie for the umpteenth time.
The new 'home' was situated in the middle of the North German Plain and so, according to the German guards, was safe from the Russians and equally safe from the Allies. The guards were adamant that here the prisoners would remain until the Germans were victorious. No more moves, no more cattle trucks et cetera, as the Fuhrer wouldn't allow any enemy of the Third Reich to tread on German soil.
The camp was bleak and miserable in outlook, being divided into several lagers. However, there was
no restriction of entry. The huts were terraced-typed, similar to those in East Prussia and each
contained 36 two tiered bunks. Perhaps the biggest difference was the soil, which was a dark loam and contrasted sharply with the sand of the previous camps. It only needed a little rain and the tracks became boggy and the boots muddied with damp, clinging mud. However, it was still autumn and the winter and its damp seemed a long way off.
The terraced huts faced each other in long rows and at the farther end of the so-made thoroughfares was a detached ablution block with no shower facilities. Then another 30 yards on, away from everything, was the communal deep-pit, which served not only as a toilet but as the hub of misinformation and rumour. At the other extremity, placed in the middle of each 'street', was a small wooden shed containing a water tap which was attached to a pipe rising about three feet from the ground. This was used for filling buckets so that clothes et cetera could be washed, and also for
showering by sitting or kneeling under the tap and soaping oneself at the same time.
The camp, to the discerning, spelt future despair, hardship and privation, but that didn't worry the
prisoner for he dealt with one day at a time, and, anyway, he'd be home tomorrow. The store of Red
Cross parcels had been brought with them from Poland, but it was already rumoured that there was
only enough for an issue of one per person for so many weeks. After that a parcel would have to be
shared by two, three, four or more. Still, no-one wanted to believe it, so it was put down as a rumour
emanating from the shithouse and so had no credibility. The kriegies' mentality was similar to that of
an ostrich. When something was unpalatable then one chose to ignore it and stick one's head in the
sand. At the previous camps, coal in the form of briquettes had been supplied for warmth in the hut
and cooking in the communal kitchen. Here, however, there was no supply and no cookhouse, and fuel for heating and cooking was dependent on two persons from each hut being allowed out daily under a guard to forage for wood in the forests. Consequently, the fire in the big stove was not lit until evening when it became colder and it was time for the evening meal. In the relative warmth of early October this didn't matter so much, but in bitterly cold December, January and February it would be a different tale.
No-one was allowed out to work on neighbouring farms et cetera and so there was a dearth of extras in the shape of additional food, forcing the entrepreneurs of the former camp to close shop. There was nothing to trade and this was accentuated by the lack of kriegie currency, the cigarette, which had dwindled alarmingly in recent weeks. Further, the camp possessed no theatre where bands could perform or a production could be enacted, so there was no relief from the boredom and monotony of the daily round. When in East Prussia hot showers had been permitted once a week, while in Poland the only shower facilities had been those of the 'waterfall'. Still the icy, cold water was of little consequence in the hot weather and it mattered little. However, the showers here were situated in the outer lager and a visit was permitted once every three weeks. In between times, one was expected to sluice under the cold water tap in the little hut. The lack of a communal kitchen added to the difficulties of everyday living. Previously the tins of meat from each Red Cross parcel had been extracted, given to the cooks who had prepared the evening meal by either mixing the meat with
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potatoes to form a hash or issuing a quarter of a tin of meat per man. Now the complete parcel was
given, plus a daily issue of two potatoes, and the recipient left to his own devices. So combines or
groups of two, three or four were formed to overcome cooking problems. The individual kept such
edibles as chocolate, biscuits, sugar, tinned milk et cetera, but pooled the tinned stuff.
Despite the difficulties and the approach of the late autumn, the inmates were reasonably happy. They were convinced that they would be home for the festive season so a few temporary hardships were a bagatelle. The optimism that prevailed was high and little could dampen the outlook of the airmen. Admittedly, there had been, in lager parlance, a minor temporary setback, but it was nothing. The Allied forces in the West had made spectacular advances in July, August and September, forcing the Germans to withdraw to the defences of the Siegfried line. Something daring had to be done to hasten the end of the war and prevent a stalemate, so Operation Market Garden was carried out. Airborne British, Polish and American troops were dropped to secure bridges over the Rhine at Nijmegen, Eindhoven and Arnhem to find a route into the heart of Germany. However, success evaded the paratroopers, the British First Airborne Division being badly mauled at Arnhem and forced to withdraw on the 25th September and the mission aborted. The kriegies still received the BBC news, having brought the radio receiver from East Prussia via Poland, and were elated with the early successes of Market Garden. Then when the setbacks occurred there was a general souring and remarks like: 'Pull your bloody finger out for Christ sake!' 'What the bloody hell are you doing?’ et cetera. No-one, however, interpreted the writing on the wall as another winter to be endured in
captivity. That was too brutal a conclusion, despite the evidence of the approaching winter which,
would curtail tank warfare, aerial support for ground forces, and bring about a general lull on the
Western front. Christmas at home was the eternal attraction and, besides, the Ruskies revelled in the snow and if the British and Yanks were not good enough, then Joe Stalin's boys would be in and
through Germany like a dose of salts.
Now a six o'clock curfew applied and the doors of the huts were locked and no-one was allowed out,
so there was always a crowd around the big fuel stove in the centre of the room.
'Shit this place is getting bloody colder and colder,' stated Mackie.! I wish I were back on good old
Bondi basking in the sun and casting my eye over the sheilas. '
'You talk a lot of crap, Mackie!' retorted Danzey. 'You're always on about Bondi. I'd take Blackpool
anytime. The girls there are really something.'
'Blackpool, for Christ sake!' interjected Bolland. 'It nearly killed me. I was there for four weeks and
that's all I did was square-bash: ‘Right turn! Left turn! Squad!’ et cetera, and the wind never stopped
blowing. I thought my face was a piece of eroded rock by the time I was ready to leave.'
'Eroded cock, you meant' exclaimed Slater laughingly. 'I've often wondered why you look so queer,
and now I know. You're the same at both ends. Very good looking.'
At this there were roars of laughter, followed by a hush as the bystanders attended to the cooking pots. There was a variety of edibles all in different stages of readiness. Those near the actual fire were boiling merrily, while others, on the periphery of the stove, were stagnating and no movement was visible amongst the contents.
'This bloody wood is no good for cooking No body to it,' someone said. 'Anyway, there's never enough of it. Two blokes go out to collect in the forest and what they come back with is bugger all. Who were the bastards who went out today?'
'I'm one of the bastards,' a voice belligerently stated from one of the bunks. 'And what's it to you?'
'The next time,' came the answer, 'pull you finger out and bring something back worth burning. This
bloody stuff is not worth a crumpet.'
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'What do you expect? You're only allowed to pick up the dead stuff, and a man can only carry so
much. Wait till it's your turn to have a go.'
Again there was a lull in the conversation and a general departure from the stove area, leaving the one or two who were left the opportunity of moving their pot to a more favourable position nearer the source of heat. This was done by substituting yours for one that was already boiling or squeezing it in somewhere by creating space. This would cause arguments, accompanied by much banter, when the wronged person discovered what had taken place.
'Eh, Slater! Have you got your bags packed?' shouted Welling’s from his bunk. 'We'll be out of here
before the end of the month.'
'Who says so? Not that fake Maxie Clarke again? No-one listens to him anymore. He's a false prophet and the biggest phoney in the camp.'
'No, not him. It's in Revelations'.
'Who's he, for Christ sake?' asked Slater. 'Some sort of Gestapo boss who beats shit out of you with a
toothpick.'
'God, you're ignorant, Slater! How the hell did you ever become a member of aircrew? No,
Revelations is the last book in the Bible and tells you what's happened and when this war's going to
finish.'
'Where did you learn that crap?' queried Bolland.'
' Old Taylor in next door told me about it. He even read me the passages from the Bible, and his
interpretation of the white leader coming from the East and vanquishing the black Satan. He's
convinced the war will finish this month.'
'Old Taylor, be buggered. He's only 23 and already three parts around the bend. I don't know what's
come over you blokes,' continued Bolland, 'you'll believe anything.'
'Me and Bolland are the only two in this hut that have our feet on the ground,' supported Mackie. 'We don't listen to shithouse rumours, do we, Bolland? 'We'll be here for Christmas now that we've
received a walloping at Arnhem. Hell, we copped a hiding there! There'll be little military activity now that winter's nearly here.'
At this there were cries of protest from many parts of the hut, for this was realism and spelt out
another Christmas in captivity. Something no-one wanted.
'It was the British First Airborne Division that was dropped at Arnhem, wasn't it?' demanded
Blackston. 'I've got a brother-in-law, married to my sister, a paratrooper. I hope the hell he wasn't in
that lot or my sister will go bonkers. She worries all the time.'
'That bloody Montgomery wants gelding!' exploded Danzey. 'In September they made him a field
marshal and he's done bugger all since. I suppose he thought up the caper of capturing the bridges over the Rhine. I hope he's got another plan up his sleeve.'
'He's a brilliant bloody soldier,' added Welling’s. 'He gave Rommel's balls a'tingling in North Africa
and wrapped up that theatre of war in a hurry.'
'I was in that campaign and did we give Rommel a hiding from the air,' volunteered Sandy Smith. 'The Afrika Corps didn't know whether they were coming or going by the time we'd finished with them. There was only one road across the desert and it was pie-easy to bomb and strafe the German trucks and supplies. There was wreckage everywhere.'
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'If it was so easy, how come you finished up here? demanded Slater. 'I suppose you were invited and
too polite to knock back the invitation.'
'Something like that,' was Sandy's reply. 'We all get the chop sooner or later. Don't we, Slater?'
'Give me those Russian generals every time,' Bolland remarked. 'They know what they're about. Don't they, Mackie?'
'I'll take the Americans,' answered the Aussie just to be controversial. 'Eisenhower is Monty's boss, so it stands to reason he's better. And that Patton with his six-shooters -- now that's what I call
flamboyant. Then there was MacArthur with that bloody hat of his. When he arrived in Aussie to save us all down-under, my Mum thought he was the handsomest thing in breeches, and he was about sixty then, for Christ sake. Shows you what flamboyancy can do for you.'
So the meal preparation went on, interspersed with pontifical statements and a lot of crap.
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CHAPTER XV
It was bitterly cold, but the ground was not iron hard, as two days previously there had been some rain making the soil soft and clinging. The surface had been churned up by the tramp of thousands of feet and, although icy on the surface, cracked with the weight of the foot, oozing water from the soft, clammy interior. The boots of the three walkers were mud-soddened and looking the worse for wear.
'Eh, Dave! I told you we should have given our morning constitutional a miss. Look at my bloody
boots! I'll never be able to dry them out or the socks.'
'Stop griping, Slater!' was Dave's retort. 'If you don't bash the circuit, you lie on the pit and start
thinking of the outside world and then you're like a bear with a sore head. A brisk morning walk will
give you an appetite.'
'It's no good having an appetite if there's bugger all to eat!' interjected Welling’s. 'If I'd stayed in the pit and wrapped the blankets around me, I'd be conserving energy and keeping my hunger at bay. No-one seems to play sport anymore. The recreation field is always empty, not like it used to be when we were in East Prussia.'
'No-one's got any energy left,’ remarked Dave, 'we're all on our knees. Since I've been sharing my
weekly parcel with you bastards, I get nothing to eat.'
'Bullshit!' snorted Slater. 'Look how healthy you are compared with Welling’s and me. I reckon you
must be getting something on the side that we don't know about.'
'Wish the hell I was. Jesus, look at me! I was twelve stone when I was shot down and now I'd be lucky to make ten. If this war doesn't finish soon, I’ll lose another couple of stone and be like Gandhi.'
'You and Welling’s are shit lucky,' stated Slater, 'you still have your greatcoats. You're wrapped up like a pair of teddy bears, while I'm the poor relation.'
'They're a good third blanket, too.' gloated Welling’s, 'they help to keep rigor mortis at bay, especially at about two in the morning.'
'I nearly threw mine away,' volunteered Dave. 'The sun was so hot in July and August that I thought
that the cold had gone forever, and the coat was an anachronism - something like a bathing costume in Antarctica. Thank God, I hung on to it! I suppose it's my Welsh intuition that saved me.'
'What a load of bulldust you throw in people's eyes, Dave Griffin. You're just lucky, you bastard,'
scoffed Slater. 'Anyway, your Welsh intuition didn't help you with the flying boots. You raffled those
and then had to throw the proceeds down the bog. .'
'Listen to who's talking! Slater, you helped me raffle them, and then took half the cigarettes. A fine,
bloody friend, you are,' concluded Dave humorously, 'you should have persuaded me to hang on to
them.'
'My feet are bloody freezing and my socks are wet,' protested Slater. 'When we get to the hut I'm going in and wrapping the blankets around them. I don't want frostbite.'
'It's not your feet that you have to watch, Slater, it's your cock,' explained Welling’s. 'If the frost gives it a nip you'll be done for. It remains blue forever. They'll call you the 'Blue Boy'. Your girlfriend will
have the shock of her life when you're honeymooning or whatever you call it. She'll take one look at it and return to mother.'
For a while the three of them couldn't stop laughing, and then Dave interrupted the mirth with, 'My
ruddy socks are wet, too. I've only got one other pair and they're a bit holey. Hells bells, it's hard to dry
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things around here. I'll be coming in with you, Slater, when we reach the hut or my feet will be
knackered.'
'I don't know about your feet, but my boots need a pep-talk,' added Welling’s. 'They'll take a year to dry and, in the meantime, I'll have to hobble around the hut in stockinged feet. Hell, those cobbled stones are as cold as icebergs. Shit, I wish I could have a square meal, a hot shower, and then get into a warm bed with white, clean sheets. I'd sleep forever. I wouldn't care if I died as long as I was full, warm and had sheets. They're the things a man misses. I'm fed up with a sack filled with wood shavings for a pillow- it doesn't do the skin any good, and the blankets are filthy. God knows who had them before me. When I get up in the morning my face and neck are black from the bloody things.'
'That's because you never wash,' volunteered Dave. 'Don't blame the blankets for your lack of hygiene.'
'Talk about getting up in the morning, have you noticed McKenzie's face of late?' queried Slater. 'It
seems swollen and puffed up.'
'McKenzie's face is not the only one that's swollen when he gets up, I could name you at least ten more in the hut,' added Welling’s. 'Someone told me it's due to diet and lack of vitamins. The face becomes normal by noon. It's the kriegies who have been in the cage for years who are suffering. Some of them are losing their hair. It comes out in tufts. I saw a handful come out of Gerry William’s pate the other day. It gave me a bloody shock. The teeth also work lose.'
'Shit!' exploded Dave. 'I hope I don't go home bald and toothless! I couldn't stand it,' and then added, 'I'd buy a wig - a black one with a few silver streaks to make me look distinguished.’
And the three of them turned into the cold, miserable hut to obtain some form of succour.
The numbers in the camp had continued to grow and the huts became badly overcrowded as more twotiered
beds were squeezed in to accommodate the newcomers. Most of these were tough, vigorous air
borne soldiers who had fought in Operation Market Garden. Some had been glider pilots, others
paratroopers. They looked very professional in their red-devil berets and airborne insignia, contrasting
sharply with the underfed prisoner of a number of years. The news, according to the paratroopers, was
that the war couldn't finish until the summer of '45, as there would be a comparative lull during the
present winter, which would be used for regrouping and replenishing the Allied armies for the spring
offensive. This, of course, was a bitter pill for the old timers to swallow, as they found it unpalatable
and still argued that the war would be over by Christmas, which was only five weeks or so away. They
supported their arguments by referring to the predictions of the camp's visionaries, such as Maxie
Clarke; Old Taylor, the Bible-basher; and a new prophet, Charlie Haynes, who propounded the very
acceptable and palatable forecast that the Russians would arrive at the camp on Boxing Day and
liberate the kriegies. This was just what the doctor ordered, and so he was regarded as the Messiah and the greatest. Charlie Haynes had predicted, according to his adherents, the date of the D. Day landing; the Allies speedy advance across France; the failure of the Market Garden operation, and so had gathered disciples as his fame spread. Whether he had predicted what had eventuated was problematic, for no-one had been around at the time, except his bosom mates. Still, Charlie, as he was affectionately called, was now the vogue and regarded as number one.
The usual crowd was around the fuel stove either warming their backsides or tending to the cooking
pots, while the conversation ranged over a hundred and one topics.
'The elite of aircrew served in the Western Desert,' crapped on Sandy Smith. 'We were specially
selected for the job of driving Rommel back across Libya and out of North Africa. The Afrika Corps
were top class. They chased British general after British general back to Cairo, and it wasn't until
Montgomery took over the Eighth Army and Tedder the Air Force that we gave them curry. Those
were the days. Hitting hard the German supply lines in the desert, and leaves in Cairo. You blokes
don't know what life's all about.'
'You give me the shits, Smith!' exploded Mackie. 'The elite of aircrew, specially selected et cetera,
what bullshit! I wanted to be posted to the Middle East, so I'd get it easy. Just flying and strafing
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unprotected trucks and jeeps would be a piece of cake. No opposition. Bomber Command was tough
and for men only. Flying over Germany was not for powder-puffs. We'd battle our way to the target
and then fight our way home. Talk about the Desert Air Force, that was for geriatrics.'
Jack Tennant, a former Coastal Command pilot, then entered the fray. 'The real men of the Royal Air
Force were all in Coastal. Flying over those freezing, slatey grey waves was no picnic. If you had
engine trouble over the Atlantic, there was nowhere to go. We couldn't bale out like you bums, we had to tough it out. You desert rats and bomber boys had soft numbers. You ought to get some flying hours in before shooting lines. Try flying through a thunderstorm or a snow blizzard three hundred miles out at sea. You can't see out of the cabin window, and you could be flying the wrong way for all you know, and finish up in New York.'
'What about the compass?' someone yelled.
'Jesus! Just flying over the sea and looking for submarines is my idea of a war,' laughed Danzey.
'That's a lot easier than flying over enemy territory for six hours and getting flak thrown up at you all
the time, plus the fighters with their eight machine guns and four cannons. It's what survival is all
about. I take my hat off to every member of Bomber Command.'
'Do you think that's all we did was stooge over the sea?' Tennant asked heatedly. 'What about attacks on enemy shipping, battleships like the Bismarck and Tirpitz, and ports like Saint-Nazaire and Brest? You flew through flak as thick as snow and right into the mouths of those guns. Bloody frightening!'
'You Air Force pansies don't know what it's all about,' a paratrooper glider pilot stated bluntly. ‘Market Garden was no tea-party. At Arnhem we had to fly in gliders loaded to the gunwales with jeeps, light artillery and soldiers. And where did we land? Not on prepared runways like you Brylcream boys, but on a field or roadway, hoping like hell that you weren't crushed to death by the cargo on landing. It was a tough war. We didn't have engines. We didn't need them, we just glided in and hoped that luck was with us.'
No-one answered him. The banter that emanated from the group was always in good fun, and no-one meant what he said, as it was done to pass the time and relieve the monotony. Everyone respected the other and knew what tough wartime assignments they had performed. Sandy Smith had fought over the desert, had eaten the sand, slept in it, and had been fortunate enough not to be buried in it; the bomber boys had flown to the Ruhr Valley and faced the thirty thousand ack-ack guns and numerous other deadly obstacles; Coastal Command crews had faced a watery death and the menacing guns of the big German battleships; while the Airborne Division - the paratroopers and glider pilots had tons of guts and had shown their metal in so many hazardous operations in different theatres of war.
'We're all bloody good blokes anyway,' declared Welling’s, 'so who's arguing? Let's drink to the Royal
Navy. Those bloody sailors get all the luck.'
'I don't know about luck,' commented Bolland, 'for I don't seem to be having too much lately. That's all I dream about these days are cakes. Masses and masses of them with loads of cream and plenty of chocolate icing on top. It's no good dreaming about them for they never materialise, and I wake up as hungry as ever and dying for a piss. I never dream about sex now and I'm worried about myself.'
'I don't know about sex,' asserted Slater, 'but I dream about cakes, too. Women don't seem to worry me anymore. They say that the hunger drive is stronger than anything else. When you're well fed you want a woman, but lack of food drives the urge away. That's all I want to do, piss. I suppose the food shortage causes the liquid to run right through you. You must have something to absorb the water. Something like blotting paper.'
'To hell with the cakes,' chortled Mackie. All I have to do is think of the Aussie sun, Bondi, and the
sheilas and I'm alight. Boy, the sex flame will never go out in this baby! I'm a hundred per cent red
blooded male who can rise to any and every occasion.'
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'You're a goddam liar, you son of a bitch!' accused Bolland. 'Only last week you were telling me that
you felt that you were on the wane and that life was passing you by. You had doubts about your
masculinity.'
'Who, me? I'd never confide in you, mate, for you'd be down the shithouse and then it would be all
over the camp. No, I'm as good as I ever was. You speak for yourself, Bolland. The old Bondi star can
still play any tune that's called - and that's no bullshit!'
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CHAPTER XVI
Dave stood as close as possible to the big, German guard and inhaled deeply the cigarette smoke
wafting towards him. The guard puffed contentedly savouring to the full the enjoyment received. Dave moved a fraction closer, and the guard, sensing his presence for the first time, whirled around. The two faced each other momentarily, and then Dave walked off.
'Jesus, you were so close I thought you were going to eat him!' exclaimed Welling’s. 'Your mouth was opening and closing like an elephant's arsehole. He must have had a hell of a shock to turn and see you gaping like a fish out of water.'
'Christ, Welling’s! You use some colourful language. Elephant's arsehole, indeed. I'd bet you've never
seen an elephant, leave alone his hindquarters. Hell, I'm dying for a smoke! I don't know what's worse to be without a fag or a meal.'.
'I'd settle for both, Dave, for you need one to complement the other. A good meal of roast beef with all the trimmings, followed by a couple of cigarettes - - - - how does that grab you?'
'You give me the shits, Welling’s. You're always talking about the impossible. The Red Cross parcels
are kaput, and we haven't had a cigarette for nearly three weeks. The last I had was a drag on one
Mackie scrounged somewhere. There were five of us and the Aussie gave us a puff each. A good
bloke, Mackie!'
'It might be December, but, according to the BBC news, the Allies are still strafing and bombing
anything that moves. I wish they'd ease up so that a few parcels could get through and then we'd eat
again,' philosophised Welling’s. 'A sixth of a loaf a day, a swede, watery soup without meat at noon,
and two spuds a day are not enough to keep a gnat alive. I'm hungry all the time,' and then laughingly added, 'one could easily become a cannibal and that's why I thought you were going to swallow the guard.'
'I don't know about cannibalism, but I'm dying for a piss. That's all I seem to do is urinate. Last night I
woke up and was almost pissing myself. I just got out of bed in time. Everything seems to go straight
through me. It's bloody embarrassing. If I hear the slightest sound of running water I'm off like a
scalded cat to relieve myself.'
'Me, too!' concurred Welling’s. 'There's no food in the stomach to soak up the water and I suppose your inside is like a waterfall and the deluge has to come out. I'm sure I'll piss the bed one night. It's the cold, too, that puts pressure on the old bladder. It's one hell of a life.'
'If the parcels don't come soon,' stated Dave, 'we'll be in a fine pickle for Christmas. Nothing to eat and no cigs. That's all we do is piss. I never seem to want a shit these days. Perhaps if I had some of those chocolate cakes I'm always dreaming of then I might get the urge.'
'You might be changing your sex, too,' laughed Welling’s. 'I'd better tell Mackie - he'd think it a great
joke.'
Then, after a few seconds of silence, added, 'Those bloody cakes haunt me, too. It could be lack of
sugar or something, but between pissing and cakes I don't know whether I'm an uncle or an auntie.'
'The difference between them' explained Dave humorously, 'is that your uncle has balls, so you'd better check when you go to bed tonight.'
'I don't need to check,' retorted Welling’s, 'I can feel them and they're as cold as ice-cubes. They're
getting it rough - bleeding cold all the time. Let's go back to the hut!'
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The mail was being distributed. There had been a comparative dearth of late, for the Allied advance in the West and the Russian push from the East had hard hit the German communication system,
resulting in a shortage of everything for the prisoners. However, there were some letters, Dave
receiving two: one from Joan and the other from his mother. He lay on his pit and read and re-read the letters. It was good to receive mail from home, although over a month old, and know that somewhere things were normal in a world gone mad. Joan stated that she still loved him and was eagerly awaiting his return. They would be together again in the summer, so it wasn't far off and the time would soon pass. She had sent several cigarette parcels and hoped they had arrived. She visited his mother often and they would have tea together. He was as pleased as hell that she still wanted him and was looking forward to his return, but then he realised that the letter had been written five weeks previously and in that time she could have changed her mind or married some dashing, uniformed figure. The comment, 'the time would soon pass ' made him wince inwardly. Each week now seemed like a year and it was a question of survival and hanging in there with both hands and feet. Still, he was gloriously happy at receiving the communication, despite the fact that the cigarette parcels hadn't turned up and never would. By now they were either part of the burnt wreckage of some train or goods yard, or had been filched by a German railway worker who had enjoyed then to the full.
'You bastard!' Dave muttered, and then thoughtfully added, 'bloody good luck to you, I'd have done
the same myself.'
The letter from his mother was full of courage, understanding, and her indomitable will was evident in every line. Her husband, Walter, Dave's father, was with Mountbatten somewhere in South-East Asia, while her elder son, Ken, Dave’s brother, was fighting the Japs in the jungles of Burma. She wouldn't give in, despite her family being torn asunder and would breathe and live for the day when peace came and they were all reunited. She was a wonderful mother and a lioness in adversity.
Welling’s joined him and said that his girlfriend was still faithful et cetera. Then the strains of 'Missed
the Saturday Dance' floated to their ears, and Welling’s concluded, 'It seems like Slater's struck gold,
too.'
The war news was bad. On 16th December the Germans had launched a major counteroffensive in the Ardennes with the hope of capturing Liege and Antwerp and so disrupting the Allies' supply system.
The success achieved was alarming, capturing Bastogne and other places which seemed to have been in Allied hands for months and taking thousands of American prisoners. The whole Allied lines of defence seemed to be crumbling, and on 19th December, Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, placed Montgomery in command of all American forces on the northern flank of the fifty mile deep salient.
'We'll have a bloody awful Christmas!' grumbled Blackston. 'There'll be no food, no heat, and the
British will be doing another Dunkirk, but this time the Yanks will be with them.'
'If that bloody, heavy fog would lift we'd soon be giving them hell again,' declared Sandy Smith
authoritatively. 'It would be like the Western Desert all over again. Our planes would bomb and strafe their columns until they turned tail and fled for the Fatherland. Then they'd be into them again, and there'd be nothing left. The roads leading to Germany would be clogged with wreckage and the shattered dreams of Hitler's generals.'
'If, if, if! It's always bloody 'if'!' blared Slater. 'The fog has been over the front ever since the attack
began, and that's all we hear on the news is, 'Today, heavy fog seriously limited the number of Allied
air sorties! Blah! Blah!
They'd better pull their finger out or we'll be here for Christmas, 1954.'
'What's wrong with the bloody Air Force, anyway?' demanded Bolland. 'We used to do sweeps over
France and the Low Countries looking for anything that moved or stood still. We'd blast away at
trains, especially the engines, truck convoys, troop movements, water towers and even bridges. We'd fly under high tension wires, trees, anything as long as we could get right down so we wouldn't miss,
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and sometimes the mists would come up and we'd grope our way home. The Brylcream boys had
better start bouncing the ball around, fog or no fog.'
'She'll be right now, mate!' consoled Mackie. 'They've put Montgomery in-charge and He'll straighten things up, He has a touch of flamboyancy about him. Must be flash if you're going to be a success. Look at the way he wears that Tank Corps beret -- it denotes confidence and style. He's like
MacArthur, they've both got class.'
'The war can look after itself,' stated Welling’s, 'food is more important. I heard that Joe Cresswell has gone to Luneberg with a truck to get some Red Cross parcels. The German transport system's euchred, but there's plenty of parcels there.'
'Shithouse!' exploded Danzey. 'There's so many whispers going around this bloody place that you don't know what to believe.'
'I heard it, too,' solemnly stated Tennant. 'I didn't believe it, so I went up to kriegie admin. hut and said I wanted to speak to Cresswell on an urgent matter. I was told that the British Man-of-Confidence was unavailable. Now that's unusual, for old Joe will see anyone, so I drew my own conclusions: he'd gone to Luneburg to stock up. We'll be eating on Christmas Day.
'Jesus! If he's taken that red truck he won't be able to bring back more than six hundred, and that'll be roughly one parcel to sixteen men. We'll get fat on that!' declared Danzey.
'It will be better than bugger all, anyway,' pointed out Mackie.
'Half a loaf is better than none. Still, he'll have to hurry, it is the twenty-third today. If he comes back
on Boxing Day, we've had it, for we'll have to share the parcels with the Russians. Don't forget,
according to Charlie Haynes, they're dropping in on 26th to wish us a Happy New Year.'
'Haven't you heard the latest?' chortled Sandy Smith. 'This is the best and should get the 'Oscar' award for 1944.'
'Trust you to hear it, Sandy,' called Welling’s. 'You're always in the shithouse and I'm beginning to
have my doubts about you.'
'Then, here it is chaps!' proclaimed Sandy. 'Charlie Haynes has just announced the big one. He's
revised his forecast of the Russians being here on 26th December, because he's made a slight
calculation error, due to circumstances beyond his control.'
'Down the shithouse with him!' interjected someone. 'Then it would be a miscalculation on our part.'
'But you haven't heard it all,’ continued Sandy, 'he's revised the date to 3rd March and says that’s final and binding.'
'So be it!' solemnly chanted Tennant. 'We'll wait and see.'
Christmas 1944 didn't turn out too badly after all. The war news on the Ardennes front had improved and there seemed some form of stability: the forward advance of the German armies had been contained, and the Allies were counterattacking.
Further, the seemingly, everlasting, thick fog had lifted, allowing the Royal Air Force to strike hard at
the enemy and fly sortie after sortie. But the really good news was there was food to eat and fags to
smoke. The British Man-of-Confidence, Joe Cresswell, had returned from Luneburg with sufficient
parcels for an issue of one to every fourteen prisoners, and five cigarettes per man. It was impossible
to share two tins of meat, a tin of 'Klim' or condensed milk, a packet of biscuits, a bar of chocolate, two ounces of sugar, a small tin of oats, and a tin of margarine between fourteen, so the group Dave was in decided to glop the lot. That is put the lot in a big pot or bucket, add water, heat and stir so that you finish with a form of stew or thick, gluey mess. Still, it was wonderful and filled you up, especially
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when the bread ration was used to clean up the plate. Then it was a smoke and contentment as the blue haze floated around the hut, and the scintillating conversation of the inmates got under way.
'Merry Christmas, everybody!' called out Mackie. 'I've eaten a lot of Christmas dinners, but I reckon
that was as good as any. I suppose it was so unexpected and I've been hungry for months. It's good to have a smoke. I've nearly forgotten what it's like.
Bloody marvellous! In 1938 I had a great Christmas. The sun was a cow, as hot as hell, and I was a
lifesaver on Bondi.'
'What were you?' queried Bolland. 'Did I hear aright - a lifesaver? Jesus, they must take anybody in
Aus. I suppose they were hard up at the time.'
'Anyway,' continued Mackie ignoring the interruption, 'I used to love the beach, the sun, the waves,
and especially the sheilas. They'd always be around me. I couldn't get away from them. I believe they
used to go out in the deep water and just throw up their hands in the hope that I'd save them and, God, were they disappointed when someone else did the rescuing. Well, along comes this beautiful blonde and into the water she goes and throws up her arms. I'm in like flash, she's in my arms, and I carry her to the beach tent where I resuscitate with the 'kiss of life'.'
'You what?' demanded Sandy Smith. 'That's a new word for it. I haven't heard that one before. I'll have to remember that for the future.'
'It wasn't like that at all,' declared Mackie, 'it's your dirty minds. It was just wonderful, all peaches and cream.'
'What happened in the end?' asked Sandy.
'I suppose she's still on the beach throwing up her arms, and every lifesaver within cooee is just
waiting to save her.'
And with that the hut resounded with happy, contented laughter.
It was a Merry Christmas.
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CHAPTER XVII
The door of the hut opened with a bang, accompanied by the tramp of heavy boots on the cobbled
stones.
'Oh, for Christ sake!' yelled someone angrily. 'Can't you bastards do anything without making a din?'
'Piss off!' shouted another. 'It's too early yet for roll call! It's still dark as hell.'
Then the lights went on revealing the situation. The hut was filling with soldiers all with fixed
bayonets. Something was afoot and these intruders meant business. They weren't the usual camp
guards, but men brought in especially for the occasion. The kriegies tumbled out of bed saying little
for the moment wasn't opportune for the usual banter and exchange of pleasantries.
Dave dressed hurriedly, donned his greatcoat, and then shuffled out into the morning dark.
'Shit! It's cold,' he muttered to himself. 'Bloody freezing.' Then he turned to Welling’s, and asked,
'What the hell's up? I hope the roll call doesn't take long. I want to get back to the pit.'
'It's the Gestapo!' answered Welling’s. 'Didn't you see the two in our hut with the soldiers? You can't
mistake those bastards. I've seen too many of them in Fresnes, and they all dress and look alike.'
As they made their way down the thoroughfare between the huts and towards the parade ground, they realised that the camp was bristling with soldiers and members of the Gestapo.
The prisoners took up their positions in ranks three deep; members of each hut forming a squad to
facilitate counting.
However, there seemed no hurry on the part of the guards to carry out the daily ritual. Over an hour
passed and the dark had given way to the lengthening light, and still there was no count.
'Bugger this!' exclaimed Bolland. 'I'm not standing around here like a bloody wallflower. I'm off, and
they can come to the hut and count me if it's so important.
'I'm with you, Bolland,' agreed Sandy Smith. 'Let's go!'
The two walked off, but were promptly returned to their positions at the end of a bayonet.
'Take it easy! Take it bloody easy! gritted Sandy as he swayed to avoid the lunges of his captor. 'Jesus, this fellow's really trying. The bastard's in earnest - he's after my bum.' However, the soldier desisted before hitting the target and moved away.
'Shit! He gave me a scare,' stated Sandy breathlessly. 'I thought I was going to get six inches of steel
right up the arse.'
'He most probably fancied you, Sandy,' laughed Bolland, 'and he was measuring you up. You notice he didn't bother with me, but with you. I suppose he realised that I'm not one of those. All these bloody Germans are homosexuals, so you'd better be careful.'
Finally, the roll count began, but when completed the prisoners weren't dismissed.
'Bloody hell!' grumbled Danzey. 'We've been here a couple of hours and my feet and hands are
freezing. That easterly wind cuts you like a knife. It's alright for you bastards with greatcoats, you
couldn't give a shit for the poor people.'
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'Bugger you, Jack, I'm alright,' laughed Welling’s, 'I'm in the boat so you can shove off now. However,
I'm like an iceberg myself. But don't panic, if we're not dismissed in half an hour you can borrow my
coat for five minutes or so.'
'What about me borrowing yours, Dave Griffin?' asked Slater. 'You look pretty, bloody cozy.'
'My whole body's blue,' replied Dave, 'and this bloody wind is numbing my hands and feet.'
'Ah, well! Welling’s is a generous bastard and is giving his to Danzey for five minutes, so I guess I can
give mine for half that time and still be a good fellow.' Then added seriously, 'Hang on for another ten minutes and then you can have it. Jesus, Slater, you demand a lot from your mates.'
The day dragged on slowly and still the prisoners were made to stand in rows and no dismissal order
was given. Twice during the day each group was conducted to the nearby toilet to relieve themselves and then smartly returned to their positions.
'If I'd had something to drink for breakfast, I'd have pissed myself by now,' claimed Slater. 'The bloodycold goes right through you and plays hell with the bladder. I'll certainly remember today. It's been a bastard.'
'You wait till you get back to the hut, there will be a roast dinner a la Gestapo just waiting to be eaten.' stated Dave.
'That's why they're keeping us out here so that we have big appetites and do justice to the meal. These Gestapo blokes are full of surprises.'
At about three o'clock the camp commandant arrived, accompanied by the British Man-of-Confidence. The prisoners were called to attention, and then the commandant delivered his sermon. Afterwards, Joe Cresswell read the English transcript stating that the British in the North African campaign had taken prisoner the same number of troops as existed in the prison camp. These prisoners hadn't been provided with sleeping accommodation for several weeks, being forced to sleep in the sand. Consequently, the German High Command was taking reprisals and the palliasses had been confiscated.
The news stunned the kriegies. The palliasse was the only luxury left, and the Germans were expecting a violent reaction for they had reinforced the guard by bringing to the parade ground all the soldiers who had daylong been involved in the confiscation of the palliasses. These ringed the ground with bayonets fixed. There was no sound of protest for about ten seconds, and then someone started to clap and the applause grew in volume, reaching a crescendo. The noise was deafening and so unexpected. Then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
'Three cheers for the Germans!' someone yelled. 'Hip-hip -hooray Hip-hip - hooray! Hip-hip hooray!'
Then the roll call was over. The guards must have thought that the inmates had either gone around the bend or had a perverted sense of humour.
The hut was in a mess and it seemed as if the Gestapo had not only the palliasses, but had been
searching for something. The belongings of everyone were strewn all over the place and in some cases personal possessions had disappeared. The scene looked bare and uninviting without the bedding.
'I'm off to see if I can get some string,' Slater told Dave. 'You can't sleep on bare boards, they'll slide
all over the place and need holding in place. Tonight you'll think you're on a slippery dip.'
'Get some for me, too?' asked Dave hopefully, although he knew Slater didn't have a cat-in-hell's
chance of success, for where would there be any string, especially when thousands of prisoners all had the same idea? The six bed boards had originally been about eight inches wide, but these had gradually been pared away when 'brewing-up' operations had demanded fuel. You had to heat the water for tea making, and the only source of heat was the boards, which progressively grew thinner and thinner. Dave tidied up, and then it was soup up, the watery swede which should have been eaten at midday,
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and the sixth of a loaf of bread. It was like nectar, being the first meal of the day, but the hunger pangs were still very much in evidence. That night Dave, like all the prisoners, went to bed fully clothed, excepting his boots. He also wore his greatcoat and wrapped the blankets around him. It was as uncomfortable as hell, especially with the bed boards constantly sliding and needing rearrangement every so often. You had to lie still or movement would disrupt things. It hurt too much to lie on the side as the hips, no longer rounded, had to bear the weight of the body with nothing to cushion it except the hard board. I’ll finish up like a bloody snake if I have to put up with this for long,' proclaimed Mackie. 'My arse is almost touching the ground, while a few boards are under my shoulders and the rest under my legs, with nothing in between except fresh air.'
'Don't worry, Mackie, old son!' consoled Bolland. 'Next summer you'll be back in Australia parading
your bronzed, snakelike body to all the sheilas, and this will be just a memory. You won't dream
anymore about bloody cakes as it will be a thing of the past.'
'Bullshit' retorted Mackie. 'I've told you, Bolland, I don't dream about gateaux.'
'Gateaux, for Christ sake! Who's she?' laughingly questioned Bolland. 'Some Australian sex symbol
that you've slept with. Why haven't you told us about her before? I bet she's full of cream, very sweet, and has chocolate on top. Eh, Mackie?'
'I knew a girl like that in Cairo', chimed in Sandy Smith. 'She was an Arab and brown all over. Was
she wonderful? I'd give a year's pay to have her lying here beside me. The bed boards wouldn't count then as she'd be so soft it would be like lying on a feather bed. She'd keep me warm and would be better than all the bloody cakes.'
'Talking about warmth and enjoyment,' joined in Mackie, 'I found my pleasure either on the beach or
at the Sydney Cricket Ground. I used to watch Bradman belt hell out of bowlers like Larwood, Voce,
Bowes and Co. and at the same time drink beer in the hot sun. Those were the days! Then after the
day's play I'd have a swim in the sea. Hell, it's a far cry from this dump!'
'You bloody exaggerate, Mackie, when you say Bradman mastered Larwood and Voce, 'stated
Tennant. 'You Aussies squealed like hell during the 'Bodyline' series and didn't know how to deal with the thunderbolts. We killed you in 1932-33.'
'I like that!' responded Mackie. 'You bastards only thought of that way of bowling to keep Bradman
quiet. He was too good for everybody.'
'He was good,' admitted Tennant, 'but I think the pace men had his measure.'
Bull!' exploded Mackie. 'I'll never wear that.'
'What the hell are you talking about?' queried Bolland. 'Who the hell are Bradman, Garwood, Voce et cetera? Ice hockey or baseball players or something?'
'Something like that,' came Tennant's terse reply.
Thus the conversation petered out, and it was a cold, sleepless and uncomfortable night for the whole camp. The next morning word spread around that two handcarts, ladened with the loot that the Gestapo had filched from the kriegies, had been parked overnight in one of the buildings and was now being pushed towards the main gates of the camp. Within minutes every prisoner had lined the proposed route and were hurling advice and abuse at the four guards that manned each cart. Two were pulling, while there was one on either side. The Gestapo had departed taking with them the soldiers with the bayonets and leaving the spoils of war to be conveyed to the outer lager. The articles weren't worth anything really, but to the prisoners it was a matter of honour. The things on the handcarts belonged to them and they weren't going to give up without a fight. As the cavalcade moved ponderously forward, the multitude closed in slowly, until progress had almost come to a halt. Then some brave kriegie
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grabbed something off the cart and away he went for his life, vainly followed by the guard on that side of the cart, thus exposing its flank. It was enough, the crowd closed and with a heave, over went the cart scattering the trophies in all directions. It was a free for all and anything and everything was
grabbed in a matter of seconds. It didn't matter what, as long as the Germans didn't have it. The guards on the second cart drew their lugers and moved in support of their comrades, only to be lost in the milling throng. Over went the second cart and the articles disappeared with the fleet-footed fugitives. The guards were powerless to shoot, and the prisoners' honour had been satisfied. The regained spoils would never be returned to their rightful owners, for in a camp of thousands it would never be known to whom they belonged, Admittedly, the prisoners had won the battle of the carts, but lost the war of the palliasses. This had been the knockout blow, for they were still suffering from sleepless nights, severe discomfort and cold.
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CHAPTER XVIII
Dave viewed his handiwork and was well pleased. He had formed sacks from his two blankets by
darning together, lengthwise, the two ends and then stitching the bottom. He then placed the one inside the other, ensuring that open ends coincided. The finished product would, he hoped, keep him a little warmer at nights, for the cold was intolerable without the palliasse, and the continuous pilgrimages to relieve himself kept him out of bed for half the night. He placed the blankets on the equidistantly placed boards and noticed the sag produced by the gaps. Already the sack, so formed, was looking as if it were on a rippling wave. He then took off his boots, put on and buttoned his greatcoat, and tried to fit himself within the sack. It was impossible for the sack was not wide enough, and started to split at the seams.
'You'll never get in there!' stated Slater. 'It's like trying to squeeze an elephant through the eye of a
needle -- an impossibility.'
'I'm going to be bloody warm,' responded Dave. 'I’ve had sleepless nights where you shiver and piss
all the time. It's making me a bloody wreck.'
'Take your coat off!' commanded Welling’s. 'You'll probably fit in then. Or better still,' he added
laughingly, 'strip off and then you'll have room to manoeuvre.'
'Freeze to death, you mean. Welling’s, you're a real bastard, and don't give a shit for your friends. Here am I allowing you to witness a revolutionary step in bed design and that's all you do is scoff. I suppose you'll be making it next and claiming it's your idea. When you get out of here and patent it, you could make a fortune. It will halve the number of blankets in use as you'll have the same number under and above you. You'll be a millionaire riding around in a Rolls Royce.'
'What a lot of bullshit you spray around, Griffin. You're a real crapper of the first order. It wouldn't be much good if you had to share it with a tart, there'd be no room to perform.'
'Like hell! You'd be like two peas in a pod, and wouldn't you be cosy? You could advertise it as a
'Lovers' Dream' or 'Snug as a Bug in a Sack' or 'Two Can Live as Cheaply as One in a Welling’s'
Comfy Bed'. It has tremendous possibilities.'
Dave then divested himself of the greatcoat and slid into the sack. 'It's bloody good,' then added, 'a bit tight though. The bloody Russians should make their blankets a bit wider. Now place the greatcoat over me, Slater!'
Slater did just that - - - -throwing it over Dave's head.
'You bloody bastard! called out Dave's muffled voice. 'The sack's so narrow that I can't get my arms
out.'
Slater removed the coat, replacing it properly around Dave's body. 'I hope I don't have a nightmare
when in here.' Dave stated. 'I suffer from claustrophobia. Still, take the warmth and to hell with the
confinement.'
'How bloody warm do you think you'll be?' demanded Slater. 'You've still only got two blankets. It's
the palliasse that makes the difference.'
'Anyway, I'm trying!' retorted Dave. 'I bet both you industrial pimps pinch my revolutionary idea and
claim it as a product of your fertile imaginations.'
Because of the lack of fuel for heating, showers now occurred once every six weeks and were a
hurried affair. The inmates of the hut were conducted, under guard, to the outer lager where they
stripped, raced under the shower, and endeavoured to make the most of every drop of water. The
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showers were operated by Russian prisoners, who stuck strictly to their orders of everything being
short and sweet, and it was in and out. The skin craved to be soaped, properly lathered and caressed by hot water, and the few minutes’ duration every six weeks did little to alleviate the problem.
Admittedly, the body felt a hundred per cent better afterwards, but within a week the flesh would feel like it needed revitalising and a good soaking, and after three weeks one felt as if the body was
crawling and the scalp itching and alive. There were no bugs around as it was too cold, but only a
long, hot bath or shower could rectify the situation. The talk at night was centred on feeling lousy and the overriding desire for a long, hot soak, but this was impossible. The position was aggravated by sleeping and living in the same clothes, as it was too cold to undress at night, especially without the palliasse.
Dave felt lousy and his flesh as though it were creeping and crawling under his clothes, but what was
the remedy? Very occasionally some hardy would dash into the small hut, soap and douche himself
under the cold water tap, and then beat a hasty retreat. Dave had contemplated this course of action, but the coldness of the whole operation deterred him. However, one morning he decided that he could stand it no longer, and would perform the ritual when the sun was at its zenith and the day a few degrees warmer.
At about 1 p.m. he stripped and viewed his emaciated body for the first time in over a month or so.
Then he put on his greatcoat, slipped on his boots without lacing them, and then ran helter-skelter for the hut. He left the coat and boots outside so they wouldn't get wet. Then sat under the tap, his bum in the wet, sloppy mud, and turned on the tap. The freezing water cascaded over his head and body, forcing him to abandon the position. He rubbed soap in his hair, into his skin, under the armpits, into the crevices and then it was again under the tap. The water swished through the hair numbing the pate, and he gyrated this way and that so that the water could cleanse the vital parts. He was freezing and his flesh was mottled with red and blue patches, but he had to rid himself of the crawling feeling. Again he soaped himself all over and then it was under the tap, the breath coming in gasps as he completed the ablution. After drying himself as best he could, he flew into the greatcoat, buttoning it right up. His feet were still muddy, so he washed one at a time, slipping them, without drying, into the boots. Then he bee-lined for the hut as if a scalded cat and into bed to shiver and shudder.
Half an hour later, Bolland came over for a yarn.
'Jesus! What's wrong with you, Griffin?' demanded the Canadian. 'Sick or something? Your hair's all
wet and your face's like a beetroot.'
'I've had a shower in the little hut', was Dave's quiet reply. 'I felt my flesh had turned into Gorgonzola cheese, so I thought I'd give my backside a good scrub. '
'Good God! You must be crazy. I bet you'll never be able to have sex again, for your balls will remain
ice-cubes forever. You know you must have hot testicles if you want to be bed worthy,' he wisely
proclaimed before walking away.
Mackie, Bolland and Dave were on a pilgrimage to the shrine of the great man, McLeod's hut, so that
they could sit once again at the feet of the master and listen to his teachings and have a good laugh.
They had lost touch with McLeod for several months, so it would be good to renew acquaintance.
However, the hut, which was usually crowded with disciples, was strangely empty and McLeod sat in
his pit, a forlorn figure.
'How goes it then, Mac?' enquired Dave. 'What news have you to make our miserable lives happy? A
modicum of sex with a soupcon of brothel flavouring would be much appreciated.'
The old soldier just sat there saying nothing and looked surly at the intruders.
'Come on, McLeod!' encouraged Mackie. 'Give us a hot episode from your sex life and then we might
feel warmer and get some of the chill out of the bones.'
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'Sex! Sex! That's all you airmen think about,' was the unexpected reply. 'Who wants to talk about
sordid and unnecessary things? It's food we want to keep us warm and alive, not something that's
short-lasting and not worth a crumpet.'
'Not worth a crumpet?' laughed Bolland. 'Jesus, you're a fine one to talk. That's all you've been
interested in for the past fifty years is 'crumpet', and now you don't want it. Shit! What's happened to you? Gone religious or something?'
'He's over the bloody hill,' volunteered Mackie. 'Too much sex gets you in the end. Doesn't it, Mac?'
'I'm bloody hungry,' explained McLeod, 'and I'm dying for a bloody good feed. I dream about cakes
and more cakes, and lick the chocolate icing off the top. All I want is a good feed and to hell with
women’ You’re in a bad way, Mac!' commiserated Dave. 'You ought to see the doctor. He might
prescribe a large cake with a soft centre for what ails you. It would be a sort of shock therapy. I've
heard of blokes like you who get the call and go all queer.' Both Mackie and Bolland burst out
laughing at this innuendo, but were silenced by McLeod's direct question.
'Don't tell me that you young bastards don't want a square meal? I bet you dream about cakes all the time, and they haven't got soft centres either,' he added meaningly. 'The trouble with you young 'uns is that you're not prepared to face the truth, and that is we've all lost the sex urge. It's survival now, and the hunger pangs have taken over.'
McLeod just sat as if tired of the world and all it had to offer. He had tasted its fruits and now its
delights palled him. He must have been nearly sixty and looked eighty. He was too old for the rigours
of prisoner of war life, and seemingly had succumbed.
The airmen took their leave for McLeod was no longer entertaining and amusing, but just an old man
who wanted food, rest and quiet.
'If McLeod's dreaming about gateaux,' said Bolland loftily, 'then every bastard must have lost the sex
urge. The camp's buggered.'
'Speak for yourself!' exclaimed Mackie. 'This is one kriegie that has his sights fixed on the opposite
sex and to hell with the cakes. And that's no bullshit!'
The February cold was biting and although the kriegies were in their pits and between blankets, its
grabbing fingers seemed to reach their very marrows.
'Thank God the Allies are again on the move,' announced Danzey, 'I thought they'd never make any
progress after the Ardennes setback.'
'The Ardennes offensive, according to yesterday's news, cost the Germans a quarter of a million men
and sixteen hundred aeroplanes,' stated Sandy Smith authoritatively. 'So it was a blessing in disguise.
They'll be through them like a dose of salts now.'
'They've reached the Rhine at last, so they'll only have to cross and then they'll wrap up the war,'
prophesied Tennant.
'What's this 'they' business?' demanded Bolland. 'It wasn't 'they' at all, but the Canadian First Army.
They're the boys who have reached the Rhine, and no-one else. It takes a Canuck to show them. Where were the Australians, Mackie? Have they got an army?'
'Too right, mates They're doing all the fighting in South-East Asia against the Japs, and were the shock troops in Montgomery's North African campaign. Without them we'd lost Asia and would still be battling against the Afrika Corps.'
'Christ, you're a line shooter!' interjected Dave. 'I've got a brother fighting in the jungles of Burma, and he's no Aussie.'
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'Well, I suppose there has to be a few troops from the British Isles around,' said Mackie
condescendingly, 'for we Australians can't fight everybody, although we'll give it a go.'
'What would they do without us, Mackie?' boasted Bolland. 'We win the air war for them, the
Canadians are the first to reach the Rhine, and your mob are doing all the fighting in South-East Asia.
The Limeys just sit on their arses and wait for us to win the bloody war for them. Just like them.'
'What bullshit!' interjected Welling’s. 'Seventy per cent of the kriegies in this camp come from the
British Isles. We do our share. So get stuffed both of you!'
'It's 16th February now, so I'll give it another month,' declared Blackston optimistically. 'They'll be
over the Rhine in a few days and then watch them go. Charlie Haynes's prediction about 3rd March
could be right, but he's mistaken the Russians for the Allies.'
'Who the hell cares, as long as someone arrives to free us?' questioned Slater. 'I wouldn't care if it were Santa Claus as long as he gets us out of this bloody place.'
'I feel lousy,' grumbled Sandy Smith. 'I hope Father Christmas remembers to bring some fuel with him so that I can have a shower. I'd give a fortune for a hot bath.'
'You're too lousy, Sandy,' punned Slater, 'to give anybody anything.'
'I reckon that after a good meal the most important things in life are warmth, a toothbrush, shower and clean sheets. Jesus, you miss most the things that you accept as commonplace in civvy life,'
philosophised Blackston. 'When I get out of here, I'll know true values. That's one thing I've learned as a kriegie.'
'Me too,' chorused Bolland. 'Still, I wish the Allied Air Forces wouldn't shoot up the trains, for I want
a Red Cross parcel badly.'
'Eh, Welling’s!' called Blackston. 'I hear you've been converted. What's old Taylor shooting the shit
about now? They tell me he gets 'gen' from the Bible.'
'I suppose the Bible's as good a place as any,' defended Welling’s. 'Old Taylor's not like Charlie Haynes who only wants to make a name for himself. Haynes is off beat, while Taylor is sincere. I'd prefer to listen to old Taylor than Haynes any day '
'Why listen to any of the bastards?' demanded Bolland. 'They should all be down the shithouse and
then there'd be no-one to raise our hopes. We're up and down like yo-yos, and we get browned off
when nothing happens. They're a menace to society.'
'I'm as cold as hell!' blurted Tennant. 'If those palliasses came back I'd feel like a millionaire. The
boards are getting harder and harder. I thought I'd get used to them.'
'The trouble,' volunteered Danzey, 'is that you're getting thinner and thinner, and the bones can't stand the cold and the wear and tear.'
'Then I'll eat more,' retorted Tennant facetiously, 'and that'll solve all my problems, so to hell with the palliasse.'
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CHAPTER XIX
The cold continued and the prisoners either stayed indoors or bashed the circuit. However, there was little comfort offered by going to bed so the alternative was to get out, especially as the ground was hard, firm and there was no moisture,
Dave, Welling’s and Slater walked nearly every morning, but this time Slater's chilblains were giving
him hell, so he'd decided to give it a miss. Both Dave and Welling’s were disconsolate, for the food
situation was grim. With no Red Cross parcels having arrived at the camp for months, the prisoners
relying solely on German rations. Further, cigarettes had disappeared and both were dying for a
smoke. And the mail situation had come to a full stop. Little was said for both were immersed in their own thoughts.
Dave felt tired, hungry and lacking in strength. The walk was taxing him, but he didn't want to divulge this. He knew Welling’s was buggered, too, but what was the point in complaining - no-one listened or wanted to know, for you were only expressing the obvious. One had to hang in there and hope the war would finish soon. The cold weather had to be endured and the hope was that there'd be a very early warm spring, but this was at least two months away. Then there was no news from either Joan or his mother and this uncertainty troubled him. A letter would have lifted his morale and made everything right again, but it seemed all had gone wrong. Dave knew that Welling’s was also concerned, but neither made mention of their innermost problems. The prisoners poked and made fun of almost everything, but personal problems were taboo.
'If this bloody war doesn't finish soon,' stated Welling’s, breaking the silence unexpectedly, 'I'll be a
bag of bloody bones. A good feed wouldn't do me any harm.' Then he added ruefully, 'If I don't get a
chance of putting on a bit of weight before getting out of here Mary won't even recognise me.' It was the first time he had mentioned the girlfriend's name for weeks, but it revealed where his thoughts were.
'Of course, she'll remember a good looking bloke like you,' jollied Dave. 'She's just waiting for your
return and then you'll be peaches.'
'I hope so,' was Welling's quiet reply, 'I could do with a bit of an uplift.'
'How are your bloody feet?' asked Dave, changing the subject. 'Your chilblains giving you hell?'
'They're not too bad. Thank God the ground's hard and dry I couldn't stand wet boots, wet socks and
cold feet. They kill me.
When we went collecting wood about ten days ago, I was shagged.'
'Me, too,' responded Dave. 'Just picking it up off the ground was tough enough, but when you had to
load yourself like a pack horse it knocked shit out of you.'
'Yes, I kept adding to my load for I didn't want the bastards in the hut to say, 'Pull your bloody finger
out; What the hell you've been doing out there?’ et cetera. We brought between us as big a load as any, and yet they still grumbled. I suppose if we'd taken an elephant, they'd been disappointed if we hadn't stuffed fuel up his arsehole. The kriegie has an insatiable appetite!'
'I suppose it's a mentality that we develop,' explained Dave. 'We're deprived of everything and so
become acquisitive. We can never get enough of anything and we're always hoping to hoard
something for the future.'
'I hope we're out of here before it's our turn again. The very thought of it gives me nightmares. It's too tough, and next time,' he added with a laugh, 'we won't be in such fine shape. Will we?'
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'Speak for yourself,' came Dave's reply, 'I've never felt fitter. The diet suits me.'
They continued on, a silence between them. Although the weather was icy, Dave felt the need for a hot soak in a bath. To lie for an hour or so in warm water would be …, he was stumped for a word, and then remembered the caption on the cigarette pack of a popular brand he used to smoke: 'the perfection of luxury, the product of mastermind'. He liked that, but now his thoughts and cravings were on tobacco. A long, hard drag would do him the world of good, especially after a big feed. A cooked dinner and three or four chocolate cakes would go down well. It would be like nectar from the gods to have a bath, a meal, a smoke and then a comfortable warm bed.
'Shit! It would be bloody marvellous!' muttered Dave.
'What would be?' questioned Welling’s. 'Come on, Dave, let's have it!'
'I was thinking about a bath, a meal, a cigarette and a warm bed,' explained Dave. 'How does that grab you?'
'I'm already salivating,' was Welling's reply. 'It would be like being in heaven without having the
angels worrying you.,
As they reached the northern end of the camp, they witnessed something running like hell towards
them with what seemed like a tent as a covering.
'Christ! It looks like a bloody cow with an overcoat on!' explained Welling’s, and then after a few
moments, 'It's a galloping four poster.'
'Like hell it is. It's a kriegie and he's got a palliasse', cried Dave excitedly. 'Where did he get that?'
'Look! Look! commanded Welling’s. 'There are six of the bastards. They've all got palliasses and
they're running as if their bums are on fire. Come on, Dave, we've got to be in this. Cosy, warm nights are my idea of bliss.'
They ran towards the source of comfort, passing scores of 'fugitives', weighted down with newly acquired bedding. Aladdin's cave was a large hut in which about 30 kriegies were all scrambling for a
palliasse. Here indeed was a treasure house for it represented the epitome of comfort. Dave and
Welling’s grabbed theirs, balanced them partly on back and head, and then, bent low, made their
retreat, brushing as they went the multitude on its way in. It was like the beginning of the January
sales in the city stores with everyone trying to get in for the bargain hunt.
The two of them ran towards their hut, panting and breathing hard as they went, their new possessions bobbing up and down on their backs like moving staircases. They kept going, although giddy and weak from the exertion, for no-one was going to take the prized mattresses from them. Eventually they stopped for a breather and viewed the scene. There were prisoners going in all directions, just like ants scattering when danger threatens. The whole compound seemed alive with running kriegies and bobbing palliasses.
'What a bloody sight! chuckled Dave. 'I wish I had a camera. This would be some photo.'
'Bugger the photo!' reminded Welling’s, 'Let's get going or we'll lose the bedding. You can't sleep on a memory.'
So the burdens were re-adjusted and away they went, their legs like lead weights and the breath
coming in gasps, but the mission was to deliver the palliasses safe and sound to the awaiting bed
boards. On arrival, the hut was empty, as everyone was out looking for bedding. Dave laid his mattress on the boards and then curled up on it. He was exhausted, the exertion had knocked hell out of him. He closed his eyes and went to sleep.
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That night was a joyous occasion. Everyone in the hut had a palliasse for the hunting had been good.
Apparently, the hut containing the confiscated bedding had been guarded day and night, but some
enterprising prisoner had lured the guard to his hut and plied him with chocolate and cigarettes, while his mates were out looting. Where the chocolate and smokes came from no-one seemed to know, but that was the yarn circulating.
'God help the poor bloody guard,' commiserated Sandy Smith.
'I bet he'll be sent to the Russian front where his balls will freeze.'
'Bugger him! called out Blackston. 'We've got 'em now and I feel like a millionaire who’s bedded
down in the best hotel in London. I'm warm and comfortable for the first time in months.'
'I don't know about warm,' interrupted Bolland, 'for the cold is still in my bones and I want a piss
badly. Still, it's better to have a mattress, even if it's only a straw one. Sleeping on those boards turns
the body into bloody big ripples.'
'Now that I've got something to sleep on,' stated Danzey enthusiastically, 'I could stay here forever,
especially if they gave me three square meals a day and I didn't have to get up to cook them. I'd just
clap my hands and James, the butler, would appear and fulfil my every desire.'
There were roars of laughter at this for Danzey had committed an unintentional faux pas and Bolland seized on the implication.
'Fulfil your every desire, for Christ sake',' repeated the Canadian. 'What, are you and James having an affair or something? I always thought you were one of those, Danzey, for you're always eyeing me up and down. Eh, Mackie! You'd better be careful now when you strip off to go to bed, for Danzey will be waiting to spear you.'
Again there were roars of laughter, and when they subsided Mackie took up the running.
'This is the first time I've had my trousers, shirt and socks off for a bloody long time, so poor old
Danzey's been missing out. It’s a bloody luxury to be out of them—I feel a new man.
'I've never seen such a funny sight as when the palliasses were pinched today. Kriegies like ants
swarming in all directions,' someone commented.
'We've got them back!' exclaimed Dave triumphantly, 'and the bastards will never collect them up
again for it would be too much like hard work. Besides they'd have to get the Gestapo and troops back to carry out the operation.'
'We've got them now,' added Sandy Smith, 'and let's enjoy the luxury. Good sleeping, fellows!'
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CHAPTER XX
For the last fortnight the war news had been good, for all sectors. The Allied armies had reached the
west bank of the Rhine, the last barrier protecting Hitler's Germany. Luck had also been with them, for the U.S. 9th. armoured division had captured intact at Remagen the only remaining bridge spanning the river, the others having been destroyed by the retreating enemy. Montgomery's British divisions were hovering around Wesel, poised for the kill, and the BBC news had been harping about the massive smoke screen which floated over this section of the river. The hungry prisoners were eagerly awaiting the crossing and the deliverance, but as day followed day and the news kept mentioning the smoke haze and the massing of Allied troops for the assault, the kriegies became browned off and highly critical of the operation.
'That Montgomery wants to pull his finger out,' declared Danzey. 'The bastard's like a tortoise. He
pushes his head out, advances two inches, then withdraws into his shell. I wish he'd get on with it.'
'I was with Monty in the desert,' boasted Sandy Smith, 'and he always made sure that all was right
before making a move. He used to say to me, 'Sandy, my boy, you've got to keep making every post a winner. A general can't afford a mistake or he's retired and forgotten'.'
'Sandy, my boy,' mimicked Slater. 'Who the hell you're kidding, Smith, you line-shooter? Monty
wouldn't have known you existed. If you were so close, he'd be in more of a hurry to get you out of
here, so that you could renew your supposed close acquaintance. Jesus, you shoot the shit!'
'I'm not so sure,' explained Mackie laughingly. 'Smith strikes me as a bloke with lots of class. He and
the general would get on well together. Over cigars and port, Sandy would be the life and soul of the
party, especially with his 'blue' jokes. When you meet him again you'll be able to put in a good word
for old McLeod and ensure his promotion to sergeant.'
'McLeod's gone queer,' informed Dave. 'He's not interested in anything except food. Sex is taboo. He
goes off his head if you mention it.'
'Me, too!' added Tennant. All I want is something to eat. I reckon you could play a tune on my ribcage. It's like a bloody harp.'
'Talk about skeletons,' interrupted Bolland, 'have you seen Jack McDonald?'
'Where did you see him?' enquired Dave eagerly. 'He left us years ago when he and the cookhouse
staff moved out with A Lager in East Prussia, and we went to Poland.'
'Well, he arrived yesterday,' answered Bolland. 'Apparently, he was in a camp near the Rhine and they evacuated. About eighty of them turned up here, and he's in a hut down the road.'
'I'd like to see McDonald again,' stated Dave. He and you, Bolland, were the first two kriegies I met.
Remember the bloody Dutch gaol and when we were nearly lynched on the railway platform? Christ,
we were nearly goners.'
'That bastard with a hammer put the breeze up me,' answered Bolland, 'I thought he'd wrap it around my head as part of the welcoming ceremony. By the way, you'll have a shock when you see
McDonald. He's so bloody thin that I didn't recognise him. Yet he had the cheek to say I looked
buggered. Everybody knows me, for I don't change,' boasted Bolland.
'You've changed!' ripped in Mackie. 'You look like a scarecrow, but we've been with you all the time
and the change has been gradual. I bet McDonald thought you were a bit of a wreck.'
'He might have done, too,' agreed Bolland, 'but, Jesus, I haven't been through what he's had to put up with. When A Lager left East Prussia they were taken to the Lithuanian port of Memel and stuffed in
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the hold of a ship like sardines in a tin. They were on that boat 12 days, and were sick as hell as the old tub wallowed this way and that. The piss buckets overflowed and slopped all over the place. It was tough going. Then they were disembarked, herded into cattle trucks where they spent another five days.'
'Poor bastards!' sympathised Blackston. 'Thank God I went to Poland.'
'Finally, they reached a railway siding,' continued Bolland, ignoring the interruption, 'and the reception committee was the SS.
'Shit! I'm glad I wasn't with them,' interrupted Welling’s, the further away I am from those sods the
better.'
'Shut up!' commanded Bolland, 'and let me tell you the rest of it. Well they line up the A Lager mob
and force them to run to the prison camp about three kilometres away. They have these Alsatian dogs on chains to ginger them up and the stragglers were given playful pricks with the bayonets. They ran like buggery for the SS weren't playing games. All this after a bloody Baltic sea voyage and five days in a cattle truck. The poor bastards! Well apparently the camp was shithouse - little food, overcrowded and bugger all there. Then the camp was evacuated and McDonald and about eighty others do a grand cattle truck tour of Germany, looking for a place to live - finishing up here. He looks rooted.'
'And we thought we had it tough!' exclaimed Smith. 'I'll go around and see him tomorrow and cheer
him up.'
'I'll come with you,' volunteered Dave. 'Pity we haven't got something to give him as a welcoming
present.'
'She'll be right, mate,' asserted Mackie. 'Monty will be over that river tomorrow and then we'll all get a feed. It's been one hell of a war, and I'll be glad to get back to Sydney town. This Europe gives me the shits. I'll take the beach, the surf, the pub and the Sydney Cricket Ground from now on, and that's all I'll do is fight and wrestle with sheilas. For me it's going to be, 'our 'Arbour, our Bridge, and our Bradman', and to hell with everything else.'
'Give you a month to recover, Mackie, and you'll be in the Pacific fighting Japs,' said Tennant. 'A
classy pilot like you couldn't bear to be out of it. Think of the 'gongs' you'd get shooting down Japs.
It'd be a piece of cake. Then you'd return to Bondi with your tunic loaded with 'fruit salad' and the
women would be crazy for you.'
'How would three years in a Jap POW camp grab you?' asked Bolland humorously. 'They tell me they
give you sheets there. We must try and make that our next stop. What about it, Mackie?'
'Like bloody hell! A Jap camp and you for three years! I just couldn't take it. Perhaps I could stand the
camp part of it, but not you as well. That's just not on. I'm off back to Aussie.
'Monty and his boys will be here in the morning,' stated someone optimistically, 'and then we'll be
back in Blighty.
'Shut up, you crazy bastard!' came the quick retort. 'You must be around the bloody bend. I suppose
you've been listening to Maxie Clarke's prophecies. They'll have to lock him up when he gets out of
here.'
'Have you heard the latest?' asked Blackston. 'Charlie Haynes has revised his forecast of the Russians' arrival,' and then there were roars of laughter.
The weather was icy cold and, although Dave was wrapped in his greatcoat, the eastern wind seemed to bite to the very bone.
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'Shit! It's cold,' mumbled Sandy Smith. 'I'm glad I've got something to wrap myself in or I'd bloody
die.'
'I nearly threw mine away when we left East Prussia,' volunteered Dave, 'for it was so hot that I
thought there was no need for it anymore. What made you hang on to yours, Sandy?'
'I was two years in the North African desert and I learnt a thing or two. Sometimes the days were so
hot that the sand would burn right through the leather of the boot and the glare would almost blind
you. Then the sun would go down and you'd bloody freeze. If you didn't have blankets you'd shudder
to death.'
'I reckon I would have liked to have been posted to North Africa,' remarked Dave. 'Flying over the
desert would have been my cup of tea. You were bombing soldiers, tanks, trucks et cetera and not
towns, and a lynching party didn't await you if shot down.'
'It was clean alright, Dave. There was nothing there except troop concentrations, truck convoys and
debris of burnt out vehicles and crashed aircraft. It was a hard war with nothing to impede swift
advances or rapid retreats. The men of Montgomery's Eighth Army were something special. They
were the corps elite who first made the Germans run. Boy, was their morale high!'
Both men turned into the hut which housed McDonald. The place was like a morgue, the inmates
being either out or in bed trying to keep warm.
Sandy yelled 'McDonald, you old bastard, where are you?'
'Shut up!' someone replied. 'Your yelling is causing wind draughts, and we can do without them and
the bloody cold they create.'
'Who wants me?' came a Canadian voice from beneath a blanket at the top end of the hut, and the
visitors knew they had found their man.
'How's the great Canadian?' enquired Dave, although he knew that the question was superfluous.
McDonald looked like he'd been through a mangle and all the juice had been squeezed out of him.
He'd had a rough time.
'I'm pretty good, Dave. Admittedly, I'm not at my best fighting weight, but things will pick up when I
get back into training. They say you sons-of-bitches have had your moments over the last eight months or so, but you'll survive.'
'They must have put you blokes through the mincer,' commiserated Dave. 'We've had it easy in
comparison
McDonald then told them of his wanderings since leaving East Prussia, elaborating on what Bolland
had said - the voyage by boat, the endless cattle truck journeys in search of a camp and a resting-place. It had all been a nightmare.
'Never mind', sympathised Dave, 'you're safe now and your old oppos are with you. By the way,
Bolland missed you.'
McDonald smiled at the mention of the big Canuck, and drawled, 'Like hell he did,' and they all burst
out laughing at the thought of Bolland missing anyone.
As the war dragged on, all the prophets, seers and visionaries extraordinaire started to fade into the
background. Charlie Haynes, in order to gain some credibility, had revised his forecast of the arrival of the Russians, but no-one cared anymore. They were all phoneys. However, Welling’s still believed that old Taylor had the answers, and Dave would have heated discussions with his friend over this.
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'You're bloody crazy, Welling’s, to believe that bullshit! Dave would explode. 'I believe you've gone
religious or something. When you get back to Liverpool you'll join a monastery and preach
'Revelations'.'
'It's all in 'Revelations', according to Taylor', would be Welling's reply. 'It's the last book in the Bible
and sums up everything that's happened or will happen - we'll have peace when this is over.'
'You believe in that crap! So we are all going to be sweet and cosy to each other once this is over are
we? Bullshit! We'll be at it again in 20 years’ time and your Taylors will still say it’s all in
Revelations. I think you're wire happy and around the bend.'
So the argument would continue, but for all that Dave had to admit that Welling’s was a good bloke
who'd he like to have in his corner when the chips were down. If Welling’s had a couple of square
meals under his belt and started to think about women and sex, then all this 'Revelations' bunkum
would disappear.
'I'd like to take you to a good restaurant, Welling’s,' declared Dave. 'Feed you up, then put you in bed with a buxom lass with big tits, and I'd bet you'd soon forget all this Revelations rubbish.'
'I suppose I would,' replied Welling’s with a chuckle. 'Give us a meal and let's see what happens. It
could be a revelation to both of us.'
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CHAPTER XXI
On 23rd March, 1945, Montgomery's armies crossed the Rhine near Wesel, and soon afterwards the
evacuation of the camp began. Already two separate batches of a thousand each had been marched out, and on the morrow a further 1,000 would leave. Dave, Welling’s and the rest of the gang were in the next day's exodus, and already they'd been given their farewell gift - a loaf of bread between two. It had been explained that there would be little likelihood of a further supply, as the Germans couldn't possibly conjure up thousands of loaves and transport them to those on the long, cold walk. The British Man-of-Confidence had urged frugality upon the kriegies concerning their eating habits, and warned them not to become separated from the person who had the loaf or someone would go hungry. Admittedly, the bread could be halved, but the loaf represented a common bond between two people, who would not only eat together, but help the other in sickness or distress.
The camp administration and discipline seemed to go haywire with the announcement of the big pull
out. The guards withdrew to the outer lager, not bothering to enter except in the morning, when the
daily batch was removed from the camp confines and another lot counted out, given their bread ration and departure orders for the following day. One food store had been broken into, but the contents weren't very exciting. There were literally sacks of dried peas and dehydrated vegetables and one could help oneself. Dave and Bill Welling’s filled their greatcoat pockets with dried peas and also a small quantity of vegetables, then beetled back to the hut.
The fire in the stove was burning merrily for it was piled high with bed boards.
'Come on, Dave!' urged Welling’s, 'Let's have a bloody feed of peas. Plenty of peas, plus water, will
make a soup. I used to have it when a kid. Terrific stuff to build you up.' So Dave put water in the pan
or billy and in went the peas.
'What's this bloody stuff?' asked Danzey about the dried vegetables. 'It looks like a greenish brown
wad of chewing tobacco.'
Very few had seen it before for the dehydration of vegetables in 1945 was a new experience.
'It looks like a hard piece of shit,' quipped Tennant, 'that's gone green with age. Something like the
ones you leave in the piss-bin overnight. Eh, Mackie!'
'I wouldn't eat it,' warned Smith. 'It has to be soaked in water for about twenty-four hours and then
boiled, otherwise it will swell in the stomach and give you hell. We had it in North Africa as a
substitute for fresh vegetables.'
'Then it's on with the pea soup,' quipped Welling’s, 'I can't wait that long. I'm bloody starving.'
The fire roared away, and the water in everybody's billy boiled, bubbled and disappeared and had to be topped up.
'I've never seen so much steam,' said Dave excitedly, 'and for once I feel warm. I'm almost cooking in
this greatcoat. I'm not taking it off for it's like a summer's day'
'Keep piling those boards on, we've got to get the peas soft,' ordered Slater, 'they're like bloody bullets. The bastards won't get soft.'
'The heat will do the trick,' stated Welling’s. 'It's the best softener I know. It'd be bloody funny if the
Germans changed their mind about tomorrow and we didn't go. We'd all be sleeping on the floor.'
'We've got the palliasses. I wouldn't mind taking mine with me on the march,' expressed Mackie.
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'You'd look bloody stupid humping that all over Germany,' remarked Bolland. 'They'd think you're a
camel or something. Besides, where the hell are we going? It's going to be a bastard out there. I'm not looking forward to it.'
'I heard,' stated Sandy Smith authoritatively, 'that they are marching 10 000 of us to Berchtesgaden and we'll be used by Hitler as hostages. His life for ours. I wonder if Churchill would trade? Do you
reckon we are worth it?'
'What do you mean, worth it? We are the cream of the British Empire', someone said. ‘They told us
that when we went for selection interview for aircrew training. The Squadron Leader on the panel said they wanted men of intelligence, integrity, super fit and all that sort of crap.’
'Shit! Look at us now!' exclaimed Smith. 'That Squadron Leader would change his mind in a hurry if
he paid us a visit. I suppose he's still shovelling out the same shit to intending aircrew.'
'These peas are so bloody hard that they almost crack my teeth, and they've been boiling two hours,'
grumbled Welling’s. 'I suppose they should have been soaked first.'
'Pile the boards on, mates!' commanded Mackie. 'We'll keep the fire roaring all night and for once I'll
be warm even if I have to sleep on top of it. Jesus, this heat makes you feel good. It's almost like being on Bondi. I might even strip off and get a tan for the top of the stove is red hot and it'll really brown or redden me up.'
'You'll have a burnt arse if you're not careful,' laughed Tennant.
'Okay, Dave, let's eat! I can't wait any longer,' ordered Welling’s. 'The bloody peas will never get any
softer and they've been boiling for at least three hours.'
So the feast commenced, but the peas were like rocks and not enjoyable. A spoonful was taken out, the water drained off, the residue blown on to cool, then placed in the mouth. This continued until they felt they wanted no more. Not that they felt full, but the fare was so indigestible.
'My bloody stomach,' complained Dave, 'it feels like a football.'
'Me, too,' replied Welling’s. 'I'm buggered if I know what's wrong. I'm going to lie on the palliasse – the bed boards are gone, so it'll have to be the floor.'
So Dave and Welling’s rested, while their stomachs seemed inflated and airborne and the farts and
flatulence whistled freely. 'Jesus! I've never felt so bad,' complained Welling’s, ' I think I'm going to
explode.'
'I feel the same,' agreed Dave. 'When I feel a little better I'm going to the shithouse to get rid of this
lot.'
In the afternoon things subsided sufficiently for the convalescents to walk around the camp for the last time.
'Don't forgot to stick close to me tomorrow, Dave,' Welling’s instructed, 'for on the march we could
easily become separated and then you'll be bloody hungry. Don't forget I've got the bread.'
'You've got no chance of getting rid of me, Billy Boy.' Dave confidently replied. 'That loaf's our
insurance policy and we'll go easy so it lasts.'
'The way my stomach feels, I don't want to eat anything. I'm still full and bloated. Do you think the
peas could be a cure for hunger? Pop a dozen or so in your mouth and you don't want any food.'
'Not bloody likely,' was Dave's reply. 'I'll never eat another pea as long as I live. They knock hell out
of you. I'd rather have the hunger.'
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The camp seemed like a town that had seen better days and gone seedy. The inhabitants either having moved away or those left not caring what happened. The whole German Reich was crumbling and grinding to a halt and the POW's were just so much human flotsam. The Russians were advancing rapidly from the east, while the Allied armies were across the Rhine in force and the kriegies were in the middle with nowhere to go. It was a bastard of a life and the following day would be full of surprises. Admittedly, it was freezing and the frost remained on the ground all day, but this ensured that the soil was like concrete and there would be no slushing through mud with wet socks and feet. The food situation was grim, and the sleeping accommodation from now on would be just as bad. It was a question of survival. Still Monty and his boys would soon be along and then everything would be over and back to normal.
The last night in the hut was a memorable affair. Everyone was lying on his palliasse on the cobbled
floor, while the top of the stove glowed red from the burning, crackling bed boards.
'This is the life!' exclaimed Welling’s. 'Eh, Dave! How about a slice of bread each? I'm hungry.'
'We'll keep it for tomorrow on the march,' answered Dave, 'for by noon we'll both be buggered. How
about some peas instead? You reckon it fixes hunger.' So the loaf was left intact, and the conversation rolled around the hut.
'I hope we don't sleep in a field tomorrow night,' stated Slater hopefully. 'The frost would be bloody
hell.'
'Do you remember when we came here?' questioned Mackie. 'How they told us that there'd be no more moves, no more cattle trucks and no enemy of the Third Reich would tread on German soil. How wrong they were!'
'They're only right in one respect,' quipped Tennant. 'there'll be no cattle trucks from now on. We'll
foot slog it everywhere. Good for the health.'
'Like bloody hell,' grumbled Slater, 'I'd rather stay in the pit with the blankets around me. Bugger
being healthy. I haven't a greatcoat and it'll be murder out there.'
'Not to worry,' commiserated Mackie, 'I haven't one either, so that makes two of us. Still, Bollard’s a
good sort of a bastard so he'll lend me his. Won't you, Bolland - for after all, what are mates for?'
'I'll think about it,' replied Bolland wisely. 'It depends on how cold it is.'
'I'll put some more boards on the fire,' volunteered Smith, 'for tonight we might as well be warm and
cosy.'
'My stomach feels a hell of a lot better now,' stated Welling’s. 'I thought I was going to die this
morning.'
'Talking about stomachs and dying,' proclaimed Smith, 'I heard some poor bastard kicked the bucket
today from eating those dried vegetables. Apparently, he ate them raw and they blew up in him,
rupturing his stomach.'
'Fair dinkum!' exclaimed Mackie. 'He really snuffed it?'
'That's what I heard,' answered Smith, 'and I wouldn't be surprised if it's true. That dehydrated stuff is murder and blows you up just like green pasture bloats cattle and they just heel over. Still this bloody place is full of rumours. It gives you the shits!'
'I think it would be true,' confirmed Welling’s. 'Dave and I boiled those peas for three hours and they
nearly killed us. Christ, I'd hate to eat them raw!'
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'Slater and I have oodles of that dehydrated vegetable stuff left and we'll be taking it with us
tomorrow,' declared Danzey, 'but I'll make certain we soak it overnight. I don't want my guts strewn all over the countryside.'
'Whose turn is it to put more wood on the fire?' demanded Mackie.
'Eh, Bolland, you do bugger all except enjoy the heat! Get out and do something!'
But there was no answer from the big Canuck, for the palliasse and the warmth of the room had had its effect and he was fast asleep.
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CHAPTER XXII
It was midday and the 1000 prisoners were scattered about a field close to the road eating their lunch. Welling’s had cut two equal slices off their most treasured possession, the loaf of bread, and now they were slowly chewing and savouring every crumb of it. 'Enjoy every fibre,' had been Welling’s' advice, 'and then it'll seem more and fill you up.' So as they sat there, wrapped in greatcoats as protection against the cold winds, each bite of food was explored thoroughly with the tongue and teeth and wasn't allowed to be swallowed until it had been fully examined.
That morning they had left the camp at about eight o'clock, so they had been on the road about four
hours. At first they had been lined up military fashion, in threes, and expected to walk briskly, but this had soon been abandoned as the kriegies tired. The marchers were flanked on either side by German guards with rifles, and there were some Alsatian dogs on leads. Further, there were two or three motor cyclists who careered up and down to ensure all was correct. After about fifteen minutes the main road had been forsaken, and the POWs had been led along the by-ways and lanes. It was obvious that the kriegies were being shunted out of the way, for if they remained on the autobahns then the flow of war traffic would be impeded. Consequently, the urgency of pace receded and the tempo of the marchers slowed down to suit the rural surroundings, resulting in the column becoming very spread out over a long distance and the marchers clustered together in twos, threes or fours. The guards urged them to keep closer together with shouts, threats, and the fixing of bayonets, but realising that the prisoners didn't have energy or the inclination to comply soon gave up. The march hadn't been too bad so far as the dirt roads were hard from the frost and progress had been fairly leisurely, contrasting sharply with the pace set in the first quarter of an hour or so. At ten a.m. a halt had been called, and the prisoners had rested on either side of the road. Dave and Welling’s had resisted the temptation to eat, keeping the loaf intact, although no food had been consumed by them that day.
'How do you feel, Billy Boy?' enquired Dave. 'Don't tell me you're buggered already. You should be in
great shape after all the circuit bashing we've done together.'
'My leg muscles don't feel tired at all. I suppose we haven't travelled too far - - - - about seven
kilometres at the most. The pace is fairly leisurely.'
'I'm bloody hungry,' complained Dave, 'this one piece of bread at a time nonsense knocks hell out of
you.'
'We'll have two pieces each tonight for dinner,' stated Welling’s, 'but Christ knows where we'll be when that comes around.'
'As long as we don't sleep in a field, I don't give a shit where it is, but I must have a roof over my
head.'
'The bastards wouldn't be that lousy,' criticised Welling’s. 'sleeping in a field with the type of frosts
we've been getting would really be something.'
The prisoners were roused to their feet by the shouting of the guards and the afternoon march
commenced. The members of the gang: Bolland, Mackie, Tennant, Smith, Slater et cetera had paired
into twos and were now distributed throughout the column. It was impossible to stick together for
there was no allotted hut to return to at the end of the day where notes and yarns could be exchanged, and where the usual camaraderie was so much in evidence. This was now a thing of the past.
Dave and Welling’s pushed on with the rest of the 'lost tribe', going one knew not where. It was just on and on, an aimless exercise in futility and direction. The rumours, as usual, were rife, but the one that gained most credence was that they were heading for the Bavarian Alps where they would be traded as hostages. How this rumour had come about, no-one knew, but it was the most colourful so the kriegies accepted it as 'pukka gen'. How Hitler would feed 10,000 extra mouths in his mountainous redoubt was difficult to comprehend, for the loaf of bread between two people couldn't last forever. The food
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situation was the biggest problem, for altogether there would be ten different batches of 1000 each
when they were all on the march, and the Germans couldn't possibly feed the lot. In addition, the
advantage was held by the first batch of marchers for if there was any food to be gleaned then they
would swallow it all up, leaving nothing for those coming behind.
The wind still whistled coldly and although it was still early afternoon, the previous night's frost still
lay on the banks which skirted the sides of the road, Dave felt grateful that his greatcoat still graced his body for if he'd discarded it in the warm days of the previous summer then things would be a bit
rugged now. He shrank within the warm, protective covering and released himself from the immediate situation by thinking of other things. Letters from Joan and his mother had been non-existent for quite a while, but so had everything else. A letter from either of them would have done his morale a heap of good, but it wasn't to be. He hoped that Joan still cared for him for he would be severely shaken if she'd changed her mind. However, this had happened to so many prisoners of war: wives had forsaken husbands, girlfriend their fiancés, and loved ones had found other consoling arms. One couldn't expect a girl to wait forever, for time dims the memory and the new replaces the old. He believed in her though and felt that all would end well, but when that would be was difficult to judge. His mother had had a rough war. The three males in the family, his father, brother and he all serving in one branch or other of the Fighting Services and being scattered, at the moment, all over the world. He knew, with certainty, that she'd be there when all was over, but the punishment, worry and uncertainty that had been meted out to her would have surely taken its toll. If the three of them arrived back in the U.K. all in one piece, then he felt that someone up there had kept a friendly eye on the Griffins.
The sun was now starting to lower and the column had really begun to spread out. From first to last,
the marchers must have occupied well over a kilometre of road. The guards tried to hurry the
stragglers and make the column more cohesive, but it was impossible, for familiarity now meant
contempt, and the prisoners were indifferent and too tired to care. They had been on the road now for about eight hours and had had enough for the first day. It would be dark within an hour, so where were they to be bedded down?
Within twenty minutes they were led into their haven, a large farm with what seemed oodles of barns or outhouses. The kriegies were told that they would sleep in the barns, and roll call and departure time would be 7.30 a.m. the next morning. Further, the perimeter of the farm would be guarded by soldiers and dogs, and anyone attempting escape would be shot. So the prisoners were left to their own devices - to find a bed for the night, to prepare a meal of bread, and then to sleep and recover for the next day's journey.
The barn that Dave and Welling’s entered was very large, being open-ended. There was a pathway
down the middle with hay piled on either side. They found a place to dump their belongings and so
staked a claim to the night's resting place. Dave stretched himself out on the soft, inviting hay.
'This will do me!' he exclaimed. 'It'll be warm here, especially if I burrow a little. Don't wake me early, Bill, for I need a long rest after today's trek.'
'Let's get that bread out,' ordered Welling’s, 'and eat! I'm starving. I've only had one slice of bread all
day.'
So the loaf was produced, and Dave was just about to start cutting when Sandy Smith and Tennant
joined them.
'Listen!' Sandy whispered confidentially, 'I've found a goldmine. I was lying on the hay when I found a potato. So I burrow deep down and discover millions of the bastards. The farmer must have clamped his spud crop in these barns, just like we clamp them in earthen pits at home. Let's get a stack of them, light a fire, and boil enough for the four of us.'
They needed no second bidding and were soon outside. However, they'd been beaten to the punch, for already there were prisoners, loaded with potatoes with the same idea.
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'I thought the gen you gave us was confidential,' laughed Dave. 'Everybody's into it and have the same idea.'
'I bet I'm sleeping on a potato bed, too,' stated Welling’s. 'I'll be digging when I return.'
So the fire was lit, two billies filled with water and spuds and, once the fire was blazing strongly,
potatoes were also placed amongst the burning embers. It was going to be a big spud bust for
everyone.
It was dark now, but the red glow from hundreds of fires gave the place a carnival atmosphere.
Everyone was happy for this would be a feed to remember - as many potatoes as one could eat, plus
bread.
'I can hardly wait,' laughed Smith excitedly. 'I'll get one out of the fire and try it. Jesus, it's bloody hot!' Then he spluttered, 'It's not only hot, but hard as a rock. I reckon I can wait another twenty minutes and then really enjoy it.'
'Have you seen any of the gang?' asked Dave. 'I bet Bolland and Mackie will be taking a sackful with
them tomorrow. They'll hump them all over Germany.'
'You bet they will,' answered Tennant, 'but I haven't seen any of the boys. They'll be here somewhere though. We'll most probably bump into some of them tomorrow, or the next day or some time,' concluded Tennant.
When all the potatoes were ready, the boiled and the baked, the fire was doused and the four moved into the barn.
'Let's have bread, too,' declared Dave extravagantly. 'A couple of slices each will make my stomach
think it's Christmas.'
'How about one slice,' cautioned Welling’s. 'We'll eat the spuds and bread and see how we go. Eh,
Dave!' So the four got stuck into it. The boiled potatoes were attacked first, and then the baked ones
for their jackets had cooled sufficiently by the time the first course was over.
'Shit! This is the best meal I've ever had. I could stay here for the rest of my life,' claimed Smith
euphorically, 'and just eat spuds. It would be bloody marvellous! Tennant, are there any left for
breakfast?'
'Why didn't we think of that?' Dave demanded of Welling’s. 'Cold spuds would go well about seven
a.m., and it would save the bread ration. I've only had the potatoes and one slice of bread and I'm full as a tick.'
'Me, too,' agreed Welling’s. 'We've done well, Dave. Only two slices out of the loaf each. All the more for tomorrow. By the way, you can wash the cooking utensils and I'll do it tomorrow. Okay?'
Afterwards, Dave and Welling’s retired to their reserved sleeping accommodation and Dave stretched and nestled into the hay.
'Bloody marvellous)' he sighed. 'This is better than the palliasse. Our luck's changed. Let's hope the
open road is always like this and there are spuds wherever we go. What the bloody hell are you doing, Welling’s?'
'I'm burrowing for potatoes. You don't think I could go to sleep when there's a gold mine below me. I'd have nightmares if I missed out on this strike.'
So Welling’s worked like a rabbit, and finally surfaced with a nugget.
'Look at the size of this bastard!' he shouted. 'What do you think of it?'
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'How the hell do you expect me to see it in this light?' demanded Dave. 'It's bloody dark or didn't you
realise it?'
'Feel it then!' he commanded, thrusting it into Dave's hands. 'We'll load up tomorrow, Davey Boy, and never be hungry again.'
Welling’s plopped down in the hay and started to slap his bare stomach beneath the shirt.
'What the hell are you doing now?' Dave asked angrily. 'You're making a racket. I want to sleep.'
'I'm just feeling good. This is the first time my belly has felt loaded for years. It's a marvellous feeling.
Don't forget to remind me about the spuds in the morning. I'd cut my throat if I left without them.'
'We'll get 'em,’ assured Dave, 'so don't worry! Now go to sleep, for we'll be up at 6.30 a.m. and it'll be a long, cold march tomorrow. Goodnight, Bill! This bloody hay is not only soft, but warm. It'll do me.'
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CHAPTER XXIII
The day so far had been long and tiring, and the journey endless. It was the fifth day of the long, long
trek and the prisoners were footsore and browned off. No-one seemed to know where they were going and, apart from the usual rumours, the whole exercise seemed futile. The marchers felt that it would have been far better if they had been left in the camp, which would have been finally overrun by the advancing Allied armies, rather than fleeing aimlessly and eventually being overtaken and liberated. What was the difference? They felt that both plans of action would conclude in the same way.
Dave's feet were giving him hell. His socks, which had been darned and darned again, had now given
way under the constant friction of sock rubbing boot and large holes had appeared in each. Now the
heels of his feet, no longer padded by a cushion of wool, were bearing the full brunt of each step
forward and the blisters formed had burst and were sore and inflamed.
When the midday rest had been taken, Dave and Welling’s had finished off the loaf with a slice each,
and a cold potato.
'There goes the last of the Mohicans!' exclaimed Bill. 'It'll be shit or bust from now on, spuds only.'
'God, help us if the spuds run out,' was Dave's reply, 'we'll really cop out then.'
'We've always found them so far,' was Welling’s confident reply, 'so they'll be there in the barn when we bed down tonight.' Christ, I'll turn into a bloody rabbit by the time this caper's over. That's all I do is burrow and scratch my way through hay.'
'Then we're prepared for a rainy day for if we don't strike gold tonight, we've still got this,' Dave
stated, tapping a small sack-like container on the ground. 'It's bloody heavy lugging it around, but it's
insurance against hunger. We'll have spuds tonight, rain or shine, and cold ones for tomorrow's
breakfast and midday break.' There was a lull in the conversation and then Dave continued, 'My
bloody feet are killing me. What we want is a day's rest from this marching and then I could soak them in a stream or something.'
'Your feet would freeze. I'm afraid you'll have to stick it out. Anyway, you'll get better. You're not
going to die on me? You're too bloody lousy to do that for you wouldn't leave the spuds behind. You'd be turning in your grave at the thought of me scoffing the lot.'
The prisoners were roused to their feet by the guards and it was on with the afternoon stint: the long straggling column plodding its way into the heart of nowhere. The kriegies, the packhorses of the scenario and bent low by the burden of their worldly possessions, divorced themselves from the
proceedings by thinking of the past when things had been green, shining, wonderful and seemingly
forever.
The afternoon monotony was suddenly broken by the scream of approaching low flying aircraft, and
within seconds the way had been cleared. Everybody, including the guards, ducked for cover.
It was every man for himself, preservation being uppermost. Welling’s threw himself into a ditch and
Dave landed almost on top of him. The aircraft were so low that it seemed that they would land on the road or brush the prostrate prisoners. It was frightening. The high pitch roar of the engines was
deafening and reverberated throughout the surrounding countryside. Then they were gone, and things got back to normal as the marchers extricated themselves from their positions.
'I thought we were gone that time,' stated Dave. 'That sort of treatment shakes the shit out of you. I
thought the bullets were going to fly at any moment.'
'They were Typhoons, and ours,' claimed Welling’s. ‘Why they didn't open up is beyond me. We must have looked like German troop concentrations.'
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'Most probably they didn't have any ammo left or they would have blasted us all over the place. Thank God for small mercies!' breathed Dave.
The trek resumed, but everyone had been shaken out of their lethargy for the Allied planes had come too close for comfort. There were aircraft almost constantly in the sky, but they had always passed within a kilometre or so. Never had they been so low and directly overhead as if they were searching for something to destroy. The Allied command couldn't possibly know that 10 000 POWs were on the march, and would conclude that they were German troop movements.
Then the roar was heard again and everyone scattered, Dave running to the base of a tree and kneeling down as if in prayer. The thunderous roar seemed so close, but actually the planes passed within about 200 metres to the right and then were gone.
Again there was a reassembling and the usual derogatory remarks, such as: 'The lousy bastards!' 'Why don't they go looking for real targets?' 'Shit! We have enough troubles without having to take cover from our own planes!' 'They'll kill us all if they go on like this - some crazy pilot will report enemy troop concentrations and then we'll be blown off the road and on our way to Kingdom Come'. So the long walk continued and it was with a sigh of relief that they arrived at a farm for the night's rest.
So far they had been fortunate, for a roof always awaited them at the journey's end and also plenty of spuds. However, this time there were none. The usual sleeping accommodation in the hay was
available, but there were two big barns with a sentry posted on each, and it was there that the potatoes had to be. Dave and Welling’s had spuds, but they were thinking of the future: tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. They, like all the kriegies, had no bread left so stocks had to be replenished. They conferred about a plan of action and after a reconnaissance, decided which barn should be raided. Welling’s would approach the solitary sentry and offer him Dave's Parker fountain pen with the gold nib for spuds, while Dave was to sneak in at the side, where the corrugated sheeting didn't quite reach to the ground, and do his smash-and-grab act.
Welling’s did his stuff, but the guard wouldn't have any of it, and when he persisted with his sales
patter was ushered away by a menacing bayonet. Meanwhile, Dave was inside the barn discovering
that the wall of hay was about two feet from the corrugated iron side. He scrambled up and started to burrow. It was relatively easy and soon his small, sack-like container was full, so it was time to retreat. Treading warily, he arrived back at the entrance, but now had to descend the six-foot hay wall in order to crawl under the tin. It was difficult with the potatoes, so he dropped them towards the escape hatch, but hashed it when the sack hit the iron sheeting, making what seemed an almighty din. There was no time to waste now for the sentry must have heard. Dave jumped, and his boots and hands came into contact with the noise-reverberating sheeting. Grabbing the potato sack, he scrambled under the tin, catching his clothing on a jagged edge. He was caught, half in-half out, and then saw the guard, bayonet fixed, turn the corner and run towards him. He pushed outwards, tearing himself loose, and then was running like hell, the sentry barely ten feet behind. The pursuer seemed crazy and was yelling for Dave to stop, but there were two incentives to keep going: firstly, the potatoes were now his and he wasn't going to give them up; and, secondly, the guard was in such a rage that he'd give Dave a taste of his steel, so there was no advantage in stopping. Dave ran, his lungs almost bursting, but the German wasn't giving up, being intent on running him down. He ran into and through barns, in and out of groups of prisoners busy lighting fires for the evening meal, and through a morass of soft, moist dung or manure.
Dave was buggered when he staggered into a large, empty dairy and the sound of his feet on the
flagstone floor and the pounding of his heart seemed to reverberate from every corner of the whitewashed walls. He ran its length, pushed his way through the half open door at the end, and slammed it hard behind him. As he went, he could hear the rattling and thumping on the door which had obviously jammed and wouldn't open. He'd escaped and still had the spuds. Reaching the barn where Welling’s and he had dumped their gear, he lay on the hay, a lather of perspiration, his breath coming in hard, hurtful gasps and then closed his eyes. He was completely and utterly buggered.
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A few minutes later, Welling’s joined him. 'I saw that bastard chasing you and thought you were a
goner. You ought to give the Olympics a try,' he joked, 'when the war's over. You'd go well in the
obstacle race.'
'Bugger the obstacle race,' was Dave's reply, 'I've had enough hurdles for a lifetime. It's alright for you to joke, but it'd been different sort of setup if you'd had the bayonet up your arse.'
'Not to worry! He didn't get you, and we've got the spuds. I'll show you what a good bloke I am. I'll
light the fire, cook the potatoes and wash up. How does that grab you? You rest and the head cook and bottle washer will do all the work! You're a lucky bastard, Dave, to have an oppos like me. By the
way, if there were a bakery around,' he added facetiously, 'I'd send you out on another raiding mission. You've got to keep your hand in, you know.'
After a meal of spuds and more spuds, they discussed the day's happenings. The monotony of the
march, the state of the blistered feet, the low flying Allied aircraft and the spud situation.
'Strange!' exclaimed Welling’s. 'For four days no-one stopped us from getting as many potatoes as we liked, but when we arrived here they got tough and placed guards on the bloody things. I think the policy's changed and things are going to get rough. We could become very hungry.'
'The way that mad sentry chased me, I think that spuds will get scarcer and scarcer from now on.
Anyone would have thought I'd broken into the Bank of England,' Dave concluded with a laugh.
'I'll tell you what, ' volunteered Welling’s, 'we're sitting ducks for Allied aircraft. We must be mistaken sooner or later for German troops on the march, and then we'll get hurry-up. I don't think the column's all that safe.'
'It's not only the aeroplanes, but this walking without food.
It's not so bad as long as we've got the spuds, but if they go, then God help us! Have you noticed how the column gets spread out?'
'It's spread out all day, and it'll get worse as the days drag on. Everybody's getting tired and fed up,'
replied Welling’s.
'But towards the end of the day the column becomes an almighty mess', persisted Dave, 'we spread out over a long distance and the guards can't police the lot. There's not enough of them. We could piss-off together and link up with the advancing Allied armies. They must be getting close. It would be a piece of cake.'
'A piece of cake? Like bloody hell! I think it wouldn't be hard to leave the column, but how the hell do we stay alive until rescued. Before leaving the camp they told us that column meant security and if anyone left they'd be shot.'
'That's what worries me,' confided Dave, 'this shooting business. I'd like to go, but quite frankly I'm
scared stiff. Where do we go when we make the break, and what do we do for food? I know we've got the spuds, but they won't last forever.'
'If we go then,' said Welling’s, 'it'll be late in the day and we go together. Things must get rougher if we stick with the marchers, but if we're on our own, then surely we'll be able to scrounge food from
somewhere. We won't get any help from the civilians, for this is Germany, not Holland. There'll be no Underground to help us, and they'll all be out to see that we get the chop.'
'I want to go,' affirmed Dave, 'but I'll have to pluck up courage between then and now. It's dicey and
I'm too young to die.'
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'Me, too! I want to get back to Liverpool in one piece, settle down and have a few kids. I'm fed up with this bloody mad world where you're nothing but a pack horse and you rest and walk when ordered. Bugger this for a life!'
'Anyway, we don't have to go tomorrow,' procrastinated Dave, 'we can see how things go and play it
according to Hoyle or whoever. We'll get there, Bill, so no worries.'
'I know how you feel, Dave, but I suppose we'll do it when the time comes.'
'Let's take one day at a time, and tomorrow can look after itself. Goodnight,’
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CHAPTER XXIV
Two days later Dave and Welling’s left the security of the column for the uncertainty of the great
unknown. At about 3 p.m. the marchers had spread themselves out over about two kilometres of road - the weary and the sick very much to the rear. The guards had almost given up remonstrating with their charges to keep together, for it was an impossible and thankless task. Welling’s and Dave had deliberately placed themselves in a position where there was a dearth of supervision, and from where escape could be most easily effected. Nearly all that day their conversation had centred on the proposed getaway, but this had also happened during the previous 24 hours with no result. Both men were becoming a little testy, for their planning and resolve had not been put into practice and each felt, within himself, that the necessary courage was lacking. They both wanted to go, but the enormity of the act and the probable repercussions acted as a deterrent.
The road now was curving to the right and threading its way through fairly heavily wooded country,
thus screening the marchers from those behind and in front. If the moment for escape was opportune, this was it. Suddenly, Dave bolted, ran down the side of the bank supporting the road, reached the trees, and then threw himself down in an undulation on the ground. He was concealed from the road by the stout butt of a large tree and the springtime undergrowth.
He lay there his heart pounding, for he could see the passing column. Then someone threw himself
down beside him. It was Welling’s.
'You've buggered it now!’ hissed Dave. 'The guard must have seen you. We'll both be bloody shot.
You silly bastard.'
Welling’s said nothing, both of them lying as flat as possible on their stomachs and eyes to the ground. Every so often Dave would squint towards the road and witness the passing of the column. It seemed to take ages for the road to empty and for the escapees to feel that they were alone. However, they didn't move from their position for at least half an hour, as if where they were represented security from the dangers that lay ahead.
'We can't stay here forever,' muttered Dave, breaking the silence. 'What do we do now?'
'We'll go and get those spuds,' replied Welling’s, 'so let's get cracking!'
Dave didn't have to ask what he meant, for about a kilometre or so back they had witnessed some tired and overburdened prisoner throw to the side of the road a small quantity of potatoes wrapped in a makeshift bag, and their recovery was given number one priority. Keeping about 30 metres from the road, they followed its direction and found their objective. The spuds, 11 in number, were counted out twice to ensure the value of the treasure.
'We're loaded!' Welling’s laughed quietly. 'now let's get some cover and have something to eat. It'll be dark in half an hour so the sooner we get organised the better.'
In a small copse they took refuge, and the spuds, cooked the previous evening, were doled out two to a person and slowly eaten.
'Let's have one more each? I'm bloody hungry,' grumbled Dave, 'and to hell with the expense.'
So the food supply was dealt a body-blow and the two munched contentedly.
'How about some more?' queried Dave. 'We can afford it. After all, those eleven potatoes are a bonus.'
'Like hell!' retorted Welling’s. ‘What about tomorrow, you hungry bastard?'
[page break]
So the party was over, and it being dark they decided to push on. 'Which way is it?' demanded
Welling’s. 'We're going towards the Allied lines, aren't we? So where's that?'
'How the hell should I know,' replied Dave, 'I'm not a bloody magician.
'You're the navigator, aren't you?’ retorted Welling’s. 'So pull your finger out, and let's weave out of
this bloody place.'
They pushed on, Dave endeavouring to keep the Pole star on his right, ensuring that his direction was
westward. However, progress was slow and impeded by small trees, protruding roots which stubbed
the boots hard and unmercifully, and deep indentations and rocks.
'Shit! This is hard work,' complained Welling’s, 'we'll reach the Allied armies in about ten years’ time
at this rate.'
'Talk about the babes in the wood,' wryly remarked Dave, 'we're giving a pretty good pantomime
performance, but not charging admission.'
On they went and although it was bitterly cold, both felt warm and sweated profusely. Perhaps it was fear that generated the heat and also the exertion expended. For they both knew that if they met someone they would be challenged and death could result. It was a ticklish position. They kept going and gradually the darkness was replaced by the lengthening light and so it was time to call a halt and rest in a thicket, which offered concealment and protection from the winds.
During the morning of the next day they remained hidden and conversed in whispers. Their fear was
that someone would discover them both asleep and, being afraid, might dispatch them to Kingdom
Come with some blunt instrument or rifle bullet.
'We made bugger all progress last night,' stated Dave bluntly, 'and we'll make less tonight if we stick
to the woods and fields. I reckon we'd be safer if we walked during the day along a lane or bye-way. If we see someone, we'll just walk straight past and brazen it out. How about it?'
So the plan was adopted, and that afternoon away they went. They felt more secure this way for
daylight meant safety. They reasoned that no-one committed dastardly deeds during the hours of light, but darkness and crime were synonymous. As they went, they realised that Germany housed nearly every European nationality. The Germans had Russians, Yugoslavs, Poles, French, the lot, working as slave labour on the land and in the factories, while the German male was away fighting at the front. Thus no-one took any notice of the two fliers, believing them to be slave workers, too, from some part of German Occupied Europe. It was the dogs that were a nuisance, as they always welcomed them with barks and sometimes bared fangs as they approached what they thought was their territory or domain.
They walked all that day and, being unchallenged, were emboldened to stay the night in a farm shed. They reasoned that it was unlikely that they would be disturbed and were far safer than lying in a forest thicket. They ate the remaining cooked potatoes brought from the camp and still felt hungry. However, they didn't hoe into the eleven raw spuds which had been rescued from the side of the road.
‘Keep those for tomorrow,' explained Welling’s, 'for they'll keep the wolf from the door. I wish the hell we had some way of cooking them. Raw spuds don't exactly turn me on.'
'Cooking them? You're the supreme optimist, Welling’s, if you think we can light a fire and hang
around until they boil. You must be around the bend.'
'I reckon walking by day is the shot. No-one's bailed us up or taken much notice,' stated Welling’s. 'The only people you see are Russians, Yugoslavs, French et cetera, and some old Germans and young children. We haven't seen a soldier yet, so let's hope our luck continues.'
'I suppose all the soldiers are at the front, but where the hell that is, God only knows?'
[page break]
'We'll get there,' laughed Welling’s, 'for you're a bloody good navigator, Dave,' and then added, for
good measure, 'I suppose you were going the wrong way when you were shot down.'
'Something like that,' replied Dave, 'so let's go to sleep for we have a long way to walk tomorrow,
especially if we get lost a few times.'
They made a late start the next day, having overslept. They upbraided themselves for their tardiness,
little realising that their strength and energy had been severely taxed over the last year and their
reserves were at a low ebb. They kept to the bye-ways and lanes and saw little motor traffic, only the horse-drawn, slow-moving, creaking carts or wagons. The slave labour, recruited from the four corners of German occupied Europe, tilled the fields, milked the cows and performed the hundred and one jobs necessary to ensure that the German nation didn't starve and the war effort on all fronts was maintained. It was a strange and weird world, the manhood of Germany was being slaughtered on the peripheries of the Greater Reich, while those they had subjugated were now keeping the home fires burning.
As they pushed on, the way was blocked by a large group of Polish POWs marching towards them,
accompanied by German guards. However, the experiences of the last few years ensured that the
escapees were prepared for all eventualities and just kept going, threading their way through the oncoming 'traffic'. No-one seemed to take any notice of them except an RAF flyer whom they knew from their camp days and whose blue uniform contrasted sharply with the khaki of the Poles. He touched his head in salute and said, 'Good afternoon, gentlemen. It's a splendid day to be on the road', and then continued his progress.
They got through the horde without being challenged, and then Welling’s laughingly asked, 'What the bloody hell is he doing with a lot of Poles, and going the wrong way into the bargain?'
'It could be the right way,' replied Dave, 'for all we know, and we could be arse-about-face.'
'We must be right,' confirmed Welling’s, 'for the Germans would be leading the Poles away from the
advancing armies, not towards them. Anyway, you're the navigator, so keep working!'
They continued on and, within an hour, were confronted by a large contingent of French POWs
blocking the way. Again they threaded and brushed their way through, no-one taking any notice. It
seemed that the whole prisoner population was on the march towards some unspecified place of safety. However, in a rapidly shrinking Germany, whose extremities were being pummelled and battered by the Russians in the East and the Allied armies in the West, where was this Shangri-La?
At about 2 p.m. they stopped at the side of the road to break their fast and ate three raw potatoes each. It was both unpalatable and indigestible, but hunger knew no bounds and every morsel was devoured. Then it was up and away towards the elusive front and deliverance.
It was getting towards dusk when they heard two almighty bangs and the screaming of missiles.
'It's a bloody bazooka!' exclaimed Welling’s. 'Shit! I hope we don't run into anything like that. Bugger
the front. It sounds rough.'
However, they heard nothing further and started looking for somewhere to bed down.
'We'd better stop this walking caper,' counselled Dave, 'or we might run into the military, who'll bail us up or shoot us.'
'Not to worry!' advised Welling’s. 'No-one knows what the hell's going on and it's simple as A.B.C. We haven't been challenged so far. Everyone must think we're slave workers. Germany is brimming over with the bastards. Let's go on!'
The journey continued without a sleeping place revealing itself.
[page break]
'Another ten minutes,' coaxed Welling’s, 'and if we don't find somewhere, then we'll sleep under a bush or something. Right?' So on they went, only to be confronted with a bridge. But what was a bridge? Their confidence was overbrimming, and then Lady Luck deserted them.
'Stop or I'll shoot!' the order rang out in German, hard and metallic. 'Come here!'
They had almost made the crossing, but what to do now? If they bolted, there would be a fusillade of shots followed, in all probability, by their total eclipse. They had come this far only to disappear into total oblivion and no-one would ever know what had happened to them. They would be classed as two among the millions of missing war dead, who disappeared without trace and found an unsung grave.
It was only a second or two since the command had been given, yet it seemed like eternity. Both of
them, realising that discretion was the better part of valour, turned simultaneously and walked towards the sentry, who had now been joined by four other soldiers. They were prisoners again.
In a farmhouse close to the bridge, they were interrogated by a German officer who ascertained they were British POWs. They were given some bread and coffee and then conducted to what seemed a long, low roofed stable with a cobbled stone floor. Being locked in, they unrolled their blankets and, still in greatcoats, curled up on the hard floor and were asleep within minutes.
[page break]
CHAPTER XXV
Dave woke heavy-lidded and out of sorts, for he was tired and felt that he could have slept forever.
However, it was the noise that had disturbed him for he was surrounded by a ring of laughing German soldiers, who kept pointing at a completely blanketed figure next to him. The laughter and good humoured banter continued, forcing Dave to a sitting position and the realisation that the stoned floor was mighty hard for the bum. Fatigue and exhaustion had, the previous night, nullified all hardships and he had slept like a babe.
'Shit!' he muttered. 'These stupid Hun bastards laugh at anything. They must be bloody crazy.'
He felt disgruntled and browned off. Not only was he a prisoner again, but he felt lousy, and needed a bath, a shave, and a square meal to put things right.
The laughter and the finger pointing continued with urgings for Dave to remove the blankets, but to no avail. Dave wasn’t a bit curious, for he'd had his share of happenings and surprises over the last
eighteen months and, besides, he was too buggered to lift a finger to find out the source of amusement. It would have to be the five card trick to raise a smile from him. Finally, one of the soldiers stepped forward and, like a magician, swept away the covering cloth to reveal a fully-dressed, uniformed figure, whose pallor was deathly white.
'So what?' was Dave's immediate reaction. 'Can't a soldier have a sleep without the world making a
fuss about it?'
But the song and dance act continued, forcing him to look again at the motionless body. Then it
dawned what all the commotion was about: the German soldier was dead and had been placed next to him during the night. However, the discovery made little or no impact for he no longer cared - --
nothing was new to him, it was all part of living. The word 'schnapps' was mentioned several times,
and Dave deduced that the dead soldier had imbibed too freely of a wood alcohol brew which had
proven his undoing.
Finally, the soldiers departed, leaving Welling’s, Dave and the dead soldier alone.
'Tough luck on him!' exclaimed Welling’s, roughly covering the corpse with the blanket. 'How did you
sleep, Davey Boy? Was the cobbled mattress a bit severe on the old rump?'
'I didn't feel it. I was so tired I reckon I could have slept on a pin cushion. I'm hungry though. I hope
the bastards feed us!'
And almost immediately the wish was granted for a soldier entered with some bread and margarine.
So they ate away, completely ignoring the dead one at their side, for this world, they had learned, was for the quick only. The dead had to fend for themselves.
Within twenty minutes, escorted by two guards, they were on their travels, but this time on foot. They were passed by several troops of soldiers going in the opposite direction, but nothing untoward occurred until the road, which was raised from the surrounding countryside, passed a railway siding.
'Christ! What the hell is the Chain Gang doing here?' demanded Bill, in a voice of disbelief. 'I thought
their activities were confined to Georgia and the Southern states.'
Dave took a long, hard look at the emaciated, ghoulish figures still being unloaded from the cattle
trucks and also those who had already arrived on the road in their ones, twos and threes. They looked peculiar and out of place in their striped pyjama-looking clothes, and it was obvious that death was hovering close as they stumbled, fell, rose and moved painfully slowly towards extinction. Their final eclipse being hastened by the brutality of their captors who flogged them unmercifully. The whips
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were really cracking, and two of the pyjamaed figures were driven, by the fury of the onslaught, to the roadside where they collapsed and rolled down the incline.
'Jesus Christ! What have we walked into,' queried Dave incredulously, 'a horror movie or something?'
'Those two who went over the side were as dead as door-nails, and that big, bloody, German ape over there will get a taste of this,' replied Welling’s, clenching both his fists, 'and if that's not enough, I'll give him a rock in the kisser.'
The guard, accompanying them, sensing his hostility remonstrated with him to refrain by patting his
pistol and urging him forward. So within a minute the macabre sight was behind them and neither
POW wished to look back and be reminded of the bestiality they'd witnessed. They had never
encountered such behaviour or treatment before, for the conduct of the guards within the camp had
always been strict but fair. Little did they know that the Jews and political prisoners of the Third Reich received no mercy and survival was almost an impossibility. The two POWs, unbeknown to them, were within one kilometre of the infamous Belsen concentration camp, which made news headlines when it was overrun by the Allied liberating armies in mid-April, 1945.
Within half an hour, they arrived at the panzer school at Bergen and were taken to the cooler, where
they were duly signed for and locked into a small cell with sufficient space for one person only. They
had asked the gaoler, a feldwebel, to be housed together, for solitary meant loneliness and isolation.
They could put up with the closeness of the confines providing they had someone to talk to.
'The bunk's big enough for one only, so shall I have first go or shall we toss for it?' asked Dave. 'You
can stretch out on the floor.'
'Okay, by me,' replied Bill. 'Let's get some shut-eye.
They slept for a couple of hours and woke feeling really refreshed.
Perhaps it wasn't the rest that had revitalised them, but the sense of security that had been newly acquired. Now that they were prisoners again they hoped that food would be forthcoming at regular
intervals; an untimely end by a bullet was less likely; and their gaoler, the feldwebel, was responsible
for their welfare and safety. Admittedly, they were once again prisoners of the Third Reich,
incarcerated in a narrow cell and doing solitary, but being together made hardship a piece of cake.
Further, they were warm, even if not comfortable.
Their lot was further improved when the door was unlocked and the feldwebel beckoned them outside to a small table situated in the corridor, where there was bread, sausage and two mugs of acorn coffee. It was a feast fit for a king, and they tucked in while their gaoler just sat and watched. The guard seemed to be having a really slack time for all the cells were empty, except one, and they were soon introduced to its inmate, a German soldier of about twenty-five. He, hearing the noise from the 'partygoers', banged on the door claiming he wanted a toilet break and so was let out. On his return, he was allowed to sit with the three of them before being bundled back into his cell. Dave's curiosity was aroused and he discovered that the soldier was a deserter awaiting court martial. When the feldwebel was asked what would eventually be the soldier’s fate, he laughingly drew his fingers across his throat.
That afternoon Welling’s took the bunk, Dave the floor and they discussed the deserter.
'Poor bastard!' sympathised Dave. 'He'll get the chop for sure -a firing squad and a bullet right between the eyes. The military are tough on people who piss-off without permission, especially the Hun.'
'He seems bloody cheerful for a man awaiting court martial, remarked Welling’s. 'I'd be shitting myself if I were in his shoes.'
'Perhaps he thinks the war will be over before they get around to putting him on trial and then he'll get off the hook. So I suppose he's on his knees all day praying for the Allies to beat hell out of his side.'
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'Not him,' stated Welling’s positively, 'he doesn't seem to give a tinker's cuss. I bet he's been in trouble all his life and he's always one step ahead of everyone else.'
'Our guard seems a good bloke,' remarked Dave, changing the subject. 'I enjoyed the meal. This place will do me until the end of the war, especially if we get the red carpet treatment at meal times. We'll put on weight here and go home well-covered and curvaceous.'
'The feldwebel might be a good fellow, but I've never seen things so slack. Every cooler I've been in so far has been a tightly run ship, but this is bloody hopeless. No solitary, meals outside, a deserter joins us - bloody hell, Germany must be falling apart. The war must be just about over, or I don't know these Huns. They’re sticklers for everything being correct and regimented.'
At about 4 p.m. they were let out again and had more coffee. The guard seemed lonely, as if everyone had forgotten about him and he needed company. However, the deserter was soon knocking on the door and demanding to go to the toilet, but once out just sat and talked to them.
'Welling’s was right,' thought Dave, 'Germany had gone to pot. If anyone had knocked on a cell door in the old days and demanded attention, he'd have had a bayonet up his backside and that would have stopped his gallop quick and lively. He wouldn't knock a second time.'
The conversation centred on uniforms and the deserter admired Dave's RAF tunic. Why? Dave
couldn't imagine, for it was filthy, ragged, and looked the worse for wear. However, he kept on about
it, and it became quite embarrassing when he asked if he could try it on. Dave felt like telling him to
get lost, but finally agreed to the temporary exchange. The deserter removed his tunic leaving it for
Dave, and then retired to his cell to try on the RAF tunic. Why he did this, God only knew? After a
few minutes he reappeared, returned the tunic, picked up his own and then went back to his cell,
closing the door. So the dressing-up parade was over and it was back to solitary.
'It's your turn for the floor, Bill,' chuckled Dave, 'and it's me for the luxury suite. Jesus, that bastard
next door's queer! Fancy wanting to try on my bloody tunic when it's just about ready for the dustbin.'
'Have you got your Parker pen?' demanded Welling’s in alarm. '1 just thought he might have nicked it when he cleared off. You never know about these bastards.'
'Bloody hell, it's gone!' cried Dave searching feverishly through the tunic's pockets. 'He's lifted it!'
'Call the feldwebel,' advised Welling’s, 'he'll only have to search the cell and the problem's solved.'
So the plan of action was adhered to, the theft reported and immediate action promised. However, at least 2 hours passed and nothing further eventuated.
'They must be making a new one,' remarked Welling’s facetiously, 'or they've written to the
manufacturers for a replacement. It's taking a long time to find one Parker pen with a gold nib.'
'We've waited long enough,' agreed Dave. 'I'll call the bloody guard and find out what's going on. I
can't afford to lose it as it's been my lucky charm.'
So the cell door was pounded on, and finally opened to reveal the smiling face of the feldwebel. To
their questions he just kept grinning and shrugging his shoulders, as if he knew nothing about it and
couldn't have cared less. Then he locked the door, leaving the two POWs to ruminate on the position.
'It looks like my pen's gone for good,' moaned Dave. 'The deserter really made a sucker out of me.
Fancy falling for a trick like that!'
'I don't think the deserter's got it,' chuckled Welling’s, 'I bet our wonderful feldwebel has it tucked away somewhere. He's no fool, and there's no flies on him. The deserter took it from you and the guard lifted it from him. So let's put it down to experience. We learn something every day. You'd better get some sleep for it'll be time to swap places before long, as this floor becomes pretty hard after a while.’
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CHAPTER XXVI
The large barn and adjoining cobbled yard were empty and devoid of American soldiers, and it was
obvious to all three of them that they had arrived too late. That morning, after spending only one day in the cooler at Bergen, Dave and Welling’s, accompanied by a German soldier, had walked about 2 kilometres to join some American POWs who were working in the neighbourhood. However, the war situation had had its effect on everybody, and it was learned that the entire contingent had been marched out about 2 hours earlier, leaving the orphans of the storm high, dry and stranded.
The guard was in a dilemma concerning his charges. He could either march them back to the cooler
and be upbraided for inefficiency, or return without them and allow the authorities to assume his
mission had been accomplished. Everything was so chaotic that it mattered little. The three of them
just leant against the barn wall, the soldier pulling hard on his cigarette and endeavouring to arrive at a decision. Then he threw the stub on to the cobbled stones, extinguished the glowing end with his boot and walked deliberately away, his charges following as if being towed. On reaching the main gate of the farm, he stopped, turned, faced both of them, shrugged his shoulders and gesticulated with his hands as if to say, what do I do now? The answer wasn't long in coming. He mockingly saluted them farewell and walked away at a brisk gait, leaving the prisoners to their own devices.
So once again they were free. However, freedom was no longer an attraction as it had too many
disadvantages. Where were they to go and what were they to do? Every man's hand would now be
turned against them and an untimely death was the last thing they wanted for the war could be over in a few weeks. They had survived this far and luck had been on their side, so they didn't want to tempt Providence too far. They walked on aimlessly having lost sense of direction and purpose. They had no food and the lethargy of the situation seemed to be typified when a lone Lancaster bomber appeared and stooged overhead at only a few hundred feet. It seemed as if the crew had nowhere to go, no target left to bomb and no enemy aircraft was left to challenge their slow, relentless progress.
An upturn in their fortunes occurred in the afternoon, when they were hailed by a Polish soldier resting at the side of the road. Courtesies were exchanged in English, the soldier possessing a rudimentary knowledge of the language, and then the tale of woe and adventure of the past weeks was related by the airmen. The Pole listened, sympathised, nodded his head several times and then, finally, invited them to come and share his accommodation at the ‘Barn'.
The 'Barn' was situated about a kilometre distant on a large farm and was, indeed, spacious. It had to be, for it housed about 200 Poles of all shapes and sizes. There were the grizzled veterans taken in the first months of the war in distant ‘39, when the German panzer divisions had bulldozed their way into Poland and swept all before them. Then there were the children, orphans of the holocaust, ranging from eight years upwards who had been taken in the Warsaw Insurrection of August, 1944. And, finally, there was a sprinkling of women. All these persons had worked on innumerable German farms as slave labour and had been shifted from pillar to post. Then they had been nearly caught in the jaws of the advancing Allied armies as they crossed the Rhine. However, their masters, the Germans had made them beat a hasty retreat into the heart of Germany - their final resting-place being the 'Barn', where they continued to slave on the local farms.
Living in the 'Barn' was not only interesting, but most relaxing for Dave and Bill. The inmates would
take themselves off to perform their agricultural chores, leaving the airmen and the younger children behind. From the youngsters Dave learnt their story. On 1st August, 1944, the Russians, who had suddenly halted their advance at the gates of Warsaw, urged the Poles to rise up and slay the German garrison. They had responded and the fighting had been waged on a grand scale for nine weeks. The Germans had put down the insurrection by bombardment from the air and artillery fire, and resistance hadn't ceased until 2nd October. All this time the Russian forces had remained passive and inactive, and no help was forthcoming. The insurgents and the civilian population were murdered or deported to concentration camps or to forced labour in the Reich. The entire population of the city was evacuated and the city almost totally gutted by fire. Thus Dave now had the answer to the riddle which had
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plagued him so long: why had the irresistible Russian advance stopped suddenly before the Polish
capital? The answer was obvious - the Polish underground movement had been allowed to be
decimated so that there would be no resistance to a future Communist takeover.
The children in the 'Barn' were parentless. They had witnessed the Warsaw holocaust and seen their
mothers, fathers and relatives slaughtered or deported elsewhere. It was one hell of a mix-up, typical of what prevailed in Europe in the spring of 1945. The children, however, were quite cheerful about it all and made a big fuss of the two 'terror-flyers', as they called them. Perhaps they saw in them something of the knight-in-shining armour who would save them from all this, instead of two
ordinary, very thin, tired prisoners of war.
Dave and Welling’s were given the daily task of collecting the rations from the nearby farmhouse,
which housed the German guards. The commandant, a captain, and his staff were accommodated in
the house, while the soldiers slept in the outhouses. The two airmen, accompanied by four or five
children, would push the clumsy, wooden wheelbarrow down the rutted lane and park in the
farmhouse's cobbled yard. Then the loaves of bread would be stacked neatly in the 'barrow', a seventh of a loaf per person and any other rations that were due, such as margarine once a week. The slave workers had to be fed or, otherwise, there would be agricultural problems and food shortages. The German soldiers, who doled out the rations, took very little interest in Dave and Bill, despite the fact that they were attired in RAF battledress -- the uniforms being so dirty and bedraggled that they fitted in snugly with the surroundings and were accepted. The Barn's inhabitants wore anything that kept them warm and on which they could lay their hands.
The Poles, Dave discovered, were a mercurial people. Their mood could change quickly and become
despondent, unhappy and melancholy. It was little wonder for their race had suffered hardship, torture and privation under successive invaders and conquerors. Further, the inmates of the 'Barn' had been battered and driven to the four corners of the German Reich during the last five years and some had been prisoners since September 1939. Nevertheless, they still regarded the Russians as the real enemies and, in conversation, would state that before the conflict was over the Germans, Poles, British and Americans would unite to drive the Communists back to the Russian steppes. It was impossible for Dave to comprehend, for he believed that Stalin's men were true blue, and what would the Western Allies do without them?
There were several large barns in the area and all housed slave workers of different nationalities. There were the French contingent, the Russians, Yugoslavs and Poles. They all seemed to dislike each other intensely, and perhaps it was symptomatic of what would happen when the war was over and the old hatreds could then be given free rein. They were all in the same pickle, but there were mutterings of evening up the score if the chance arose. Animosities ran deep and the war's end wouldn't dispel them.
With little to do, Dave and Bill relaxed during the day on their beds of hay. It was wonderful to be
able to eat regularly and rest. They felt that strength was returning to their bodies, but they would still become exhausted after some effort or exertion. Both had become acquisitive and hoarded edibles such as bread crusts, despite their age and hardness. They felt that this wasn't the end of the journey, but the prelude to another move and long walk. There was no final respite for them, only continual and endless motion from place to place.
Dave spruced himself up by having a haircut, short back and sides. He sat on one of the handles of the wheelbarrow, while a Polish prisoner of five odd years or so clipped away at his crowning glory. The right side of the hairdresser's face was badly scarred and the eye seemed to wink and stare from its illshapen socket. The Pole hated the Germans and told the story of his prisoner-of-war life to his
customer. However, Dave couldn't understand for he knew no Polish. Nevertheless, the vehemence of the man's tirade and the occasional word which Dave understood conveyed the drift of the
hairdresser's thoughts. He had received some pretty harsh treatment, especially during the early days of captivity, and the scarred side of his face had been the result of a beating from a Gestapo officer. The haircut finished, Dave arose and thanked the Pole. They shook hands, and then the hairdresser ran his fingers across his throat and mentioned the words, 'German' and 'Russian'. It was a tough old world.
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One night, the two kriegies were invited to dinner by the Yugoslavs, whose barn was situated about
300 metres away. On arrival, a very upright, grizzled, old veteran approached and warmly welcomed
them. He took them to a corner of the barn where they were introduced to five other men who were obviously regarded as leaders. The eight of them sat at a table and beer was poured and toasts to King George and Mihailovich, the particular Yugoslav leader to whom they owed allegiance, were drunk. Then it was on with the dinner - a rich, oily pork stew which made the belly lift and blow. There was a lot of laughter concerning the ingredients, from which Dave inferred that the pig had been stolen from one of the neighbouring farms and all hell would be let loose the next day when its disappearance discovered. It was a wonderful night with lots of backslapping, and oaths and with the name Mihailovich being mentioned often and loud. As the night progressed, the oily fare began to take its toll and Dave's stomach began to feel like a drum. The fatty pig was too much for a stomach which had been accustomed to a meagre bread diet for so long and Dave felt like throwing up. However, the letting off of wind from both ends helped to relieve the situation somewhat.
Finally, the dinner party came to an end and both airmen were relieved to get back to their abode
without disgracing themselves. They lay on their hay beds feeling as if their extended stomachs would burst and the rumblings and noises would never cease. It was as if an earthquake was occurring within their bodies. They hung on, determined not to be sick and so retain the nourishment the Yugoslavs had so generously given them.
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CHAPTER XXVII
The April sun of 1945 shone brightly and it was a treat to be alive. To feel the warmth on the back as it percolated its way through the clothing was luxury. Perhaps this hot flush of spring meant that the
cold, biting winds of winter had been banished for good and it would be plain sailing from here on in. The warm weather seemed to dull the hunger pangs and one wasn't continually craving for something to eat as was the case when the icy winds blew, chilling and freezing the bones.
Despite the weather, things weren't all bright and shiny. Welling’s had woken that morning feeling far from well. In fact, he had stated that he felt that this was his last round-up and he was on his way to the big ranch in the sky. All night he had been groaning, belching and farting and had made frequent trips to relieve himself. On returning, he would state that he now felt a little better, but within a quarter of an hour the status quo would reassert itself and the pains would return. The stomachs of both the airmen had become the delicate parts of the anatomy and would flare up and protest after something had been eaten. The night before, both had hoed into some of the stale, hoarded bread, liberally covered with German margarine. However, Dave's stomach had not protested to any great extent, but Bill's reaction had been violent. Dave had cheered his friend up by saying jocularly that he would ensure a slap-up funeral and invite the Yugoslavs to drink to his departure. Things weren't good, but Dave knew that Bill's health would have improved by the afternoon.
The noise of distant, sporadic gunfire had been heard several times that morning, but Dave didn't seem to think it important as he made his way leisurely towards the farmhouse that housed the guards. He wanted exercise to work off the excess of flatulence caused by the previous night's bread binge. He felt seedy and uncomfortable, and belched several times to relieve the rumblings in the stomach. He pressed on and as he neared the road the activity seemed to increase. Slave workers were running from all directions across the fields towards the road, and something untoward must be occurring. He quickened his step and, as he neared, he could see a crowd surrounding something monstrous and seemingly indestructible. It was a tank, and the two soldiers atop in khaki battledress and black berets signified that it was British. Dave was on the edge of the worshipping throng and the hubbub was so great that he couldn't make himself heard. He edged his way closer and then when the commotion died down sufficiently, yelled out: 'Eh, Tommy! What kept you so long?' There was no response. Dave repeated the greeting, and the sergeant turned and looked in his direction. Dave held his arms aloft and waved them furiously. 'What are you?' demanded the sergeant. 'British and army?'
'No, British and Royal Air Force,' came Dave's reply.
At the sergeant's bidding, the crowd cleaved a path and Dave moved towards the vehicle, being helped atop by the crowd and the sergeant's willing hands. Dave viewed the throng and felt elated, especially when they started to clap excitedly.
'What a way to gain release and freedom,' mused Dave. 'It's a fairy tale.'
Then another tank rolled its way into the village, stopping just short of the first, and so the crowd
gravitated towards the new arrival, allowing Dave and the sergeant to converse.
The tanks were part of a spearhead of the British 11th Armoured Division and were about 50
kilometres ahead of the main force. The sergeant2 had fought in the North African campaign, had
helped liberate Brussels, and was now cracker-jacking about the North German Plain - ideal terrain for armoured warfare. The flying-column had liberated many slave workers, but Dave was the first British POW that the force had encountered. The sergeant produced some bread wrapped in newspaper, and it looked so light and white after the heavy, dark, German fare that it reminded Dave of 'Lux' flakes. It was a wonderful present and reminded him of belching, Welling's stomach and his friend's likely reaction to the gift.
2 Sergeant Bill Woodward, Military Medal, British 11th Armoured Division. As a tank commander he fought in the North African campaign, and also participated in the liberation of Brussels.
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Then it was time to move out. A corporal and a soldier, who had been riding on the back of the vehicle were left behind to take over and administer the newly-acquired territory. Dave accompanied the tanks in their forward thrust to the village's perimeter, for the sergeant had stated that reports had been received that a German Tiger tank had dug itself in somewhere in the vicinity and he wanted to be sure of what was immediately ahead. The tanks stopped, and Dave shook hands with the sergeant and the crew members, wished them good luck, and then Sergeant Woodward, Military Medal, wrote his address on a piece of paper and said he hoped Dave would write some time and let him know how he was coping.
Dave returned to the farmhouse and here things were chaotic. The German guards, who had for so
long lorded it over their slave charges, were now clamouring for protection, they wished to be assured that no harm would come to them now they had surrendered. The cobbled yard resembled an arsenal for there the Germans had dumped their weapons. There was a small mountain of arms from the hand held machine gun to the Luger pistol.
The German guards, having taken refuge in the outhouses, the corporal, the soldier and Dave entered the kitchen of the farmhouse and there were served with tea and cake. The corporal was concerned for the safety of his prisoners, but Dave assured him that they were quite capable of fending for themselves. His argument being based on the fact that Bill, the slave workers and he had survived the vicissitudes of war for years, so the Germans should be able to cope.
The party over, they trooped outside and were greeted by an empty yard.
'Where the hell have all the guns gone?' asked the corporal in disbelief. 'They've bloody disappeared. The lot!'
Dave was shaken, too, but not for long. His prisoner experience should have warned him that they
were inviting trouble by leaving the pile of arms unattended. The kriegies were the most acquisitive
race in the world, whether it be stale bread or guns they had to possess them. However, guns were
dangerous and now Dave wasn't so sure that the German guards were as safe as he'd predicted.
Further, the enmity existing among the various slave nationalities could result in the settling of
grievances with bullets.
When Dave arrived at the 'Barn' Welling’s was up and quite chirpy. 'Well, Davey Boy, we're free at
bloody last,' and then in the same breath, 'Where the bloody hell have you been? They told me that you were part of the welcoming committee and had cleared out with one of the tanks.'
So Dave related what had occurred and concluded with, 'By the way, Bill, are you well enough to dine out tonight?'
'I'm well enough,' was the reply, 'but I'm not going to punish my guts with another dose of Yugoslav
soup or a bread binge. It would kill me.'
'No, none of that. It's at the farmhouse. The 'military governor' of the area, the corporal, has invited
both of us, so polish yourself up and look lively as we want to get there nice and early for pre-dinner
drinks.'
There was silence between them for a while, as if both were pondering upon the day's events and how their lot had changed. That morning they were just part of the mob and that night they were dining at 'government house'. Such were the fickleness and vagaries of fate.
'I'll tell you what!' exclaimed Welling’s suddenly. 'How about taking a few of the kids with us and
giving them a square meal? The poor bastards get very little out of life, and tonight will be a night for
them to remember.'
'You're not a bad sort of a bloke,' was Dave's reply. 'Trust you to think of them. So be it! They'll come
with us. By the way, Bill, I've got a surprise for you,' and with that he produced the newspaper parcel
from behind his back, and removed the wrapping to disclose the white, white bread.
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'Jesus, bloody white bread! Snow White! Put the lot away and we'll have it for breakfast. How lucky
are we to strike gold’?
That night the corporal, the soldier, four Polish lads, Bill and Dave sat around the kitchen hearth
warming themselves and savouring the aromas arising from the cooking food being prepared by the
frau of the house. They had confined themselves to the kitchen for they liked being near the hub of
activity, and the bustle reminded them of home. The German guards had locked themselves in the
outhouses for safety, but the captain and his lieutenant still occupied the best room. The conversation
centred on the progress of the war and day's events, but this was half-hearted for their thoughts were centred on the cooking food and when they were going to eat.
Finally, they were seated at the table and partook of the first course -- a light, vegetable soup. It tasted like nectar and everyone had second helpings, for it seemed to percolate to every part of the body, and as Bill said, 'One can feel the stuff doing one good.' Then it was potatoes, vegetables and a small piece of meat, which filled one to the gunwales. It was so satisfying that the sweet, consisting of some form of bread pudding, had to be left for stomachs had shrunken and couldn't cope with the new diet. Still, it was a meal fit for a king and would always be remembered by them all.
That night the fireworks started about 7 o'clock in the form of shots being fired. It wasn't continuous
and was difficult to describe. At times there would be a fusillade of shots, followed by a long quiet.
Then a desultory shot would ring out to break the silence. It was as-if the populace were miserly and
determined to conserve ammunition. The corporal suggested that they should go out to preserve law and order. However, the airmen likened the evening's entertainment to the American Fourth of July or the French celebration of the storming of the Bastille, and felt it unwise and unsafe to venture out of the house. One never knew if one would walk straight into a bullet, by chance or otherwise. It was much safer to stay indoors and allow the revellers their fun and games. Dave felt he had survived this far and certainly wasn't going to be buried in some unknown German village just for the sake of seeming to do the right thing.
Later in the night, the shots were accompanied by shouting and singing, as if the party were hotting up and some hidden form of alcohol had been discovered in the shape of a raided wine cellar. So it went on, and no-one left the house that night, preferring to sleep within the safety of the farmhouse than attempt the return journey to the 'Barn'.
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CHAPTER XXVIII
The morning dawned bright and sunny, and Dave and Welling’s held a summit conference with the
corporal. They were eager to be on their way to link up with the main advancing force and be really
free. The soldier counselled they should commandeer a car or truck, but neither knew how to drive. So it had to be bicycles or a long walk.
Breakfast over and farewells having been exchanged with the soldiers and the Polish lads, it was on
with the motley. The bitumen road seemed unusually quiet and devoid of traffic. Even the fields
surrounding the village were deserted, as if the slave workers had downed tools and declared a public holiday. And why not? Their masters, the German guards, were now prisoners of war themselves so the newly liberated were quite safe to lie abed and sleep off the Bacchanalian revelling of the previous night. Apparently, Dave had learned, that during the night's 'fireworks' a large group of displaced persons had raided a farmer's cellar and so it was hangovers all round.
On they cycled for several kilometres meeting no-one, until they reached a fork in the road. Here their progress was arrested by the hard metallic command 'Halt!'. In German. The suddenness of it almost made the riders fall off, and then two khaki clad soldiers emerged from behind a Bren gun carrier with rifles menacingly pointing at them. They meant business.
'Shit! You're British!' was Dave's opening remark. 'Thank God for that.'
'What the hell are you doing here?' asked one of the surprised soldiers'. 'You could have both been
shot. You stupid bastards!'
They were led to the side of the carrier where a jeep was also parked and here, in the relative safety of the corridor so formed they hastily told their story to the officer and four soldiers.
'You're lucky to have run into us,' stated the officer, 'and still have your hides intact. A number of SS
were fleeing in your direction and they'll shoot anything on sight. If they caught up with you and learnt that you were RAF, it would have been curtains. They're mad at the best of times, but in defeat they just go berserk.'
There was a hurried palaver and the officer decided that one of the soldiers should take the jeep and
drive the airmen down the road so many kilometres to a forwarding area, where about 50 soldiers were regrouping for another forward lunge.
'What happens if we meet the SS on the way?' was Dave's query to the driver.
'I'll go like bloody hell,' was the reply.
Then they were off on the last lap to freedom.
Their sojourn at the staging area was short and brief, but full of incident. Everyone was ensuring the
efficiency of their equipment. The trucks and Bren gun carriers were being serviced and refuelled;
weaponry was being cleaned and reloaded; and supplies were being transferred from the trucks to the carriers. There existed a sense of purpose, energy and direction which forcibly impinged itself on
Dave's consciousness. Perhaps it contrasted so sharply with the purposeless existence and monotony of the life that Dave had savoured during the last eighteen months or so. However, his whole being seemed to respond to the new conditions as if they were the necessary stimulus to living and progression.
There was humour, too, in this far-flung outpost of the Allied empire. The sprinkling of German
civilians around was being searched for weapons, but at the back of a large shed, concealed from
prying eyes, another kind of search was in progress. A corporal had five males lined up, and as it
became their turn to be scrutinised each would drop his trousers. Dave thought that this was taking
[page break]
things a little too far and laughingly enquired what the soldier expected to discover by these tactics,
surely not a revolver?
'The cunning bastards!' replied the corporal. 'They often pin their wristwatches to their shirt tails to
keep them warm and comfy and safe from clutching fingers. But the Hun's not going to fool me. I'm
up to his tricks.'
Then it was into a truck and back to Celle, the most forward town in that sector that the Allied armies had overrun and consolidated. The driver informed the airmen that the place was teeming with displaced persons. He described it as similar to the League of Nations, no-one understanding the other person, each doing his own thing and a real melting-pot. The schloss or castle in Celle was where everyone was fed by the Allies, and recommended that this was where they should go.
There were priorities though. Dave felt a bath was a must, and so the two entered a very large house. The place was beautifully appointed, the carpets being luxurious, exuding a warmth and comfort which had been lacking in their lives for so long. However, a deathly hush pervaded the whole atmosphere and was only disturbed by the slight creaking of the stairs as they ascended.
The bathroom was reached and there ensued a difference of opinion about who should have first use, but this was resolved when Welling’s discovered another bathroom at the end of the corridor.
Dave wallowed in the soapy water which caressed his body and soothed his jangled nerves. It was the first bath he had had since being shot down and so he savoured the luxury of it all. Admittedly, the water wasn't really hot, but who cared as long as one could soak, and soak, and soak? Then to encase oneself in clean, fluffy towels and feel the blood coursing in the veins was a delight which had almost been forgotten.
As he left the bathroom clad in dishevelled gear, he felt miserable. His clean, new body was still in
contact with the dirty grimy past and he resolved to start afresh by entering a bedroom and helping
himself to a change of clothing. Rummaging through the wardrobe, he found everything too large for
his skinny frame.
'Jesus!' he exclaimed. 'The bloke who owns these clothes must be a big bastard. I suppose he's on the Russian front or somewhere.'
However, beggars couldn't be choosers, and he attired himself as best he could. All the shoes were far too large, and as he preened himself in the mirror he could not help but notice the incongruity between his smart get-up and the dirty, mud stained boots he had been forced to retain.
'Shit! You look bloody smart, Dave,' was Bill's opening remark, as he burst into the room. 'Bloody
good idea of yours togging yourself up. I'll have a scrounge around, too, and see what I can come up
with. You're thin, Davey Boy. You're like a walking skeleton.'
'People in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones,' was Dave's retort.
They left the house wondering where the inhabitants had gone, and then made their way towards the schloss which was easily discernible by its massive structure. This was their haven and it literally
teemed with displaced persons from all over Europe. The advancing Allies had earmarked the castle as temporary accommodation for the liberated, and the 'inn' was bursting at the seams with the large inflow of 'guests'.
'Talk about the League of Nations and the tower of Babel,' commented Welling’s, 'one needs an
interpreter to understand all the cackle that's going on.'
'I'm not worried about conversation,' came Dave's reply, ‘It's my stomach I want to fill.'
It was after midday and a field kitchen had been set up in the middle of the grounds where army
personnel, cafeteria style, were feeding the long, never-ending queue. One shuffled along at a snail's
[page break]
pace until arriving at the Mecca. Then one grabbed two plates. The larger of the two, the dinner plate, was piled high as one moved along. Firstly, it was potatoes, then a dollop of swede, followed by carrots, and then the whole was smothered with a thick, meaty gravy, which spilled over on the hands. Balancing the laden plate and ensuring that the gravy didn't run away, the other plate was extended for treatment, receiving a generous slab of some form of bread pudding, followed by a liberal pouring of hot, yellow custard.
Then it was to a secluded spot, and seated on a rug they feasted on the succulent, gluey contents,
savouring each mouthful as if it were their last. Then it was the dessert, but the heavy, pudding like
substance, ladened with custard, was too much for shrunken stomachs and they were both forced to
halt long before the plates had been cleared. They not only felt sated but drowsy and like snakes
gorged with prey, lay on their backs and went off to sleep.
The rest was of short duration for within half an hour they were awake and ready to go. They
recuperated easily, a meal and a catnap and energy was restored. The dirty plates were returned to the kitchen, and then they reported to an area clearly marked by the sign: 'British POWs.' An officer took particulars, while an Airborne sergeant resplendent in uniform and red beret stood idly by. They were instructed to eat and sleep in the castle and report again the next day at noon. The interview over, they left and were followed by sergeant.
'You chaps don't need to eat and sleep here,' he called. 'Why don't you come with me and live well?
You deserve something better.'
So the invitation was accepted, and off the three went.
The commandeered premises were spacious, housing about a dozen Red Devils, whose tough, rugged, healthy appearance exuded bonhomie and comradeship. It was little wonder that they were on top of the world for their division, the Sixth Airborne, had made the successful drop on the east bank of the Rhine and secured Montgomery's crossing at Wesel. They felt that the war was nearing its end and had only one more mission to complete, the crossing of the Elbe, for which they were regrouping. The hospitality was lavish with cigarettes galore and plenty of everything—a far cry from the prisoners' yesterdays.
'What about us all going for a swim?' someone suggested, and then laughingly added, 'we'll be
acclimatised then if we miscue and finish up in the Elbe.'
'Christ!' someone exclaimed. 'I know it's a sunny day, but remember it's still only mid-April. It'll be
bloody chilly.'
So it was decided everyone was going swimming, including the airmen, and they'd be off very shortly
before the heat went out of the sun.
Dave felt tired and lay on a bed. A five minutes' rest he felt would restore him and so be ready for the excursion. He closed his eyes.
It was after 10 the next morning when he awoke.
'Nice to see you awake, Sleeping Beauty!' remarked one of the Airborne boys humorously. 'You've
been asleep about 20 hours—missed the swim and last night's entertainment.'
'You didn't miss much with the swim,' volunteered Welling’s, 'it was bloody cold—your balls froze.
Last night was terrific though, we went out and really enjoyed ourselves.'
'Yes, the entertainment went on when we got back here, too,' continued a sergeant. 'We had a game of indoor rugger, and someone was tackled and brought down right on top of you. You didn't budge.
Must have been really buggered.
'I didn't feel anything, ' muttered Dave. 'I suppose I really needed the sleep.
[page break]
CHAPTER XXIX
At 20 minutes past noon Dave and Welling’s reported to the area in the schloss marked, 'British
POWs', and were promptly reprimanded by the officer-in-charge.
'When I tell you to report at noon, I mean twelve o'clock and not 20 minutes later,' he raved. 'You're
back in the service now good and proper, so pull your finger out! No more dragging the chain and
bouncing the ball around!'
Then he addressed the other five POWs present. 'I'll be back in a few minutes,' and, looking
menacingly at the latecomers, continued, 'Wait here, and no clearing off!'
He then left.
'Officious bastard!' exclaimed one of the men. 'I bet that's all he's done throughout the war is give
orders. His life has been full of 'Yes, sir!', 'No, sir!', 'Three bags full, sir.'’
'He ought to have had a spell in the lager,' stated Welling’s, 'that would have knocked the shit out of
him.'
Within 10 minutes the officer returned with a truck and the seven newly-liberated were bundled
aboard and taken to the airfield where they were placed aboard a Douglas transport. The take-off was quite smooth, but Dave felt the butterflies in the stomach as the plane lunged forward gathering height and momentum. It was the first time he had been airborne since that fatal night and the apprehension was understandable.
'How you're feeling, Davey Boy?' yelled Welling’s above the roar of the engines. 'Remember the last
time?'
'I feel bloody wonderful,' lied Dave, 'It's a piece of cake.'
The plane landed at Brussels, and the seven of them were whisked away by truck to a sort of hostel
where they were plied with Red Cross goodies, such as a safety razor and blades, a shaving brush and fresh underwear. Thus they were able to bath, shave and improve the appearance, then indulge in the luxury of a clean vest and underpants. Re-vitalized, they were ready for a night out on the town. However, the essential ingredient, money, was lacking so they had to settle on a Service canteen.
The night wasn't particularly successful because they felt their German civilian clothes made them the object of attention and comment. Eyes were cast in their direction by the uniformed hordes frequenting the place and the obvious questions that were never asked: what the hell were civilians doing in a place like this, and who let them in et cetera? However, the night passed without incident.
The next day they were flown to England, and, on disembarking, Dave turned to Welling’s and stated: 'Well the experience we've had will stand us in good stead in the future.'
'I don't mind the experience now that it's over,' replied Welling’s, 'but Jesus I wouldn't want to go
through it all again.’ 'Never mind!' responded Dave. 'Think of the yarns you'll be able to tell everyone. You'll be the life and soul of the party.'
'Bullshit!' was Welling’s' reply. 'No-one will want to listen and, if they do, they'll think you're a bloody, big line-shooter.'
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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One man in his time
Description
An account of the resource
Writes of his last operation in a Halifax when his aircraft was shot down and exploded killing all the other members of the crew. Describes journey to camp and being in Frankfurt while it is under bombing attack. Continues with description of life as a prisoner of war in East Prussia and Poland and the people he meets. Writes of forced march back to Germany, escape and recapture near Belsen before linking up with British forces and repatriation. At the beginning are two photographs; first of an airborne Halifax with clouds below, captioned 'Handley-Page Halifax B MkII (RAF*)' . Second a half length portrait of an airman wearing battledress with navigator brevet. Captioned 'Author: Warrant Officer David Griffin (1945)'. On next page are two maps of UK and Northern Europe, captioned 'Referenced Locations' and 'Referenced locations as located within 2017 international borders'.
Creator
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David A J Griffin
Format
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102 page printed pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BGriffinDAJGriffinDAJv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Netherlands
Lithuania
Lithuania--Šilutė
Belgium
Belgium--Brussels
Netherlands--Amsterdam
Poland
Germany
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Celle
Temporal Coverage
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1943-09-27
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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David Bloomfield
aircrew
animal
anti-Semitism
bomb aimer
bombing
crash
displaced person
Dulag Luft
fear
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Holocaust
killed in action
love and romance
military living conditions
missing in action
prisoner of war
sanitation
shot down
sport
Stalag Luft 6
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1064/11520/AParkeRG161019.1.mp3
a6c231d8feaa86fb5a16ca4352d65ea2
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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Parke, Ray
Ray G Parke
R G Parke
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Ray Parke (b. 1925, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 218 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Parke, RG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: David Kavanagh, International Bomber Command Centre, interviewing Raymond, Ray Parke at his home, 19th October 2016. [unclear] Very much.
US: Ok.
RP: Alright, I’ve just looked at me logbook. [unclear] Unfortunately most of the story was written down here,
DK: Oh! [laughs]
RP: He was my navigator.
DK: Oh, ok.
RP: And this is the crew.
DK: If I just put that down there, is that ok? Let’s hope it’s not too [unclear]
RP: Yes, yes. [unclear]
DK: Ah, so which one are you then? Right, ok. So that was your crew then, was it?
RP: That’s right, yes.
DK: You name, still name them all?
RP: OH yes. George Klenner, the skipper, Australian, George Bell, wireless operator, Les Walker, navigator, Paul Songest, mid upper, Paul McCalla, rear gunner, and Miles Tripp, bomb aimer.
US: You’re the only one left now [laughs].
RP: I’m the only one left now. They’ve all gone.
DK: So what’s the name of the rear gunner, sorry?
RP: That’s Miles Tripp.
DK: Miles Tripp, yes. So, he’s written that book.
RP: That’s right, yes, and that’s just the story of how he phoned us all up and then recalled the various trips we did.
US: Yes.
DK: Oh, ok.
US: He came [unclear]
DK: Were they all British then your crew?
RP: No, Jamaican and Australian, the rest of them were British, yes, yeah.
DK: That’s quite unusual, Jamaican.
RP: We didn’t get on awfully well, I’m a Norfolk dumpling and he’s a Londoner [laughs] and so and that was quite a laugh at the end, but
DK: Bit of change at the end.
RP: Yeah. [laughs]
US: Excuse me.
RP: That’s the same picture are more or less [unclear].
DK: Alright, ok.
RP: These pictures were taken from you see, this is a news chronicle.
DK: Right, so, just for the benefit of the tape here, so the book’s called the eight passenger,
RP: That’s right, yeah.
DK: A flight of recollection and discovery by Miles Tripp, ok.
RP: Yes, yeah. And I think they got a picture of the Lancaster here somewhere, no, that’s not there, there is something else, no, that’s not there, this newspaper photograph that was taken they day we landed from our fortieth and we were agreed by all the big buicks from number 3 group because we were the only crew in 3 group to complete forty operations in one tour,
DK: Wow!
RP: You know how they extended the tour a couple of times and as soon as we landed they said went back to [unclear] [laughs]
DK: So you did forty operations altogether.
RP: Yes, yeah.
DK: And was that all with 218 Squadron?
RP: Yes, yes.
DK: Ok. Can I just ask then, we are sort of going back a bit, what were you doing immediately before the war?
RP: Before the war, we both worked on the railway.
US: Yeah, you were
RP: She was on the LNER station Norwich and I was on the MGN at Norwich.
US: That’s how we met.
RP: That’s how we met.
US: [unclear]
RP: And I was the messenger and you the [unclear] and so we got together in that way.
DK: Ok. If I keep looking down I’m just checking that the tape’s ok, if that’s alright.
RP: Oh yes.
DK: Yes. [laughs] Sorry, I should have said. So what, so how many years were you working on the railway then?
RP: 1939 till 1943.
US: I 1939 to 1949.
RP: yeah.
US: [unclear]
RP: Yes. So I joined the RAF in 1943, September, you know, the usual thing, ACRC, London, and went through
DK: Just stepping back a bit, what made you want to join the RAF then, was as opposed to the army or navy?
RP: My best friend at school was a man named David [unclear] he was about three or four months older than me and he joined up first, he became a flight engineer and so I wanted to become a flight engineer. But first of all, when I enrolled, you can see, I was rather a different shape, and so they said, well, you are too big to be an air gunner, would you like to be a wireless operator? I said, no, not particularly, and so remustered to become a flight engineer and the test for that, I said, do you anything about engines? I said, no, can you describe for me a cotter pin? Yes, I said, and I described one on a bicycle, oh, that will do, you’re in.
DK: So based on that they decided you could be a flight engineer.
RP: That’s right, yes, yes.
DK: So, what was your initial training, then, as you joined the RAF?
RP: I was just working as a messenger on the railway
DK: Yes, yes. So, once you were in the RAF, what was your training then?
RP: The usual thing, we joined up and then go to ACRC, ITW, OTU, and then St Athans and then engineering instruction at St Athans and from there
DK: You remember which operational training unit you were with?
RP: Yes, there’s an OTU, I can’t remember whether it is 17, yes, yeah. But with the flight engineer, you don’t join the crew until, more or less at our stage, the other five trained separately on smaller aircraft and when they go on to a larger four-engine aircraft [unclear] engineer joins. And that’s the usual procedure then that you’re all put together in a big hall and you are told to get together and sort yourselves out a crew.
DK: Did you think that worked cause it’s rather unusual way of getting the crews together, getting
RP: It seems to work, in my case I was standing by the wall like a wallflower and he came across me and said
DK: Is that your pilot came over
RP: Yes, he said, are you Ray Park? I said, yes. He said, is that you at the top of the list? At first, I said, yes, alright you’re in [laughs]. And from there we did the training, initial training and started along the squadron, 218 Squadron, at Methwold near Norfolk in September ’44 and at that stage I was about eighteen and a half and by the time I was just under twenty I had finished forty operations. So I was one of the youngest at that time.
DK: So can you remember vividly your first operation?
RP: Yes, I can tell you,
DK: [unclear]
RP: It was to Duisburg and it was one of the first thousand bomber operations and ironically our fortieth was another thousand bomber operation. Duisburg, that’s the [unclear] and the [unclear]
DK: Ok, fine. So your first operation then was the fourteenth of October?
RP: That’s right. Yes. [unclear]
DK: That’ll be ok, we’re still picking up. So, fourteenth of October, so the pilots, flying officer
RP: Flying officer Klenner. It was a daytime operation at first and then within the same twenty-four hours a second one, to Duisburg.
DK: Alright, so daytime operation, fourteenth of October to Duisburg and then the same night
RP: Same night
DK: Same night, Duisburg again
RP: Yeah, back to Duisburg, and they were thousand bomber raids and that was our introduction
DK: So your next operations then are, is that the nineteenth of October to Stuttgart.
RP: Yes, a place called Stuttgart.
DK: So twenty fifth of October, Essen.
RP: That’s right.
DK: And then twenty ninth of October, West Kapelle.
RP: West Kapelle, yeah.
DK: And then,
RP: And then, Cologne.
DK: Thirteenth of October, Cologne.
RP: Cologne, yes.
DK: So there’s a lot of operations all in a short space of time.
RP: Yes, in the German part called the Ruhr. Essen, Cologne and places like that and they were the hotspots.
DK: So then it’s November then, so, fourth of November.
RP: November, yes.
DK: Solingen.
RP: Solingen.
DK: Fifth of November, Solingen again. So, twenty third of November, Gelsenkirchen. Twenty six of November, Fulda. Twenty seventh of November, Cologne again. Twenty ninth of November
RP: Cause it’s difficult to remember the individual ones, [unclear] some of them in here. The most tight one as far as I am concerned was Dresden, that was, very [unclear] choice but that was much later on.
DK: So just, as your role as a flight engineer then, what were your duties on the
RP: Flight engineer was really the second pilot, you sit alongside the pilot and mine, your main job is to look after the engines and keep the fuel running and anything that’s needed in, I’ll show you a picture of the engineer’s panel, that was my domain, you see, with all the [unclear] and then I had to help with take-off and landing, undercarriage and on the flaps, and bomb, what they called?
DK: Bomb doors.
RP: Bomb doors, yeah. And as the pilot takes off, so my hand comes up behind him and takes over with the throttles and likewise coming back, wheels down with the [unclear] bomb doors open, that sort of thing.
DK: So what were you actually trained on then? Was it sort of training at the OTU on the Lancasters as well or?
RP: Yes, I did a short while on two engines at Wellingtons and then Stirlings, there’s the first four-engine bomber and I did the initial training on that and at that time I joined up with the rest of the crew and then we all went over and converted onto Lancasters and it was Lancasters for the rest of the time.
DK: So what was your thoughts of the Lancasters then as an aircraft?
RP: Marvellous, yes, wonderful.
DK: So most of these raids were into Germany, aren’t they?
RP: Yes, the only one that wasn’t in Germany was to a place called West Kapelle, in Holland, all the rest were Germany.
DK: So were there any occasions when you, the aircraft was damaged at all [unclear]
RP: Yes, this one here and you’ll see, we were diverted to Dishforth I think, somewhere from Scarborough and we had to, we lost an engine over the target and we couldn’t maintain height and we were coming down slowly but not enough power to maintain our course and a Mustang came along [unclear] and escorting us back across the Channel. And we landed at St Eval in Cornwall and we had to leave the plane behind then because it was too badly damaged.
DK: So had that been hit by flak or [unclear]?
RP: Yes, which had caused damage to the engine which made unsearchable [unclear]
DK: What were your thoughts when you saw a Mustang flying alongside?
RP: Was jolly relieved but I mean, he came down on us, I think he was American, and as we got to St Eval as we were going round he just gave us a two fingers and off he went, we never did know who he was [unclear] at all.
DK: Were you ever attacked by German fighters or?
RP: Oh yes, there were several cases where we were damaged by fighters but most damage was by flak, actually. We were quite fortunate there’s one occasion when the windscreen was smashed and a piece of shrapnel came right through my strap, you know, we had the straps on, but we never did find it,
DK: So it was forty altogether then?
RP: Yes, I’ll tell you the story about the last trip. The commanding officer of our squadron wasn’t very popular and we used to call him ‘The Vicar’, although he’s very experienced pilot, perhaps I shouldn’t say all this.
DK: No, it’s ok [laughs]. What goes public we’ll decide afterwards.
RP: I see. Anyway he said at briefing, “Today chaps it’s Flight Lieutenant Klenner’s last trip and when you get back, you’ll have to be on your best behaviour because we are expecting some visitor and also being the fortieth operation, Klenner will be leading the squadron.” Well, we always used to hate flying in ‘Vic’ formation nobody would ever do it. Anyway we went to the last trip to Essen [unclear] but as soon as we left the target the whole squadron formated (sic) up in ‘Vics’, never ever done it before [unclear]. Something I will never ever forget. I’ll remember that.
DK: So how come you ended up doing forty operations then when the tour was, I think, thirty and then 25?
RP: At the end of 1944 was the Battle of the Bulge, when the German forces broke back through the American sector and we were short of aircrews, the message came through, “We are short of aircrews and aircraft, you will have to do another five operations”. So, we moaned and groaned about it. Anyway, we can’t do anything about it. Carried on did the 35, the same thing happened, “Sorry, we are still short you’ll have to go on and do forty.”
“Oh! No!” Leslie says and he applied to leave straight away, some leave, anyway he came back and then do the other last 5 to forty and the day we got back from that, they rescinded the order, and it went back to normal.
DK: You/d done 40 by then.
RP: Yeah.
DK: So your last operation was March 11th to Essen.
RP: That’s right.
US: [unclear]
RP: Yeah, Duisburg
US: [unclear]
DK: I’ll tell you, I’ll just turn the recorder off for a moment cause.
RP: Witten was another place which was pretty hairy but apart from telling you that with the flak bursts and the [unclear] dodging about when you are flying over the target this is little more light and say and just
DK: So just going back to your training a little bit and when you were flying the Stirlings, what was your thought about those aircraft?
RP: They were awkward, slow aircraft, they wouldn’t fly very high and in fact we [unclear] one off in the, what was that, west [unclear], there was a short runway and I think George was trying to get down to meet his WAAF friend in no time and instead of going round again, he shortcut and we landed in a ditch and whipped the wheels right off. But that’s the only real time [unclear]
DK: What about the Wellingtons before that
RP: The Wellingtons was really, as far as I was, only to get used to flying and, it was just about a couple of weeks [unclear].
DK: So you are quite pleased you never did any operations in the Stirlings?
RP: Oh yes, yes, well, they were getting, this time, you see, was getting on towards the end of 1944 and they were getting a bit obsolete.
DK: Yeah.
RP: Yeah. As far as the flight engineer training, that was mostly done at St Athans in Wales, yeah, and well, it was quite separate from, they were all flight engineers down there, that’s what you’d learn.
DK: So what form of training did it, cause you obviously said you weren’t from an engineering background, was it really quite basic to start with?
RP: It was a matter of lectures mostly and studying the
DK: That’s the flight engineer’s notes for Lancaster aircraft.
RP: Yes. That’s mostly ground training, getting used to the engines and the equipment and pictures in the aircraft
DK: So just [unclear], that was your number there then.
RP: Yes.
DK: 300
RP: 5095, yes.
DK: So, number one hundred entry St Athan.
RP: Yes.
DK: So this book is issued by [unclear], is it?
RP: Yes, yes.
DK: The tanks.
RP: We spend some time at the Avro factory in Manchester and you see, we learned all these things, [unclear] and all that sort of things, were all the procedures.
DK: So that’s the drill before taxiing.
RP: Yes.
DK: Drill [unclear] action immediately before take-off. Do you think you could still do that now?
RP: No. I can’t even, I can’t read, when I read them, I can’t even remember them, no.
DK: This is quite a, quite detailed, isn’t it, with your cutaways,
RP: Yes, it was a six month course, I think,
DK: So, you’d be standing in the cockpit there then.
RP: Yes, that’s right. Right next to the pilot.
DK: So, did you, I’ve always wondered what the arrangement was there in the Lancaster because did you actually have a seat or were you standing?
RP: There was a little [unclear] a small deck chair type of thing and it was clipped onto the side of the aircraft and then you bring it over and clip it by the undercarriage and just clip on and just like a small deckchair
DK: So just a piece of canvas, basically.
RP: Piece of canvas, yeah, yeah.
DK: So, how long were you sitting on that for then? Longest operation?
RP: You don’t sit very long, there was always something to do, keep an eye on the engines and anything else. And another thing, cause if the bomb aimer was working with the navigator, he would be behind me as well, there wouldn’t be too much space. And also if we were carrying what we call a dicky pilot, he would want to sit in my seat.
DK: So, how often did you carry the second pilot then?
RP: Oh, three or four times, I suppose, yeah. But we had one occasion where he was rather a bit blusterous, young officer type and before we took off, he questioned us all as to what we did on the aircraft so we all [unclear] him and coming back Diggs, the engineer said, the pilot said, he always had an occasion to fly low when he could, well, he frightened the life out of this dicky pilot coming back and so much so that I think he walked away and didn’t speak to us anymore [laughs].
DK: So what rank was your pilot then, was he
RP: Well, he finished up as a flight lieutenant but when we all first joined he was a sergeant.
DK: Right. How did that work then with the pilot being a sergeant and then still having officers around him?
RP: Well, in our case that tended to split the crew up a little bit when he became an officer but it was an occasion when he tried to smuggle himself into the sergeants mess for a dance and of course the CO caught him [laughs].
DK: I suppose that was a bit difficult when you couldn’t sort of socialize together.
RP: Yeah, well, he was a typical Ozzie so he didn’t [unclear] for anybody.
DK: I just make sure the tape is ok. So, can I have another look at the logbook?
RP: Yeah.
DK: Most of your operations, were they in the same Lancaster or [unclear]
RP: [unclear]
DK: J
RP: Yes, J.
DK: J, A.
RP: J, A most of them were in A. And
DK: And that’s what there’s a picture of in the book.
RP: Yes, yeah. And the last one was K King. This is the navigator’s logbook, not navigator’s, bomb aimer’s.
DK: Alright. So that was your bomb aimers.
RP: Yes, yes. That shows all his training and
DK: Oh, alright, so he’s, so Tripp then was with the Royal Canadian Airforce.
RP: I don’t know, he was trained in Canada but he [unclear]
DK: I see, alright, ok. And it’s him who has written the book.
RP: He, I think he’d must have become a pilot but he didn’t make it so he was finished as a bomb aimer.
DK: So I just ask then about February the thirteenth, you got Dresden.
RP: Dresden.
DK: And then the other raids were to Chemnitz.
RP: That’s right. Dresden was about the longest trip we had, does it tell there how many hours they were?
DK: Nine hours thirty.
RP: Nine hours. And it was the most horrendous fires, seeing the target, it was a fire we could see from miles away and the town was well on fire by the time we arrived there.
DK: So you were in the second wave.
RP: Yes, we were tours at the end of the time but I mean apart from, it is difficult to remember but I don’t recall any [unclear] problems I mean there were times when we were all glad to get out as a way we dropped the bombs and stick our nose down and get away as quick as we could and then the same night we went back to the next door place
DK: Chemnitz.
RP: Chemnitz.
DK: So Chemnitz on the full trip.
RP: Yes. And that was when the Russians were breaking through at Chemnitz into Germany and there was a lot of controversy about too much damage being done.
DK: Was anything mentioned about Dresden at the briefing beforehand?
RP: No, just that we are, all our understanding was that the Russians were making a breakthrough and that was to aid them by making ways to help them through.
DK: So you could see the city alight.
RP: Yes, cause that was mostly an incendiary raid and they were sort of all mostly wooden houses I think and it was a huge raid and the Americans they had about three or four that apart from these two trips they would, the Americans were doing two or three times a day as well.
DK: So can you remember what your load would have been there, would that have been incendiaries?
RP: [unclear]
DK: February the 13th 1945.
RP: Dresden, it doesn’t say.
DK: It doesn’t say, no.
RP: [unclear], I’m sorry, no record. That really wasn’t my department, you see, the bomb aimer was in charge of all that.
DK: So, could you perhaps talk through what a normal day in a raid would take place, when you get up in the mornings and
RP: Yes, that would be the normal, call in the morning in time for breakfast and in the normal way after breakfast you would go to your department, the flight engineer’s department and take what orders you were given and when you gonna test your aircraft or anything, special instructions, and then you would look at the board to see what the crews were on duty for the night and then if your name was on the list you know what time to be prepared and you go and get yourself ready for the briefing and there would be a separate briefing for the pilots and the bomb aimers and navigators and then the general briefing for the rest of us. And then there’d be a question of going to the take-off with the rest of the crew, take your equipment on check on the aircraft, previously they would have perhaps done half an hour flight to check everything was in order and in the time of take-off, my job then was to assist with the take-off sitting alongside the pilot and when the green light comes on to take-off, take off the power as we took off we had one aircraft’s called K King used to swing very, very badly and sort of question of pushing one side up more than the other so to keep the aircraft straight but then we would be taking off and the navigator would take over and find your course, you would climb to height and then you joined the rest of the stream. The first trip we did to Duisburg, we were told, was as to be a thousand bomber raid, we went all through the procedure, we took off and after a while Les, the navigator said to the pilot, turn on to such and such a course and we will join the rest of the stream, so he turned on to the course and then after a little while a voice comes from the back of the plane, that’s Harry in the rear turret, this is a very funny thousand bomber raid, I can’t see a soul up here and there wasn’t another aircraft anyway. And so we pressed on and pressed on and after a while the pilot shouted, what’s, what are those few dots up there end? And there was a crew, rest of the stream [unclear] so we managed to catch them up. Our first trip over Germany found us half way opposed to the target on our own [laughs]. And then there would be the, you know, the bombing run [unclear], the bomb aimer would take over and you’re to give the pilot instructions where to go and after the bomb doors are opened and he would then do his run up, left, left, right, right and then bomb’s gone, door’s shut, door’s up and then the navigator would say, course number so and so and so and you’d turn around and come back, by this time there’s when you’re getting all the flak and the disturbance and little puffs of smoke coming up around about and the bomb’s going down from the planes above and all that sort of thing. And generally when you get clear of the target half an hour just a go for the odd fighter and then after another couple of hours you’re getting towards the coast and generally speaking you were clear and back to land.
DK: So what was your feelings once you got back?
RP: Relieved, we would all sit down and when you land, you sort of [unclear] and you sit down [unclear] before you move to get out the aircraft.
DK: So what’s the debriefing then?
RP: Then you go to the debriefing and you’d have to report on what [unclear] the target and the weather and if the results and all that sort of thing, bomb damage and opposition and it was the aircrew breakfast, eggs and bacon.
DK: I bet you looked forward to that [laughs]
RP: Yes, yes.
DK: So did you, after you’ve done your operations and, did you and the crew tend to stick together and [unclear]
RP: Yes, we did, yes.
DK: Any pubs you went to?
RP: Yes, the one at Chedburgh was called The Greyhound, I used to drink them dry
US: [unclear]
RP: Yes, and then, actually we didn’t, we didn’t go out too much, there wasn’t a lot of time, we are talking about cramming in forty operations between September and 11th of March.
DK: I was gonna say yes, it’s very busy at that period.
RP: Yes.
DK: So your aircraft then was one of the, I noticed in the book, the G-H markings?
RP: Yes.
DK: So was that for daylight operations then? The G-H radar?
RP: Yes, yeah, and as you said, you had the marking on the tail, oh, it’s not on that one, and then you had two followers when you dropped your bombs, they dropped their bombs, that’s because we bombed through cloud, you see.
DK: So that’s the G-H leader with the markings on the tail, they were bombing when you did.
RP: That’s right, yes.
DK: You see the two aircraft following.
RP: Yes, yeah.
DK: So after your forty operations then, what happened to you then?
RP: I became an instructor at a school to teach other people to be instructors, that was at Silverstone, which now of course is a racetrack.
DK: And was that on Lancasters as well?
RP: That was on Lancasters, yes. After the fortieth operation when we all broke up and went our separate ways, I swear I just can’t remember several weeks, you know, what I did, where I went, or did anything.
DK: You think that was perhaps down to stress and
RP: Just stress and relief, yes, but as I say, I was still less than twenty years old, was the youngest of the crew.
DK: So, did you stay in touch with your crew then after that
RP: Yes, we had several reunions that we did and on one occasion we did something like this for a German television program but I never did get to see it.
DK: Ah, alright. Was it ever shown?
RP: It was shown, yes, I heard people have seen it but I didn’t see it myself.
DK: I’ve just turned that off again. So, the Dresden raid.
RP: [unclear] anything try to find it, can you? Here we are, this is Dresden, [unclear] in another book but anyway on the Dresden raid there was a lot of controversy about unnecessary damage and Miles Tripp said quite openly that he deliberately missed the target because he thought there was just too much, I thought that was in here, somewhere.
DK: Page 79, sir. Dresden raid, bombing of Dresden.
RP: [unclear] that must have been another book, anyway he got in trouble about that, he said that he felt unhappy about the raid and he dropped his bombs a long way away from the target, I thought it was in here somewhere, but nobody ever proved that
DK: I see if I can see this, [sneezes] excuse me, chapter ten, chapter nine mentions
RP: That’s right.
DK: Yeah.
RP: Well, you see, we, Harry the Jamaican, seemed to be able to forecast where we were going before anybody knew anything about it and it, you know, with these Jamaican people, they sometimes are a bit of a sort of clairvoyant and people used to remark, how is it you know, Harry, where we are going? I don’t know, he says, I’m just guessing at but they got to the stage where they tried to test him on it and they went to check where the stream was going and then came back to ask Harry where he thought we were going and then he realised that they were testing him and he wasn’t very happy about it. And, it’s all in here, somewhere.
DK: Do you think he’d have his premonitions or?
RP: No, I think [unclear], I’m sure it’s in here somewhere, yes, something but it was one of those rare mornings in November when the sky is completely blue and there is a false warmth in the air as though spring managed to bypass winter. Harry and I strolled for a small pine wood near the briefing room, kicking stones with our flying boots, without any [unclear], without any preamble he said, last night I dreamed of standing by a tombstone of an old friend, someone who’d been killed in an air crash when I was in Canada, it hadn’t been long before he appeared and held out his hand to greet me I don’t like that sort of dream and there was another occasion when he virtually refused to fly, he wouldn’t get in the plane and as it happened, he, the trip was cancelled but he got the premonition in his line that he wouldn’t fly that particular night and they tried to test him but that wasn’t very successful.
DK: [unclear] Dresden took off at 21.40, [unclear] Dresden.
RP: I’m sure he said somewhere about
DK: Yeah.
RP: [unclear]
DK: He said. There’s, page 85, he says, I told Dig to turn to starboard to the south of the city, he swung the aircraft away from the heart of the inferno and when we were just beyond the fringe of the fires, I pressed the bomb release, I hoped the load would fall in open country and page 85.
RP: Yes.
DK: I couldn’t forget what we’ve been told at briefing, all the old newsreel of the German dive-bombing. Here.
RP: Yeah.
DK: So when you got back then, was it questioned where you’d bombed then?
RP: No, this, this all came up later on, I think. that’s right, he said that when we got to the target there was no, no markers and he said, there was no sign from the master bomber and there were no flares marking the target.
DK: So how do you look back on that now, then?
RP: No, that’s all gone, yeah. In retrospect, it was at this point I became something like mercenary, just a night trip, the quiver of outrage at the briefing for Dresden dropping the bombs clear of the, in the hope that they would fall harmlessly in fields was a last gesture to an ideal of common humanity. To be honest, I’m not sure which I find more distasteful, actually the idea of bombing refugees or the idea that the Allies were bombing refugees it was all right but when the Germans bombed refugees it was all wrong.
DK: So that’s from, it’s just for the recording, that’s a quote from Miles Tripp book, page 89.
RP: That’s right, page 89, yeah.
DK: So he obviously had even then concerns, didn’t he? Did he, did you sort of talk about it after the war at all or as you say, it was just
RP: Well, I suppose half a dozen times we met after the war
US: Oh yes, yeah.
RP: So, that wasn’t really the occasion to, talk about that sort of thing.
DK: No, no.
US: Then we went down to see him
RP: Yes, yes.
DK: So, whereabouts was he living then?
RP: Barnet
US: Histon, Hertfordshire.
RP: Hartfield.
US: Hartfield, yes.
DK: So, has he passed away quite recently or?
RP: It was a few years ago, at that time when we were flying he’s, he was going with a WAAF in the control tower and I think they got married, didn’t he, eventually but and at normal times we had, he used to, during the times we weren’t flying, he’d go to stay at the Angel hotel, where his lady friend but there were times where we had to rush out and get him back in time and we had two or three old motorbikes in the crew then, we used to run on a hundred octane and we had to chase him and bring him back.
US: It’s going back then
DK: Ok, well that’s, [unclear] oh, thanks very much for that, that’s very good. So was there a big fuss made of the fortieth operation?
RP: Oh yes, yeah, and the annoying thing was that, when the squadron was disbanded shortly after the war, everything was destroyed, I’ve never been able to find anything of the squadron records of 218.
DK: No?
RP: And I’ve never found anything about people happen to do more than thirty operations.
DK: Yeah. I mean, it is unusual but, I’ve met people who have done like sixty or more operations in two tours.
RP: That’s right yeah.
DK: Not seen [unclear] like that.
RP: But the thing about this is in less than six months.
DK: Yeah.
RP: [unclear]
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 Ray Parke. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AParkeRG161019
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:46:13 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Ray Parke worked on the railway before joining the RAF in 1943. Remembers flying forty operations as a flight engineer with 218 Squadron by the time he was twenty. Tells about operations on Essen and the Ruhr. Discusses the Dresden operation, giving a vivid first-hand account of it; tells of how Miles Tripp, the bomb aimer, expressed doubts about the operation and tried to drop the bombload away from the target. Remembers his first operation on Duisburg and the last one, both being thousand bomber attacks. Tells of his crew members: Harry McCalla, the Jamaican rear gunner, who was rumoured to possess clairvoyant abilities. Mentions becoming an instructor at RAF Silverstone, after his fortieth operation.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Northamptonshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Solingen
Germany--Stuttgart
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
218 Squadron
African heritage
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
displaced person
flight engineer
Gee
Lancaster
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
P-51
perception of bombing war
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Methwold
RAF Silverstone
RAF St Athan
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1063/11519/AParkerE160505.2.mp3
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1063/11519/PParkerE1603.1.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Parker, Eric
E Parker
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Eric Parker (b. 1924, 1522919 Royal Air Force), a photograph and a biography. He flew operations as a navigator with 12 and 166 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Eric Parker and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-05
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Parker, E
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
EP: A child then up to eighteen.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
EP: And then going in the RAF.
GR: Right. This is Gary Rushbrooke for the International Bomber Command Centre at Lincoln. I am today with Eric Parker at his home in Formby, Merseyside and the date is the 5th of May 2016. Right then, Eric, I know we’re in Formby, was you born round here? Are you from this area?
EP: I was born on the 10th of January 1924 in West Derby, Liverpool. In those days West Derby was a small detached village joined to the main City of Liverpool by a tramway.
GR: Oh right.
EP: And I went to the local village school, which was St Mary’s Church of England School, very adjacent to the big church, which lays right in the middle of West Derby village. I was at the school, it was a boy’s only side of the school, there was a girl’s department on the other side. I was in the school for — ‘til I was fourteen and I left and took up work immediately, as everybody did in those days.
GR: Did you have any brothers or sisters at the same, at the time?
EP: I had two brothers. One named Sydney and one named Reginald. They were both older than me.
GR: Both older brothers.
EP: So, I was the junior in the family. My first job was a lift attendant in a national bank, a seven storey building, which was a skyscraper in its day, in Liverpool. And as a lift attendant, I attended to all the needs of the staff who worked in the various offices, going to toilets and things like that. And I was there for about a year but I’d always wanted to be an apprentice electrician, and an opening came up, and I went down and got the job as apprentice electrician for seven and six a week. This was a drop in my wages, because in the lift attendant I was getting fourteen shillings a week.
GR: Right.
EP: Which was a very big wage for the time.
GR: And a big drop in wages to seven and six.
EP: However, I didn’t last long as an apprentice electrician because one day, the owner of the business wanted me to work on a Saturday, on a special job, and I said, ‘I’m sorry Mr Carling’, that was his name, ‘I can’t do this because I’m going into Liverpool to see “Robin Hood and His Merry Men of Sherwood”, at the Paramount Cinema’. He said, ‘Oh very good. Very good’. he said, ‘Enjoy it then, and you can take your cards at the same time’. So for a while I was on the, on the, not on the dole, I wasn’t old enough to get dole. I was, had to go to the dole school, and I did a bit of time there in the workshops, on metalwork and I learned quite a lot about metalwork. But I did have a small job in between, when I went to Hunter’s Handy Hams in Broadgreen, where they were canning bacon for the troops. And I spent about three weeks there doing a casual labour, and it was quite hard work. I was carrying these cans ready to be boiled and tinned.
GR: Yeah. Had war broken out by then?
EP: The war had broken out by this time. And I was on the dole, not the dole, unemployed.
GR: Yeah.
EP: I should say, for several months. My dad got a bit fed up. He said, ‘Get out and get a job. Can’t be having you doing nothing all day. We need money in the house’, because he was a farm labourer, and he wasn’t on a very big wage. So, lo and behold, in the newspapers in Liverpool, the Liverpool Echo, there came an advert for student gardeners, that meant they would learn all about gardening and would spend one week — one day a week, in the Liverpool Technical College, learning soil science and hygiene and various botanical things. All about gardening. And I was in, I was posted to Newsham Park, in the greenhouses there, I was there for a year. And then the following year, they posted me to a place called Harbreck Farm, near Fozakerley Hospital at the time, and I was there for another year and it was very hard work. And by this time, I’d reached the age of seventeen and a half years, and the war was, the phoney war was at its height, and they were looking for aircrew, young people to go in aircrew. Volunteers. So, I was seventeen and a half at this time, this was in June of 1941, so along with my friend, we volunteered for aircrew and we was posted on deferred service and was called up, finally, in the January of 1942.
GR: Right. Had your two brothers gone into the Forces?
EP: Well, both brothers went into the Army.
GR: Right.
EP: And they served — one served in Italy. I tell a lie. My other brother — one of my brothers went to Italy, served in Italy. My other brother, Syd, went into the Air Force, but he was invalided out with stomach trouble, so he only had a short six months of service.
GR: Right.
EP: So that left me as the young one. So, in 1942, January, I was called up and my first posting was to the Aircrew Recruiting Centre in London, and we lived in one of the big luxury flats there.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Stopney Hall, I think it was called.
GR: Yeah. That was St John’s Wood and Lord’s Cricket Ground.
EP: Around St John’s Wood and Lord’s
GR: Yeah.
EP: That’s correct. I was there for about three weeks while we got our, my jabs and all the other things, all recorded and things like that, and finally, I was posted on a three week course, learning Morse code and semaphore — to Brighton. And that lasted three weeks where we learned, we became quite proficient at Morse code and semaphore flags, and from there, I was posted to Paignton in Devon, to a twelve week course of ITW, Initial Training Wing.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And there, we learned all the ins and outs of aircrew.
GR: Did you know what you were going to be then or –?
EP: At his time, we were posted as PNB. Could have been a pilot, could have been a navigator, or we could have been a bomb aimer.
GR: Oh, so it was one of the three. Yeah.
EP: Of that three, you were automatically put on a pilot’s course, and having finished our ITW, was posted on a grading school, on Tiger Moths, to a little airfield named Sywell, which was near Leicester.
GR: Yeah.
EP: If I remember. And there we did twelve hours flying on Tiger Moths, and we all went to Canada, and all those who had passed the flying school, including me, were made — were put on a pilot’s course in Canada, and I went to a place called Caron, near Moose Jaw, in Saskatchewan. However, I wasn’t very good as a pilot and I scrubbed out after about twelve flying hours on Cornell aircraft, Fairchild Cornells. Single engine monoplane.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So, there I was, no longer on the pilot’s course, but sent to a holding unit in Brandon, Manitoba and I was there for a couple of months, waiting for a pilot —for a navigator bombardiers course to come through. And one came, finally came through, and I was posted to Mountain View, Ontario, on a twelve week bombing and gunnery course, having been reselected now as a navigator bomb aimer.
GR: Right. What was life like in Canada? What was —
EP: Well, life was grand in Canada. Everything was as it was in Civvy Street in Britain.
GR: Before the war.
EP: White bread for the first time. Actually crossed, it took seven days to get across Canada by rail, slept on the train, and everywhere, every station we landed at, there was a big reception committee, giving us all sorts of goodies. And we finally got to Caron, in Moose Jaw, probably in the Easter of 1943.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And finally — anyway, later in that year, I got on the NavB course at Mountain View. Did the Nav, did the bombing and gunnery side of the course, that was very interesting, and then I was posted on a twelve week navigation course to St John’s in Quebec, and that was quite interesting. And then, finally, we ended the course in the end of ’44, got my wings and was posted home again by sea. We went to Canada, by the way, on the Empress of Scotland, one of the Empress lines.
GR: That’s one of the cruise liners, wasn’t it?
EP: One of the cruise liners of the day, yeah. There was a lot of Empress liners we used as troop ships.
GR: And how did you get back?
EP: And I came back on the Empress of Scotland as well.
GR: Oh right.
EP: And I was posted to Harrogate, where we were just on a holding unit there for about a couple of weeks, and I was posted to AFU at Silloth in Scotland. And that was [pause], I’m trying to think how long. A month’s course, I think it was.
GR: Yeah.
EP: It was getting familiar with England. Flying over England.
GR: Yes, because you’d done your training in Canada. You needed to [pause] —
EP: So we were on Ansons there, map reading and doing those, sort of, cross country things, and finally, I was posted off that, onto an Advanced Flying Unit. After the Advanced Flying Unit, I was posted to OTU at Husband’s Bosworth, that was on Wimpies, and it was a twelve week course there. Conversion unit onto Bomber Command.
GR: Right. When did you actually crew up? When did you meet –?
EP: We crewed up at OTU.
GR: Right.
EP: All the crew, except for the engineer.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And so we crewed up there, and did the usual stuff, bombing and gunnery, cross-country’s.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Bombing raids, artificial bombing raids. And finally –
GR: Still lots of training.
EP: Lots of training. Lots of training. Twelve weeks, I think it was. We were posted to a six weeks conversion course on Lancasters.
GR: Yeah.
EP: At Gainsborough. I can’t remember the name of the airfield there. Near Gainsborough anyway.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
EP: And we did the six week course there. We picked up our flight engineer, and from there on, we were posted down to Wickenby on 12 Squadron.
GR: So when did you actually find out you were going to a squadron? Was that at the end of the Lancaster Finishing School?
EP: End of Conversion Unit.
GR: Yeah.
EP: They said, ‘You’re posted to 12 Squadron, Wickenby.’
GR: Yeah.
EP: I said, ‘Where’s that?’ They said, ‘Just the outside of Lincoln’. And it’s an RAF squadron.
GR: Yeah.
EP: With a few continental — a few other members from the empire [unclear].
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
EP: So, when we got there, after a couple of days settling in —
GR: Did you fly down or did you make your way there in a car?
EP: Made our way by —
GR: Car. Bus. Train.
EP: By train.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Train and bus.
GR: Right.
EP: Bussed us in. And [pause] where am I?
GR: So, you’ve arrived at Wickenby. First day at Wickenby.
EP: They gave us a couple of days to settle in, then one day, the wing commander, flying, said, ‘I want you all’, and by that time, all the other aircrews had mingled in. Signallers, gunners, bomb aimers and we mingled in. They said, ‘I want you all in the big hangar tomorrow’. There must have been a couple of hundred aircrew bods, so, ‘I want you all in’, and he said, he came in and said, ‘You’re all here now, so I want you to mingle and form a crew. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. If you haven’t formed a crew by then, from each other by mingling, I’ll put you all together. Whoever’s left’. So, I was sat around, had coffee, the NAAFI was there, you know, and this big, gangling New Zealander came across to me. He said, ‘Hello’. he said, ‘My name’s Alec Wicks’, he said, ‘I’m from New Zealand. I wondered, would you like to be in my crew?’ So I said, ‘Oh yes. I’d love to’. He said, ‘Well, I’ve got a couple of crew members already, two other New Zealanders’. So, we’d got Snowy White. He had blond hair. Snowy White.
GR: Snowy.
EP: Snowy, and he said, ‘We’ve also got Tacker Connelly’, who was a dark, semi Maori, half Maori. He said, ‘We’ve already got them, but we’ll go around now and hunt out a signaller and two gunners’, because we’d got the bomb aimer.
GR: So, at the moment, it was three New Zealanders and one Brit.
EP: One Brit. And we found two Londoners, real Cockney eastenders.
GR: Yeah. Right.
EP: Two Londoners and, of course, the front gunner was the bomb aimer.
GR: Yeah.
EP: That made up the six of the crew, and we didn’t get the engineer, but we carried on doing all our crew work.
GR: Yeah.
EP: All the training and flights and bomb aiming, and all that sort of thing. And we were like that until we were posted to the Heavy Conversion Unit, where we got on to Lancasters again.
GR: And that’s when you needed the flight engineer.
EP: That’s when the flight engineer joined us. I tell a lie. On the Con Unit, we got a brand new Lancaster. Did you get that?
GR: Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Yeah.
EP: On the Con Unit. And then the engineer joined us then. His name was [pause] God, I’ve forgotten his name.
GR: We’ll come back to that later. Not a problem. So, what was the first day at Wickenby like?
EP: First day we just —
GR: Bearing in mind, you’re on a Bomber Command base.
EP: We did our marching in orders, got our arrival certificates. Tried to get a bike, but there was none available. And we were posted to the sergeant’s mess. The skipper, as I said, was a flight sergeant, so was the bomb aimer
GR: Yeah.
EP: And so was the wireless operator.
GR: Yeah.
EP: They were ahead of us. We were sergeants, the rest of us.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And we settled in to the mess and we got, as I say, we got into the big hangar, and we crewed up, and I always remember this. When the, when the wing commander, flying, came back, we were all in crews. There was a couple who weren’t crewed and he said, ‘You go with him’, ‘You go with him’, ‘You go with him’.
GR: That’s it. Done.
EP: Yeah. Done. ‘Now, I want you all in one long line’, and we all crewed up. He said, ‘Now, I want you to look at the man next to you’. So, we looked at him. The one fella looks at the one to the left or right, you know, we looked at each other. He said, ‘I’m going to tell you now, one of you, who you are looking at, is not coming back’, he said, ‘You’ll be killed on ops. It’s a fifty percent loss rate’. So he said, ‘Any of you, it’s all voluntary, any of you don’t want to carry on with ops, take a step forward’. Not one.
GR: Not one.
EP: So, he said, ‘That’s it then’, and so we went on ops. On our first trip, the pilot went on an experience trip on his own.
GR: Yeah.
EP: With a tap crew.
GR: Yeah, like a second dickey, yeah.
EP: He went as a second dickey.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So, he went to the big Dresden night.
GR: Right.
EP: And he came back the next night and he said it was great, you know, because it was great as well. The Yanks had been there during — well, we went the first time.
GR: Yeah, and the Americans bombed in the daytime.
EP: Daytime, the next day. So, the next night went in, we were all on ops. The first trip was Chemnitz, which was about thirty miles away from Dresden.
GR: Yeah.
EP: I’ll always remember the briefing.
GR: Its quite a long trip as well, isn’t it?
EP: It was a long trip, about a quarter of an hour less than the Dresden.
GR: The Dresden.
EP: I always remember the intelligence officer, who gave you your briefing.
GR: Yeah.
EP: When we into the, into the briefing room, he got up, he said, ‘Tonight’s op is to Chemnitz. There’s no target, you just bomb the TIs. Bomb anywhere in the city. There’s no targets at all’. He said, ‘We’ve got notification from reconnaissance planes, that thousands of refugees are streaming from Dresden, there’s thousands of them, so bomb them’. That was it, there was no target, just —
GR: Yeah. Just bomb Chemnitz.
EP: Just bomb the city. And so, we bombed the city.
GR: How did you feel about that as a bomb aimer?
EP: It was great. We were stupid kids at the time.
GR: Yeah, and that was the job, and that’s what you’d been told to do, yeah.
EP: That was what we were told to you. Oh great, you know. We just bombed the TIs when they tell us, the master bomber’s going. Bomb the reds, bomb the greens.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Cancel the reds, with the flares down, you know, bomb upwind of the target. Just listen to the master bomber, you know, and then the master bomber occasionally, you’d get, he was flying low level, about two thousand feet above all the bombs, and occasionally you’d hear blank silence. And then a new bloke on, ‘This is master bomber two coming up. Master bomber one has gone down. Don’t know what’s happened to him. Just carry on’. Carry on bombing this.
GR: Yeah.
EP: He just kept a running commentary. Cool as mustard, they were. And so we came back from that. We’d done six ops, various ones, and we were sent — we went on a weeks’ leave every so often.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And you got an extra bit of money from Lord Nuffield. He was the boss of the motor cars, you know.
GR: That’s right. I’ve heard this.
EP: Morris.
GR: Was it something like, if you went on leave, a weeks’ leave, you got an extra pound or two pound off him.
EP: That’s him. Yeah.
GR: And he did it for every Bomber Command veteran.
EP: For every. He gave us two quid, and so we got a couple of quid and we went on our first leave. Oh, and did I tell you we got a brand new aeroplane. Y-Yoke.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Y for Yoke. PHY. Brand spanking new, flown in that, that very day, you know. On the second day, we took it for an air test. Everything was fine, and by this time, we’d done about six ops in Y-Yoke, and we went on leave, and when we came back there was no Y-Yoke.
GR: Gone.
EP: A sprog crew had took it on their first op, and it got shot down. There was no trace of it, no wreckage, nothing at all. It must have just blown up.
GR: Blown up.
EP: ‘Cause the main trouble as I remember it — went outside the towns, it was fighters. Around the big cities, it was flak.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And as you were flying along at night time, you’d suddenly see a big flash in the sky. That was outside the flak zones and it could have been a night fighter attack — shot down, or it could have equally been two aeroplanes colliding.
GR: Colliding.
EP: Because you tried to keep three miles either side of track, it was a designated track. If you keep on it —all well and good. If you keep three miles, they give you a six mile band. It seems a lot, six miles. It’s nothing is it?
GR: Nothing.
EP: And all the aeroplanes are flying down, all trying to keep on their time. So, you had plus or minus three minutes on your target time, and when you were ahead, when you were behind time, you could open the engines up and carry – get speed up, you know, to knock off a few minutes. So you never tried to let your time go more than three or four minutes outside the brief time. At you’re your turning point, you have a mark with a time you should be there.
GR: Yeah.
EP: It was a sort of a zig zag around all the, all the cities, you know, and - where was I? Oh, when you were behind — when you were ahead of time, as I say, you had to lose time.
EP: Yeah.
GR: And you did that by doglegging.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So if you were flying due east, you turned sixty degrees. Fly three minutes across the stream. They’re all going that way, all going east.
GR: Yeah. And you’re going —
EP: And you’re going across them at forty five degrees. Sixty, turn sixty. Then you come back one twenty for three minutes. So you’ve done an equilateral triangle.
GR: Yeah. And then you were back on.
EP: So, you’ve six minutes, so you lost three minutes. That was how you lost time.
GR: That was the way you lost time.
EP: And if you wanted to lose six minutes you do it — you went across track. Back that way for six minutes, across the other side of track, and back the other way. And you lost, that was twelve minutes lost, so you lost six minutes on the two parts of your tracks —
GR: On the track. Yeah.
EP: To get your time. And that’s how you kept time.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And you were allowed to be on target plus, and invariably most people got there within a couple of minutes of the time they should, so it was quite good.
GR: It was quite good. Yeah.
EP: And once you were on the target, you listened to the master bomber, and they had, they had the master bombers on Mosquitos at my time. They were down below, keeping a running commentary, and they had the PFF force, with back-up Lancs, with TIs on board. And they would say, put, the master bomber had put down a green TI down here, say it was a windy, and the smoke was obscuring the target, he’d select a new point outside the smoke and drop another TI. Then the main master bombers in the Lancs, would back them up with further TIs as they died out. And we’d, as bomb aimers, all we did was, bomb doors open, and the old pilot would be keeping straight and level if he could. All the twisting and turning going in. The bomb aimer would be, ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady. Steady. Steady. Steady. Bombs gone’. And then we had to stay on a straight and level course for about thirty seconds while the camera cut in, and they took a series of photographs, because you got assessed on them when you got back. And then as soon as he said, ‘Photos finished’, revs went up, shot up in the air, got to turn through the target, got the hell out of it as quick as we could.
GR: Get back home.
EP: You were supposed to stick to a very torturous route always, you know, but we always, when we got to the French coast, we always cut the corner there to see who could get back first. It was a straight run back across the North Sea. It was naughty, we weren’t supposed to do it, but everybody did it.
GR: Everybody did it. Yeah.
EP: Trying to get back first. So, we did that right the way through ‘til I got twenty three ops in. And I did. The last two ops we did [pause] — what was the one?
GR: Did you do the one to Berchtesgaden?
EP: I was just going to say the last two ops [pause] was, we did [pause] God. The island.
GR: Walcheren.
EP: No. [pause] Up by the —
GR: Yeah.
EP: Up by Kiel.
GR: Doesn’t matter.
EP: It’s on the record. Went on the last two ops. And then the next day was Berchtesgaden, which was the last op.
GR: That’s right.
EP: And we didn’t go on it, our crew. We were not posted, so I missed the last op.
GR: Missed the last.
EP: It was a gestapo headquarters op on Berchtesgaden.
GR: That’s right. Yeah. So —
EP: Thingy island. Little island. German island. Kiel. Kiel was it?
GR: No. It wasn’t Kiel.
EP: Not Kiel.
GR: We’ll have a look in a minute.
EP: Kiel’s a Canal.
GR: So where was you on VE-day? When the war came to a close?
EP: On VE? I can’t remember.
GR: No. Obviously not on operations. You might have been at Wickenby.
EP: I was at Wickenby.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Certainly. We just had a big booze up in the mess, I think, that’s all.
GR: Did you have any close calls while you were flying?
EP: We had three fighter attacks. One. Two. The first — what you had to do on bomber, on main force, was do two mining raids.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
EP: You did them on your own. You took mines.
GR: Yeah.
EP: You didn’t have the benefit of the main force all come together. You just went out to Kiel Bay and around where the big battleships were.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And for two of those, two of our trips, we got attacked by night fighters. We were sitting ducks for night fighters, because they were single aeroplanes, they could pick them up.
GR: Yeah.
EP: On radar, you know. And in two cases we corkscrewed. You know the –
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
EP: Diving starboard, pulling up and twisting out and we lost both of them. Once you lose them, they’re away and they go and look for another target.
GR: Look for something else. Yeah.
EP: The third one managed to get a burst of machine gun fire, and he took a big hunk out of our left hand tail fin.
GR: Yeah.
EP: But nothing dangerous, you know. We still, still rudder, so we did well.
GR: So, you got back.
EP: And we corkscrewed. So again, there we corkscrewed, we did the same. The gunners were pretty good at picking them up.
GR: Yeah.
EP: They always seemed to come from starboard, starboard stern ahead, starboard beam ahead. Sort of flying — if you’re flying along, they’d be up there.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Higher. And they’d do a curve of pursuit attack, closing in, and you turned into them. That meant they had to get the turn tighter and tighter and tighter. Tighter than they usually got. They turned upside down and broke away underneath you.
GR: Yeah.
EP: That was the topic of a corkscrew, and while that was happening — the first time it happened, I wasn’t prepared for it, we’d never done one. And the gunner said, ‘Starboard. Starboard. Fighter. Fighter. Starboard. Beam up. Prepare to corkscrew. Corkscrew, go. Now’, you know. That was the way they always said that.
GR: Yeah. Corkscrew. Yeah.
EP: Corkscrew port or starboard. If they were starboard, you corkscrewed starboard into them. You always turned into them to make them tight. I shot out of the seat, just literally dropped out the sky. Got the nose down, throttle back and nose down, going down like that, and I shot out of my seat, because we never strapped ourselves in. We were on like a bench seat in the Lanc.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And radar here and radar. You slid along the seat, and all my maps, my charts, everything was loose on the table, went up. I shot out my seat, banged my head on the roof. Everybody else was more or less in the same boat, apart the pilots who were strapped in.
GR: Who were strapped in and knew what they were doing.
EP: The pilot and the engineer.
GR: Yes.
EP: So, we corkscrewed out of three situations, but it was the flak that was the worse stuff, ‘cause as soon as you got into a flak belt, you couldn’t get out of it. Just rattled the fuselage – bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, dong, doiing. Like ping — all the noises, you know. And searchlights would catch somebody, some poor sod would get caught in them, you know. And that was how it went, you know.
GR: So how did you feel at war’s end?
EP: Oh, and then about a couple of weeks before war’s end. The last ops we done.
GR: Yeah.
EP: We were told no more ops, but the war, it was a week before official war ending. They said, ‘They’re starving in Holland. Can’t get any food’. so he said, ‘You will now spend your next week or so, dropping supplies in Holland. So, you’ll be going on Lancasters, and filling the bomb bays up with food’. So, everybody mucked in. Food came in lorries. Flour in loose sacks, all loose stuff, and special panniers were made for stuff that had to be parachuted down. Medical stuff, stuff like that. All the other stuff was loose or tinned stuff which could stand the drop. And we all — if you’re carrying panniers, you open the bomb doors fully to put these things in. If you weren’t carrying panniers, you opened the bomb doors so there was about a foot or just a bit over. You could get up by your shoulders.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And everybody mucked in. Sacks of loose, packed loose. Sugar and flour and any seed. Cornflakes.
GR: Yeah.
EP: All loose in strong sacks. And you got in the bomb bay, and you loaded them on to the bomb doors itself. Just like that.
GR: Just lying flat. Yeah.
EP: Yeah. Just piled them high, and when you — everybody, the aircrew, the whole lot, the CO, the WAAFs, all loading. And when they were full, couldn’t get any without falling off. There were too many, you know.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Skipper would get in and just close the bomb bay and that was it.
GR: It was all there.
EP: And we’d fly over there. Must go over about a thousand feet.
GR: Yeah.
EP: But we went, we all went in about fifty feet, skimming over the church tops, onto the racecourses and dropping them. Now and again a sack would burst, big splurge of white, you know. But —
GR: That was Operation Manna, wasn’t it?
EP: That was Operation Manna.
GR: Where they fed the Dutch.
EP: And we did four. I did four Manna trips. And then they said, oh —it was still wartime, so they said, ‘We’ll allow you to keep these Manna trips as ops’.
GR: Yeah.
EP: ‘You can count them as ops’. So, I ended up with twenty seven ops.
GR: Twenty seven ops.
EP: So, I didn’t get my thirty, and then from then on, we spent all our time flying over the North Sea, dropping bombs. Jettisoning bombs with no pistols in them.
GR: Just to get rid of the —
EP: And ammunition. To get rid of all the big bombs in the bomb sights. The sights where they stored the bombs, you know.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And then finally, oh I didn’t tell you the story. I’ll tell you the story how, how I’ve got the picture there.
GR: I’ll just pause for one second.
[recording paused]
EP: When I told you that Y-Yoke, our plane, had got shot down?
GR: Yes. Earlier on.
EP: We had no aeroplane, so N-Nan had about ninety odd ops then.
GR: Yeah.
EP: It was the standby aircraft on the squadron. it was always there available in case one was u/s. Couldn’t take off.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So you had to change over quick.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Get in to N-Nan.
GR: So the old plane with ninety operations on.
EP: It had ninety ops on. It was given to us and it was a marvellous aeroplane.
GR: Oh good.
EP: And so it, when that was taken, with our ops, it went over the hundred. So every plane in the past was traditional. Every plane in the past that did ops, it was awarded the DFC, so that was the award being awarded, the DFC. We painted a little DFC cross on.
GR: Yeah. We’re just looking at a photograph of Eric, with his crew, in front of N for Nan and they’ve just done the hundredth op. So, yes, they’ve got a DFC painted on top of the picture. Very good. So —
EP: So that was it.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So that brings the story up to date then.
GR: Yeah. Did you do any — bringing back prisoners of war from Italy?
EP: Oh, I’m going to carry on then.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So when, when we finished, finished jettisoning bombs after VE day, a couple of weeks later, the squadrons had virtually finished flying. We were flying all the Lancs up to Silloth, which was near Carlisle.
GR: Yes.
EP: And when they got there, N-Nan was amongst them. They put a big weight on them and just bust them all up and they went on to make kettles and pans [laughs] and various other bits were taken off.
GR: Yeah.
EP: The only thing I’ve got is a pair of War Office scissors, out of the first aid kit. I’ve still got them, they’re around somewhere. And that came out of there, out of the first aid kit.
GR: Excellent. And I know, very briefly Eric, you stayed in the RAF didn’t you?
EP: Yes.
GR: Yeah.
EP: So after the war, sorry, as soon as the war ended, we went on to our operations to Italy to ferry the prisoners of war back.
GR: Prisoners of war back. Yeah.
EP: And we did that for about four trips.
GR: Right.
EP: One of the trips was a bit different as we ferried back twenty WREN nurses.
GR: Nurses.
EP: Twenty nurses. So, it was a bit better that [laughs] and then the war ended. We had a good booze up. The New Zealanders went back to New Zealand or, so I thought.
GR: Yes, because —
EP: And I was posted to a holding unit prior to going on Transport Command, I was awaiting a course at Dishforth on Yorks. So, while I was at this holding unit, I’ve forgotten the name of it now, I got a telephone call one day. I said, ‘Hello’, and a voice with a New Zealand accent said, ‘Hello Eric. I haven’t gone back to New Zealand. I’ve signed on in the RAF’. It was Alec Wicks, my old skipper.
GR: The skipper. The pilot.
EP: He said, ‘I’m going on Transport Command and I’ll be on the next course and I’ve asked for you to be my navigator’. So, I was highly delighted, because he was a good friend as well as a pilot, and we met up again and made a crew up on Yorks. And we flew, first of all on — [pause] what do you call it? Not passenger Yorks. Luggage.
GR: Yeah.
EP: What do they call it?
GR: Freight.
EP: Freight.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Freighters. My memory’s going.
GR: Don’t worry. No, your memory’s been great, and -
EP: We were posted to Holmsley South, near Bournemouth, on freight, freight Yorks. We were on them for about a year and presumably, by then, we’d qualified to be good enough to take passengers, so they posted us up to Oakington, on passenger Yorks. And while we were there on freighters, we only went as far as India, Delhi, to a place called Palam. And we only took freight, and we went on the usual route through Egypt, across into Shaibah in Iraq, and then into Mauripur via Karachi, and then across to Delhi, to Palam. And when we got on to passenger Yorks, our route was extended. We went to Singapore, to Changi, so it was a couple of years. By this time, I’d extended my release number, and I’d already served about eighteen months over the demob date. I hadn’t signed on yet, I was still ready for demob, but I’d signed on at about eighteen months over and I signed on for another six months. So, we got about two years on Yorks, and we were getting quite a few hours in by this time, all with my old skipper. And, lo and behold, he was posted to the Empire Air Training School at Shawbury as a special pilot, you know.
GR: Yeah.
EP: These special trips they did in the —what was the — the Lancaster. No.
GR: The Lincoln.
EP: Not the Lincoln.
GR: The Washington. No.
EP: No. The one where they made an airliner out of it.
GR: Canberra. No.
EP: No. It was a Lancaster —
GR: I know what you mean and I can’t, even I can’t think of the name.
EP: [unclear] Again my memory’s gone.
GR: Anyway.
EP: He was posted on them at Shawbury, Empire Air Training School.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Went on all these special ops.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Special navigation techniques.
GR: Yeah. Yeah.
EP: And so, I was left with another pilot I got then, and I stayed there up until [pause], until, what happened? Oh, until I, until the Berlin Airlift started and all the Yorks were made to call.
GR: They were used on the Berlin Airlift, weren’t they? Yeah.
EP: Used for coal aeroplane, mainly carrying coal. I didn’t go on the Airlift, because I was posted at that time, lo and behold onto, of all things [pause] I’m trying to think where I am. I’m getting a bit confused.
GR: That’s alright. Well we can go forward. How long did you stay in the RAF for? When did you finally –
EP: Twenty two years.
GR: Twenty two.
EP: I did the twenty two.
GR: You did twenty two full years.
EP: Oh I’m with it now. I was on Yorks until the Airlift started. Then, lo and behold, out of the blue, they posted. By this, I hadn’t signed on either. I was still -
GR: Oh, you were still —
EP: on extended demob leave. And out of the blue, when the Airlift just started, when I was posted back to Bomber Command.
GR: Oh right.
EP: I was posted to Upwood.
GR: Upwood.
EP: RAF Upwood.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And I was there for about six months, and by that time, I’d got married during the war, and we moved into a caravan there, and my daughter was born there, and I was there for about a year and, lo and behold, we were suddenly posted over to Wyton, on Lincolns, and that meant I did a back and forwards on the bike. About twelve miles because we were very close. Into the caravan.
GR: Yeah. Yeah. Keep you fit.
EP: And then they built — they had already embarked on building married quarters at Wyton, so we got a married quarters, it was ideal then. And I was there for about six months enjoying everything and I’d signed on by this time for twenty two years. Signed on for twelve initially.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Then extended it later to twenty two. And I was at Wyton for about six months and suddenly, out of the blue, I was posted to Marham. To Marham. In —
GR: East Anglia isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.
EP: East Anglia. So that was, put paid — couldn’t come home all the time. So Amy went home, closed the house down, give up the quarters, had to give them up anyway, was posted, and we got a place in Downham Market, about twelve miles away. Lived in a little —over a shop in a little flat. Lovely little place. And I cycled back and forth twelve miles every day to Wyton.
GR: Very good.
EP: Why was I posted to Wyton? Because they were starting a new Con Unit there, because they were getting B29 bombers.
GR: The Washington.
EP: The Washington. And I was to be posted as a bomb aimer instructor on Washingtons, I was a flight sergeant by this time and so there I was. So, Amy was in the village, in Downham Market. Twelve miles, used to cycle in every day. But then they started extending the runway to this one huge runway they’ve got there, and every day, lorries were coming through, about one every ten minutes. Through Downham Market, loaded with gravel and bricks or cement. I could just, could just pop out of the flat, stand on the corner -
GR: Get a lift.
EP: Just put my hand out. I was in uniform and I did that until, and then they started building houses on Marham, and by that time I had plenty of points. It was all on points.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And we got, finally got a house in Marham and they opened a little, Sandie was about five by this time, a little infant’s school on the camp, you know. And the B29s came.
GR: Yeah.
EP: We had the Yanks there first of all, as a Con Unit, teaching us. Then we, in turn, became the Con Unit, and we taught the squadrons that came through.
GR: Very good.
EP: And finally, when we had taught all the squadrons, and everybody was back on fully operational commitments on their various airfields, we closed the squadron down, and we became 35 Squadron in our own right. So, the Con Unit became 35 Squadron.
GR: 35 Squadron.
EP: And I stayed with 35 Squadron right through until the V bombers came. We flew the Yanks, the B29s, did four trips back to the States, to Tucson in Arizona. And I was only saying, maybe I told you this before, when I got to Tucson the first time, out in the desert, all cocooned, was thousands of four engined aircraft. Bombers.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Fighters, transports, you name it. There was every aeroplane you could think of stretching out as far as I could see into the desert.
GR: A World War Two graveyard.
EP: That was in 19’, around 1960.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Many years later, when I say many years, I’m talking about, about two years ago here, they had a picture of Davis Monthan Air Force Base. He was going over — something to do with America.
GR: Yeah.
EP: And he took a photo of this Air Force Base and there they did an aerial view, quite low. Lovely picture. And I was sitting here watching it and I looked and all the bombers and planes were still there.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Thousands of them, but they weren’t propeller driven. There wasn’t one propeller driven aeroplane there.
GR: They were all jets.
EP: All jets.
GR: Yeah.
EP: What happened to the propellers? And what a mighty Air Force.
GR: Oh God. Yeah. Yeah.
EP: And that’s all one place.
GR: That’s all in one place. And I believe they have them out there because it’s dry and everything.
EP: Exactly.
GR: There’s no rust.
EP: Yeah.
GR: And all that sort. When did you finally leave the RAF, Eric, and then we’ll —was it in the –
EP: I left the RAF in ’42 — 64.
GR: 1964.
EP: August ’64.
GR: August ’64.
EP: And I went. Come August ‘64.
GR: Yeah.
EP: What was I doing then? I spent the last year on a home posting, so I was in command of a radar plotting unit, plotting so called bombs dropped by the V bombers, and it was only for a year. The last year of my service.
GR: Last year. Yeah.
EP: And when I left the service, I went for a two years course at Edghill Training College for teachers. I had been accepted. I took all my GCSEs in the RAF.
GR: Yeah.
EP: Been accepted on a teachers course.
GR: Yeah.
EP: I did two years of a three years course. I joined the young ones as a mature student. I came out of training college as a fully qualified teacher, got an immediate posting. By this time, I’d moved into a house in Formby, my own house, had a brand new car, and life was good and I was posted to a little village school in Formby itself, which I’ll show you a picture of.
GR: And that’s where I will draw it to a close, and Eric has kindly lent us his typed up memoirs called, “Eric’s Story”, which gives a lot of detail to what we’ve just been talking about.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Eric Parker
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Gary Rushbrooke
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-05-05
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AParkerE160505, PParkerE1602, PParkerE1603
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00:51:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Cambridgeshire
United States
Canada
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
1964-08
Description
An account of the resource
Eric was born in 1924 in West Derby, Liverpool and volunteered for the Royal Air Force at the age of 17 and a half, finally being called up in January 1942 where he became a navigator / bomb aimer on Lancasters. After completing his training in Canada, Eric was posted to 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby. Eric tells of the crewing up process, and recollects receiving a brand-new Lancaster, Y-Yoke which was lost after only six operations. Eric flew 27 operations, and took part in Operation Manna and Operation Dodge. He flew in N-Nan which survived 100 operations. He was then posted to Transport Command flying the York, before being posted back to Bomber Command. Eric recollects flying B-29s at RAF Wyton, his training in the United States and the transatlantic crossing. Eric left the Royal Air Force in August 1964, having completed 22 years of service, and took up teaching.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
12 Squadron
166 Squadron
aircrew
B-29
bomb aimer
bombing
Cornell
crewing up
displaced person
Lancaster
Lincoln
Master Bomber
navigator
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Marham
RAF Wickenby
RAF Wyton
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1039/11412/AMulhallJE180703.2.mp3
85d2a28ea5d8fdd9060e2bf78191b491
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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Mulhall, James
James Edward Mulhall
J E Mulhall
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with James Mulhall (b. 1924, 224223 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 75 Squadron before becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-08-23
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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Mulhall, JE
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GT: This is Tuesday the 3rd of July 2018 and I am at the home of Mr James Edward Mulhall, known as Jim. Born 8th July 1924 in Gorton, Manchester, England. Jim joined the RAF at the age of eighteen as an ACHGD mechanic. Later qualifying as a flight engineer serving on 75 New Zealand Squadron Lancasters from Mepal, Cambridgeshire. Jim, thank you for letting me interview you for the IBCC archives. So, please tell me why you joined the RAF and where you did your training.
JM: Yeah. The reason I joined the RAF was I got fed up of being bombed by the Germans. Being blown out of bed on a regular basis. So I decided to get a little bit of my own back and I joined up at Dover Street in Manchester and did my initial training at Padgate.
GT: And you joined up to, to be a pilot or gunner or what was it?
JM: I originally intended to qualify as a pilot and I joined the PNB course. Pilot/navigator/bomb aimer. But my maths weren’t good enough to qualify as a pilot so I was offered the alternative as becoming a flight engineer. And this I accepted and trained at St Athans, in South Wales.
GT: How long was your training for, Jim?
JM: About three months.
GT: And what aircraft did you train on for that?
JM: I trained on Stirlings to begin with which I didn’t like. I thought it was underpowered and overweight. And then I got re-mustered because of the losses to Lancasters which I enjoyed very much. But as I’ve mentioned previously going from a four cylinder, fourteen cylinder radial air cooled engines to twelve cylinder liquid cooled engines, the Merlins, was a bit of a leap for me considering I only had a fortnight to qualify in this direction. And I was a bit peeved because I was genning up on night on the various different systems while my mates were out boozing. So, I didn’t take kindly to this. However we got along eventually.
GT: So, from, from your training at St Athan did you move to satellite airfields before you joined a crew?
JM: Yes. Satellite. Stradishall was one. And Feltwell was the other one. And we did the various training at these two stages on Lancasters.
GT: So, how long did that take? Months? A year?
JM: Oh no. As I said before it only took a fortnight to qualify as Lancaster crew. That’s the only time we had.
GT: No. But let’s, let’s go back to before you joined your crews though, Jim because you were still doing your training by yourself or with other flight engineers were you?
JM: Oh, they were trained, all flight engineers at St Athan.
GT: Yeah.
JM: And when it came to crewing up they pushed all the previous aircrew, who had been together on Wellingtons I might add. Five of them knew each other very well through training on Wellingtons and this, but they all sat down and they shoved, I don’t know, about eighty. Oh not quite that number. Let’s get this nearer to the fact. About twenty. Twenty or thirty flight engineers in to the big cinema with them and said quite briefly, ‘Go and find yourself a crew.’ And that was a bit disconcerting because we’d got all these pudding faces looking at us wondering whether, what kind of a bloke is this that’s going to hoist himself on to us?
GT: Yeah.
JM: So, I went up to one of them, Hugh Rees and I said, ‘Do you fancy an engineer?’ He said, ‘What’s your name?’ I said, ‘James.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Jim. He said, ‘I’m Hugh. This is Westie. This is Ray. So that was it. We joined up as a crew. Yeah. Most haphazard in its way.
GT: Yeah.
JM: But none the less it worked. Yeah.
GT: So, so from the time you joined to that time you joined a crew how long was that? A couple of years? A year?
JM: About a year. Yeah. About a year. I did the Padgate training at Skegness. The square bashing as they called it and we did about a fortnight in Blackpool. In November would you believe. No place Blackpool in November believe me. Its, particularly doing PT at 6 o’clock in the morning in shorts and pumps. Not very kindly to the torso at all. So, that, that was briefly the square bashing bit.
GT: So, when you trained as a flight engineer on Stirlings did they have a flight engineer position initially?
JM: Yes. Halfway down the aircraft was the flight engineer’s position. But as I said that’s why I lost, when I lost an engine. For the first, for the first six circuits and bumps we had screens. A screened navigator, a screened pilot and a screened engineer. But they left us and the first flight we did circuits and bumps I lost an engine would you believe. I could see the cylinder head’s temperatures going down. And the oil pressure disappearing so I knew the engine was u/s. I called up the pilot. I said, ‘Feather number two,’ and he said, ‘Feathering two. Why?’ I said, ‘The CHT’s going down. I’ve no oil pressure. The engines u/s.’ So, he said, ‘Right. Nobby, call up base. We want an emergency landing on three.’ He greased it and he made a beautiful landing on three and said to me afterwards, ‘I always wanted to do that.’ [laughs]
GT: What station was that on?
JM: Stradishall.
GT: And that’s where you were doing your —
JM: Circuits and bumps.
GT: The whole crew converted there.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Into four engines.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Wow.
JM: That’s in Feltwell. We got a fortnight at Feltwell to convert to Merlins and different energy systems for the undercarriage and flaps. And so for flying controls. Aye.
GT: So, had you done any operations on Stirlings before that?
JM: No.
GT: No.
JM: No. I never did any.
GT: So, the Lancaster finishing school at Feltwell was your first touch of a, of a Lancaster.
JM: Yes. We then, we were sent to Mepal to start our operational debut as you might say.
GT: On 75 New Zealand Squadron. RAF.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Yeah. So, what, when you got to Mepal was, was the squadron known by any nicknames or was there —
JM: No. We learned later that we got all the mucky jobs that’s for sure. We were known as a chop squadron. But I expect that identification was made among many other squadrons for the same reason.
GT: 75 New Zealand certainly had a reputation of, of being assigned a lot of tricky and dangerous targets.
JM: Yeah.
GT: And the chop squadron was certainly well known back in to 1943 with Stirlings. So, so for you to hear that nickname, carry on and you joined the squadron. Well, for that matter, yes — when did you join the squadron? What month? Date?
JM: May. May in 1944. But we didn’t start operating until August. Incidentally, it might be worthwhile recording that we did fly in different aircraft. And we had one aircraft, I think it was the captain’s aircraft of D flight and it had a caption on the front of a scantily clad young maiden astride a bomb. And underneath it said, “She drops them at night,” [laughs] Make your own conclusions.
GT: I’ve seen some fabulous nose art and that sounds like another one to add to that list.
JM: The ground crew did the nose arts of course.
GT: Fabulous. So, your crew. You’ve, you’ve mentioned to me that your mid-upper gunner Ray Alderson he was quite old and had quite an attribute. What —
JM: He, he was thirty err he was forty two years old when he should have been at the limit — thirty five. And once we were routed over Denmark at night and he said — ‘Will you bank,’ left, ‘Bank right,’ rather, ‘Right and left. I can see something moving down on the ground.’ And we were around about eight thousand feet.
[recording paused]
JM: The mid-upper asked the pilot to bank to the right because he’d seen something down below. And bear in mind we’re at about eight thousand feet now but he says he saw some lights travelling along a runway and he’s not sure what it was. But as it happened he followed this, managed to follow this aircraft because it had its nav lights on. It was rising up beside us and he said to the rear gunner, ‘Let me have the first squirt Charlie because it’s my, my thing to see here.’ He said, ‘I’ll open up first and you open up next.’ So, this was done and we imagine that the pilot was looking for our exhaust flames. He’d be looking upwards looking for the blue exhaust flames while he was being vectored on to us. So, he didn’t see us only a hundred yards or so at the side of him. Fifty, a hundred yards or so and so they both had a good squirt at him and he fell away but we don’t know what happened to him. We could only claim it as a probable. But that was how good the mid-upper’s eyesight was.
GT: And he was never contested as to being over forty years of age.
JM: No. He always said he was thirty five. The lying swine [laughs] he was the best spiv I ever saw as well. He’d start off with a pair of dirty socks on a Monday. He’d finish up with a bike on a Saturday that he sold to a farmer for four pound ten. That’s not bad spivving is it? He never, he never ate in the canteen. He always ate, ate in the guardhouse because he was always bringing in bacon and eggs from the farms around about that he knew so well. So, he always had a fry up in the guardhouse. He never ate with us in the cookhouse. Or I can’t remember it. Oh at breakfast. Yeah. After flight breakfast. Pre-flight breakfast he had with us because he was, he had to because we were silence from the aerodrome. All outward communication ceased.
GT: Right.
JM: Before an op.
GT: So, your, your skipper, Hubert Rees. He did a dicky trip for you.
JM: He did.
GT: As it were.
JM: To Havre. No. Nazaire. I got it wrong. I said Le Havre at first. The sub, U-boat pens at Nazaire. Yeah. That’s when the bomb aimer got a bit excited. Yeah.
GT: So, was he always one up for the whole crew. Doing a dicky trip? Did he have always —
JM: He must have been, yeah. Must have been one up on his log book. Yeah. But for some reason or other because he did that he was never entered in our logbooks. So, although we did — Mepal have us down as I’d done thirty four but there’s only thirty three logged. As you found out for yourself.
GT: That’s right. So, you, you completed thirty three.
JM: And a half.
GT: Yeah. We’ll get to that. Right. So, now one of the things you’re talking about was your bomb, nicknamed Westie. And on your first op something happened when you were coming in to the run that you’ve told me. Can you tell me what Westie didn’t see it?
JM: You want me to repeat that?
GT: I do.
JM: It’s a bit dodgy.
GT: I do. Go on [laughs]
JM: It’s as I say we were down under radar for flying close to the sea until we climbed for bombing height for penetration on the pens. And being the third wave in the sky was black with previous ack-ack puffs. Even the birds were flying. They were so close together they frightened the life out of us. And Westie was equally concerned. And when he climbed up to bombing height we had a burst fairly close to the nose but the fragments whip upwards so that’s not really dangerous to the aeroplane. But looking in to the bomb pit I could see Westie crouched over his bomb pit, bombsight and I saw him leap back and shout, ‘F’ing hell, we’ll get killed doing this.’ So [laughs] and we looked at each other over our oxygen masks. The pilot and I could see we were laughing. We had a bit of light relief over the run. So, that took place. That’s really true that is. Yeah.
GT: But you finished the op ok.
JM: Oh yeah. But we could see flames going down either side of us and oh, it was a tricky business really because they were well defended these U-boat pens as you can well imagine. The eighty eight millimetre guns could catch you up to forty thousand feet.
GT: What was your normal bombing height that you would —
JM: Around about twenty two thousand. Yeah. Because we carried and eighteen thousand pound bomb load and a four thousand pound Cookie needs six thousand clearance to get out of the blast. So, we were usually between eighteen and twenty two thousand we’d bomb. On normal targets.
GT: Was your four thousand pound HC Cookie, was that your largest bomb that the squadron used?
JM: Yes. Yeah. We used to use a four thousand pound Cookie, twelve thousand pounders and four cannisters of incendiaries. That was a normal bomb load for a short trip. If we went to Stettin or somewhere like that we’d have to carry more fuel because that was a nine and a half hour trip. So we’d have to reduce the bomb load, the stores as they called it to allow for more fuel.
GT: So, as a crew did you go and check the bomb load before you flew? Or you —
JM: I did. I checked it to make sure all the pins were in the right position for fusing when we crossed the enemy coast.
GT: So, that was the flight engineer’s role. Not the bomb aimers.
JM: Well, he did it as well but it was one of my checks as well. He did it to make sure the Mickey Mouse was clean. Clued up.
GT: So, who —
JM: That was the selector box. The Mickey Mouse.
GT: Ah. So, the selector box was on your panel.
JM: No. It was on his panel in the bomb pit. I had a jettison button on my combing and the pilots. In case he didn’t make it for any reason. I could open the bomb doors and jettison the bomb.
GT: Could you see your bomb load?
JM: No.
GT: From the cockpit.
JM: He could. He had a peep hole in the bulk head because we had a hang up once and I had to get rid of the hang up. Get rid of the carrier as well as the bomb. So that was a bit of a job trying to chisel that out of the way but we got rid of it eventually.
GT: So, you moved down through the fuselage and could —
JM: Yeah. To get rid of the carrier. Yeah. It was in the forward edge of the bomb bay. I didn’t have far to go and I was on an oxygen bottle.
GT: Now, for those that are listening that don’t understand what a carrier is it is the British call them carriers the Americans call them racks.
JM: Yeah.
GT: And they are what is bolted to the air frame that the bomb is then latched to and in this case most World War One err World War Two bombs had a single lug.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Lugged. And they were single hooked.
JM: Yeah.
GT: And they were electro, electro-magnetic or electro magnetically —
JM: Fused.
GT: Armed or fused.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: Yeah. So —
JM: A fusing pin came forward and it was selected in the Mickey Mouse.
GT: So, can you describe then the way the bombs were fused?
JM: There’s a little wire ring piece in the front of the bomb and a needle when it’s selected on the Mickey Mouse in the bomb bay a needle comes forward and fits inside that loop on the wire on the bomb. So that when the bomb falls away that wire is pulled out by that pin. So then the bomb is fused.
GT: And the bomb is only fused once it falls from the aircraft and that wire’s pulled out.
JM: Correct.
GT: So, can the bomb be dropped without the wire being pulled through? In other words can it be dropped safe? Can the, the flight engineer or the bomb aimer drop his load?
JM: The bomb aimer can pre, can re-select to pull the needle back but there would be no guarantee that it didn’t get tangled up in the loop. So you wouldn’t know really whether they were fused or not. Sometimes we had to, if we had an abortive trip we’d have to drop the stores as they called them, the bombs, in the North Sea. And they tried to make sure they weren’t fused but there was no guarantee of this.
GT: So, the Lancaster could not land back at base with a full stores load.
JM: That’s right. We could take off at sixty eight thousand pound. That’s about thirty four tonne. But we had to get down to fifty six thousand pound to land. Otherwise we’d stress the undercarriage too greatly. It would bottom out and probably destroy the aircraft.
GT: Was there any cases where aircraft came back in with a heavy load at all?
JM: No. No. We never landed with a heavy load. No. The — when we were hit by the incendiaries I had to make a decision as to whether the undercarriage was locked down. And I came to the conclusion by listening to the reservoir tank that the same amount of fluid was going back in the reservoir tank just behind the pilot as was being taken out to lower the undercarriage. And after several occasions of this I came to the conclusion although I had no undercarriage lights, red or green and I decided that we could land at base with a reasonable chance of success. Which we did. And we did succeed.
GT: That’s without the undercarriage collapsing once you hit the ground.
JM: That’s right.
GT: That’s what you were trying to avoid.
JM: It didn’t collapse.
GT: Yeah.
JM: I made the right decision fortunately.
GT: Fabulous. Well, let’s go back to the reason why you made that decision. And you said incendiaries. So, you’re saying that the incendiaries were dropped from an aircraft above and went and hit your aircraft.
JM: It did.
GT: Can you tell me a bit about that please?
JM: The aircraft was shook about a bit and my instrument panel on the side of the aircraft, on the starboard side was knocked off its hinges and off its retainers. And the bottom plug down on the floor that carried all the communications that was hit and slid back. But fortunately I was able to get, to find the threads on that and screw it back in to complete the communication so we had intercom and instrument recordings as well. And the incendiaries were only, saved us because they were pinned in by being frozen at the height we were at. So, they didn’t trigger the incendiaries when they hit us. One, in fact hit us in the joint between the rudder and tail plane. Right in that joint there. Which was a bit dodgy really because any severe manoeuvres might have lost the tail, lost the rudder there.
GT: So, the incendiaries would have, would have exploded normally within the aircraft if it hit the aircraft or only if it had hit the ground?
JM: Yeah. They would have exploded in the aircraft if the pins hadn’t been frozen in. So, we were very lucky in that respect.
GT: And when you got back to Mepal did they come and take the flare, the incendiaries out of the aircraft gingerly or —
JM: Very very gingerly. We handed them through the door to the ground crew and told them that the pins were open, ‘Don’t drop them or they’ll go off. They’re magnesium flares.’ Yeah.
GT: Well, the armourers would have loaded them so the armourers would have taken them away I’m sure.
JM: Well, no. Only the ground crew. The armourers kept well away. They knew what might happen. They triggered off. No, no messing.
GT: I can’t believe, Jim the armourers would scarper [laughs]
JM: Well, you, [laughs] you were in charge of them weren’t you? But they stayed well away I can assure you. They knew it was far more dangerous than the ground crew did.
GT: Classic. Now, was there any time that your gunners, other that what you briefly mentioned did they have a chance to shoot at anything other than that one other time they claimed half each? Was there any other?
JM: No. The 109 we shot at was the only time the gunners opened up as I can remember. They did open up sometimes on the ground targets if we were going low over the, over France. And they could open, they could open up over convoys that they knew were enemy because of where they were located.
GT: Did they ever use the front guns?
JM: No.
GT: On the Lancaster.
JM: No. Westie never used the front guns.
GT: So the bomb aimer’s —
JM: Not to my knowledge.
GT: The bomb aimer’s role was also to mix in as an air gunner.
JM: Yeah.
GT: And he was trained as such.
JM: He was, well I assume he was anyway. He knew what he was doing. Yeah. My skipper wanted to play with them but the back ones. When I was playing with the aircraft he was playing with Ray’s gun err Alan’s guns. Enjoying himself I understand.
GT: Jim, did you ever do any flying of your own? On the squadron or in the aircraft?
JM: No. No. Never. The first flying I ever did was in a Stirling.
GT: But Hubert’s, did Hubert let you take the controls at all when you were in the crew?
JM: Oh yes. On several occasions. He would. Particularly if he’d had damage and was on an air test. We were supposed to do an air test two and a half hours and always climb to height to test the oxygen. But we never did climb to height. We could test it at low level just as well as at upper level. So he would then dump me in the seat. On his parachute I might add. I’m sat on his ‘chute and harness. If that isn’t confidence I don’t know what is. While he wandered around the aircraft trying other people’s jobs. Aye. And I’m stuck with it. Sat up front with thirty two ton of aeroplane to play with.
GT: Did you write up your hours?
JM: No [laughs] did I heck. No. I don’t. I don’t. I think it was frowned upon by CM. That was the publication that was issued to all aircrew as you’re well aware. So, no I did [pause] I must have totalled perhaps two or [pause] two or three hours at the controls I would say overall. Yeah. At half hour intervals or perhaps an hour at one time. But it got to the stage where the navigator used to say, ‘Whoever’s in the pilot’s seat will you turn on to,’ such and such a course. And I’d say, ‘Turning now,’ and watch the DR read off and say, ‘On course now. Thank you.’
GT: So, did you do any link trainer stuff?
JM: I did ninety hours link would you believe? The pilot had only done five hours. That’s when it came about. When the pilot said, ‘You’re going to earn your corn from here on in. You can fly the damned thing while I have a wander about.’ Which I did on several occasions amounting to perhaps two or three hours total in flight. Possibly about four altogether. So, I was in charge of the aircraft for that particular time on those particular days. Never on ops I might add. Only when we had an air test to do or testing new equipment. That was the only time I flew it. But I enjoyed it I must admit. It was a bit slow in input and recovery but very stable. A very stable aeroplane. Yeah.
GT: So, did you record your link hours in your logbook?
JM: No. No. I don’t know why but [pause] I’m not quite sure about that. I might have done. I might have done.
GT: So —
JM: I can’t remember now whether I did or I didn’t. I probably did.
GT: So, tell me about your logbook then.
JM: I probably did. Yeah.
GT: Tell me about your logbook then because that’s something of interest that I’ve heard from different stories that, from different folk that have said that they were destroyed. So how about your logbook?
JM: Well, as I said before that I was at Fenchurch. We landed at Cosford from Germany. Well, from Bristol actually. We flew from Leipzig to Brussels and Brussels to Cosford. To land at Cosford. And what was your original question? I’ve forgotten in my —
GT: Ok. So, let’s, let’s go back one because your, your flights. You managed to do how many ops?
JM: Thirty three and a half. We didn’t finish the thirty fourth.
GT: And what —
JM: We only got half way in.
GT: Please tell me about your thirty fourth op.
JM: That was George Howe work we were doing. We were supposed to pick up a yellow tailed, a Lancaster who had the Oboe equipment on to do this so called George Howe carpet bombing. But we didn’t manage to do this and we were told that we had to get in to the box at the back for fighter protection if we didn’t manage to pick up a yellow tailed aircraft. So we finished up in the box. And we were finally nailed by predicted flak on the run in for the bomb run. As I said before it’s fairly easy to dodge it. If the first burst doesn’t get you you’ve got between five and seven seconds according to your height to dodge it and be privileged to see where it would burst where you should have been but you’ve moved the aircraft so you’re not there any longer. And it’s quite a privilege to see it burst somewhere else. But unfortunately we didn’t outfly it and eventually it caught up with us and blew half the tail away.
GT: And the skipper couldn’t control it. You had to abandon ship.
JM: No. The navigator said, ‘Turn on to 270.’ But in turning he only had aileron control because he had no elevator or rudder control due to half the tail plane being shot away. But when you turn on ailerons the nose begins to drop off. You’re supposed to ease the stick back because one wing loses lift more than the other. And as it started to dive he said, ‘You’ll have,’ [laughs] We did a lot of parachute bailout, bailout business but Hugh just said, ‘You’ll have to get out lads.’ And so we did. I was the last out by the skipper. I had to watch the wireless op, Nesbitt, the hundredth operation man go past me and Ray. And the two gunners went out the back door. So I was the last out by the skipper. And I just reached for my, my parachute was in a rack behind his seat so I had to undo the bungees, put it on the clips, kneel on the hatch, take my helmet and oxygen mask and everything else off my head so that it didn’t strangle me when I went out. Get hold of the D ring and dive out. And that was goodbye. Cheers. Thirty four tons of junk swept away.
GT: And the aircraft was flat and level or was it sunk in a spin?
JM: No. It was in a shallow dive which made the skipper very difficult to get out because he went out the top hatch. And he told me later on at Dulag Luft all his fingernails were bloodied where he was trying to pull himself out against the slipstream which must have been about three hundred miles an hour by then because the aircraft is in a more or less vertical dive by that time. Yeah. So —
GT: And you all had good ‘chutes.
JM: Yes. Aye. All the ‘chutes opened, fortunately. I blacked out in fact. I’d been off oxygen so long that I was twisted and I got hold of the shrouds to untwist and blacked out through lack of oxygen. Anoxia. And I didn’t come to until I was a few feet above a pile of rubble in the centre of Hom with the Wehrmacht waiting for me to unzip all my clothing, pinch me watch and pinch me cigarettes. They didn’t pinch the cigarette case. They put that back in me battledress pocket but pinched my fags. And my watch. The swines. So, somebody got a good watch. My mother bought that as well for me when I started flying. Out of very meagre funds. Yeah.
GT: So when you were captured then did they, all your crew landed about the same area. Did you join up together?
JM: I understood later on at Dulag Luft we were all picked up within twenty four hours of each other. So, they knew where we were coming down. Don’t forget this is daylight and there would, there would be a Wehrmacht reception committee for everybody that came down. They’d have no chance at all of escaping. Or even do anything for themselves. They took these two. They were in a way they were they were a good thing to happen because civilians weren’t very pleased with us for obvious reasons. They used to call us terror flyers. Overlooking the fact that their flyers did the same thing to us years before. So, however that’s that was by the way. They took me to a police station and locked me in an underground cell. Took me boots off me and all. I were, I’m in bare feet. Well, just socks on. Took me boots off. They were flying boots that you could cut the top off you know and put it around you to keep warm. Yeah. They took those off me. I had to sleep in bare feet on bare boards in a prison cell in a place called Hom. So I understand. Yeah. The next morning the — I didn’t get, didn’t get anything to eat or drink either. I was pretty parched. The next morning they took me upstairs to be interviewed by the sergeant of police there. I forget what his title was but he started the proceedings by unholstering his luger, pointedly pushing the safety catch off — and I’ve fired a luger, I know what a hare trigger it is. And he placed the pistol down with the barrel pointing at me and then started to interrogate me. But between his German and my English we didn’t get very far so he gave it up as a bad job. Put the damned thing back where it belonged. But it was a bit unnerving for a lad of nineteen or so. Twenty. Yeah. To be faced with this. Yeah. I didn’t enjoy it I must admit.
GT: But he was Wehrmacht or SS?
JM: Oh, he was Wehrmacht. We only had one brief brush with the SS when they were fleeing from the — when we were on the march the Russians were only about five or six miles behind us all the way. And the SS were trying to escape them in ordinary saloon staff cars and one got stuck near us. And the two of them came out waving lugers, ‘Help get us out of the ditch.’ You know. We just walked past them. Bugger them. Let them get themselves out. They did eventually and drove on. But that’s the only brush — oh. They mounted a machine gun on one of the goon towers at Stalag, at Luckenwalde. And a Spandau machine gun on one of the goon towers and aimed it at the compound. But for some reason or other they didn’t open fire or else they’d have nailed a lot of us with that thing before we could get in to the huts or get behind anything. But they didn’t open fire. They packed up again and left. So that was a strange brush with the SS. But we saw them quite clearly. And the Spandau.
GT: So what prison camps were you taken to? Put in.
JM: The Stalag Luft 7B in Upper Silesia. Bankau, Poland. And then after the march we finished up at Luckenwalde. Thirty kilometres, kilometres south of Berlin. In fact at one stage the Russians and the Germans were swapping shells over the camp. Because we were only a couple of miles apart. One landed in the compound but it didn’t explode funnily enough. We had to roll it to the edge of [laughs] where the tripwire was. Up against the wire. We managed to get out of the, get it out of the gate.
GT: So how many of you —
JM: It was a five hundred pounder.
GT: How many of you were in the camp? How many were in the camp?
JM: Two thousand.
GT: And were you all RAF? USAF?
JM: Yes. I think there was a dotting of Americans and Naval personnel. But very few in number. Only perhaps fifty or so amongst our odd two thousand.
GT: So, most of you were RAF Bomber Command.
JM: Yes.
GT: Or Fighter Command.
JM: Or Fighter Command. Yeah. But aircrew anyway. The officers went to an Oflag so we didn’t see three of them after Dulag Luft. After interrogation camp at Dulag Luft. We didn’t see them anymore. They went to an Oflag. I don’t know where. Because they were commissioned officers.
GT: What was the conditions like?
JM: A bit rough. The food was the main topic of conversation. It’s usually sex or, sex or religion. But at prison camp it was food. All we thought about was food, food, food. We used to get something called sauerkraut which was some kind of cabbage in red vinegar. Disgusting stuff but it was edible. Just. And we had another thing called beetle soup which was supposed to be pea soup but inside every pea was a little beetle and we used to split open a pea and get the beetle out and put them down on the table. And we’d perhaps have a dozen or so little tiny beetles and then we’d eat the peas in the pea soup. Yeah. It’s true that. You couldn’t write that in fiction and get away with it but It’s true. Yeah. So, bread. We had to have a small like a Hovis loaf. Like a small Hovis and you had to divide it between eight men and you used to take turns at doing this in the hut between the eight of us because you got the last slice. And it would obviously be the smallest one so we had to take turns cutting the bread [laughs] How about that?
GT: No Red Cross parcels?
JM: Oh, we did get — what did we get? One. We got, in fact the SBO the Senior British Officer was in touch with one of the Red Cross officials. He had freedom to move about in Germany this fella. He had his own car. And he would advise the Senior British Officer, SBO that there was two wagons of Red Cross parcels in the sidings down outside the camp. But we only ever got one. The Germans used to pinch them and you couldn’t blame them. They were starving as much as were.
GT: Yeah.
JM: But we only got one Red Cross, Red Cross parcel between two of us. The only time I ever got a Red Cross parcel I must admit. It was very welcome. Klim milk and all sorts of things. Cigarettes. And dates would you believe. I got used to eating dates because they were very nutritious and they used to get the saliva going in your mouth. And I used to get used to eating dates. Ridiculous isn’t it? Yeah. I wouldn’t touch them in Civvy Street with a bargepole, with a sanitary inspector on the end.
GT: Was there any attempts at escaping from the Stalag that you were in?
JM: The [pause] we managed to get permission to have a sports field outside the camp. Down a little, on a little lower place so we could play football. We couldn’t do it inside the camp because of the trip wire near the goon boxes. You couldn’t get near that or else you’d get shot. That was about twenty yards inside the main wire. So we got this privilege. I think it was twice a week. And somebody managed to get a pole vault. Vault equipment in several different pieces and secreted it down on to this field. Unbeknown to the rest of us I might add. Only those in the know around about him that helped him to carry these different sections of the pole vault. And when he got down on the field the sentries patrolled outside the field to give us freedom to play football and so forth. And he put this thing together, took a run at the fence that surrounded the field, pole vaulted over the fence and I understand later on — to freedom. In to Switzerland. How about that? You couldn’t write that in fiction and get away with it, could you? But he pole vaulted over the wire. And I understand later on he got to Sweden. Yeah. Incredible isn’t it?
GT: Outstanding. So —
JM: I don’t even know what happened to the pole vault. Must have left it there.
GT: So, it was nothing like Hogan’s Heroes on television then. Yeah?
JM: Oh dear. He was, he was a real hero he was. Take my hat off to him. Yeah.
GT: Yes. Certainly.
JM: He made it.
GT: Now, one thing that before you were shot down on one of your ops you mentioned to me earlier that you might have had, you might have been shot at yourself. Your aircraft.
JM: Oh yes. We saw tracer one night. And we didn’t reply to it because we didn’t see anything to shoot at. Our gunners didn’t. We just saw the tracer coming towards us. But the following morning the ground crew showed us in the, the tail wheel has deeper slots on it on either side to stop it shimmying. And these slots were about three inches wide and about an inch deep and they showed us they’d dug out a 303 slug from this ridge. So, we were under friendly fire unbeknown to us because this was quite definitely a 303 slug out of a Browning machine gun.
GT: From above or below?
JM: Above.
GT: Better than the tail.
JM: It was firing down. Missed us completely. Must have been a rotten gunner.
GT: Day or night?
JM: Fortunately.
GT: Day or night?
JM: Oh, it was night time because we could see, saw the tracer. At night. Yeah. Very unfriendly fire. Yeah. It didn’t hit anything else fortunately. Or we didn’t see anything.
GT: So, prisoner of war and you knew that the allies were coming from one side and —
JM: And the Russians from another.
GT: So, what did the Germans —
JM: The borderline was the River Elbe.
GT: Ok. So what did the Germans do when they knew that their time was come and they — there’s much been talked of the forced march. Can you tell us a bit about that?
JM: They, well as I said before it was two hundred and ninety seven kilometres in twenty one days in the worst winter Poland had on record at that time. It really — you couldn’t see anything but snow. The only indication of the road were the telephone wires running alongside the wire. And that’s the only difference between the fields and the road. We were trudging along in snow all the time. We did the last fifty kilometres in a cattle truck. It was for six horses or forty men so you can imagine the crowding in that. The — we were bombed incidentally while in a siding. The Germans used to use a system of stacking. Wherever an engine was going if trucks were going the same they used to attach it to that engine and it would continue its journey with the various trucks it was supposed to take to different camps. And we were in a siding once when the Yanks bombed us. We knew it was the Yanks because of the size of the explosives. And it lifted our truck off the rails and we had to get [laughs] the Germans and all of us to hook it back on to the rails using a sleeper to get it back on to the rails so we could get attached to a train to pull us out of there later on. Imagine German guards and POW trying to get this cattle truck back on the rail. It was so crowded that we used to, half of us used to stand while the others stretched out a bit. You know. And take a twenty minute interval. They’d get up and we’d stretch out a bit because otherwise standing was a bit too much for us, you know on starvation diets. Yeah. They had one little trick. We had a can for urinating in. And there was a breather opening high up on the top side of the cattle truck and we used to fill this thing up between us and wait until we thought one of the guards was going past outside and hurtle this fluid out through the gap. We got one once. He started banging on the side with his butt of his rifle, you know. Cursing us. So we got one of them once. Yeah. You couldn’t write that in fiction could you and get away with it? But it’s true. Yeah.
GT: What, what was the reasoning for the Germans to do the forced march?
JM: The, Hitler was, we learned later that Hitler was going to use them as hostages to gather them around Berlin as far as he could to determine, to deter the allies from bombing close to Berlin. Because he’d be hitting his own POWs and particularly the tanks that were guarding the bunker itself in Berlin. So we learned that later. That we were going to be used as hostages. There was quite a number of us by then. We queued up with Lamsdorf on the march and there was two and a half thousand of those joined us on the march. So, when we got to Luckenwalde there we were joined by refugees would you believe. They, they were on the road for the same reason as us. They were fleeing in front of the Russians because the Russians never asked questions. If anything was moving in front they just mowed it down. In fact, when we were at Luckenwalde, this is another one you won’t believe but mothers were coming up with their daughters. We stayed in camp when the Germans left. They disappeared one night, overnight and there was no Germans guarding the camp anymore so, we took over guard ourselves. And there were women coming up to the wire with their daughters offering themselves and their daughters to live with them in their houses just to get a British uniform in the house because they knew the Russians had been told not to offend an allied uniform. So, it was their protection to get us to live with them. With an allied uniform in the house. How about that? You couldn’t write that in fiction could you? Some of the blokes did actually go but most of us didn’t. We, we were waiting to get out of the camp altogether in a way. In fact, there’s a, they had, the Yanks were allowing the Russians to cross the Elbe ad lib as they wanted to get back into their own country. But the Russians were stopping allied prisoners from crossing the Elbe in to the American territory until the Americans got wise to this and stopped the Russians. And then the Russians allowed the Americans to bring lorries up to the camp and ferry us by lorry back in to the American zone. Yeah. Leipzig they took us too. You see, it was a wireless school for the Germans. I was looking through the window one day in Leipzig and I saw a boot outside the window. I thought that’s an odd — there must be a one legged man walking about. A boot. Just one boot. And when I looked closely there’s a foot inside it. Would you believe that? I thought oh that’s enough for me. Do you know the Yanks had pineapple chunks and cream. Ordinary cream. On the tables at their camp. Right close to the front line. Pineapple chunks and cream on the tables in their mess. In their cook house. Aye. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We couldn’t touch it because our stomachs were so tender that we were told not to touch it otherwise we’d be violently sick. So it was very tempting but we had to leave it alone [laughs]
GT: So are you pretty positive that the Russians moving from one side and the Americans from the other pretty much prevented all you POWs ending up being —
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
GT: Yeah.
JM: In fact the Russians made a great show of mowing the wire down, the outside wire of the camp with a tank. And the following day they put it up again. Put the wire up. We were just pretty much prisoners of the Russians as we’d been of the Germans because they wouldn’t allow us out of the camp. They started, they said it was because there were a lot of Germans loose in amongst us and they wanted to ferret them out. And they started taking all our particulars you know. Writing them down like the Germans had done before at Dulag Luft. But we gave them all sorts of silly answers. I think some of us were circus performers. Somebody rode unicycles [laughs] Things like that. All daft things that they were writing down.
GT: So, how many of the RAF Bomber Command chaps would you think were dropped by the wayside and did not survive the forced march? And therefore, what happened to their bodies?
JM: I couldn’t even say. I couldn’t know that really. We did see several bodies by the side of the road but you couldn’t tell with the snow covering them who they were. We could see the spread-eagled shapes but, and the bunched-up shapes but we didn’t know who they were or what they were. So quite a lot of them didn’t survive.
GT: And the Germans were given orders to shoot?
JM: To shoot any prisoners that dropped by the wayside but we were to learn later on that they just fired in the air. As I said it’s an easy death. You just go to sleep with hypothermia.
GT: What kept you going, Jim?
JM: I really don’t know but I was young. I was only twenty and some of these prisoners had been since Dunkirk. They were very weak and on severe dietery all those years. They just couldn’t survive. You know. They just dropped out ad lib. In fact, some of the blokes that were fitter even than I was had a handcart and they were, they were picking up blokes that had fallen. And they had about six or seven in this handcart. And they knew that the sentries had only fired in the air because they saw them do it. And they were put in this handcart with survivors. How they did that I don’t know. It took me all my time to stay on my feet. Yeah. I had, I had my escape boots had a wrap around of nylon and you could, you had a little pen knife in a slot and you could cut this off leaving you just with the shoes. And I used to use this wrap on the front and the back of my battledress to try and keep me warm. I had a greatcoat on and all as well which the Red Cross issued me at Dulag Luft. In fact, there’s a photograph of me somewhere with my original documents with this greatcoat on. I think Pat’s got it now. I think she’s filched it I think [laughs] I haven’t seen it for years so she must have pinched it.
GT: So once you got to pretty much the end of that, of your march you were put into another POW camp and it was from there that the allies rescued you or took you back to what was it? Juvencourt?
JM: The lorries took us to a place called Leipzig. This wireless school as I’ve just mentioned. And from there they flew us in Dakotas to Brussels. And then from Brussels in Lancasters, eight at a time back to Cosford in England to be based at Fenchurch. That’s how we arrived back in England.
GT: So, was there much time between or was that pretty immediate?
JM: I think there was a couple of days. We spent a couple of days in Brussels. We got deloused by the Americans because we were in filthy uniforms and that you know. And they issued us with new uniforms at Brussels and we were able to go into Brussels. Gave us some money and have a haircut. They didn’t half rook us and all, the barbers. They knew we were coming and they knew we had money. Money you know. They rooked us. We had a ride on a tram while we were there for free. They didn’t, we had a ride around Brussels on trams. I think there was three of us. Three or four of us. So that was, that was a bit of an adventure in Brussels because everything was open. You know. Everything were pre-war as it were then.
GT: So what were they feeding you then? Because you’d pretty much been starved. So how were they feeding you? Gradually, with good food.
JM: Yeah. The —
GT: Was it up to you or did they supply it?
JM: We had what was known as a progressive diet. It came in a box. And it usually had a pork pie and some bread and butter. And a cake of some kind. As I vaguely remember. And we were allowed to eat this, I think twice a day until our stomachs got used to expanding enough to take better food. And then we got on to corned beef hash and things like that. You know. That our stomachs could manage. That’s why.
GT: So, was that sent over to Belgium from England?
JM: Yes. Yeah.
GT: Oh. I see.
JM: The, when we were on at Cosford just normal cookhouse food after that. Yeah. I remember sausages in mash. Oh, Shangri la [ laughs] I personally enjoyed. Yeah.
GT: When you left the camps and even after the march did many of your chaps have a chance to grab souvenirs like medals?
JM: Well, funnily enough we, I managed to bag a little small Beretta. The German officers used to wear them in a little leather pouch in their dress uniform. Quite a small Italian six shot Beretta. And I can’t remember where I got this from but I got it at Leipzig. From somewhere or other. I got one of the ober feldwebels caps at the same time which I brought home. And when we went to get deloused some swine pinched it. Funnily enough Jack Bagshaw at work, when I was at work at Avro’s he was a motor torpedo mechanic. He had six Packards between decks roaring away in his ear. He was deaf in one lughole. He used to get away with that. That’s another story. And he came, I was telling him this story and he came to work one day and handed me an oily rag and there was this little Beretta. Exactly the same model. He said, ‘You can keep it if you want.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’m not carrying a firearm in the house. You’re responsible. You get it back.’ You know. So I gave it back to Jack Bagshaw. Yeah. But it was exactly the same little six shot Beretta. Italian make. Yeah. It was a lovely little thing. Yeah.
GT: The reason I ask you that, Jim is because what one of the chaps on 75 Squadron, Randall Springer — he showed me several years ago a handful of medals that one of the prisoners of war had thrust into his hand as they pulled him on to the Lancasters. And one of them was an Iron Cross. So, that particular chap, POW managed to grab a bunch of medals from someone and they ended up in New Zealand. And I’ve heard of others talk of on the ship that arrived into Wellington or Auckland harbours taking all of the airmen back. A lot of them had firearms or daggers or bayonets and they, they got cold feet and threw them overboard before they, before they landed. So that’s the reason I asked you that question.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Brilliant. So, once you were back in England you arrived in Cosford you said?
JM: Yes.
GT: Yes. And they repatriated you pretty much so that —
JM: To Fenchurch. Fairly close by. In fact, I rang up directory. My Uncle Tom was a chief electrician of, was head of the Electricity Board in Leeds and I got directory to give me his phone number and I phoned him up. He said, ‘Where are you, Jim?’ I said, ‘I’m on Fenchurch station.’ He said, ‘Well, there’s a clock there. You stand under that clock until I come for you.’ And he took me back to his home and I slept there for, I had a sleeping out pass obviously carrying [unclear] and I slept there a couple of nights while we got acquainted. He took [laughs] he took me to his club that night among a few of his cronies. One of their private clubs, you know. In the city. And they plying me with ale and loosening my tongue you know and about halfway through this Tom said to me, ‘I want to speak to you Jim for a minute. I want to tell you a story. And it’s about a sparrow that got evacuated from London in to the countryside. And he was lost. He didn’t know where to eat or anything,’ he said, ‘And a bull came into the field and asked him what the problem was. So the sparrow told him his tale of woe and this bull said, ‘Oh, I’m fed on the best of stuff. I’ll drop you patch here. You get stuck in to that,’ he said, ‘I’m fed on the finest food there is.’ So, this was agreed. And day by day the sparrow used to climb up the tree singing his heart out ‘til he got right to the top. And he’s singing away his heart out on this rich diet. And a little boy with a new airgun came in and [pop noise] and down came the sparrow.’ He said, ‘There’s a moral to this story, Jim. When you get to the top on bullshit don’t make a song and dance about it.’ To my eternal grief and shame it was two days before I realised who the sparrow was. Me. [laughs] That was my uncle Tom. Yeah. He was, he was instrumental when I had the fire engine I told about. Seeing Walter. He, he, I pulled up one day outside his house in this fire engine and he said, ‘Good God. You can’t leave that.’ It was a [Banjo?] Avenue, you know. ‘You can’t leave that. Nobody can get past.’ ‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘I think I know where that’ll go.’ He came back about ten minutes later. ‘Follow me,’ he said, ‘But be prepared to back up when I tell you to.’ So I backed up. He stopped me about between the vicarage and the church. There was just room for this fire engine to get off the road you know and out of the way of other cars. That’s by the way that but that’s my Uncle Tom. He was instrumental in electrifying many of the Indian railways.
GT: Right. Well —
JM: Years before.
GT: So, from Cosford and the satellite that you were repatriated to did you end up back at Mepal?
JM: Only once. For the fire engine. That’s all. Well, funnily enough —
GT: No. But you were telling me about your logbooks. So, so what happened about your logbooks?
JM: Well, when I was at Fenchurch as I said a fifteen hundred weight opened the double doors at the back end of the cookhouse, backed in and tipped up. It must have been a thousand or more logbooks on to the floor and said, ‘Yours is in that lot. Try and find it.’
GT: So, were these just 75 Squadron logbooks or from all stations?
JM: I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t know that. I went to the number that must have been from a number of stations. There wouldn’t have been all from Mepal. No. I had attempted to look through and I thought oh well, I wasn’t interested in a logbook. I’d survived. That’s all I was interested in.
GT: And therefore you do not have your logbook today.
JM: No. I don’t know where it is or even if it exists.
GT: It’s a lot of history. A lot of history to go. Now, the Aircrew Europe Star. We know that the Aircrew Europe Star was stopped at D-Day.
JM: A point. Yeah.
GT: At a point. And from there on all of those that flew ops in Bomber Command were only eligible for the France Germany Star.
JM: Yeah.
GT: What’s your thoughts as a person who went on ops across that time?
JM: Well, I singled it out as if somebody did one op during the qualifying period they would get the Aircrew Star. I did thirty four. Or thirty three and a half. A fortnight outside the qualifying period and I didn’t get it. And I was a bit peeved about that I must admit. Yeah. But it didn’t come through so that was it. They wrote to me and said that I was a fortnight outside. I’ve got the letter somewhere. Outside the qualifying period so therefore I didn’t qualify for the Aircrew Star.
GT: And to continue on from that there was no actual Bomber Command campaign medal although the clasp was introduced as a, an add on.
JM: Yeah.
GT: An attempted fix.
JM: Yeah. I’ve got that. It’s shown up on that photograph there.
GT: Brilliant. But what’s your thoughts then on the fact — pretty much I’m guessing it’s the same as what the France Germany versus the Aircrew Europe isn’t it? Bomber Command chaps like yourself never was showing the grace and the sacrifice you guys made by having your own campaign medal. You’ve had a lot of time to think of this, Jim. What’s your thoughts on that?
JM: I just dismissed it as the way the cookie crumbles. I wasn’t there when they wanted me to be so that’s the end of it. As I say I was a bit peeved I must admit. For obvious reason.
GT: Well, the Bomber Command medal or campaign medal it was decided that there would not be one and that was decided some years after the war.
JM: Yeah.
GT: So the fact that you guys did not get a campaign medal is, was they made a decision then and we’re stuck with. And there are still some folk still trying to make sure that you do get more recognition than just a clasp.
JM: Nice to know.
GT: Yeah. And the last piece therefore of medals is that you are eligible for the Legion of Honour from the French.
JM: I didn’t know that.
GT: And therefore I’m going to make enquiries to ensure that the application is put forward of your, of your service to the French. I have done six gentlemen in New Zealand in the last three or four years. So therefore, noting that at least some of your operations were against Le Havre and other French targets you are eligible. So, we will do something about that, Jim. Now, Jim when you finished obviously with recuperating did you stay in the RAF or did you, or were you demobbed come VJ day?
JM: As I said before I went in to MT. Motor Transport. Because I didn’t want to fly a plate washing machine. So, carrying tapes and a crown made me eligible to drive the buses. The thirty two seater Fordsons. And the Thornycroft crane. That was nine and a half ton. I took my wife over to the island when I was in Jurby because we were only married in the July and this was in September. So she had a few months there before I was demobbed the following year in January. I came back to Liverpool to get demobbed and get issued my civvy togs you know. The, there was quite a few things happened there as well. What was the first one? I know I was, I was driving an arctic with furniture. Taking to — from Jurby to Athol, further up the road. And I thought, oh no the wife’s shopping in Ramsey today. I know she said she was going shopping. I’ll go and do a bit of showing off in Ramsey with this Arctic, you know. So I drove off my proper route and went into Ramsey and I got it jack-knifed on one of the corners. A policeman came over and said, ‘What are you trying to do, son?’ I said, ‘Well, I was only married in July and I know the wife’s shopping here. I came, I came down to do a bit of showing off actually and I’ve got jack-knifed here.’ So, he sat back on his heels laughing. He said, ‘In thirty odd years I’ve never heard an excuse like that.’ He said, ‘We’ll get you out of here. I know who these drivers are.’ So they came out and had a good laugh at my expense, shifted their cars and I got this un-jack-knifed and drove out of Ramsey. It wasn’t until about a month later my wife said she’d witnessed all this from one of the shop doorways and kept out of the way [laughs] How about that? Oh dear. I never lived that down.
GT: Well, tell me, Jim about your lovely wife then. Where did you meet? And you married in the July of 194 –
JM: ’45.
GT: ’45.
JM: ‘45
GT: Please tell me about your dear wife.
JM: We — I was a, I was, I did a lot of roller skating and I had one partner called Jean. She was, I was only, what was I? Thirteen. I think she was twelve. And her mother told me off once because we were, as a gang we were messing about in air raid shelters you know. Lads and girl. And her mother told me off one day. Singled me out and said, ‘You’ve been messing about with my daughter in an air raid shelter. Now, I’m telling you now you’ve got to stop it.’ I said, ‘Alright. Ok. Can I take her skating on Saturday night?’ She said, ‘You’ve got guts lad. I’ll tell you that.’ She said, ‘You’ll have to ask her dad when he comes home.’ So, I said, ‘When’ll he be home?’ She said, ‘About 5 o’clock.’ So, I went and asked him. Got on my bike. I rode back up to [unclear] Drive from Levenshulme and I said, ‘Can I take your daughter?’ He said, ‘Well, she’s got to be home for 10 o’clock at night.’ I said, well he’d got piles very badly, he couldn’t move. He was locked in an armchair. He said, ‘You’d better have her home by 10 o’clock.’ I said, ‘Well, skating doesn’t end, finish ‘til ten and it’ll take us about half an hour to walk home from there. Can we make it half past?’ ‘Not a second later,’ he said, ‘Not a second later.’ And by the skin of our teeth we made it, you know. But after that Mrs Mac used to send him to bed to give us a bit of leeway coming home. So he never knew what time we got home after that. They always gave me a cup of cocoa before I rode home on my bike. I used to take my bike to the rink and walk Jean home and then get on my bike and ride home from their house in Burnage back to Levenshulme. Yeah. She was a brilliant partner too. We had some fun. Len Lee and the, Jack Woodford used to run a skate room at Levenshulme Skating Rink. And they used to, they had two elderly people taught Jean and I how to dance on skates and we taught Len and Jack how to dance on skates. So they picked up partners and liked to copy me and Jean and they learned to dance on skates. And one time we were doing a tango. Well, the skate was rectangular. The rink. And we used to do a figure of eight so that we could have more room on the wood then we would normally just following the rectangle you see. And we used to time it so that we’d pass one another, Len Lee and me in the centre of this eight. And one, the girls used to thump us. We were getting close. We couldn’t see each other. We were going by the standards on the side of the rink. The bar rails, you know. Where we were for the centre of the rink. We couldn’t see each other. And the girls used to thump us. ‘You’re too close. You’re too — ’ We couldn’t see each other. And one night our shirts actually touched. They were billowing out with the speed you know, so the bodies didn’t touch but our shirts actually touched. And I can hear him now, Len Lee ‘Jesus Jim,’ right across the rink, ‘How close is that?’ You know. Because of a closing speed of about twenty miles an hour. Dear. Dear. How we got away with that I’ll never know but that’s by the way.
GT: And you had children.
JM: Oh yes. Lynn is actually shown with my wife in that small picture there. She was first born. She contracted cancer when she was thirty eight. They gave her six weeks to live and she lasted ‘til she was forty two and then she died. So that was it. But she, she said, ‘When I’m going dad I’m going kicking and screaming,’ [laughs] and I bet she did as well. She once went hiking around the world with her mate Brenda and she’s only five foot two. She was only tiny. And Brenda was only small. And they asked me to drop her outside Altrincham so they could pick up a wagon to get a boat to Holland. And when I looked in my mirror and saw these two tiny figures the kit bags were taller than they were. And the next we heard was five days later with a postcard and a cross on it outside the Blue Mosque. She said later on, ‘The first thing we saw when we got to Baghdad was a van going past — Manchester University Student’s Union.’ Going past them down the street. How about that? You couldn’t write that in fiction could you and get away with it? She got very poorly Brenda. Eating fruit that she hadn’t washed and she was, Lynn was trying to bring her around on the pavement propped against the wall. A bloke stopped and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ So she told him. He said, ‘I’m a medical student. I think I can get her out of this.’ And he did. He laid her down in the prone position and started massaging her and got her, made her sick and got her right. So she was able to stand up again and walk. How about that for coincidence? A medical student.
GT: Yeah.
JM: Coming across the pair of them in extremis like that. Yeah. That’s another thing you couldn’t write in fiction but it’s true.
GT: So when you were MT driving you were given some jobs and one of them was Witchford.
JM: Yeah. Oh with the fire engine. Oh, I’ve told you this one already. Yeah.
GT: But Witchford is 115 Squadron’s airfield. Right next to Mepal which was 75 Squadron’s airfield. So —
JM: Yeah. Their drem systems were five, our drem systems were five miles apart. Yeah. The — I had some food. I collected a fire engine. Then I went for some grub to the canteen and one of the women serving me started crying. One of the WAAFs serving on the other side of the cookhouse bar. And she started crying. She said, ‘I know you. You’re supposed to be dead.’ I said, ‘How do you —’ She said, ‘You were from, you were from Rees’s crew. We were told you were dead.’ I said, ‘Well, I can assure I’m very much alive and I’m hungry.’ But she, how about that? She had tears coming down her face and she’s serving me breakfast. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was a unique occasion. Yeah.
GT: So, why did they think you were dead?
JM: Say again.
GT: So, why did they think you were dead then?
JM: Well, because of this blown up business with the two aircraft that collided over the target. They thought our aircraft was one of them and that’s how the tale got back to squadron. Through the rear gunner surviving out of one of them. And that’s when I came with Walter and his ghost story.
GT: Oh, that was on an operation before you were shot down.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Ah. Now, what about —
JM: Oh no. It was on the same operation.
GT: That was that operation.
JM: Yeah. Three.
GT: Yeah.
JM: Three aircraft were lost that day.
GT: Oh right.
JM: From our squadron.
GT: So —
JM: Out of eighteen.
GT: So, now who —
JM: High attrition rate.
GT: Who was Walter?
JM: Walter was the father of the girl I was friendly with in the village.
GT: And what happened when you walked up to him?
JM: I’ll repeat this. I’ll repeat this for what it’s worth. There was some slightly rising ground on a hot summer afternoon when even the silence is noisy. You know what I mean. I parked this tender. The camouflaged tender in grey and green under the tree and walked up the slight rise towards Walter. And about twenty yards off I shouted, ‘Hi Walter,’ and Walter turned, looked at me, ‘No. No. No. Jim. No.’ And his son tugged at his leg, he said, It’s alright, dad. He’s real.’ ‘Jesus, don’t ever do that again,’ he said. He came feeling me to make sure I was real. You know. That was Walter. Aye. I was a ghost for three seconds. How about that? Yeah.
GT: He thought you were shot down as well.
JM: Yeah.
GT: And lost.
JM: As I say I wasn’t aware of this at the time but Walter was. He was aware of the tale and I wasn’t.
GT: And that, you walked up after you’d been repatriated.
JM: Yeah.
GT: From your POW time.
JM: Yeah.
GT: So, being taken POW were your family notified immediately or did it take some time?
JM: No. They gave us — that was a curious thing. They gave us a letter to write to be forwarded through the Red Cross to say that I was safe and well and a prisoner of war. And the Red Cross was supposed to deliver this to my mother. Which she didn’t get until six months later. But curiously enough a couple up in Scotland had a very powerful shortwave receiver and they used to listen to the Red Cross broadcast of prisoners of war and other items of interest to families. And they found out that I was a prisoner of war through this receiver and contacted the Air Ministry with this information. And the Air Ministry gave them my mother’s address. And six months after I’d been shot down this couple contacted her and told her that I was alive and well. How about that? Through the shortwave receiver they had in operation up in Scotland. In Lossiemouth in Scotland. Yeah. So my mother didn’t know whether I was alive or dead for over six months. That was a bit hard on her. Yeah.
GT: And how long were you a POW for?
JM: From November in ’44 ‘til April, ‘til May in ’45.
GT: Which was practically the whole six months. Yeah. The starvation thing that you endured did that have any lasting effect on you in later life?
JM: Only making my stomach small so that it was difficult to get back to eating solid food later on in Leipzig where the Yanks took us. They were aware. We weren’t the first prisoners of war obviously to stay there and they were aware of what was needed to get our stomachs to expand and gave us these feed boxes twice a day as I remember. That contained the necessary things that would make our stomachs bigger and bigger ‘til we could take solid food.
GT: So, after the disbanding from the RAF, the demobbing, what did you do as a career for the rest of your days? Your [unclear] days.
JM: Well, I was able to get what was called a green card from the AEU because of my service in the RAF. What I did then. And that allowed me to get an engineering job anywhere with the blessing of the AEU with this green card. And the first, first job I had was at Crossley’s in Crossley Road in Levenshulme building buses. I only stopped there for about a month and then I went up to Mirrlees where they made diesel engines and I got into their experimental department and worked there for about eleven years. And after that I was going by bicycle up from here in Ashford Road up to Mirrlees on a bike which wasn’t bad going but was pretty bad coming back up the hill when I was tired. So I got a job at Craven’s making machine tools and I became a machine tool fitter. I was eleven years at Craven’s. I were five years at Mirrlees and eleven years at Craven’s. So I became a machine tool fitter and began travelling up and down the country after a while putting machinery in for Craven’s. I put a fourteen foot borer once at Peter Brotherhood’s at Peterborough. That’s like a big turntable. It was in eight pieces that. Fourteen feet across. Two uprights and a cross slide. And I put that together myself and trimmed it off and that would probably last about a hundred and fifty, two hundred years that because of the way it was made. Yeah. Other things are [unclear] in, down in in Kent. Different places. And Falkirk. The funny thing happened in Falkirk. I was, I was putting a machine in there and I felt very uncomfortable and I thought, I went to the boss of where I was working, I said, ‘I’ve got to go home. I’m sorry. I feel very uncomfortable. There’s something happening at home and I don’t know what it is.’ And I got home later that day and my wife was teetering in the front room trying to hang a piece of wallpaper up and she was just about over balancing on the steps when I grabbed hold of her. I went in silently because I looked through the window first. Saw her as she was teetering and we both finished up on the side of the wall and in a heap on the floor. And she brought me home from Falkirk and I don’t know how or why. If that isn’t mental telepathy I don’t know what is. But she did that and I wasn’t aware of it. That’s true that is. Yeah. We all finished up on a heap on the floor and she had the two bits of wallpaper on the floor [laughs] ‘You made me jump,’ she said. I said, ‘You’d have jumped if you’d have fell over. You were overbalancing then.’ And she was as well. I cut the ropes on the ladder so that she wouldn’t use it again. Chucked it outside. So I went back up to Falkirk and finished my job.
GT: You had many lovely years with your wife.
JM: Sixty six years we were married. Yeah. As I said before I only, I only signed up for a fortnight. But anyway it was very enjoyable. She was a wonderful wife. She really was. I remember my mother saying, ‘She’s not the girl for you, Jim.’ But she was wrong. She was. She, I learned later I was in the rink, she first spotted me at Birchfield Skating Rink. And she said to a mutual friend of hers, she saw me come in the rink and she said to this friend, this friend told me years later as soon as she saw me walk in the rink she said, ‘I’m having him,’ [laughs] to this friend. And I didn’t even know the woman then, you know.
GT: How old was she?
JM: She’d be twenty. Twenty two. Yeah. Same age as me. Well, she’s the older one. She’s a month older than me. Her birthday’s in May and mine’s in July but she said to this mutual friend who told me years later, ‘I’m having him.’ And she did and all. I don’t know how but she did. Yeah. Yeah. She, as I say she was a wonderful wife. Wonderful mother. A wonderful person.
GT: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
GT: [unclear] Jim.
JM: I get a bit emotional.
GT: Well, it’s understandable and I’m very sad to hear of her loss from dementia. That’s understandable. Jim, the engineering stuff that you learned from the RAF. Did that help you once you’d become a civilian again?
JM: Oh yes. Yeah. What I learned engineering on aircraft before I volunteered that served me in very good stead indeed because they had a little training school there for mechanics and they taught you the rudiments of engineering. How to file things, you know. How to fettle things. How to scrape things using a scraper. And that, and that lasted, I think about a month and it stood me in good stead in Civvy Street. Particularly as, oh that was the thing we used, they used to send Hurricanes over from Canada that had been made in Canada and the fuselage was in a big long box with the wings lay alongside it and the tail unit already in place. And we used to get these out, assemble them together and fly them off. And we used to work dinner times because they used to get a lot of fluff in the radiator and that used to seize up and get the engines too warm. So one day we were, we used to work dinner times if we could because we could get a couple of hours off later on you know and eat what we liked. And one day we were changing a radiator on a Hurricane and an Oxford landed. And my mate who was senior to me, he said, ‘Go and wave that in.’ So I went over on to the field and waved this Oxford in and shut it down. And I walked back again and got underneath, got on with this thing, and then we saw three figures walking along in American uniform and the middle one was in civilian dark clothes. And the other American was in American uniform. And he said, ‘Who’s that?’ ‘It’s Bob Hope.’ We’d heard rumours about this. It was Bob Hope. And he came over to us and he bent down underneath and he said, ‘What are you doing, lads?’ So, we said, ‘Well, we’re changing this radiator.’ And he shook hands, I said, dirty hands. And he shook hands with us. Dirty oily hands you know. And he gave us chewing gum. They used to be in little squares in the packet. You didn’t have it in layers. It was in little peppermint coated squares you know. All these tiny squares and a big packet of these. I gave it to the WAAFs later on because I didn’t eat chewing gum. But he did a show I understand in the hangar. He came to bury his grandfather who lived in Hitchin because he, he was British born, Bob Hope. And his grandfather died and that’s why he was up here. He was over with Frances Langford and one or two other. Bing Crosby. Entertaining the troops. In the USO in London, you know. That’s why they were over here.
GT: What was that? 1943 or something?
JM: Yeah. It was forty — no. It would be ’45 wouldn’t it? Oh no. Forty. No. You’re right. ’43. Yeah. And he gave quite a show in the hangar to everybody and signed a lot of autographs you know. On toilet paper would you believe. And I got one of them. I brought it home. Yeah. Signing autographs on toilet paper. You had to double it over to make sure. He was, he was a great bloke. Yeah. He came to bury his grandfather who died in Hitchin. That was about five miles away from Henlow where we were at the time. It was a peacetime aerodrome. Brick buildings, barrack room jobs. You know. Not Nissen huts.
GT: So, when did you retire? What age were you when you retired? Or year I suppose.
JM: I retired from Avro’s. I went to work at AV Roe’s because Cincinnati started buying out machines tool people and closing them down so that they could take the orders. Cincinnati in America were closing, closed Richard’s down. And then we knew they were going to close Craven’s down so one of my mates went up to Woodford. And he phoned me about a week later, he said, ‘Get your arse up here a bit quick. It’s money for old rope.’ So, I went up and because of my earlier training in the RAF I got in to experimental at Woodford. So I got in amongst the flying aircraft there and that was quite an enjoyable time to stay there. And I retired from Woodford when I was sixty five. Yeah.
GT: So you saw the introduction of the Vulcan.
JM: Oh yes. Aye. I’ve worked on the Vulcan. Would you believe a Vulcan is held, the engines in a Vulcan are held by one bolt? It’s about three and a half inches thick and it’s about a foot long and you have to feed it through a, through the engine and through a hangar in the roof of the engine bay. And apart from tags at the front and back to stop it from swivelling that’s the only thing that holds the engine in a Vulcan. Would you believe? One great big bolt. And they’re thirty three thousand horsepower each those engines. Olympus engines. Thirty three thousand horsepower each.
GT: Same as the Concorde.
JM: And one bolt holds them in. That’s unbelievable isn’t it?
GT: So what makes the howl?
JM: What makes —?
GT: The Vulcan howl.
JM: Oh. The — we had diffusers on the drum and they started by air pressure. We have what’s known as a Palouste with a little rover engine at the back and it builds up air pressure. You put this into the aeroplane and it drives the turbines around until they’re fast enough for the fuel to be ignited and then they open up themselves so that they shut it down, did that one by one. AV Roe’s do that. They’d run the engines. Not us. The [pause] I’ve nothing to add to that I don’t think. But these diffusers made the howl go upwards. They were L shaped. Big metal things. And they put out. They could hear us in Bramhall but we couldn’t hear an awful lot here because the sound went up. But they could hear us in Bramhall you know. Yeah.
GT: That must have been exciting times with the V force bomber aircraft coming on line and all the experimental little small delta wing aircraft.
JM: Yeah. I did the right thing going to Woodford although I went for a few months until I could get back in to the machine tool industry but I was there thirty years in all. And I’ve got a watch to commemorate it. It’s upstairs.
GT: Yeah.
JM: What did I want to say?
GT: What about the Saunders Roe? Did you have anything to do with — which had one of the first ejection seats from Martin-Baker?
JM: No. No. I had nothing to do with that at all.
GT: That was a Navy one.
JM: No. Funnily enough, Poggy the engineer on the Vulcan, he, they had to — there was a quite a reoccurring fault with the buzz bars at the back of the Vulcan and sometimes they used to go off line which left them with an aircraft with no power. They had a RAT an air rotating power unit that they used to drop down out of the wing into the air flow to give them enough time to check instruments and so forth. But he had to bale out as well. Bob Pogson. Anyway, we were able to compare Caterpillars together, you know. We both had the same card.
GT: [unclear]
JM: Bob Pogson. He baled out of a Vulcan. There was one did and all. They lost another Vulcan with Edwards and he qualified for a Caterpillar. We had three of us in Vulcan qualifying. Showing cards to one another you know and everybody looking and wondering what the hell we were doing. Yeah. The — one of the blokes at that I worked with on the benches, he said, I showed him some photographs some time and he said, ‘You’re my hero.’ I said, ‘Don’t talk shit. Heroes didn’t come back.’ And apparently he showed them around. I got quite a reputation at Woodford because he told other people like the twins and so forth like that. And they did very well really. You must be running out of time on that.
GT: One thing that always interested me was the V force bombers always had four — well the pilot and co-pilot always had the ejection seats and the men in the back were facing rearwards without ejection seats.
JM: That’s right.
GT: And I believe it became an issue that even went to your parliament. Do you recall anything that along that was talked of at the time and they —
JM: Well, Poggy told me that they had to drop the aircrew entrance door. That the RAT enabled them to do that because that was the supplying a bit of power. Random Air Turbine. And they dropped that and they dropped the ladder and they climbed down a ladder, turned. Oh, they’d got to turn the seats around obviously to face the gap and they take it in turn, the middle one first and then the other two in progress. Climb down the ladder, turn and face the undercarriage which they dropped down, get a hold of the leg and slide down the leg and roll off the nose wheel and pull the D ring. That’s how they baled out of the Vulcan. The pilots ejected after they had gone. The pilots made sure that they, the three were out before they ejected. So I understand.
GT: As long as you had height.
JM: Yeah.
GT: And good weather. There were quite a few Vulcans that went in.
JM: Yeah.
GT: That took everyone.
JM: That’s the only insurance you’ve got with an aeroplane is height.
GT: Yeah.
JM: You’ve got time to do things with height. You don’t have any height — oh dear. No insurance. Oh dear.
GT: And at that time with still Bomber Command.
JM: Yeah. It was. Yeah.
GT: The irony of you being in Bomber Command for —
JM: Yeah. We were towing an aircraft, a Shackleton across the short runway when a Vulcan was taking off and we had to wait on the short runway and the long runway was going past us like that and we were towing this Shackleton on to the compass point to swing the compass on the other side the aerodrome. And the Vulcan took off and the shockwave with it bent us over. And it’s about fifty yards in front of us. The runway. And yet the shockwave that followed it bent us all over and we stood by the side of the tow truck. How about that. The enormous force that that aircraft generated when it took off. Unbelievable. You wouldn’t believe that but we didn’t grab hold of anything but we were bent over. It was enough to bend us over with the shockwave. Yeah.
GT: Did you have anything more to do with Lancasters then once you’d finished? I mean were they —
JM: The — when we were at Coningsby. Coningsby. The photograph up there shows us at Coningsby. They invited us up there for the seventy fifth. See there. And put us up at the Petwood Hotel where the Dambusters stayed. There’s all photographs of that as well. And while we were there the — there was a hundred and fifty veterans there with their families in the hangar and the hangar was open wide. And eleven of us were up for gongs and when they read the, quote the citation out they read a bit of your war record. And we went through all these motions and had the clasp that went with it and the gong. And a little while later I was walking underneath the Lancaster. Our Lancaster. The Canadian one was there as well. They flew seven and a half hours over water in a seventy two year old aeroplane. That’s guts for you isn’t it? And they did it on the way back as well. The Canadian crew. Anyway, I’m walking about underneath this Lanc and the crew chief must have been listening and he came to the edge and he said. ‘Do you want to come aboard?’ Do I want to come up? Seventy five years since I’d been aboard a Lanc. Pat has a story. My daughter. She said, ‘You’re creeping about with your walking stick and as soon as he said come aboard you’re like a rat up a drainpipe,’ she said, ‘You couldn’t get in quick enough,’ [laughs] Funnily enough I had a feeling of claustrophobia when I got in. I didn’t realise how close it was inside the Lanc. And I used to get in there in full gear with my bag of tools, my parachute, my clipboard. In full altitude gear, helmet, oxygen mask on and climb over the main spar. And there was only about two feet between the top of the main spar and I used to get over that like a monkey. And I’m holding on to things here trying to get over the fuselage. A one in three slope. I didn’t get over the main spar. I never got on. My son in law did. Later on at Coningsby. He got over the main spar and into the front. He took some photographs of it inside. But I never got over it. Yeah. Silly isn’t it? But Pat’ll tell you that story. Like a rat up a drainpipe. I couldn’t get in at first because there was a step there that carries a dinghy — not a dinghy. Oh, I forget what but you’ve got to reach over this step to get into the Lanc and you’ve got to hang on to the bullet rails, you know. Bullet carrier rails to get in over this step. And I got in. I got over that and I got half up and there’s two two of the crew there watching people don’t do anything you know while they’re in the aircraft. There was two of us in at the time. The other fellow was in the rear looking in the rear turret. He was a rear gunner. I said, ‘Do you show the girl’s the golden rivet?’ He said, ‘Oh aye.’ We used to sneak the girls in at our squadron. Different popsies. You know, girlfriends. With the torchlight. The rest bed is half way down. Just behind the main spar. And the golden rivet is supposed to be over the other end of the rest bed. You know. Down below, underneath. And you get the girls to bend over and you bend over them. It’s Shangri la. You know. Showing them [laughs] He said, ‘We didn’t know about that. We’d have used that.’ But you’d have got done for that and all. We’d have got court martialled if we’d been caught doing that. Getting the girls inside the aircraft. I got Jean in. Yeah. I think, I think Ray got his girl in as well. Yeah. He did. Yeah. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’ve got to get over the back of you to show you where the rivet is.’ [laughs] Shangri la. Oh dear.
GT: Jim, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you. And your birthday’s coming up soon. Coming up Saturday.
JM: Sunday it is.
GT: Sunday. And you will be?
JM: Ninety four.
GT: Fabulous. And I know that.
JM: If I get there.
GT: It’s only a few days away.
JM: Oh, don’t you start. Pat’s like that.
GT: It’s only a few days away. You’ll make it.
JM: Many a slip between cup and lip.
GT: You’ll make it. Thank you very much for, for telling me some amazing information about your time with Bomber Command. Your time with Bomber Command number two afterwards. And I know the International Bomber Command Centre would be, will be very very pleased to receive your recording here.
JM: My pleasure.
GT: And its and you know we’ve, we’ve been chatting for one and three quarter hours so it’s a fabulous piece of history that you have, you have displayed with me.
JM: I must have happened to thousands of other Bomber Command people. There’s nothing unique about me. Thousands of others have been through the same experiences I’m sure. Or some closely near to it. Yeah.
GT: I I would suggest that many haven’t had the opportunity to tell their story. There’s many that do not want to tell their story. You are a gentleman that has been very easy with your story and been very willing to tell it and it’s fabulous. It’s a fabulous piece of history.
JM: I suppose its, it’s a matter of boasting I suppose. I survived.
GT: No. You —
JM: I didn’t intend to boast in any way. It’s all true.
GT: You survived by the four letter word that you all taught.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Luck.
JM: That’s it. I was once told that flying was ninety percent boredom and ten percent luck. And that’s how you survive. Not far from the truth in some degree.
GT: Yes. It is. It is indeed, Jim. Well, happy birthday for Sunday.
JM: Thank you. But the, the youngsters Pat and David are organising a do on Saturday at our local steakhouse and there’s quite a few of us going to be there. The granddaughter, my great granddaughter Alia she’s going to Belgium on the same day, Sunday that my birthday is so to celebrate it we’re having the do on Saturday. We’re doing it then. There’s going to be his mother, Alia’s mother, Alia, David, Pat and myself and Pat’s mother, Mary. Which is quite a few of us.
GT: Well, I know your family very much love you and obviously are looking out for you. Caring for you. And you’re a very valuable person to us and the 75 Squadron Associations of New Zealand and UK and I very much have been impressed and thankful for your discussion with me today.
JM: I’ve enjoyed your company, Glen. Very much so. You’re a very understanding person and you’ve put me dry dead easy. You must have had some experience of this. One of the interviews I did for the Command people, Pat was listening outside and she came in. She said, ‘I haven’t heard half of this that your telling this fellow. Why don’t you tell me?’ I said, ‘You don’t want to know.’ She said, ‘I do want to know. Alia wants to know. Amy wants to know. Katy wants to know.’ Yeah.
GT: Excellent. Yeah. Well, see even your family can give you a right bollocking. Now, one last thing. Could you drive a car when you —
JM: I could do. Yes.
GT: During, during the time that you were serving on Bomber Command during World War Two.
JM: No. I didn’t drive a car then although I had a licence to drive because you were issued with a licence during the wartime years to drive any vehicle without, a provisional licence but without supervision. You could drive. So I did drive a car on several occasions then. Before I entered the RAF.
GT: The reason I asked you is because I interviewed a gentleman in New Zealand. A English man who was shot down on his third operation. Not on 75. Another squadron. And survived the POW time, and when the gates were thrown open five of his fellow POWs raced into the local town heading towards the Americans as opposed to away from the Russians and they came across a German driving a Mercedes car. And they hooked him out and he ran away. And then they looked at each other and said, ‘Right who’s going to drive us?’ And there was two pilots of Lancasters, there was a rear gunner, a bomb aimer and a flight engineer. None of those five or six chaps had ever driven a car before and they, they just all had to laugh at each other thinking gosh we’ve just survived all this and now we can’t even drive a car.
JM: It’s funny. You’ve triggered one there because I had a, as I say I pinched an ober feldwebels hat and I used to have this on at Leipzig. When we were at Leipzig. I used to carry this on. And I saw four people get out of a pre-war Ford. What the small Ford they had with the pointed nose and I said, ‘Whose is that?’ They said, ‘We’ve had it for a bit but you can have it if you want it. But,’ he said, ‘You’ll have to join up the clips at the back. They’d taken a battery out of a Focke Wulf 190 and put it on the back seat and hot-wired the ignition so as they could use this Ford. So he could start it and stop it. You stopped it by putting it in gear you know and holding the brake on and start it with a starter. So I drove this about for a bit. I quite enjoyed this with this f’ing great, it was about that long on the back seat out of a Focke Wulf 190. So I coupled it up. Got it driving and the Yanks were still bringing prisoners of war off the road on to the camp. And one of them saw me driving up the outside of this column that was going down and I was driving up the outside and he looked up and he saluted. He saw this car. Thought it was an RAF car. I got a Yankee soldier — a salute of a Yankee soldier would you believe. Aye. Yeah. It did happen that. Yeah. Surprising. And I handed it over to another group as I signalled some people out of a back column. Said, ‘Come over here a bit.’ I said, ‘This is what you do.’ ‘Right,’ they said. ‘Leave them off. We’ll do it.’ So, they took it over from me. To fill it up with petrol we just drove up to the Yankee filling station. ‘How much do you want?’ ‘Fill it up.’ He filled it up till it dripped out the side. Put the cap back on. Yeah.
GT: Recently I’ve interviewed two chaps. One — both in New Zealand Arthur Askew and Bruce Cunningham and both were POWs. Both with extensive stories to tell as obviously you have too. Recently you also flew with Project Propeller.
JM: Yes.
GT: By Graham Cowie. A very very worthwhile —
JM: That’s where I met Dee. Yeah.
GT: Yeah. And in this case, this last Project Propeller you were on two weeks ago.
JM: Yeah.
GT: You met up with some other fellow POWs I understand.
JM: Yeah. I showed you the picture there. They were at Bankau in Upper Silesia in Poland at the same time I was. There was another Caterpillar wearer there. There’s only two of us. And apart from, as far as we know we’re the only survivors that are available at this time of the year. If the others had survived then they can’t make the journey. But the Propeller Club are very good. Mind you we picked the worst day of the whole fortnight. The weather was terrible. Both going and coming back.
GT: Yeah.
JM: The pilot offered it to me. I said, ‘Not bloody likely. It’s too lively for me that is.’ He’s working hard at it all the time, you know. Shuddering and bumping. And it was the same coming up. We only just made it with the visibility coming back. Somebody going up north said, ‘You’d better get going pretty soon,’ from Halfpenny Green at Wolverhampton, ‘Because it’s closing in up there,’ and it did. I could see the rain streaming back off and you couldn’t see more than about a mile ahead it was so closed in. The weather. But it did begin to get a little bit clearer as we got to Barton and it was clear enough to land there.
GT: This was not your first project propeller though. Right?
JM: No. We went. We were — we’d gone three years before with a bloke called Duncan Edwards who lives in Bramhall and actually knows David and he had a share in a 72.
GT: And David’s your son in law.
JM: Yeah. David. And he knew him and but for two years we were stopped by bad weather from flying into the reunion.
GT: Yeah.
JM: So, it was the third year running.
GT: [unclear]
JM: That we’d try to get into this reunion. And we got this horrible bad weather to go with it. Bad weather. Aye. It was.
GT: So have you been to the International Bomber Command Centre yet?
JM: Oh yes. We went there when it first opened. We were invited there. Dee came as well. She gave me a wreath to put on the 75 Squadron gravestone.
GT: Brilliant. Dee Boneham’s the treasurer of the 75 Squadron Association in the UK.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Brilliant.
JM: Yeah. She’s a nice person, Dee.
GT: So, what’s your impressions of the IBCC Memorial?
JM: It’s very impressive isn’t it? Particularly the ring of stones around it. And it’s as high as the Lancaster wing is broad isn’t it? So they say. Yeah. It’s the same height as the width of a Lancaster wing.
GT: Did you see the displays inside?
JM: Yes I did. Yes. I did. They had a Blenheim come over and what was the other aircraft? Another. Oh, a Vulcan came over. And a Blenheim, whilst we were there. The Vulcan went over to Lincoln and flew over there, I think the Blenheim did as well. So they came and paid their respects as it were. When it was first opened. Yeah. It was very impressive. Particularly inside. Yeah. I can’t remember half the things I saw but it was very impressive I must admit. They’ve done a wonderful job. All volunteers as well isn’t it? Yeah. Not a paid hand amongst them. Incredible.
GT: They wish to keep your stories and your experiences alive for those of us in the future and it’s —
JM: The kids now don’t want to know do they? They don’t want to know. It’s outside their, it’s on another planet as far as they’re concerned. I think so anyway. Except for Pat and the local family of course. They’re interested. Yeah. Alia brought me back that stick in the hall from Poland. She smuggled it through the guards by putting it up inside her coat. I’ll show you when you go out. It’s all the way from Poland that walking stick. Yeah.
GT: Jim, I’ve often asked veterans that — what Bomber Command did and what Churchill and Bomber Harris achieved. Could they have done it any other way?
JM: I don’t think so. No. I think Butch Harris was right in as much as he said and I quote, ‘They sowed the wind. They’ll reap the whirlwind,’ unquote. And I think that’s what happened. Yeah. A lot of civilians obviously died. That was unavoidable. A lot of our civilians died. I got blown out of bed a couple of times ‘til I got fed up with it and joined up. A bloke in the next street got decapitated because he stayed. He stayed in bed instead of going down in his shelter. His mother and he used to go down in his shelter, ‘Come on.’ ‘Not I. I’m not going.’ but finished up underneath the bed. He didn’t half get, phew. When the Yanks bombed us in that siding it was terrifying. They were 500s. We were dropping four thousand pound blasters and thousand pounders. Dear oh dear.
GT: And your losses.
JM: Yeah. Sixty eight thousand operational aircrew. Fifty six thousand died. The highest attrition rate, attrition rate of any force in the world and no record of those who were wounded. Lost arms, or legs or eyes. No record of that. Must be many thousands more. Fifty six thousand. It’s incredible isn’t it? It works out into one in three isn’t it? Oh. No. One in two. One in two. Yeah. Rather less than one in two. We’d had, we’d have a crew move in to our Nissen hut and share handshakes all around. Show them how to operate the lock and particularly how to operate the stove to get the best heat out of it and the next day they’d gone. We’ve got the SPs coming to collect their kit and remove any offensive material, you know that might be in the lockers. Yeah. Gone. And we only had a handshake and they’d gone. That was a bit sobering at times. Yeah. The average life of a crew on squadron was five weeks. Not a lot is it out of a young man’s life? How the hell I survived I’ll never know. Somebody up there wanted me to carry on. I don’t know who but thank you very much. I’ve had a family since then and that’s been a bit of a bonus. Yeah.
GT: A great survivor. Thanks Jim.
JM: Dee said that once to me. She said, ‘You’re a survivor aren’t you, Jim?’ I said, ‘I hope you’re right.’ She’s a wonderful woman, isn’t she? Dee.
GT: Ninety plus, Jim.
JM: Aye.
GT: That’s awesome.
JM: She’s wonderful.
GT: Well, there are a bunch of us that are wanting to ensure that you realise and know and feel that we both love you and we also appreciate the service you did for both the king, the country and us.
JM: With the many thousands of others don’t forget. You know, there’s nothing unique about me as I repeat. Many thousands of others. And the real heroes are the ones that didn’t come back. They’re the real heroes. They made the sacrifice. We didn’t.
GT: Well, your sacrifice was your POW time.
JM: Yeah. That was a bit nasty.
GT: Yeah.
JM: I didn’t like that at all. I thought that was a bit unfair. Making me walk all those miles. Yeah. A bit unfair that [laughs] Trudging through snow. As far as your eye could see was snow. Just the telephone lines to tell you where they road because they were on the right hand side of the road. The only difference between the road and the field as far as the eye could see. Snow. And then the blizzards would start. Your eyelids would freeze. Close an eyelid and it would freeze. Oh dear. Glasses. I didn’t wear glasses then. Oh dear. It’s all [pause] it all seems to have happened to another person. Didn’t seem to have happened to me but it did. It did. Yeah. I showed you that mug, didn’t I?
GT: Yes.
JM: Yeah.
GT: Very good. Jim, let’s, let’s complete our interview now and thank you very much for, for your time and I will make sure your record is posted again with the IBCC and they will send you details of today’s visit and interview with you. So, thank you.
JM: I’ve enjoyed our time together, Glen. You’re a wonderful person yourself. Come on. Come on. No false modesty. You’ve done the armaments course. You know everybody that needs to be known and you’ve pumped me dry that’s for sure. With a great deal of skill I might add. Yeah.
GT: My special cause is you great gentlemen. So thank you. Righto. Ok.
JM: Thanks a lot, Glen.
GT: Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Ok. We’ll sign off now.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Glen Turner
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-03
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMulhallJE180703
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
Format
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01:57:40 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
James Mulhall trained as a flight engineer and was posted to 75 Squadron at RAF Mepal. On one operation the crew were surprised to be presented by the ground crew with a .303 bullet which proved that they had been the recipient of friendly fire. On their thirty fourth operation their Lancaster was shot down and the crew became prisoners of war. James undertook the long march from Stalag Luft 7 to Luckenwalde. After the war James returned to engineering work and eventually worked on V force aircraft.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Belgium--Brussels
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Homberg (Kassel)
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Luckenwalde
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Tychowo
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944-05
1945-07
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with James Mulhall. Two
75 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Caterpillar Club
displaced person
Dulag Luft
fear
flight engineer
Fw 190
incendiary device
Lancaster
memorial
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
RAF Mepal
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/675/11898/MArrowsmithHL571013-160929-01.1.pdf
bed556a33585b08c3992522c3d95c3fa
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
Arrowsmith, Les
H L Arrowsmith
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant Les Arrowsmith (b.1920) who flew operations as a bomb aimer with 576 Squadron from RAF Elsham Wolds until his Lancaster was shot down 21/22 May 1944 and he became a prisoner of war. The collection includes his prisoner of war diary, his log book, photographs, a scrap book and correspondence. After the war he continued to serve with the RAF and remustered to become a navigator.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Mike Arrowsmith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-22
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Arrowsmith, HL
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[British Lion logo]
A WARTIME LOG
[page break]
MoA.
[page break]
Entrust yourself to God, as a child would entrust himself to his father.
You will find that even in the darkest hour, He will not let you fall.
MB
[page break]
EVERYTHING GOD DOES IS LOVE – EVEN WHEN WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND HIM.
MB
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
A WARTIME LOG
FOR
BRITISH PRISONERS
Gift from
THE WAR PRISONERS’ AID OF THE Y.M.C.A.
37, Quai Wilson
GENEVA – SWITZERLAND
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[British Lion logo]
THIS BOOK BELONGS TO
ARROWSMITH. H.L. (F/SGT)
No 571013. (PRISON No 73. (L7)
11, PARK LANE,
KNEBWORTH, HERTS.
[YMCA crest]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[underlined] INMATES OF ROOM “64. OLD CAMP. NOW [/underlined]
[British Lion logo] 1 [British Lion logo]
RESIDING BLOCK 44 ROOM 12
T.S. White
188 West St.,
Orillia, Ont.,
Canada
R.P. Olsen,
3 Princess St.,
East Bundaberg,
Queensland,
Australia.
H Dawson
36, Scaitcliffe St
Accrington Lancashire
J.R.B. Crawford
10 Woodhall Drive
Juniper Green
Edinburgh
Scotland
& A.J. Cox Esq. Newcastle.
[page break]
[underlined] Clothes [/underlined] (Essentials)
1.) Suit, Brown Harris Tweed Single Breasted £7.
2) Sports Jacket & Flannels £5.
3) 1 pr. Heavy brown suede shoes – 1 pr. Black Oxfords £7.
4) 3 Shirts (2 detached. 1 sports) £2.
5.) 4 pr socks. £1
6) 3 ties £1/10
7) 12. Handkerchiefs £1[deleted]/10[/deleted]
8) 2 sets under vest & pants £2.
9) Pullover £1.
10) Pigs skin gloves £2.
11) Overcoat. £7. (£36/10.)
12) Pyjamas (2 prs) £2
13) Dressing Gown. [underlined] £3. [/underlined]
[underlined] £41/10 [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] Non Essentials[/underlined].
Leather Jacket. £4
Pullover (Roll neck 3 vs Type) £1/10.
Swimming trunks £1.
Hiking Shirt. £1
Rain Coat £4.
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[underlined] Rumours [/underlined]
[underlined] June [/underlined]. 1st. Warsaw Captured
[underlined] July. [/underlined] Russians within 20 miles.
[underlined] August [/underlined]. I predicted near to end on 27th. Have since changed it to same date 1945.
[underlined] January [/underlined]. Germans pushing in West have penetrated 25K into France, with spearhead armies at Verdun Monty taken over Northern 1/2 of lines.
[page break]
News
2/4/45. British Troops 40 miles past Munster. American 3rd Army fighting in Kassel. Blackout continues on Western Front. Joe 16K from Vienna.
[underlined] Rumours] [/underlined]. 3rd army reach Jenna.
Chaps give time to war end from a few days to 2 or 3 weeks.
[deleted] 12 [/deleted] [inserted] 9 [/inserted] /4/45. British are shelling Bremen. Airborne landings in Holland 2 days ago are now nearly linked up with Canadians advancing to Zuider Zee. Americans 10K from Hanover. Other column has Bypassed the town & are 40 K (M) from Brunswick. Another Am. column taken Gothun. In South 40 K from Nuremburg. French take Karlsbruc. Joe cleared. Large part of Vienna.
[underlined] Rumours [/underlined] Leipzig taken & also bypassed.
13) 3rd Army crossed the elbe [sic] on 40K front 50 miles SW of Berlin. This puts them at Wittenberge. & 25 miles from here. Halle captured. Celle captured.
17) 7th Army Bridgehead 15 miles SE Magdeburg holding firm. Russians open whole front offensive. 28 miles from Berlin & 12 from the uder. Last Parcel issue today Yank 3rd 5 m from Leipzig & 2 1/2 from Chemnitz. Potsdam raid on 15 was a grand sight, & quite near enough. 7th. 7k from [deleted] Vienna [/deleted], Czec border. Yanks bypassed Dessau 2 days ago. [underlined] This makes news of the 13 all wrong [/underlined] x
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1 – 9 MIN. CO (M) 341.
319T 330M
149 Track 160M 155T 166M 190GS.
55 SECS. FROM. GT. ORMES HD.
CO M. 166.
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[blank page]
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[underlined] Books Needed [/underlined]
[underlined] Outline of Wireless [/underlined] by. Stranger Newes
[symbol] [underlined] Foundations of Wireless [/underlined] by Sowerby Illif
[symbol] [underlined] Amateur Radio Hardbook. [/underlined] (2 parts) circuits etc anode
[underlined] Radio Receiver Service [/underlined] by Squires.
[underlined] Automobile Engines Vol 1- 4 by Judge. Chapman & Hall [/underlined]
[underlined] 1st. Yr. Engineering Science by [/underlined]
J.C. Engines.
[underlined] Strength of Materials. [/underlined]
Autocar Handbook. (Current Issue).
[brackets] Flight Aeroplane Practical Wireless [/brackets] Years’ Back Nos. May - ? x
[page break]
Parlaphone R 20050 (Odeon Series
Aria Maria
Schubert Serenade Lotte Lehman
DB 1875. The Pearl fisher. (Karuso
Blue Danube Ballet Music. Strauz [sic]
BD Waltz. Eugene Ormonde. Minneapolis Sym, Orch.
2 “G
[page break]
[underlined] More Ideas [/underlined].
Find a good town library & look up all back issues of Flight etc. Also sort out all the text books I want to get.
Find good radio store & buy some records I want to get. Also choose radiogram as present for Mum & Dad. Choose portable for myself.
[page break]
Records
Parlaphone (odeon series). Lotte Lehman. Schubert. Aria Maria. Sch. Serenade.
Blue Danube Ballet Music. By Strauz. [sic]
“ “ Waltz. Played by Eugene Ormonde & the Minneapolis Sum. Orch two sides.
DB 1875. The Pearl Fishers. Karuso.
[page break]
[calendar May 1944 to January 1945]
NO OF DAYS SINCE 21ST OF MAY 1944 [chart]
[page break]
[calendar February to May 1945]
IN MORNING THE GERMAN STARTED DESERTING THE CAMP AND BY EVENING THE LAST ONE HAD GONE & A NORWEGIAN GENERAL ASSUMED COMMAND OF THE CAMP & OUR OWN GUARDS HAD TAKEN OVER. ‘GERRY HAD AN S.S. UNIT IN THE WOODS AT THE BACK BUT THEY WERE THE REAR GUARD. ALL THE NATIONAL FLAGS ARE FLYING. GRAND SIGHT
[underlined] LIBERATED [/underlined]
AT 6 A.M. THIS MORNING THE FIRST RUSSIANS ROLLED INTO CAMP. THEY HAD TAKEN LUKENWALDE IN THE NIGHT. BY 9 AM A RUSKI ARMOURED COLUMN CAME THROUGH. WE HAVE TO STAY PUT IN CAMP TIL THE RUSKIS AND YANKS LINK UP AND WE GO BACK THROUGH THE WEST COUNTRY & NOT TO ODESSA.
[underlined] PRISONER OF WAR [/underlined] 336 DAYS. OR 48 WEEKS.
[charts]
[page break]
[underlined] 4/5/45. [/underlined] The remarks on previous page seem now to be a trifle optimistic. It is now 13 days since we were liberated & exactly nothing has been done to get us out of here. The food situation is getting steadily worse. All our Red X food has gone with the exception of a few brews of coffee & tea. Russian rations are about the same as German & I’m feeling mighty hungry. The ruskys & Yanks linked up at Wittenberge 4 days ago & yesterday 2 American War Correspondents arrived here. They reckon that the roads are blocked with refugees & that nothing was known about us across the Elbe. In all, prospects do not look too bright. For the last week chaps have been leaving for the yank lines in increasing numbers & I think many more will leave now. Personally I cant [sic] decide if it is worth it or not. To cap matters Bert & I are on 24 hr guard from 1 pm today. Up to yesterday there was a lot of fighting in this area but yesterday the pocket was finally cleared up by the Ruskys. Down in town the Ruskys seem to be getting a little of their revenge on Gerry. Many people including women & children have been shot & other atrocities which are best not mentioned. My opinion
[page break]
of the Russians is that they are an uncivilised lot of savages. They do not look like a victorious army. Their uniforms – if any – are dirty & torn, & they look more like refugees.
9/5/45
On the 5th a yank jeep arrived in camp & reported that a convoy was on the way to evacuate us. Next day 25 Rx. trucks arrived & removed the hospital patients. On the 6th 7th & 8th the convoy arrived each day but the Russians would not let us go, although about 1/2 the Yanks & RAF have gone. We are told that the great majority of them have been interned as civillians. [sic] The Russians now state that as soon as we are organised & on a correct list of British POWs still in camp, supplied they will organise evacuation. This messing about for the last 4 days has made us all complete nervous wrecks, but I am now more or less resigned to staying here until the Russians do something about it. We know that once in Yank territory we are taken
[page break]
straight to Hildestein, near [deleted] F [/deleted] Hanover, stay there up to 48 hrs & are then flown straight to England, so with any luck at all we shall be on leave in about 5 or 6 days from leaving this camp. That’s what makes it so mortifying – we could easily have been on leave for the armistice. The only improvements in our situation at the moment are, increased rations, & fine weather. I am scribbling this by the side of a large pond just outside camp & the local scenery is grand. Bert has just been for a swim in the lake, but I am not, I value my health too much.
[underlined] 24th. Halle. [/underlined] Just when we had given up hope of ever leaving IIIA we were told by the Russians that we were leaving on the 20th & this time
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[drawing of layout of camp] [drawing of sentry box on the camp perimeter]
[page break]
[calculations]
[page break]
[3 drawings]
“SMOKEY. JOE.”
[page break]
[drawing of aircraft]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
Tent £5
Fly Sheet £1 10
Sleeping Bag 310
Cooking Pans (Set) 15/-
Ground sheet.
Primus Stove
Cost of whole kit £15 max.
[diagram of room]
Weight of all kit [underlined] about 20 lbs [/underlined]
[page break]
[drawing]
[page break]
[drawing]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
Dates of Events Prior to Prison Camp
Shot Down on Night May 22/23rd.
Captured 5 pm 23rd. Taken to Civilian Jail in [missing word] which was local German H.q. Stayed there for one Night in Cell 24. Taken to Aerodrome by Car (about 20 miles away) & interrogated. They had packed up my Parachute & Harness. Spent Night in Cell. Next Day (25th) Taken to Jail in Amsterdam. There 3 nights.
28th. Taken to Nants. About 40 of us there. 30th Taken to Dulagluft (about 10 miles from Frankfurt). 1 night in Communal Cell. 2 Nights in Solitary. Interrogated 3rd Day. Sent to other part of Camp. Left Dulag early morning of 3rd & arrived at Transit Camp Wetzlow at 5 pm.
Given Capture Parcels & Clothing & food & Shower.
10th June left Transit Camp for
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Prison Camp.
Spent 3 1/2 days on the train arrived Bankow on Morning of 14th. Marched 2 1/2 K to this Prison Camp & arrived on 14th at 11 a.m.
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Camp Life 4/9/44
We seem to have been rather unlucky being sent to this camp, as it was brand new when we arrived, & we were the second crowd of chaps to be sent here. There were only 60 other prisoners on the camp. Our date of arrival was the 14th June & I am writing this account on 4th Sept. & during this time our numbers have swelled to about 860 men. At first our bonds were restricted to the number of huts occupied & those were roped off from the rest of the compound. As more chaps were brought in more huts were occupied & we had more room in which to move about. Now all the huts are occupied with the exception of a few just to the left of the main entrance.
The camp consists of an area about 300 x 200 yds surrounded [deleted] of [/deleted] by a thick barbed wire fence. It is rectangular & at each corner & half way down each side is a wooden tower in which is
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kept a guard complete with rifle, machine gun & telephone. Inside the fence for a distance of 30’ the ground has been cleared and a warning wire erected. Near the entrance is being constructed the large cookhouse.
The huts are thin wood & cardboard contraptions with floor space of 12 x 20’ & height 5’ 6” walls & 6’ 6” at centre. Six chaps are living in each of these. Our hut is No 64 & the inmates are Dawson, Olsen the Aussie, White the Canadian, Crawford (Scotch), Cox, & myself. We sleep as indicated by the diagram. The two windows are 1’ squared Space & light are a little bit cramped but in the fine weather we have been getting [indecipherable word] so not too bad.
[diagram of room]
The food [indecipherable word] is not too bad. We get a german [sic] ration of Bread, Potatoes, Marge & sugar & also 1/2 a Red X parcel per week each. We used to get one complete parcel but they are getting rather scarce & have been cut down. The bread works out at 4 slices per day, & potatoes are about 1/2 lb per day. Twice a week we get some meat cooked up in the form of stew from the Germans.
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The tea, Coffee, Cocoa, Oats, are taken from the parcels & turned in to the Cookhouse who serve up hot brews for Breakfast, tea & Supper. To make things easier we share our parcels between two. Dawson & I go shares & the food seems to work out fairly well.
[underlined] 31. December [/underlined]
We have now been moved to the new camp (Fri 13th OCT.) constructed on S side of old camp. Compound is the same size. Accommodation in 8 blocks. Each block divided into 14 rooms.
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12.2.45 Stalag 3A. LUBENWALDE [sic]
On the 17th Jan we were told that we would be leaving L7 at an hours notice because of the russian [sic] advance. After getting ready 3 times we finally set out at 4 am on Friday 19th. It was the worst day possible in which to start a march. The weather was working up to a blizzard & temp way below zero. We were given 2/3 loaf of bread & 2 ozs of meat & a little marge for food. The first days march was 25 kilos & we were all dead at the end of it. We were put for the night in small barns of a village & it was too cold to sleep. The 2nd day started at 4 am & we were marched 12 k to a factory arriving at 11 am at 8 pm we were on the road again & marched till 930 am across the Oder 25 k in a foul blizzard. Chaps were collapsing all the way & the M.O. did a marvellous job at the rear. Everyone was feeling rather rough by this time from the food shortage & the marching. At this stop we were given our first food 1 pkt biscuits & 1 cup of coffee. The Jerry promised us [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] 2 days rest here but we were off again at midnight & our route was a rec around Breslam at about 40 kilo’s radius. In all we were on the march for 14 days & ended up at a village 8 K from Goldburg. All our stops were at farms in Villages on the way & the great difficulty was to keep warm. We would arrive at a barn at night almost out from fatigue & then be glad to get on the move so as to get some sort of feeling back to our feet & bodies. Over 300 were suffering from
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frost bite in feet & fingers, & a few have lost their toes. We were at goldburg [sic] for 3 1/2 days from Feb 1st & the weather became quite warm., From Goldburg we were taken by cattle trucks to this camp. The train journey took 3 days & nights. We were 54 chaps per truck & no one could lay down so that the train journey was almost as bad as the march & when we were finally let off the train at Luchenwalde everyone was in a horrible state & I dont [sic] know how I managed to march the 3 kilos to the camp.
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[underlined] Johnny Cake [/underlined] {Aussy).
[underlined] Scone Mixture [/underlined] Baked or fried with hot butter Syrup or jam & rolled in sugar.
[underlined] Pastry for Puff cakes. [/underlined] (50) 1/2 lb butter boiled with 1/2 pt of water.. Mix in 1/2 lb white of egg (Commercial is cheap) & 1 lb of ordinary flour. Boil til cooked. looks like ordinary batter, put small amount in baking dish & bake in hot air tight oven (temp 360o) about 3 mins.
[underlined] Fritters [/underlined] 6. 1/2 lb flour, 2 eggs, sugar milk, mix to consistency of thin paste, dip in the Bread & jam sandwich & fry in plenty of cooking fat.
[underlined] Pastry for pies [/underlined] flour, water, suet, [deleted] a [/deleted] baking powder, knead to doughy consistency. [underlined] For Puddings [/underlined] use marge instead of suet.
[underlined] Dough Nuts. [/underlined] Recipe from home.
[underlined] Currant Sad Cake [/underlined] Plain flour, marge, sugar make into dough mix with currants & roll our flat & fairly thin. Bake in oven til cooked & eat with jam or syrup.
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[underlined] Lancashire Hot Pot [/underlined] [deleted] Chopped [/deleted] [inserted] large [/inserted] lumps of beef in baking dish & simmer in oven with onions, add gravy mixture. When 1/2 cooked Slice up raw potatoes & insert in dish. Bake in oven til cooked
[underlined] French Fried Bread. [/underlined] Mix up egg (?) & milk into a smooth liquid whisk (not much milk). Soak thick slices of bread in the solution & fry.
VERY TASTY
[underlined] Sago Plum Pudding [/underlined] (for 2) table spoon sago soaked overnight. Rasins [sic] Sultanas fruit. Marge, 2 slices bread in milk, egg sugar, little jam flour added. [deleted] till [/deleted] drain off sago, add bread broken up, add milk til wet, add dry ingredient mix & then add flour til right thickness for steaming, or baking. Cook 1 1/2 hrs or less.
Cheese & potato Pie. use marge & strong cheese
[underlined] Fish Cakes. [/underlined] 3 oz salmon 8 oz potatoes, Cream put with small amount marge & mix in the salmon til fairly firm. Coat with flour & fry in plenty of fat til brown.
Fried Spam & Potatoes
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Contents of Capture Parcel.
1.) Suit Case. (with Straps)
2.) Two Towels.
3.) 1 Vest.
4.) 2 pr thin Socks.
5.) 1 pr underpants.
6.) 1 pr Pyjamas.
7.) 1 pr Sandal Slippers
8.) 1 pullover
9.) 4 handkerchiefs.
10) 1 housewife.
11.) 40 Cigarettes ([indecipherable word])
12) 1 Pipe
13) 2 prs Boot laces.
14) 20 Razor Blades
15. 6 cakes of Toilet Soap.
16) 1 stick Shaving Soap.
17) 1 Comb.
18) 10 pkts Chewing Gum.
19) 1 tin Boot Polish
20) 1 pkt Cascara Tablets.
21.) 1 Polish Cloth.
22) 4 ozs Tobacco.
23) 1 pkt. Pipe Cleaners
24) 2 bars of Washing Soap
25) 1 Razor.
26) 1 Hair Brush.
27) 1 pkt. Vitamin Tablets.
28) 1 pkt Adhesive Tape.
29) 1 pkt. Cig Papers.
[underlined] German Food Issue. [/underlined]
[symbol] Potatoes (each day). [symbol] Meat. (once a week).
Powdered Cheese. or Cheese cakes (occasionally).
Jam (occasionally). [symbol] Marge (every 3 days very good).
[symbol] Bread. (daily 4 slices). [symbol] Sugar. (2 dessert spoons per week)
Barley (occasionally) or Soup Powders.
Molases. [sic] (good).
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American Red X Parcel
1 Tin Salmon (8 oz) 1 Tin Spam (12 oz)
1 Tin Corned Beef (12 ozs) 1 Tin Meat Paste (6 ozs)
1 Tin Powdered Milk (1 lb) 1/2 lb Kraft Cheese
1 lb Margarine (tin) 1 pkt. Rasins [sic] or Prunes.
1 tin Jam or Orange Juice (4 ozs) 2 bars Chocolate 1/2 lb
1 Tin Coffee (4 ozs) 1 pkt. Biscuits Yoyo.
1/2 lb Sugar. Cubes. 2 cakes of Soap
[underlined] British Red X Parcels [/underlined]
1 Tin Salmon or Pilchards (8 ozs) 1 Tin Meat (Oxtail, Meat & Veg, Mince & Tomato) 1 Tin Meat Roll 1 Tin Nestles Milk. 1 Tin Margarine 1 Pkt Tea 1 Tin Bacon or Veg. 1 tin Syrup or Jam 1 Tin Cocoa (maybe) 1 Tin Pudding (apple, Marmalade or Yorkshire) 10 Sweets (sometimes) 32 Biscuits or 1 Tin with 13. 1/2 lb Sugar (block) 1 Cake Soap. 1 Bar Chocolate (4 ozs). 1 Tin of Rolled Oats. 1 Tin Dried eggs.
1 Tin Oatmeal.
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FOOD FROM ENGLISH & AMERICAN PARCELS
[underlined] FOR FUTURE REFERENCE. [/underlined]
KLIM, MILKO, NESTLÉS DRIED MILK
LUSTY’S MEAT GALANTINE (or OXTON CARDIFF) MG.
APPLE PUDDING. MIXED FRUIT PUDDING. A.P. (PEAK FREAN & CO LTD)
ROLLED OATS.
COTTAGE PIE, CURRIED VEAL & RICE, RX
TIN OF COOKED BACON. RX
“ “ “ PORK SAUSAGES RX & BALETHORPE
DRIED EGG. (for camp). RX
MIXED VEGETABLES (FOSTERS)
RAISINS STONELESS.
PF. SERVICE BISCUITS.
Yorkshire Pudding Mixture. (Greens).
Meat PATÉ. (AMERICAN.) ROSEMILL PATÉ.
CREAMED RICE.
Dried, fried, COFFEE
[underlined] LATEST PARCELS. [/underlined]
Peanut Butter. (lovely) Meat & Veg in place of the Corned beef. (Poor.)
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[underlined] Meals Eaten in Camp that are good.? [/underlined]
[underlined] Breakfast [/underlined] Egg, omelette. Barley (German) Porridge.
[underlined] Dinner [/underlined] Tin meat & boiled potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding eaten hot. [deleted] ([indecipherable word]) [/deleted]
[underlined] Stew. [/underlined] Meat, Mixed Veg. Potatoes. Greenstuff.
Fried potatoes, Fried bread, Sliced spam, bacon or sausage.
Boiled Potatoes & Corned Beef Mixed up with Margarine & heated up.
B.P. & [deleted] M [/deleted] Bacon mixed & heated. Fish Cakes.
[underlined] Sweet [/underlined] Apple Pudd. mixed with milk & heated.
Raisins & Milk. (cold).
CREAMED RICE & Milk.
[underlined] Tea [/underlined] as for dinner &.,
Cheese on fried bread & fried boiled potatoes.
Potatoes & Bacon, Corned beef, or greenstuff or salmon. chopped up together & fried.
Egg & Bacon.
[underlined] Special Dishes [/underlined]
Cake made from biscuits, Yorkshire Pudd. dried egg,
Raisins sugar & [indecipherable word] milk.
Bread pudding?
Xmas Pudding. RASins, [sic] Milk Chocolate, Biscuits Bread.
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ARTICLES TO BUY & NECESSARY EXPENDITURE
[symbol] CAR. £60
[symbol] Clothes. £40
[symbol] Holiday £30
Signet Ring £10
Watch £10
Cig. Lighter & Case. £2
[symbol] Camera £5
Thermos Flask £1
Portable Wireless £10
[symbol] Fountain Pen £5
[symbol] Books £5
[symbol] Set Ordnance Maps £2
Chromatic £1
Ice skates. £2
Leather Jacket £3
Field Glasses £5
Tent & kit £15
Slide Rule. [underlined] £4 {/underlined]
[underlined] 200. [/underlined]
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[underlined] Suggestion for Places to visit on Holiday. [/underlined]
[underlined] Thames [/underlined] from Richmond to source.
[underlined] North Devon. [/underlined] Somerset, Dorset.
[underlined] Main Ideas For 56 days leave at home. [/underlined]
[underlined] 1st 14 days [/underlined] Home do nothing. Eat, book, get car, clothes, read. Shows in town. Be generally pampered & thoroughly enjoy myself. Main Points Bags of good food, ease & luxury.
[underlined] 14 – 21 [/underlined] Sally forth & get completely kitted out & make complete preparations for next 14 days.
[underlined] 21 – 28 [/underlined] Touring holiday where or who with I do not know yet.
[underlined] 28 – 35 [/underlined] Week with Mum & dad at the sea side.
[underlined] 35 – 36 [/underlined] At home & nipping off for days here & there to various spots, i.e. Oxford, Halton, Dover Barnett. Visit relations. Look up pete [sic] Hessop. In all, do just as I feel with the advantage of a car to get around. Insist on both Dad & Mum & Doris taking long holiday too
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[underlined] Experiments in food to be carried out at home. [/underlined]
[deleted] To [/deleted] [underlined] Toffee. [/underlined] Butter, sugar, milk +.
[underlined] Chocolate [/underlined] – sugar, milk, cocoa, butter.
[underlined] Choc Biscuits [/underlined] Flour Cream.
[underlined] Frying [/underlined] Eggs Bacon. Bread & Jam. Steak. Potatoes.
[underlined] Baking. [/underlined] Jam Turnover. Pastries. Cakes.
[underlined] Boiling [/underlined] Puddings. (Jam, Raisin. Meat.).
[underlined] Food dreamt about on the March [/underlined]
Unlimited supply of bread. Bread & dripping. Eggs bacon Mixed grill. Pancakes. Apple Turnover. All sorts of jam & fruit pies & tarts. Pastries, Choc. E’clairs, [sic] Cakes. Mince Pies Christmass [sic] Pudding & cake. Scotch Egg. Steak onions, egg & chips. Top of new cottage loaf hollowed out & filled with new foods butter & strawberry jam. Pork pies. Steak & kidney, real ham pie [inserted](or pudd) [/inserted]. [underlined] Pastries [/underlined] Puff, jam [symbol], cream. Flake jam & cream cakes. Solid cakes. Bamcakes, Nelsons. Lyons [deleted] Jam [/deleted] [inserted] Fruit [/inserted] Tarts. Shortbreak cakes. Spotted dick. Jam pudding. Toad in the hole. Fish & chips. Chutney. Ketchup. Curried stew with plenty of boiled onion, meat, dumplings, carrots etc. Marmalade on toast. Cream by the pint. Ham cheese & onions with ketchup for supper. New bread butter & cheese. Chocolate. Cad. Brazil Nut. Choc crisp. Whipped cream walnuts. Choc biscuit fingers. Shortbread. Cheese & biscuits. Heinz Baked beans on toast. Sardines on toast. Custard tart. Baked grill pie. Thick creamy rice pudding. Golden Syrup. Lemon Curd. Sausage & Mash with bacon & tomatoes Salads. tomato omelette. Cold beef, salad, chutney, fried potatoes. Pork Chops. Cottage pie. Toasted sandwich Bacon. Peanut butter.
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[inserted] Blended & Packed by McGAVINS’ PURE TEAS GLASGOW for British Red Cross Society Prisoners of War Parcels [/inserted]
[two plastic covers]
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JIM. W. Rielly, [sic] 95, Kennedy Crescent, Kircaldy, FIFE.
Bob Green, Gainsborough Rd, Dagenham, Essex
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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
Les Arrowsmith's Wartime Log
Description
An account of the resource
Les Arrowsmith's wartime note book during 1944 and 1945 whilst a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft 7. In the book he has recorded addresses of friends, a list of clothes and their prices, books and magazines needed, 'more ideas', records, calendar, detailed events pertaining to random days, sketches of the camp, dates of events prior to prison camp, camp life, cake recipes, contents of food parcels, German food issue, future clothes purchases, plans for future holidays and plans for future meals. Also included are the rumours and news received about the progress of the war in May 1945; moving out (as the Russians were advancing) and the Long March to Stalag 3A; the liberation of the camp by the Russians and Americans.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Les Arrowsmith
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One note book with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MArrowsmithHL571013-160929-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Luckenwalde
Germany--Oberursel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
1945
aircrew
arts and crafts
bomb aimer
displaced person
Dulag Luft
faith
prisoner of war
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/2224/SRutherfordRL146342v1.2.pdf
31f3fffa8b158091d3eea3fd06b57b91
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
Rutherford, Les
R L Rutherford
Robert Leslie Rutherford
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. The collection contains four oral history interviews with bomb aimer Robert Leslie "Les" Rutherford (1918 - 2019, 146263 Royal Air Force), his prisoner of war diary, material about entertainment in the Stalag Luft 3 Belaria compound and a photograph. Les Rutherford served as a despatch rider in the army, he was evacuated from Dunkirk and volunteered to transfer to the RAF. He became a bomb aimer with 50 Squadron and completed 24 operations. He was shot down over Germany on 20th December 1943 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Les Rutherford and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-09
2015-10-05
2015-06-05
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Rutherford, RL
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[front cover]
[picture of a red maple leaf]
A WARTIME LOG
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R. L. Rutherford.
P.O.W. 3276
Captured 20.12.43
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A WARTIME LOG
A REMEMBRANCE FROM HOME THROUGH THE CANADIAN Y.M.C.A.
[underlined] F/O R.L. RUTHERFORD. R.A.F. 146342 P.O.W. 3276 [/underlined]
Published by
THE WAR PRISONERS’ AID OF THE Y.M.C.A.
37 Quai Wilson
GENEVA - SWITZERLAND
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CONTENTS
[underlined] PAGE [/underlined]
1 SAGEN CREST BY SELF
3 ALL TALK-NO FLY “ “
5 P/O PRUNE “ “
7 I WANTED WINGS “ “
9 LANCASTER “ “
11 SPITFIRE “ “
13 HALIFAX “ “
15 WELLINGTON “ “
17 GOON UP “ “
19 KITCHEN TROUBLE “ “
21 TUNNELLING “ “
23 GERMAN FILM ACTRESS “ A. E.ADAMS
27 BOMBER COMMAND “ SELF
29 MUSTANG 1. “ M. WILSON
31 CANNY TOON “ SELF
33 KRIEGIE VISION BY BOB HAMILTON
35 KRIEGIE’S ON THE LOOSE? “ D. CODD
37 NO REST FOR THE DEVIL “ T. HUGHES
39 ESCAPE “ SELF
41 COTTAGE NEAR DORCHESTER “ J. RUSSELL
43 IN MEMORIAM “ SELF
45 SQUADRON CREST “ “
47 THE CAMP “ J. RILEY
49 SWING IT “ SELF
53 WATER COLOUR “ D ATTWOOD
PAGE
55 PRISONER OF WAR BY SELF.
58 LUCKENWALDE “ REV BENNETT
60 CAPTAIN OH MY CAPTAIN - GLAN EVANS
63 ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS. J.D.HILL
65 PORTRAIT “ KAWALERSKI
67 CARICATURE “ A.L. ROSS.
97 HEBREWS 13X8 J. REID V.C.
110 DIARY
106 SBO’S LETTER TO RUSSIANS
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[row of leaves] 1 [row of leaves]
[hand drawn picture of the Sagan crest]
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3
[hand drawn picture of the Stalag Luft 111 Belaria crest]
[underlined] RLR 9/44 [/underlined]
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5
[hand drawn picture of a prisoner of war, P/O Prune}
By Les. Rutherford.8/44
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7
[hand drawn picture of Donald Duck in flying gear behind a barred window.]
[underlined] I WANTED WINGS
RLR 8/44 [/underlined]
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9
_ _ _ _ OUT OF THE NIGHT _ _ _ _ _
[hand drawn picture of a Lancaster bomber]
[underlined] LANCASTER
RLR 8/44 [/underlined]
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11
_ _ _ INTO THE SUN _ _ _ _ _
[hand drawn picture of a Spitfire]
[underlined] SPITFIRE
RLR 8/44 [/underlined]
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13
[hand drawn picture of a Halifax bomber]
[underlined] HALIFAX RLR 8/44 [/underlined]
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15
[hand drawn picture of a Wellington bomber]
[underlined] WELLINGTON] RLR 8/44 [/underlined]
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16
[underlined] GOON :- [/underlined] was the P.O.W. slang for a German. Some of the guards used to walk round the camp looking for trouble - trying to catch P.O.Ws. doing things they shouldn’t i.e. making tunnels, forging passports, listening to radio etc.etc.
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17
[hand drawn picture of a P.O.W. at an open window holding a piece of wood with a nail in it, whilst a prison guard lies on the floor below him.
[underlined] GOON UP!!
RLR 8/44 [/underlined]
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18
[underlined] The Kitchen [/underlined] was a small room at the end of each hut containing a stove and a washing - up sink. Each room was allowed two periods of half - an - hour each day to be shared with another room. In other words room 18 shared with our room (17) and we cooked our grub at 11.30 - 1200 and 6.30 - 7.00 PM each day normally the stove was always rather crowded especially when we made to have 18 to a room instead of [underlined] 12. [/underlined]
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19
[hand drawn picture of a P.O.W. at a very overused stove}
[underlined] KITCHEN TROUBLE
RLR {/underlined] 8/44
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21
[hand drawn picture of a prison guard walking in the rain whilst under his feet a prisoner is tunnelling.
[underlined RLR [/underlined] 8/44
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23
[hand drawn picture of a German actress]
WINNIE MARKUS
A GERMAN FILM ACTRESS
[underlined] A E Adams [/underlined]
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27
[underlined] BOMBER COMMAND [/underlined]
[Various R.A.F. sketches around the poem “Lie In the dark and listen” by Noel Coward.]
Lie in the dark and listen,
It's clear tonight so they're flying high
Hundreds of them, thousands perhaps
Riding the icy, moonlight sky
Men, machinery, bombs and maps
Coffee, sandwiches, fleece lined boots
Bones and muscles and minds and hearts
English saplings with English roots
Deep in the earth they've left behind
Lie in the dark and let them go
Lie in the dark and listen…..
Lie in the dark and listen
They're going over in waves and waves
High above villages, hills and streams
Country churches and little graves
And little citizens worried dreams
Very soon they'll have reached the sea
And far below them will lie the bays
And cliffs and sands where they used to be
Taken for summer holidays
Lie in the dark and let them go
Their’s is a world you’ll never know
Lie in the dark and listen…..
Lie in the dark and listen
City magnates and steel contractors
Factory workers and politicians
Soft hysterical little actors
Ballet dancers, reserved musicians
Safe in your warm civilian beds
Count your profits and count your sheep
Life is passing above your heads
Just turn over and try to sleep
Lie in the dark and let them go
Theirs is a debt you’ll forever owe
Lie in the dark and listen….
Noel Coward
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29
[hand drawn picture of a Mustang aircraft]
[underlined] MUSTANG 1 [/underlined]
With best wishes to R.L.R.
[underlined] from Maurice Wilson [/underlined]
11 AUG 44
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31
[hand drawn Newcastle coat of arms]
[underlined] CANNY TOON [/underlined]
[hand drawn picture of the Tyne bridge in Newcastle]
NEW TYNE BRIDGE. NEWCASTLE - ON - TYNE
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[page break]
33
[hand drawn picture of a young lady in a seductive pose]
All the best Ginger - Bob Hamilton
Bilaria [sic] 1944
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
35
[had drawn picture of two bloodhounds on a leash]
[underlined] KRIEGIES ON THE LOOSE? [/underlined]
All the luck & keep those guitar strings twanging! [underlined] David A Codd 8/44 [/underlined]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
37
[hand drawn sketch of two men with one recklessly clearing a table of pots while the other has a speech bubble saying “CLEAR THE TABLE GINGER”]
[underlined] NO REST FOR THE DEVIL [/underlined]
Best of luck Ginger.
Tommy Hughes
Belaria
Aug 1944.
[page break]
[blank page]
39
[underlined] ESCAPE [/underlined]
[drawing of a lookout tower]
[drawing of a lorry]
IF YOU CAN LEAVE THE COMPOUND UNDETECTED AND CLEAR YOUR TRACKS NOR [sic] LEAVE THE SLIGHTEST TRACE AND FOLLOW OUT THE PROGRAMME YOU’VE SELECTED NOR LOSE YOUR GRASP OF DISTANCE, TIME AND PLACE…
[drawing of train carriages]
IF YOU CAN WALK AT NIGHT BY COMPASS BEARING AND RIDE THE RAILWAYS IN THE LIGHT OF DAY AND TEMPER YOUR ELUSIVENESS WITH DARING TRUSTING THAT SOMETIMES BLUFF WILL FIND A WAY…
[drawing of an escape attempt]
IF YOU CAN SWALLOW SUDDEN SOUR FRUSTRATION AND GAZE UNMOVED AT FAILURE’S UGLY SHAPE REMEMBER AS FURTHER INSPIRATION IT WAS AND IS YOUR DUTY TO ESCAPE…
[drawing of a German officer]
IF YOU CAN KEEP THE GREAT GESTAPO GUESSING WITH EXPLANATIONS ONLY PARTLY TRUE AND LEAVE THEM IN THEIR HEART OF HEARTS CONFESSING THEY DIDN’T GET THE WHOLE TRUTH OUT OF YOU…
[drawing of a prison cell]
IF YOU CAN USE YOUR “COOLER” [SIC] FORTNIGHT CLEARLY FOR PLANNING METHODS WISER THAN BEFORE AND TREAT YOUR FIRST CALCULATIONS MERELY AS HINTS LET FALL BY FATE TO TEACH YOU MORE…
[drawing of a sign pointing to England]
IF YOU SCHEME ON WITH PATIENCE AND PRECISION IT WASN’T IN A DAY THEY BUILDED [sic] AND MAKE ESCAPE YOUR SINGLE SOLE AMBITION [underlined] THE NEXT TIME YOU ATTEMPT IT YOU’LL GET HOME. [/underlined]
COMPOSED BY: - FLIGHT LIEUTENANT E. GORDON BRETTEL R.A.F. WHILST IN DETENTION AT GROS HARTSMANNDORF THIS OFFICER WAS ONE OF THE 52 RAF OFFICERS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES AFTER ESCAPING FROM STALAG-LUFT III (SAGAN) IN APRIL 1944.
[underlined] RLR [/underlined]
[underlined] 9/44 [/underlined]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
41
[hand drawn picture of a thatched cottage by a stream with a man with bicycle looking on]
Cottage near Dorchester
Best wishes Les - Jim Russell.
[page break]
42
DESIGNED BY R. L. RUTHERFORD.
IN MEMORY OF THE R.A.F. OFFICERS WHO WERE SHOT AFTER ESCAPING FROM NORTH COMPOUND, STALAG LUFT 111, SAGAN, ON MARCH 24 1944. 4 OTHERS WERE KILLED LATER.
[page break]
43
[an elaborately decorated, colourful page including the R.A.F. crest]
ihs
He giveth them wings that they might fly on high and breathe a purer air.
St Francis
In Memoriam
BERKLAND P/O CAN — BRETEL E.G. F/L ENG — BULL L.G. F/L ENG — BUSHEL R.J. S/L ENG — CASEY M.J. F/L ENG — CATANACH J. S/L AUS — CHRISTENSEN P/O N.Z. — COCHRAN D.H. P/O ENG — CROSS T.H.D. S/L ENG — ESPELICH H P/O NOR — EVANS B. P/O WELSH — FUGLESANG P/O NOR — GOUWS LT. S. A. — GRISMAN F/L WELSH — GINN A. P/O SCOTS — MADE A.M. P/O AUS — MAYTER M. F/L ENG — HUMPHRIES P/O CAN — KIERATH R.V. F/O AUS — KIRWNARSKI F/O POL — KIRBY-GREEN S/L ENG — KOLANDOSKI F/O POL — LANGFORD F/L CAN HALL C. P. LEIGH T.B. P/O ENG — Mc FARR C. LT. S.A. — Mc TILL G. P/L CAN — MARCINKAS F/L LITH — MILFORD H. P/O ENG — MONDSHEIN J. P/O POL — PICARD H. P/O BEL. — POKE P.P.J. P/O MAORI — SHEIDHAVER P/O FR — SKOMSYIKAS P/O GR — SWAN C.D. F/L ENG — STEVENS R. L.T. S.A. — STOWERS G. F/O ARG — STEWART C. P/O ENG — STREET O. F/O ENG — VALENTA E. F/L CZECH — WALENN G. F/O ENG — WILEY G. F/O ENG — WERNHAM J. F/O CAN — WILLIAMS S/L AUS — WILLIAMS J. F/O ENG
[underlined] RLR 10/44 [/underlined]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
45
[hand drawn picture of R.A.F. 50 squadron crest]
[underlined] RLR [/underlined] 1944
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
47
“THE CAMP”
[hand drawn picture of the P.O.W. camp]
“All the Best Kid - Hoping this does not revive to many bad memories J. W. REILLY. 11/11/44
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
49
[hand drawn sketch of a couple dancing with music notes around them]
SWING IT
TO LEN WHITELEY AND HIS BELARIA ORCHESTRA
50
[sketch]
[page break]
[missing pages]
53
[hand drawn coloured drawing of coast road with church in the background]
D. Attwood
[page break]
55
[underlined] Prisoner of War [/underlined]
IT IS A MELANCHOLY STATE. YOU ARE IN THE POWER OF YOUR ENEMIES. YOU OWE YOUR LIFE TO HIS HUMANITY, YOUR DAILY BREAD TO HIS COMPASSION. YOU MUST OBEY HIS ORDERS, AWAIT HIS PLEASURES, POSSESS YOUR SOUL IN PATIENCE. THE DAYS ARE LONG, HOURS CRAWL BY LIKE PARALYTIC CENTIPEDES. MOREOVER, THE WHOLE ATMOSPHERE OF PRISON, EVEN THE BEST AND MOST REGULATE OF PRISONS, IS ODIOUS. COMPANIONS QUARREL ABOUT NOTHING AT ALL AND GET THE LEAST POSSIBLE ENJOYMENT FROM
[page break]
54
EACH OTHER’S COMPANY. YOU FEEL A CONSTANT HUMILIATION AT BEING FENCED IN BY RAILINGS AND WIRE, WATCHED BY ARMED GUARDS AND WEBBED BY A TRIANGLE OF REGULATIONS AND RESTRICTIONS.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Written by Winston Churchill while P.O.W. in Boer hands during Boer War.
[Page break]]
[Missing pages]
58
[underlined] LUCKENWALDE [/underlined]
WERE EDGAR ALLEN POE ALIVE TO SEE THAT GRUESOME PLACE
WERE [sic] NOUGHT BUT EVIL VERMIN THRIVE
AND BREED AT FEARFUL PACE.
THEN EDGAR WOULD, WITH AWFULL [sic] SKILL
DESCRIBE THE FILTH THAT HAUNTS ME STILL
[underlined]
THE SORDID REEK AND STENCH THAT SEEPS
INTO ONES VERY SOUL
THE LOATHSOME BUGS THAT NIGHTLY CREEP.
FROM EVERY LITTLE HOLE
‘NEATH EDGARS PEN AND EDGARS BRAIN
WOULD COME TO LIFE AND LIVE AGAIN
[underlined]
THE SORDID REEK AND STENCH THAT SEEPS
INTO ONES VERY SOUL
THE LOATHSOME BUGS THAT NIGHTLY CREEP.
FROM EVERY LITTLE HOLE
‘NEATH EDGARS PEN AND EDGARS BRAIN
WOULD COME TO LIFE AND LIVE AGAIN
[underlined]
[underlined] AG LANG. [/underlined]
AND YET MUSIC THRIVED. THANKS FOR THE GIT’ GEN GINGER. KEEP JUMPING WHERE EVER YOU ARE. ALL THE BEST
[underlined] REX. [inserted] musical note [/inserted] BENNETT [/underlined]
[page break]
59
[transferred ink from page 58]
[page break]
60
[underlined] WITH APOLOGIES TO WALT WHITMAN AND OF COURSE [/underlined] R. RIPLEY.
OH CAPTAIN, OH MY CAPTAIN OUR FEARFUL TRIP IS DONE,
WE’VE STALLED AND DIVED, TURNED AND CLIMBED,
BUT I THINK THE FLAK HAS WON.
THEY’VE HIT US LEFT AND CENTRE,
AND I THINK YOU’LL SEE OUR PLIGHT
IF WE KEEP ON FLYING LONGER, THEY’LL HIT US IN THE RIGHT
THE PORT ENGINE’S BURNING BRIGHTLY,
THE STARBOARD’S POPPING LOUD,
THE TAILPLANE LOOKS LIKE FALLING OFF,
AND WE’RE DOWN BELOW THE CLOUD.
THERE ARE SEARCHLIGHTS ALL AROUND US,
FLAK, BOTH FRONT AND REAR,
AND EVEN WHEN THEY MISS US
THEY’RE STILL TOO BLOODY NEAR.
TWO FIGHTERS COMING AT US,
ONE ON EITHER BEAM.
AND IF THIS IS NOT A NIGHTMARE,
IT’S A BLOODY AWFUL DREAM!
By D. R. Greig
[inserted] All the best Ginger Glam Evans. F. A. [indecipherable letters] Luckenwalde March 30 th ’45 [/inserted]
[page break]
61
[blank page]
62
[blank page]
63
[sketch of a prisoner of war pulling a sledge in the snow]
“Onward Christian Soldier – The March, Jan. 1945”
James [indecipherable word] – Luckenswalde – March. ‘45
76
[double underlined] THE BAND [/underlined]
[underlined] LEADER [/underlined] - - - [underlined] F/O LEN WHITELEY [/underlined]
[double underlined] DANCE AND THEATRE ORCHESTRA [/underlined]
[underlined] 1ST TRUMPET F/O L. WHITELEY [/underlined] [underlined 1ST ALTO SAX. F/O R. RYDER [/underlined
[underlined] 2ND “ F/O MCPHERSON [/underlined] [underlined] 2ND “ “ F/O J. HUNT [/underlined]
[underlined] 3RD “ F/O W. GROGAN [/underlined] [underlined] 1ST TENOR SAX F/O J. MOSS [/underlined]
[underlined] 4TH “ F/O SMITH [/underlined] [underlined] 2ND “ “ F/LT P. VALLIANCE [/underlined]
[underlined] 1ST GUITAR F/O R.L. RUTHERFORD [/underlined] [underlined] BASS. F/LT H. HANLON [/underlined]
[underlined] 2ND GUITAR W/O A.E. ADAMS. [/underlined] [underlined] PIANO F/LT D. CODD [/underlined]
[underlined] DRUMS J. JAGGER. [/underlined]
[double underlined] CLASSICAL ORCHESTRA [/underlined]
[underlined] 1ST VIOLINN [sic] F/O P. PADDOCK [/underlined] [underlined] 1ST CLARINET F/L D. MILMINE [/underlined]
[underlined] 2ND “ F/O E. DOBIE. [/underlined] [underlined] 2ND “ F/O J. MOSS. [/underlined]
[underlined] 3RD “ F/L J. BATTLE [/underlined] [underlined] CELLO F/L J. HILL [/underlined]
[underlined] 4TH “ F/O R. RYDER [/underlined] [underlined] FLUTE F/O G MACCRAE. [/underlined]
[underlined] 5TH “ F/LT. J. HALL [/underlined] [underlined] BASS F/L H. HANLON [/underlined]
[underlined] TRUMPET F/O L. WHITELEY [/underlined] [underlined] PIANO F/L D. CODD [/underlined]
[double underlined] SWING OCTETTE [/underlined]
[underlined] TRUMPET F/O LEN WHITELEY [/underlined] [underlined] PIANO F/L J. HILL [/underlined]
[underlined] CLARINET F/O REG RYDER [/underlined] [underlined] TENOR SAX F/O J. MOSS [/underlined]
[underlined] GUITARS F/O R.L. RUTHERFORD [/underlined] [underlined] & [/underlined] [underlined] W/O A.E ADAMS [/underlined]
[underlined] BASS F/L H. HANLON [/underlined] [underlined] DRUMS F/O J. JAGGER [/underlined]
[double underlined] TANGO SECTION [/underlined]
[underlined] ACCORDION. F/O REG RYDER [/underlined] [underlined] TENOR SAX. F/O J. MOSS [/underlined]
[underlined] GUITARS. F/O R.L. RUTHERFORD [/underlined] & [underlined] W/O A.E. ADAMS [/underlined]
[underlined] BASS. F/L H. HANLON [/underlined] [underlined] DRUMS F/O J. JAGGER. [/underlined]
[page break]
77
[double underlined] THE THEATRE. [/underlined]
[diagram showing theatre layout]
[underlined] ENTERTAINMENTS OFFICER [/underlined] [underlined] WING COMMANDER W.B. MEHARG. [/underlined]
[underlined] SETS DESIGNED BY [/underlined] [underlined] F/O D. BLACK AND F/O F. ALLEN. [/underlined]
[underlined] SETS BUILT BY [/underlined] [underlined] F/0 T.W.E. HUGHES AND [blank] [/underlined]
[underlined] LIGHTING BY [/underlined] [underlined] S/L DESTERIDGE [/underlined]
[underlined] MUSICAL DIRECTOR [/underlined] [underlined] F/O L. WHITELEY [/underlined]
[underlined] MAKE-UP BY [/underlined] [underlined] F/LT. C. BUCKLEY. [/underlined]
[line]
[underlined] MARCH. 24TH [/underlined] [underlined] PRODUCTIONS [/underlined]
[underlined] “SPRINGTIME FOR HENRY” [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY [/underlined] [underlined] F/O P. JACOBS AND W/O LAWRENCE [/underlined]
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O P. JACOBS. [/underlined] [underlined] F/O J. FREEMANTLE [/underlined]
[underlined] W/O W. LAWRENCE [/underlined] [underlined] F/O R. ENGLAND. [/underlined]
[5 lines]
[underlined] 27TH MARCH. 44. [/underlined] [double underlined] “ROPE” [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCER [/underlined] [underlined] F/L J. HALL. [/underlined]
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
[underlined] F/L J. HALL. [/underlined] [underlined] S/L PESTERIDGE [/underlined]
[underlined] W/O LEES. [/underlined] [underlined] F/L P. VALLIANCE [/underlined]
[underlined] D. BLACK. [/underlined] [line]
[7 lines]
[underlined] 2ND MAY. [/underlined] [double underlined] “HAYFEVER” [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY :- [/underlined] - - - - - - [underlined] W/O. LAWRENCE. [/underlined]
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
[underlined] B. KENNEDY [/underlined] [underlined] S/L PESTERIDGE [/underlined]
[underlined] F/L G. SPROATES [/underlined] [underlined] J. FREEMANTLE. [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O P. CORYTON. [/underlined] [underlined] LT. T. MAYS.
[underlined] S/L ANDERSON [/underlined] [underlined] F/O J. JAGGER [/underlined]
[underlined] W/O H. THORNE [/underlined]
[page break]
78
[underlined] 24TH MAY [/underlined] [underlined] ARSENIC AND OLD LACE [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY [/underlined] [underlined] F/L J. HALL.
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
[underlined] F/L C. BUCKLEY [/underlined] [underlined] F/L NICHOLSON [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O P. DAULBY [/underlined] [underlined] S/L BELL [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O J. RUSSELL [/underlined] [underlined] S/L HUGHES. [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O S. GRAHAM [/underlined] [underlined] F/O J. LAUNDER [/underlined]
[2 lines]
[2 lines]
[underlined] 12TH JUNE [/underlined] [double underlined] REVUE [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY [/underlined] [underlined] F/L J. HILL. [/underlined]
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
[underlined] S/L ANDERSON. [/underlined] [underlined] F/O B. KENNEDDY. [sic] [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O WHITELEY [/underlined] [underlined] F/O R. RYDER [/underlined]
[underlined] W/O WAINWRIGHT [/underlined] [underlined] F/L C. BUCKLEY. [/underlined]
[underlined] W/O T. LAWRENCE [/underlined] [underlined] F/O J. FREEMANTLE. [/underlined]
[underlined] F/L D. BLACK. [/underlined] AND [underlined] F/L A. LONGILLE. [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O C. PITCHFORD [/underlined] CHORUS [underlined] W/O R WAGSTAFFE. [/underlined]
[underlined] 28TH AUGUST [/underlined] [double underlined] SOMEONE AT THE DOOR [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY :- [/underlined] [underlined] F/O. P JACOBS. & W/O T. LAWRENCE [/underlined]
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O P. JACOBS. [/underlined] [underlined] F/O T. GRIFFITHS [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O P. DAULBY [/underlined] [underlined] F/L C. BUCKLEY [/underlined]
[underlined] T. LAWRENCE [/underlined] [underlined] W/O RYDER [/underlined]
[line]
[underlined] 11TH SEPTEMBER [/underlined] [double underlined] BAND SHOW [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY :- [/underlined] [underlined] LEN WHITELEY. [/underlined]
[underlined] WITH [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O P. JACOBS. [/underlined] [underlined] F/O J. ROSS [/underlined] [underlined] W/O R. WAGSTAFFE [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O J KENNEDY [/underlined] [underlined] F/O R. RYDER [/underlined] [underlined] F/L A. LONGILLE. [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O A. DARLOW. [/underlined] [underlined] F/O L. WHITELEY. [/underlined] [blank line]
[underlined] 3RD OCTOBER [/underlined] [double underlined] FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS. [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY:- [/underlined] [blank line]
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
[underlined] F/O J. FREEMANTLE [/underlined] [underlined] S/L ANDERSON [/underlined]
[underlined] S/L J. PESTERIDGE [/underlined] [underlined] F/O J. LAUNDER [/underlined]
[underlined] F/L J. AYR [/underlined] [blank line]
[2 blank lines]
[double underlined] MAJOR BARBARA [/underlined]
[underlined] PRODUCED BY:- [/underlined] [underlined] F/L P. VALLIANCE [/underlined]
[blank line] [underlined] 21ST OCTOBER [/underlined] [blank line]
[3 blank lines]
[3 blank lines]
[page break]
79
[underlined] RECORDS [/underlined]
[page divided into two columns]
[first column] [underlined] HEARD [/underlined]
RECORD SESSION. BY HARRY JAMES.
PRINCE CHARMING. BY HARRY JAMES.
ANVIL CHORUS BY GLENN MILLER.
YES INDEED “ TOMMY DORSEY.
STRING OF PEARLS “ GLENN MILLER.
THE WORLD IS WAITING “ GOODMAN QUARTETTE
AFTER YOU’VE GONE “ BENNY GOODMAN
WHY DON’T YOU DO RIGHT “ BENNY GOODMAN
STORY OF A STARRY NIGHT “ GLENN MILLER
[second column] [underlined] RECOMMENDED [/underlined]
LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME BY GOODMAN [deleted] QUARTETTE [/deleted]
ST LOUIS BLUES. BY GLENN MILLER
MOONLIGHT SONATA BY GLENN MILLER
ROYAL GARDEN BLUES “ GOODMAN [deleted] QUAR [/deleted] SEXTETTE
JAZZ ME BLUES “ KRUPA’S ALL STAR BAND
TRUMPET CONCERTO “ HARRY JAMES
SLIPHORN JIVE “ GLENN MILLER
CLARINET CONCERTO “ ARTIE SHAW
BENNY RIDES AGAIN “ GOODMAN ORCHESTRA
SMO-O-O-TH ONE “ GOODMAN SEXTETTE
THINGS AREN’T WHAT “ JOHNNY HODGES
WHERE OR WHEN “ GOODMAN 6 WITH PEGGY LEE.
SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET “ LIONEL HAMPTON
YOU’R’E [sic] BLASÈ [sic] “ SUNNY DUNHAM
LET’S DO IT. “ GOODMAN WITH PEGGY LEE
IF I HAD YOU “ GOODMAN SEXTETTE
[page divided into 4 columns]
[underlined] THE THEATRE (CTD.) [/underlined]
[across first and second columns] THE ASTONISHED OSTRICH
PRODUCED BY F/O P. JACOBS & W/O LAWRENCE
[underlined] CAST [/underlined]
F/O T. GRIFFITHS F/O B. KENNEDY
W/O T. LAWRENCE F/O J. NORMANDALE
F/O J. FREEMANTLE.
[line]
GEORGE AND MARGARET.
[line]
MR. CORN COMES TO TOWN
[line]
THE FIRST MRS FRASER
[line]
[underlined] DEC 26TH [/underlined] FANFARE.
[line]
TONY DRAWS A HORSE
[line]
[across third and fourth columns] [underlined] FILMS. [/underlined]
DIXIE DUGAN
80
[underlined]RED CROSS PARCELS CONTENTS[/underlined]
[underlined]BRITISH[/underlined]
1 tin CORNED BEEF 1/2Lb
1 tin MEAT GALANTINE
1 tin POWDERED EGG EQUIVALENT 2 EGGS
1 tin NESTLES CONDENSED MILK
1 TIN MARGARINE 1/4Lb
1 PKT SUGAR 1/2Lb
1 BAR CHOCOLATE 1/4Lb
1 tin BISCUITS
1 tin PROCESSED CHEESE 2ozs
1 tin COCOA
1 tin SALMON
1 tin JAM
1 PKT TEA 2ozs
[underlined]CANADIAN[/underlined]
1 TIN POWDERED MILK
1 tin SPAM
1 tin CORNED BEEF 1/2Lb
1 tin [deleted]BUTTER[/deleted]JAM 1/2Lb
1 PKT COFFEE
1 PKT SUGAR 1/2Lb
1 tin SALMON
1 tin SARDINES
1 tin BUTTER 1/2Lb
1 PKT BISCUITS
1 PKT CHOCOLATE 1/4Lb
1 PKT CHEESE 2ozs
[underlined]AMERICAN[/underlined]
1 tin POWDERED MILK
1 tin CORNED BEEF 1/2Lb
1 tin MEAT PATÉ
1 tin MARGARINE 1/2Lb
1 PKT BISCUITS
1 tin JAM 1/4Lb
1 PKT CHEESE 1/2Lb
1 tin SPAM
1 tin SALMON
1 tin SOLUBLE COFFEE
1 PKT SUGAR 1/2Lb
1 BAR CHOCOLATE 1/4Lb
60 CIGARETTES
[underlined]NEW ZEALAND[/underlined]
1 tin CONDENSED MILK
1 tin HONEY
1 PKT PEAS
1 PKT SUGAR 1/2Lb
1 tin CHEESE 1/2Lb
1 tin CORNED BEEF.
1 tin BUTTER 1/2Lb
1 tin JAM 1/2Lb
1 tin CAFÉ-AU-LAIT
1 PKT TEA. 1/4Lb
1 BAR CHOCOLATE 1/4Lb
[underlined]GERMAN RATIONS FOR 1 WEEK[/underlined]
1/4Lb SUGAR
2ozs JAM
2ozs CHEESE
2ozs MEAT
1oz. SAUSAGE
POTATOES
VEGETABLES
1/4LB BARLEY
1/4Lb MARGARINE
1 1/5 LVS. BREAD
[page break]
81
[underlined]TYPICAL P.O.W. RECIPES: SWEETS.[/underlined]
[underlined]CAKE[/underlined]
INGREDIENTS:-
4 tins ENGLISH BISCUITS
1 tin 1/2Lb MARGARINE
1 tin EGG POWDER
5 TABLESPOONS SUGAR
SALT
Crush BISCUITS to a fine powder and place into a bowl. MELT MARGARINE and mix into flour adding SUGAR and a pinch of SALT. MIX the powdered egg and add to mixture. KNEAD thoroughly Line baking tin [deleted]and[/deleted] with greased paper and place mixture INSIDE BAKE in a moderate OVEN for 25-30 mins. RAISINS may be included in mixture if required. When cool, ICE with a mixture of 1 BAR CHOCOLATE and 1 TABLESPOON MARGARINE WHICH has been melted to a smooth paste.
[underlined]PANCAKES[/underlined]
INGREDIENTS:-
1 PKT CANADIAN BISCUITS
1 tin POWDERED EGG.
MILK.
Crush BISCUITS to a fine powder and place into a bowl. ADD MILK [deleted]and mix[/deleted] gradually, stirring until you have a fine paste. MIX EGG and add to mixture. Place a little cooking fat in a frying pan and melt. Pour in 3 Tablespoons of mixture. FRY UNTIL Golden brown. ENOUGH FOR 20 PANCAKES.
[underlined]FRIED BISCUITS[/underlined]
Place Canadian biscuits (one biscuit per man0 into a bowl of water and soak for 10-11 hours. WHen[sic] thoroughly SOAKED slice[deleted]d[/deleted] biscuits and spread inside with jam. Place in a well greased tin and bake in moderate oven for 20 mins. Serve with milk sauce. The biscuits can also be fried individually as for PANCAKES.
[underlined]BREAD PUDDING[/underlined]
There are many varieties of this dish but the following is most common:- GRATE GERMAN BREAD into crumbs and place into a bowl. Melt 1/2 of MARGARINE and add to crumbs. ADD 1/2 PKT RAISINS or Prunes (or both) and 2 or 3 tablespoons SUGAR. Mix thoroughly. IF MIXTURE is still too dry add MILK. Place into a grease tin and bake for 25-20 mins in a a moderate oven. SERVE with MILK SAUCE.
82
[underlined]TYPICAL P.O.W. RECIPES: SPREADS.[/underlined]
[underlined]CHEESE SPREAD[/underlined]
INGREDIENTS:-
1 PKT AMERICAN CHEESE
1/4Lb MARGARINE
MILK
CUT Cheese into small pieces and place into saucepan with a small amount of milk. Heat until cheese is melted. then[sic] add MARGARINE. STIR continuously until mixture is nicely smooth. Add more milk making mixture fairly liquid. Empty into a tin to cool and set. IF tomatoes are available skin about 4 or 5 and add to mixture before adding MARGARINE.
[underlined]MEAT SPREAD[/underlined]
INGREDIENTS:-
1 tin Rose Mill Pate.
1 tin MEAT GALANTINE.
1 CHOPPED ONION.
1 TABLESPOON MARGARINE
CHOP the PATÉ and GALANTINE into small pieces and place together with ONIONS and MARGARINE INTO SAUCE PAN. HEAT UNTIL a think paste is made. Stirring continuously. PLACE INTO A Tin to cool or serve hot as required.
[underlined]PRUNE SPREAD[/underlined]
INGREDIENTS:-
BOILED PRUNES
SUGAR
MILK.
Stone PRUNES AND PLACE INTO A SAUCEPAN. ADD Sugar and a little MILK. IF ORANGE POWDER IS AVAILABLE THIS MAY BE ADDED TOO. BOIL FOR ABOUT 10 MINUTES THEN LEAVE TO COOL.
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83
[underlined]TYPICAL P.O.W. RECIPES.[/underlined]
INGREDIENTS:-
POTATOES
CORNED BEEF
BOIL and Mash the potatoes. Add 3 tablespoons of POWDERED MILK and a little MARGARINE. TURN INTO A Greased baking dish and mould into shape of a box. Shred the corned beef and mix with a little milk tomatoes may be added if available. Place meat with potatoes and bake in a moderate oven until potatoes are golden brown.
[underlined]HOT-POT[/underlined]
INGREDIENTS:-
POTATOES
MEAT (SPAM or CORNED BEEF
Cut the meat into small pieces and lay in the bottom of a baking tin. Peel potatoes and slice into thin Fritters and lay over the meat. Poor in enough water to cover the meat and place on top of stove unit water boils then place in oven for about 30 mins until potatoes are browned.
84
[underlined] Menu for Christmas Dinner
Belaria 1944
Room 17 Block 15. [/underlined]
[missing] inserted menu is missing [/missing]
[page break]
[two missing pages]
87
[double underlined] Christmas Day Belaria 1944. [/double underlined]
For some two or three months before Christmas food was laid aside so that on Christmas day we could have a day of reasonably good meals. Unfortunately on November 17 the Germans ordered that all food stores must be liquidated and so we were given three days to eat our existing store. They allowed us however to keep a large Red Cross box (Container for 8 ordinary Red Cross parcels) in the Vorlager, to be drawn out 1 week before Christmas. The issue 51 Christmas parcels (American) came on 23RD DEC. and a list of contents the [sic] recipes for the cakes and puddings, and menu for the day follows.
[double underlined] American Christmas Parcel [/double underlined]
[underlined] Issue:- 2/3 of Parcel per Man
Contents [/underlined]
1 Tin Christmas Pudding 16oz
1 Pkt Dates 16oz
50 Cigarettes
1 Tin Turkey 14 oz
1 Tin Cherries 9 oz
1 Pkt Playing Cards
1 Tin Vienna Sausages 4oz
1 Tin Salted Nuts 7oz
1 Game (Chess, Checkers, etc.)
1 Tin Chopped Ham 4ox
1 Tin Mixed Sweets 12oz
1 Face Cloth.
1 Tin Cheese 4oz
4 Pkts Chewing Gum
1 Tin Jam 6oz
1 Pkt Tea 1 1/2 oz
2 Fruit Bars
1 Tin Honey 8oz.
12 Soup Cubes
1 Pipe + 2oz Tobacco
1 Tin Butter 4oz.
[double underlined] Recipes [/double underlined]
[underlined] Christmas Cake
Ingredients:- [/underlined]
10 Pkts American Biscuits
1/2 Loaf German Bread
1 Lb Sugar
1/2 Lb Turkish Fruit
1/2 Lb Prunes
1 Lb Raisins
Nuts from Prune Stones
Milk : Salt
1/2 Lb Margarine
[underlined] Directions: [/underlined]
CRUSH the biscuits into a fine flour and grate up the bread. Place into mixing bowl. Melt the margarine and add to flour. Mix thoroughly. Add the sugar, fruit, and raisins. The prunes should be boiled beforehand, chopped and stoned. The stones should then be cracked and the nut taken from inside. These should be chopped and added to the cake mixture. Add a pinch of salt and if the mixture is too dry, add milk. Mix thoroughly. Grease two large baking tins of equal size and turn mixture into them. Bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour – 1 1/2 hours. Make an icing by melting down 1/4 chocolate and 1/2 tablespoon of margarine, and a little water. Ice one of the cakes with this icing and when almost set, place the other cake on top. Make a white icing by taking 1/2 sugar, and enough very thick klim to cover the cake. Mix up into a very thick paste and boil for a short while. (2-3 minutes) Lay the icing smoothly over the cake.
WEIGHT approx 12-14 lbs.
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88
[underlined] Christmas Pudding
Ingredients:- [/underlined]
10 Pkts American Biscuits
1 Loaf German Bread
1 Lb Sugar
1/2 Lb Margarine
1 Lb Raisins
1/2 Lb Prunes
Salt : Klim.
[underlined] Directions:- [/underlined]
Crush the biscuits and grate up the loaf and place in mixing bowl. Melt down margarine and add to flour. Add sugar and mix well. Boil the prunes and stone and chop finely. Add Raisins and Prunes and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt. If mixture is too dry add fairly thick Klim. Mix thoroughly. Grease 4 bowls and turn mixture into these. Cover with cloth and boil for 4 1/2 – 5 hours.
[underlined] Angel Cakes
Ingredients:- [/underlined]
4 Pkts American Biscuits
1/4 Lb Margarine
1/4 Lb Sugar
Salt : Klim
[underlined] Directions:- [/underlined]
Crush the biscuits down to a fine flour and place in mixing bowl. Melt margarine and add to flour. Add sugar and a pinch of salt. Mix thoroughly. Grease an individual cake tin and turn mixture into [indecipherable word]. Bake in moderate oven for 30 minutes. When finished allow to cool. Make a mixture of very thick Klim and sugar. Slice the top off each cake in such a manner as to leave a hollow in the cake. Fill the hollow with the Klim mixture. Cut the top into two pieces and stick into the Klim so that it gives the appearance of wings. Enough for 12 cakes.
[underlined] Mince Pies [/underlined]
Make the same mixture as for Angel cakes, but bake in the form of a cup. Bake in moderate oven for 15-20 mins. Make the filling from Chopped date, Chopped Prunes, raisins, a little [deleted] chop [/deleted] grated carrot and sugar.
Boil in a saucepan with a little water and fill up cakes. Makes 12 pies.
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89
[blank page]
90
[underlined] A TYPICAL DAY AT BELARIA [/underlined]
[underlined] 9.00 AM [/underlined] First hot water issue. Hot brew in bed by cooks.
[underlined] 10.00 AM [/underlined] Appell. Parade outside to be counted by Goons. Usually lasts 15-20 mins. After Appell, the room was cleaned out generally and the cooks began to prepare lunch or peel potatoes in readiness for dinner. The rest of the chaps did odd jobs that needed doing. Usually spent reading or arguing. Hot water for “dobie” issued as 10.50. Usually wait for this water As shave.
[underlined] 12.30 P.M [/underlined] Hot brew water issue. Lunch (3 slices of toast, spreads & coffee). Afternoons usually spent in visiting libraries or visiting different people, or once again just sitting around reading or arguing.
[underlined] 4.00 P.M. [/underlined] Afternoon Appell. Immediately after appell, there was a hot water issue for tea. Tea was usually just that, although sometimes we had a slice of toast.
[underlined] 7.00 P.M. [/underlined] Evening period on above. Dinner prepared. Usually consisted of:- Potatoes, whatever vegetables the goons gave us, and either Spam or Corned Beef. A sweet was usually served – either barley or something prepared from biscuits.
[underlined] 10.00 P.M. [/underlined] Time on stove to boil water for evening brew. This was usually followed by a game of bridge. Lock-up was at 10.00 too.
[underlined] 12.00. [,underlined] Lights out.
[line]
[underlined] REVIEW OF LIFE AT BELARIA [/underlined]
As can be seen, the most of the day was spent reading, arguing, or doing odd jobs such as washing, shaving, bed-making, darning and sewing etc. I usually had band rehearsals for 1 hour during some part of the day, and immediately before a show sometimes four or even five times a day, (playing with different sections). The Red Cross parcels were issued on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, then when the goons brought in the order prohibiting stores of food, they were issued one each day. The food had to be turned out of the tins and the empty tins returned immediately. Bread was issued on Tuesday and Friday. Barley was issued already cooked on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The rest of the rations, sugar, jam, cheese etc came in on Saturday afternoon.
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91
[underlined] LIFE AT BELARIA CTD. [/underlined]
During the summer months, the weather was unusually good and there was lots of sunbathing. Sports played were, Cricket, basketball, hockey and six-a-side soccer. There were also a volley-ball court and two deck tennis courts.
During the winter months, the weather was very miserable and cold and most of the time was spent indoors. The main sport was skating and ice hockey.
A certain percentage of each officer’s pay was deducted each month, equivalent to what was paid us by the Goons. This money was used for canteen issues (tooth paste, soap, brushes, etc. bought from the Goon canteen. It was also used to buy theatrical equipment and hire costumes for the different plays. In the early spring a large amount of seeds were bought and a plot of ground allotted to each mess to be used as a garden. The resulting crop of tomatoes, onions, lettuce, parsnips, carrots etc. was most surprisingly good.
The food question was always very ticklish, no-one ever having food enough to say that he was happily satisfied, especially when the parcel issue was cut by half. The method of cooking and messing was as follows:- When we first arrived we were placed in rooms of eight. This later went up to 10 and later again to 12. Two of the mess did the cooking and everything concerned with cooking, (washing-up, preparing etc) for 2 days at a time. Two periods were allotted on the stove which was in the kitchen at the end of the block. Due particulars periods were 2.00 P.M - 2-45 P.M and 7.00 P.M. – 7.45 P.M. A light meal was served for lunch and the main meal was dinner at 7.45.
On the whole life at Belaria, although monotonous and boring could have been very much worse.
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92
[underlined] A TYPICAL DAY AT LUCKENWALDE [/underlined]
8.15 AM Hot mint tea. Rise, wash and breakfast (cup of mint tea and 1 slice of bread)
9.00 AM Appell. After appell there was nothing to do except be on our beds and talk, (usually of food).
1.00 P.M. Soup and Potatoes issue. 1 Cup of soup and about 4 medium potatoes.
4.30 P.M. Appell. Immediately following appell. another issue of mint tea.
7.00 P.M. Supper. Four slices of bread & butter.
10.00 P.M. Lights out.
[underlined] REVIEW OF LIFE AT LUCKENWALDE [/underlined]
Life at Luckenwalde was just one long, boring, miserable time. Food was short, quarters were bad & conditions were bad. Most of our time was spent lying on our beds playing cards or talking of what we would do and what we would eat when we got home. The food issue consisted of 1/5 of a loaf of bread per man 1 cup of soup, 4 medium sized potatoes, 2 cups of mint tea (one at 8.15 AM and the other at 4.45 P.M) approximately 1 oz of margarine [underlined] or [/underlined] a spread of some description and sugar and salt. It was a big day when the Norwegians from another compound sent us 250 parcels, enough for 1/5 of a parcel per man. The M.O. from across the wire (where the N.C.O’s from a camp on the Polish frontier are stationed} raised a scream and said that he had men dying on their feet over there. We offered him 30 parcels for his sick to which he replied that the sick couldn’t eat anyway that it was the others he was worried about, and he thought that all the parcels should go over there. After careful enquiries the Group Captain decided that they were no worse off than we were and so the parcels were issued to us. Each parcel contained 1/2 lb rolled oats, 1/2 lb sausage, 1/2 lb syrup, 50 biscuits; 1 lb sugar, 1/2 lb butter, 1/2 lb cheese.
This had to be shared among 5 men. It wasn’t much but it seemed terrific to us on the present rations.
There were very, very few books and these had to be carefully issued. The method was to give one book to 10 chaps to read. It had to be returned in 5 days so usually about 3-4 chaps read it and the rest did without.
We lived in a barrack block, containing 150 men. These were divided into messes of 20. There was very little room for moving about, and everything including eating was done on our beds.
Then came the great day. On March 7th a train-load of parcels arrived at the station and on the 8th we secured a full American parcel each. It was a terrific day. Chaps didn’t make allowance for the
[page break]
fact that they had been on such short rations and made themselves sick. It was really surprising for the first few days how little it took to fill us. However we soon settled down to it. Then came the Rhine crossing, and the terrific advances which followed. Optimism reached a new high in the camp as the Allies came nearer, and everyone waited expectantly for the expected Russian offensive to start.
On March 9th a rumour came in from a reliable source stating that we were moving to Munich on the 11th. We prepared to move. The rumour was confirmed the next day and we actually marched to the station and entrained on the 12th.. However the goons told us on the night of the 13th that we should be returning to camp the next day. They said that owing to the repeated objections of the SBO they had decided not to move us. We ourselves could think of lots of other reasons. However the experience was quite enjoyable. Most of the boys had brought along their blowers and smokies and cooking went on all along the siding. One chap in our box car kept a fire going all day with continuous supply of hot water for brews. A good effort. We moved on the morning after we arrived there to another siding along side a road, and despite the goon attempts to stop it, trading started immediately. Of course after a while, we had the usual set of fools who offered more cigarettes than anyone else and sent the prices rocketing. A loaf of bread was being bought for 100 cigarettes. (When we arrived we could get it for 20.)
On returning to camp we found most of the bed-boards missing but luckily I had slung my bed and had no bed board worries. Terrific rumours of how far the Americans were from us. During the week following everyone was tense & hanging on every
Ctd. on PAGE 98.
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94
[underlined] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS RECEIVED BY P.O.W.’s. [/underlined]
1st Letter from Fianceè [sic] --- Dear Jack, - You were posted missing for a month so I got married –
- First party of repatriated prisoners arrived home badly maimed, praying you will be among the next -
- I hope you are not being extravagant with the pocket money you get –
Prisoner received a Red + sweater with name & address of donor. He wrote thanking donor. Following is part of reply – I am sorry that it went to you. I meant it for some-one [sic] on Active Service. –
We had 2 repatriated prisoners home last week --- At 8.30 they were under the table --- they were revived but were under another table at 9.30.
- I hope you are [crossed out] enjoying [/crossed out] behaving yourself at the dances and not drinking too much beer.
- P.O.W a year – received a letter congratulating him on joining the armed forces.
- Darling – I just had a baby, but don’t worry, the American officer is sending you cigarettes each week.
- Letter from mother of Canadian P.O.W. – “German P.O.W.’s in Canada are issued with flannels to play tennis – are you?
- Letter from fiancée of Air Crew P.O.W – “I would rather marry a 1943 hero that [sic] a 1940 coward.
- Take care of Andy when you are out drinking – He is so wild.
- Are the German girls good dancers.
- From fiancée to P.O.W:- “Darling – I married your father [symbol] mother.
- When your brother heard you were P.O.W he rushed right out and joined the Home Guard.
- Please do not write to Bill any more, he’s been dead 2 years.
- I wonder if you are as tired as I am of this war.
- On Jap war “You chaps will have plenty of opportunity to make up for wasted time.
- From nurse in M.E. “I am hoping to go on leave in March if this whole thing has blown over by then.
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95
- You were smart to get yourself parked in Germany for the duration. Look what wonderful stories you will have to tell your children
- You must n’t forget there’s a war on –
- From Fiancee [sic] to P.O.W. “Although I am now married I want you to know that I think the world of you and you will always be near and dear to me.
- By the way I am now a fully-blown engaged girl.
- I hope you are keeping fighting fit dear. I am saving some mistletoe and a couch for you so please come quick.
- It is very good of the Germans allowing their prisoners to correspond with their relatives. By the way, do you want me to send you any money or anything.
- Twinkle, Twinkle little star
Went for a ride in a motor car,
What I did, I aint admittin’
What I’m knittin’ aint for Britain.
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96
[blank page]
97
[double underlined] HEBREWS 13 v 8. [/underlined]
[picture of man with bowl, spoon and fork]
Best of luck – [underlined] ‘Ginge’ [/underlined]
Yours ‘Jock’
F/Lt. William Reid V.C.
Belaria Stalag Luft III
[underlined] Germany [/underlined] 25.1.45
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98
news item. Then came the big day. APRIL 21. At about 1.00 PM. All the guards left the camp, and the Russian prisoners just ran riot. They were running along outside with sacks of potatoes, clothing and all sorts of odds and ends. One defence scheme went into operation and was soon running smoothly. On the morning of the 22nd we saw our first Russian forces when tanks and lorries entered the camp and took away the Russian prisoners. Everyone was in high spirits and, of course, rumours were rife. The Americans were reported to be only 7 Kms away. However, on the 23rd we were told that we were to remain here until the Americans arrived which should be in about 4-5 days. The link up took longer than they expected however and in the meantime a terrific reaction set in. The chaps were all keen to be home and could talk of nothing else. The food situation improved tremendously and we received personal parcels from the unclaimed store. Wireless sets were requisitioned from town and every block had its own wireless set. Everything possible was done for our comfort during the remainder of our period at Luckenwalde.
The link up took place after what seemed like months of waiting on the 24th. We received the news on the 26th – 5 days which seemed as many months, after our liberation. 5 days of [indecipherable word], rumours, excitement and most important better food.
The Repatriation Committee, all Russian, arrived on the night of 28th. They brought with them 50 lorries, full of food, and on the staff were 20 women. This staff had handled other camps which had been freed but when they arrived here, they said that our position was unique, in that we were the first they had handled who may go home. West instead of by Odessa. They didn’t know when they arrived just how we would go, but they promised that there would be transport from the moment we left the camp, in other words, no more marching.
The on 3rd May two American War correspondents showed up in the camp and they said that they didn’t know we were here until some of our boys arrived at their H.Q. This browned us off no end. We were all sick of sitting around waiting to go home. Here we were two weeks after liberation and as far as we could see, no nearer home. Spirits in the camp were lower than ever they had been before. After the visit of the correspondents there was an
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99
almost mass evacuation of the camp. Everywhere chaps could be seen getting ready to leave the camp to make their own way to the American lines. It was so boring at the camp that this attitude of “anything to get out of here” was quite understandable. There was so much to lose by going that Frank & I decided not to go but to see the thing through to the end. Fortunately on the afternoon of the day following the Yank’s visit, two armoured cars and 3 jeeps came to the camp and told us we were to be taken out unofficially the day after and preparations were made to move out! Unfortunately the Russians refused to allow us to move as they had been given no authority to allow us to go. The SBO resigned his post as Officer 1/2 the whole camp and said that he would command the British troops only. (A copy of his letter will be found on Page 106). Stirring scenes were witnessed when the lorries left empty on the morning of May 7. The Russians refused to allow anyone to board the lorries and the few chaps who managed to get abroad as the lorries were passing were unloaded further down the road and brought back to camp. It was announced later in the day that when actually asked to show the official permission to evacuate us, the American officer admitted that they were doing it unofficially so once again we had to swallow our disappointment and settle down again to wait. The VE. day celebrations were heard over the wireless all day and we listened in silence broken occasionally by some caustic comment. We were a bunch of very disappointed ex-Kriegies. The war was over officially but from our point of view we were still prisoners.
On May 12 we were told we were to move to the [indecipherable word] the following day. We moved into a hut which had no beds, but managed to find enough double tier bunks for our room. It was certainly much brighter than our other accomodation [sic], but we had to put in quite a lot of work to get it cleaned up after the Frenchmen.
The at last came the great day, MAY 20th when we were taken out to the American lines across the River Elbe. On the night of the 19th the siren sounded the recall signal at 8.30 and it was announced that our repatriation papers had been signed and that we would probably move off the next day. The next day (which was Whit Sunday) saw the arrival of the lorries. We boarded the lorries at 12.30 and after a troublesome journey owing to road demolitions etc. we arrived at the Elbe and were transferred to American lorries and taken to a camp near HALLE.
And so ended a period of Kriegie life full of events. We experienced all the emotions of sheer misery, joy, expectancy, frustration, disappointment as never before. I have never, repeat never, been so glad to leave any place as I was to leave Luckenwalde.
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100
[underlined] Highlights of Belaria [/underlined]
[sketches of camp life]
[underlined] “Lousy Communique [/underlined] [sketch of a large man and a small man walking away]
[underlined]’Shoot’ [/underlined] [sketch of man throwing a basketball at a basket behind the SBO’s back]
[underlined] Circuit Bashing [/underlined] [sketch of a soldier marching under a cloud in the rain]
[underlined] ‘Water Up’ [/underlined] [sketch of men walking towards a building with pitchers and pails of water]
[underlined] “The Cooler” [/underlined] [sketch of a guard pointing towards a door while a man with a bowed head walks towards a second guard]
[underlined] Belaria Air [/underlined] [sketch of a man with a sewage tank]
[underlined] SIX A-SIDE SOCCER?[/underlined] [sketch of a football match with a brawl in the centre of the pitch]
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101
[underlined] Highlights of Belaria Ctd[/underlined]
[sketches of camp life]
[underlined] Abort Equipment [/underlined] [sketch of man with a peg on his nose]
[underlined] Bed-time [/underlined] [sketch of man climbing into top bunk stepping on the head of the occupant of the bottom bunk]
[sketch of man asleep in bed dreaming of food]
[underlined] Bath-day [/underlined] [man singing in in bath tub]
[underlined] Wash-up Time [/underlined] [man standing at table full of crockery]
[underlined] “I’m only half the man I was – ruddy half parcels. [/underlined] [sketch of half a soldier]
[underlined] New Purge Arrival[/underlined] [sketch of rows of men]
[underlined] Two Hours Later [/underlined] [sketch of group of men gathered around asking questions of a seated man]
[page break]
102 Highlights of Belaria [underlined] Ctd [/underlined]
[sketches of camp life]
[underlined] APPEL THROUGH THE YEAR. [/underlined] [sketch of a man and the climate for each month of the year]
[underlined] RUMOURS [/underlined] [sketch of five men and the sequence of a rumour]
[underlined] Night School [/underlined] [sketch of three men at a table playing cards while another looks on]
[underlined] The Abort Serenaders [/underlined] [sketch of three men playing bagpipes, saxophone and clarinet]
[page break]
103
[blank page]
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[pages 104 and 105 missing]
106
Copy of the letter sent by the Senior British Officer to the Russian Commandant on the occasion of the latter refusing to allow the British and American Prisoners of War to be evacuated by American [indecipherable word].
FROM: Senior British Officer Stalag III A.
TO: Russian Commandant 1/2 Repatriation. Stalag III A.
MAY 7 1945.
In order to avoid misunderstanding I am putting into writing the principle statements which I made at our conference last night.
The situation of the British at this camp is now as follows. From 22nd of April, I, at the request of the Russian authorities, have been responsible for the administration and security of the entire camp of 16,000 mixed nationalities. The work of the camp during this time has been carried out mainly by British and American officers and men. It should however, be appreciated that owing to Russian orders, confinement to camp etc., we have had to continue to all intents and purposes, as prisoners. That these orders were a military necessity is, of course clear, but nevertheless, the result has been a lowering of the spirits of all ranks. It is important to understand and make allowances for the mental attitude of prisoners of war who have been liberated but are still denied their freedom.
The food situation up to yesterday, was precarious and the daily ration, even though assisted by American supplies, is still grossly inadequate. It is realized that the Russian authorities overcame great difficulties in providing food at all under harassing circumstances, but it will also be agreed that the supply organisation of this camp performed most of the work. Furthermore, the camp has become even more [inserted] over [/inserted] crowded owing to the influx of Italian refugees. The problems of sanitation are considerable and the general health is threatened.
In spite of all this, the Russian orders were obeyed, and control was maintained up to the 5th of May. On that day, an American officer representing supreme allied H.Q. arrived with instructions to evacuate the Americans and British in that order. His credentials were not accepted by the Russian authorities here, who stated that they could not allow such an evacuation to proceed since they had no order on the subject. An ambulance convoy which also arrived on this day was allowed to evacuate all American and a few British sick.
Yesterday, the American representative from Supreme Allied H.Q. returned with a convoy to carry out his orders. Capt Tehekarov, acting as deputy for Cap Medvedev, who was sick, refused to allow him to proceed with his duties. Later, when an attempt was made to proceed with the evacuation, armed force was used against American troops to prevent their leaving the camp.
No doubt this whole affair is due to a misunderstanding, but the situation created is extremely serious. In spite of continual assurances that we were to be repatriated with the least possible delay, we now see the Russians actively preventing such repatriation. It is impossible for me to explain or justify such action in the eyes of my officers and men. I warned Capt Medvedev on May 4th that such a situation was likely to arise, and that if it did, I could not be responsible for the circumstances.
Last night I was informed for the first time that the chief obstacle to our repatriation was that the registration was not complete. I have repeatedly offered to undertake the whole task of registration. I could have completed it by now if my offer had been accepted. In any case, I cannot believe that the Russians intend that vital interests should be threatened for the sake of a mere formality.
As SBO here, I am responsible above all else for the welfare of my officers and men. This welfare is seriously endangered by the present situation. I therefore demand that the position may be clarified without delay, and that our repatriation may be proceeded with immediately. Failing this I must ask to be enabled to communicate with my Government. Finally I must point out that the present situation renders my position as S.A.O. untenable. I therefore resign that position and from now on must be regarded as responsible only for the British [line]
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110
[Underlined] DIARY [/underlined]
[Underlined] 1943 DEC 20TH [/underlined] Shot down over target (Frankfurt-on-Main) at 7.35 by J.U.88. Aircraft exploded and nose was blown off. I lost consciousness for a short while and came to, to find myself in the nose on my own. Only one hook of parachute fastened but no time to fasten up second, so just pushed clear and pulled ripcord. Only in chute for about 1/2 minute so estimate that I fell from 20,000 to 2 – 3,000 feet before getting clear. Narrow squeak. Knee injured by explosion. Had no control over chute and landed in a wood, backwards. Damaged knee a little more. Lay for a short while to get breath back and then buried my equipment and parachute beneath some bushes. The raid was still in progress and incendiaries and shrapnel were falling all around. I could hear the “cookies” rushing down too. After burying everything I set out walking West. Walked all night without incident, passing through several small towns. Just as dawn was breaking found myself in fairly large town. Several people around but no-one took any notice of me. Wandered round for some time trying to find my way out of the town. One person spoke to me as he passed and I just grunted back “Guten Morgen”. Found my way out at last and found myself on the banks of a very large river. Lay down beneath some bushes and pulled branches over to cover myself. Camouflage effective. Several people passed close by and didn’t see me.
[Underlined] DEC 21ST [/underlined] Lay up all day. Took out my escape maps and discovered that the river was the Rhine and decided on my route for escape from Germany. Ate a Horlicks tablet every four hours. Few exciting moments when party of Germans came along with a dog and dog began sniffing around my hide-out, but some-one called it and it ran off.
When darkness fell, began to walk again. Walked until about 2.20 AM and then began to look for a barn or a haystack to sleep. Challenged suddenly by two sentries. Said Guten Morgen” [sic] and tried to pass. They let me go for a short while until one of them shouted something else. I didn’t know what he said so just carried on. They ran after me and shone a torch on me. After jabbering a few questions they realised suddenly that I was R.A.F. They shot back the bolts of their rifles and ordered me to put my hands up. I did so and they took me to their headquarters. I had been wondering what sentries were doing away out in the country. It transpired later that they were guarding a Halifax which had crashed there. After close questioning and a glass of beer and two slices of bread and cheese, my knee was bandaged and I was taken to bed, with an armed guard in the room beside me.
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[Underlined] DEC 22ND [/underlined] Wakened at about 7 A.M. and taken to “Gulag Luft” at Frankfurt-on-Main. Only incident en route was an old civilian who recognised me as R.A.F. and very kindly came up and spat in my face. There was nothing I could do so I just smiled and said “Danke” at which he flew into a terrific rage. I thought he would hit me but the guards moved him on. I didn’t blame this chap when I saw Frankfurt. It was a shambles. Arrived at “Gulag Luft” and placed in a small cell. 8 feet by 6 feet. Had to undress while all my clothes were searched. Had escape money tucked into toe of flying boot and it was not found. At 12.30 was given a bowl of soup. At 4.30 was given two slices of bread and butter and a cup of mint tea. Terrible stuff. Nothing further
[Underlined] DEC 23RD [/underlined] Wakened at 9. AM by guards and given 2 slices of bread and butter and a cup of mint tea. Bowl of soup at 12.30. Bread and butter and mint tea at 4.30. [deleted word]
Civilian came in during afternoon and said he was from the Red Cross and gave me a form to fill in saying that if I filled it in right away it would be sent off and the folks at home would receive news that I was a P.O.W. so much soon. [sic] The form required to know details such as target, squadron, station etc. so I just refused to fill it in. I signed my name, number and rank, and crossed the rest out.
[Underlined] DEC 24TH [/underlined] Wakened with the usual two slices of bread and mint tea at 9 AM. Soup at 12.30. Bread & mint tea at 4.30. German officer (I think) came in during [deleted word] [inserted] morning [/inserted] to ask for details of squadron and the raid etc. Told him my name and number and refused to say anything else. He almost pleaded with me saying that if I told him, I would be sent to another camp among my comrades for Christmas Day. In the afternoon was taken out to a big office to be interrogated. Chap there asked me for details again and once more I refused, upon which he said that they knew my squadron etc but just wanted to check that I wasn’t a spy. He asked me how Squadron Leader Parks was getting along on his second tour and why we were called the bullseye squadron and lots of other questions which I refused to answer. He then told me that our c.o. had been shot down the same night as I had and that some of the crew were there. I still said nothing. He said that if I would give them just a little information I would go into a camp where I would be among my own friends but I still kept quiet, and was eventually taken back to Cell 61. Brought
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From my cell at about 7.00 P.M and taken to a corridor where there were a lot of other chaps among them Tommy Hughes who I knew well and his “second dicky”, Peter Boyle Personal belongings were returned and we were taken to a separate place through the barbed wire. We went into a barrack block there and found places to sleep. Tommy and I slept together on the top of a double tier bed.
[Underlined] DEC 25. [/underlined] Taken this morning to the transit camp on the other side of Frankfurt. Christmas dinner waiting for us when we get there. A lovely meal including a small portion of Christmas Pudding and biscuits. Sing-song in the dining hall at night.
[Underlined] DEC 26. [/underlined] Reported sick after breakfast and admitted to hospital with water-on-the knee
[Underlined] DEC 31 [/underlined Saw New Year in on my own. Could hear the sing-song in the blocks but no-one in hospital.
[Underlined] 1944 [/underlined]
[Underlined] JAN 8 [/underlined] Left Frankfurt in cattle trucks en-route to Sagan. Stalag Luft III
[Underlined] JAN 10 [/underlined] Arrived Sagan. Taken to Belaria camp. Moved straight into hospital. The rest of the boys are saving my place in the room, Three of us from our room of eight in hospital.
[Underlined] MARCH 22. [/underlined] Left Hospital.
[Underlined] MARCH 29. [/underlined] First Bandshow. Played with Tango Section and swing section
[Underlined] MARCH [/underlined] 24 Big escape from North Camp. 81 escaped.
[Underlined] APRIL 10TH [/underlined] Germans announced that 50% of the officers who escaped had been shot. Intense indignation in camp. Germans sent to Coventry.
[Underlined] APRIL 13TH [/underlined] Memorial service for officers who were shot. Great excitement immediately following service when British tommies were seen to be patrolling the wire and manning sentry boxes. Union Jack flying in Vorlager. Turned out to be film show. Lots of fun messing up one of the scenes at main gate.
[Underlined] APRIL [/underlined] Received first mail from home.
[Underlined] [Deleted] MAY [/deleted] JUNE 4TH [/underlined] Leon and [indecipherable word] left the mess and Frank and Ken arrived.
[Underlined] JUNE 6TH [/underlined] Allied invasion of North France.
[Underlined] JUNE 7TH [/underlined] Room numbers went up to 10 with arrival of Ham and Chuck in new purge.
[Underlined] JUNE 30TH [/underlined] Room number up to 12 with arrival of Peter and Henry
News that Montgomery forecasts end of war in autumn and Churchill promises, lights in London for Christmas.
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[Underlined] JULY 20TH [/underlined] Attempted assassination of Hitler. Germans withheld news from Camp until 22ND. All Germans adopted “Heil Hitler” salute in place of military salute.
[Underlined] AUGUST 12TH [/underlined] First film in camp. “[indecipherable words]” – a third rate film. Heat terrific, though wearing only shorts.
New purge arrived in evening including Jock Reid V.C.
[Underlined] AUGUST 13TH [/underlined] Goon guard shot at one of boys who accidentally touched warning wire while walking round circuit. Bullet passed through his hand.
[Underlined] AUGUST 15TH [/underlined] New allied landings in South of France between TOULON and CANNES.
[Underlined] AUGUST 17TH [/underlined] Weighed on kitchen scales. Weight 11st 10lbs.
[Underlined] AUGUST 21ST [/underlined] New purge arrived and Jack Meek came into room to replace Peter Pearson who moved to Room 7.
[Underlined] AUGUST 24TH [/underlined] Weighed on kitchen scales. Weight 11st 8lbs.
[Underlined] AUGUST 30TH [/underlined] Saw Comedy thriller “The Man at the Door”. Very good acting.
[Underlined] AUGUST 31ST [/underlined] Weighed on kitchen scales. Weight 11st 7lbs.
[Underlined] SEPTEMBER 2ND [/underlined] Frank and I commenced messing on our own.
[Underlined] SEPTEMBER 11TH [/underlined] Owing to difficulties in supplying Red Cross parcels from Geneva, existing stock being issued at 1/2 parcel per man per week, instead of whole parcel.
Sports field closed from today. Extension to camp being built on it. Walks outside camp starting today. 30 men at 8 AM, 30 at 10.15, 30 at 2.15. Length of walk approx. 1 1/2 hours.
[Underlined] SEPTEMBER 12TH [/underlined] Chaps on one of todays [sic] walks raided orchard. Terrific “stink” kicked up by Goon farmer.
[Underlined] SEPTEMBER 13TH [/underlined] Another walk incident!! Note found addressed to Group Captain after afternoon walk had left saying that one of chaps intended to commit suicide, while on the walk. Goons chased after the walk on bicycles and recalled them before threatened suicide took place. Culprit taken to hospital.
[Underlined] OCTOBER 5TH [/underlined] “French Without Tears” at camp theatre in evening. Very good.
[Underlined] OCTOBER 18TH [/underlined] Received first personal parcel together with Steve & Pat. Lots of Chocolate. Couldn’t be better.
[Underlined] OCTOBER 27TH [/underlined] Birthday. Had a two tier cake. Saved 1lb chocolate
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from personal parcel to make icing. “Wizard” bash!
[Underlined] OCTOBER 29. [/underlined] New purge – general opinion that war will last till spring.
[Underlined] OCTOBER 31 [/underlined] “The Astonished Ostrich” at theatre in evening. – very good.
Jack Normandale astonished camp with his impersonation of a woman.
Extension to compound opened today.
[Underlined] NOVEMBER 4 [/underlined] First meeting of “The Music Society of Lower Silesia”. First performance of “Stringing Along”.
[Underlined] NOVEMBER 5 [/underlined] Received second personal parcel. Lots more chocolate. Big bash.
[Underlined] NOVEMBER 12. [/underlined] Second meeting of “Music Society”. No fires in theatre. Could hardly play for the cold.
[Underlined] NOVEMBER 17 [/underlined] Goons ordered that all food held in store by people in the camp must be eaten by 20TH otherwise it will be confiscated. Terrific meals with lovely “brews”
“George and Margaret” at theatre in evening – excellent.
[Underlined] NOVEMBER 18 [/underlined] Largest new purge in camp to date, mostly Americans, the first in Belaria. 72 Americans; 22 R.A.F. “Ham” went to new extension. Gordon arrived.
[Underlined] NOVEMBER 22. [/underlined] New purge – mostly American. Steve left room to work in hospital. Bill arrived.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 1 [/underlined] “Mr Corn comes to Town” – Canadian revue in theatre, good.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 7. [/underlined] Second film show in camp. Marlene Dietrich and Randolph Scott in “The Spoilers”.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 14. [/underlined] Frank’s wedding anniversary. He made a super cake consisting of a layer of cake, a layer of raisins, another layer of cake, layer of chocolate, layer of cake and chocolate and raisins on the top. A “Wizard” effort.
4 [indecipherable word deleted] three tier bunks in room to replace six two tiers.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 19 [/underlined] A new Christmas hamper of food from Vorlager. This hamper was food which we were allowed to store from the ‘bash’ of NOV 17. Made the Christmas Cake.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 20 [/underlined] Made one dozen Angel Cakes and one dozen mince pies.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 21 [/underlined] Made large tart to be filled later with chocolate.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 22. [/underlined] Iced the Christmas Cake.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 25. [/underlined] Breakfast before Appell. Porridge, bacon and sausages. Christmas Cake with tea. No-one ate their full portion. Much too large. Dinner at 7.30. Soup, Turkey, potatoes (roast and creamed) carrots, peas
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Christmas pudding with thick Klim sauce. The Christmas parcels (American were issued on the 23RD and contents will be found on page 80) “Fanfare” the Christmas show should have opened at 9.30. but owing to a misunderstanding we were locked in the barracks at the normal time (10.00) and so the show was postponed until tomorrow evening.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 26 [/underlined] Opening night of “Fanfare” 2 1/2 hour show.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 28 [/underlined] New Year’s Eve is to be a special night for the show with the start at 9.30 and finishing with the entry of the New Year. Three invitation seats given to each member of the band. Group Captain and Senior Officers decided that these should be withdrawn in favour of a list drawn up by them and so band say that if this happens, the show will go on at the normal time (7.00PM).
[Underlined] DECEMBER 30 [/underlined] Theatre now cleared up. Everyone will go and the band win their point.
[Underlined] DECEMBER 31 [/underlined] Fanfare at 9.30 carried on until 12.00. Not locked in barracks until 2.00 AM. Lots of fun and games, as far as possible.
[Underlined] 1945[/underlined]
[Underlined] JANUARY 1ST [/underlined] Last night of ‘Fanfare’.
[Underlined] JANUARY 17 [/underlined] “Tony draws a Horse” in theatre. Very Good.
[Underlined] JANUARY 20 [/underlined] Terrific surge in optimism in camp. New Russian offensive brings them today within 100 miles of Sagan. Lorries containing civilian refugees and luggage beginning to pass camp.
[Underlined] JANUARY 23 [/underlined] Refugees passing camp all day long. mostly [sic] in horse drawn carts.
Red Cross parcel issue back to one full parcel per man per week. Future supply of Goon rations-doubtful. Preparation for march in full swing in case we are moved out. Kit bags being converted to haversacks and packs. Special cake made from barley. Klim cocoa and sugar.
[Underlined] JANUARY 25 [/underlined] Nearest point of Russian advance now only 50 miles from us. Gunfire heard at frequent intervals during the day. Refugees still pouring along the road.
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[Underlined] JANUARY 26. [/underlined] 20 R.A.F. N.C.O.s arrived at 11 P.M. from camp on the Polish Czech frontier. They were among 1500 evacuated from there 8 days ago - had been on road since. Tonight’s [deleted] sick [/deleted] arrivals were sick who did last two days of trip to Belaria by rail. Rest of party still on road somewhere living on infrequent Goon rations and finding rough going through snow and ice.
[Underlined] JANUARY 27 [/underlined] At 9 P.M. given 1/2 hour’s notice to move. Packed all kit, available food (very little) change of clothing, shaving kit. 3 blankets. Paraded about 10 P.M. hung around in snow for nearly an hour then sent back to barracks. Big industrial effort on sleigh making. Surplus cigarettes burnt, gramophone records broken so that the Germans couldn’t use them.
[Underlined] JANUARY 28 [/underlined Paraded again at about 5.30 – snowing – finally moved out of camp at about 7 AM. – about 1100 of us. 80 sick left behind. One Red Cross parcel per man issued on leaving camp.
Passed through SAGAN where many civilian refugees on roads. Passed EAST and NORTH compounds which had been evacuated around 4AM. Marched [number missing] KMS and reached village of SORAV late in afternoon, where we were billeted in barn to sleep. Boots soaking wet from days [sic] march in snow – froze overnight. Learnt that total destination is 70 KMS.
[Underlined] JANUARY 29 [/underlined] Started marching again at 8AM. About mid-day Frank and I fell in with Jack and George who were dragging a sleigh. They wanted someone to share in the pulling so we were only too glad of the chance and put our kit on the sleigh. Going very much easier. Marched [number missing] KMS reaching village of [name missing] where we bedded down for the night in barns.
[Underlined] JANUARY 30 [/underlined] No marching today. Spent day repairing sleigh, cooking, bartering cigarettes for bread and resting. Reported sick. Blisters on feet and one chilblain. Rumour that we are entraining at SPREMBERG. Goons issued 1/2 cups of boiled barley per man in the morning.
[Underlined] JANUARY 31 [/underlined] On the road again. Pretty rough going over hills. Few minor calamities with sleigh. Covered [number missing] KMS. Arriving at MUSKAV in evening. In barns again. Had first wash since leaving BELARIA.
[Underlined] FEBRUARY 1ST [/underlined] No march today. Heavy thaw during night continued during day. Ground unfit for sleigh pulling tomorrow. Goons issued 1/2 cup of barley per man and 1/5 of a loaf per man.
[Underlined] FEBRUARY 2 [/underlined] Set out today on what is promised as last lap of journey to train. Americans taken separately to a different destination. Sleigh abandoned and kit carried on back. Goons provided a horse and wagon to carry Red ross parcels which were issued at BELARIA. Weather fine for walking. Walked [number missing] KMS. Spent night just outside SPREMBERG in barns. Goons issued 1/7 of a loaf per man.
[Underlined] FEBRUARY 3 [/underlined] Marched to Panzer training school barracks at SPREMBERG where we were given first respectable meal of march, a bowl of pig swill, refreshing if not appetizing. Joined by about 400 of the chaps from EAST COMPOUND. Left in
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afternoon for station. Entrained in cattle trucks, 45 men to a truck. Goons issued 1/5 of a loaf per man.
[Underlined] FEBRUARY 4 [/underlined] Train left SPREMBERG late last night and arrived at LUCKENWALDE about 6PM today. Most uncomfortable journey ever. Not enough room to stretch legs so spent the night in cramped position. Train stopped frequently during day often for 1/2 hour to 1 hour. During these stops scrounged hot water from engine driver for brews.
Marched from station to camp (5KMS) arriving about 7 P.M. waited outside in rain for 1/2 hour and finally taken in. Promised a hot meal which did not materialise. Goons insisted that all 1400 of us should have a hot “de-lousing” shower and a search before passing into compound. Air-raid delayed the proceedings somewhat, but managed along with Frank to be in first batch for showers. Following search was very slipshod. Finally got to bed at 3AM. the most uncomfortable I have ever been in. Bed-boards, a palliase and very, very little straw.
[Underlined] REVIEW OF THE MARCH [/underlined]
It was good to get away from barbed wire for a few days. Unfortunately my shoes were a little tight on the first day and I had a couple of blisters and a chilblain at the end of the day’s tack. I wore flying boots for the rest of the journey until the last day when it was dry and I managed to get my shoes on again. Sleeping in the barns was rather comfortable, and after a day on the march very welcome. The weight of kit to be carried, conditions underfoot, insufficient food and the low physical reserves of strength after 5 months on half parcels, were the main snags. The Doc’s main worries were, Chilblains, blisters, rheumatism and stomach troubles, the latter particularly after the 24 hours in the cattle truck. Frank and I usually ate 2 slices of bread for breakfast, 2 slices during the day and two in the evening. The evening slices were the big meal of the day, being spread with corned beef or pilchards whereas the others had cheese or jam. Luckily we managed to barter bread for cigarettes en route so that the bread lasted out. We usually managed two hot brews during the day. German civilians usually good-hearted enough to bring out buckets of water for us as we passed. On the whole we had our fair share of “hardships” and it left us in no condition to stand up to a further march particularly as we have no decent food to build up our strength again. There are no Red Cross parcels and we live entirely on German rations which consist of 1/5 of a loaf, 1 cup of soup, either margarine or spread enough for about 8 slices of bread – per day. Sugar is issued at infrequent intervals and we have hot mint tea twice per day. The bread ration works out at 5 slices per man.
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We also receive about 4 medium sized potatoes, boiled in their skins. So that our menu for the day is:- Breakfast. – 1 1/2 slices bread & marg. Cup of mint tea.
Lunch – 4 potatoes, and 1 cup of soup.
Tea - 1 1/2 slices bread & marg Cup of mint tea
Supper – 2 slices bread & marg
The chief pastime is to talk of food we will eat when we get home.
Every day is so alike that no-one ever knows what day it is without thinking hard first. Almost everyone in the camp has a cold and rheumatism [sic] coughs, colds etc., are common – a reaction from the march.
[Underlined] FEBRUARY 23 [/underlined] Big day today. Norwegians who are in a separate compound here made us a gift several days ago of 250 of their Red Cross parcels. After lots of discussion as to whether they should go to the N.C.O.s over the wire (who are supposed to be in a bad way but who can still exchange food for cigarettes over the wire) the parcels were finally issued to us today. We had 1/5 of a parcel per man, not much, but it helps out quite a bit. They contained Cheese, biscuits, sausage, honey, sugar, oats and butter.
[Underlined] MARCH 1ST [/underlined] Came in like proverbial lion with terrific wind and rumour of parcels
[Underlined] MARCH 2ND [/underlined] Wind up to gale force. Rumours of parcels all day long, ranging from 1/3 of a parcel to commence in 2 days time, to 1 whole parcel to commence next Monday. S.B.O. [Senior British Officer] had block commander’s meeting in evening and dispelled all rumours by saying that nothing of parcels was known at all.
[Underlined] MARCH 4 [/underlined] Frank’s birthday. Saved up a little bread so that for the evening meal we could have 4 bread & potato pancakes, and four slices of bread with Patè & marg spread.
Snowed heavily all morning and most of afternoon.
Have had sirens each of past 12 nights, regularly between 8 & 9 P.M. Sometimes after lights out too. Air raids every day, sometimes twice a day. Can see the evening raids, besides feeling the concussion and blast of bombs.
[Underlined] MARCH 6 [/underlined] Told that we were having an issue of 1/2 an American Red Cross parcel each, tomorrow.
[Underlined] MARCH 7 [/underlined Americans told on parade that there are 25 truck loads of parcels at the station addressed to them. Later in morning 1/2 parcel issue cancelled as they were just on loan from the French. Goons promised that 900 parcels would be delivered today so arrangements made for Americans to be issued first then the rest to us the issue being 1 full parcel per man. The Goons failed to fulfil their contract however, and only brought in 500 so that only the Americans got parcels. However we hope to get ours tomorrow.
[Underlined] MARCH 8 [/underlined] A Great Day. We received a full American parcel each in the afternoon. Terrific “bashes” all over. Frank & I had two slices of bread spread with jam & cheese for tea. For supper we cut the bread a little thinner so that we got seven slices. The supper menu was:- 1/2 the potato ration mashed & fried, and a whole tin of spam (between us,) then the bread spread as follows 1, jam: 2 Cheese 3. Cheese & jam, 4 Cheese & Rose Mill Patè; 5 Coffee cream (Klim, sugar, marg & coffee)
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then one biscuit spread thickly with chocolate cream (same as 5 with chocolate). So full that the biscuit had to be left until 1 hour later. So warm during night that I couldn’t sleep. (General complaint.) Lovely to feel absolutely full once again.
[Underlined] MARCH 9 [/underlined] Announced during morning that the next parcel issue is to be on Monday or Tuesday [underlined] if [/underlined] we get any co-operation from the Goons. Frank & I decided to go easy in case co-operation lacking, and make parcel last another week at least. Can always have another “bash” if we do get an early issue. The policy seems to be to get the food in as quickly as possible and build us all up again. Terrific rumours of more parcels arriving. No confirmation, but hoping. Norwegians have received some dried fish which they have shared with us. Being issued (cooked) on Monday or Tuesday.
[Underlined] MARCH 14 [/underlined] Second parcel issue. Should have been yesterday but Goons slipped up again. Photo check on Appell in morning. Kept us out there for 2 hours. Wizard trifle in evening. Filled me, completely
[Underlined] MARCH 15 [/underlined] Goons say that if we stop trading over wire we can have parcels every fifth day. American bombers over camp today on way to some target east of Berlin. Lovely sight.
[Underlined] MARCH 17 [/underlined] Another parcel issue. Frank & I are really having some good meals now. A firm favourite is the Whipped Cream Sundae for which we had to do some trading to get extra KLIM.
[Underlined] MARCH 19 [/underlined] Parcels spirits damped. Told that there are only 2 1/2 parcels each left in store and so issue now will be every 10 days.
[Underlined] MARCH 26 [/underlined] Another parcel issue today.
[Underlined] MARCH 28 [/underlined] G/C MACDONALD; W/C PARCELLE; S/L WILLIAMS and GEORGE from the cookhouse left for NUREMBERG to be repatriated to ENGLAND. This is an expression of gratitude from the Germans for our good behaviour on the march from Sagan.
[Underlined] MARCH 31 [/underlined] Parcel issue today instead of Monday owing to the fact that Monday is a holiday for the Germans. Frank and I have been saving a little food during the week so that we can have a “big bash” tomorrow (Easter Sunday) Spent today preparing. Iced three cakes and made a big whipped cream sundae each.
[Underlined] APRIL 1 [/underlined] EASTER SUNDAY. Frank & I had our “big bash”. For breakfast we had each:- 2 slices fried bread. 1/2 tin sardines, 1 slice Spam, and a small potato & Rose Mill Patè cake. This was followed by a cupful of boiled barley. For lunch we had 1 cup of soup followed by coffee and a piece of cake. We entertained Reg to tea when we had coffee & cake. For dinner we had 1 1/2 day’s potato ration, 1/2 tin Spam, four slices of bread & spreads, and trifle. Frank also ate his last piece of cake but I could only eat a small slice. Left the rest until tomorrow. The trifle was made in a cut down Klim tin (about 1/2 size) and consisted of a layer of coffee cream, one of chocolate cream, layer of cake mixture made from biscuit, marg, sugar and chocolate; a layer of chocolate and raisins, a layer of whipped cream, and a thin layer
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of Pineapple cream. Returned to bed absolutely full.
Meeting of the “Geordies” during the afternoon to discuss our post-war dinner.
[Underlined] APRIL 9th [/underlined] Rumours of move on Wednesday to a camp near MUNICH
[Underlined] APRIL 10 [/underlined] Rumour confirmed. We are to be ready by blackout tonight to move at five minutes notice.
[Underlined] APRIL 11 [/underlined] Still at Luckenwalde but a list of marching orders has been posted. Our barrack is to parade for identity and search at 9.30 AM tomorrow.
[Underlined] APRIL 12 [/underlined] Left barrack at 9.30 and went on to parade ground where we were identified and had German blankets taken from us. We were then marched to Vorlager to be searched, after which we marched to the station. Stayed in the station yard for quite a while before entraining so boys had the “smokies” going. Small incident when civvie chap wearing a swastika in his buttonhole found one of the boys with a “smokie” near some benzine barrels, and knocked him over and threw smokie on to the rails. He then tried to move us by yelling and shouting in typical German fashion but boys just ignored him. Soup and spuds came down from the camp at 12.30. Later in the afternoon we entrained 40 to a waggon. No signs of moving off. Frank bought two knives for four cigarettes. Issued with 1/2 parcel each.
[Underlined] APRIL 13 [/underlined] Still in the station. Moved a little later to a siding alongside a road. Trading started despite goon attempts to stop it. Spent a very enjoyable day. Weather exceptionally good. Attack by Thunderbolts on a target South of us. Luckily we have our wagon roofs painted over P.O.W. Told at night that owing to repeated protestations by the S.B.O. we were not to be moved after all. Returning to camp tomorrow. News of American advances put everyone in most optimistic mood. Expecting to be freed at any time.
[Underlined] APRIL 14 [/UNDERLINED] Returned to camp. Terrific raid on Potsdam at night. Lovely sight.
[Underlined] APRIL 15 [/underlined] Received 1/2 parcel to make up issue on train. Thunderbolts seen over camp.
[Underlined] APRIL 16 [/underlined] News still very good. Rumours that Russians have started an offensive confirmed. Opinion divided as to whether we shall be freed by Russians or Americans. Betting 6-5 on the Russians.
[Underlined] APRIL 17 [/underlined] Thunderbolts bombed target S.W. of camp. Judged to be 15-20 miles away
[Underlined] APRIL 18 [/underlined] Marauders over camp escorted by Mustangs. First glimpse of T.A.F.
[Underlined] APRIL 19 [/underlined] Rumour came in late at night that Russians had broken through just S.E. of us and that the Commandant intends moving the whole camp West tomorrow morning.
[Underlined] APRIL 20 [/underlined] Rumour of last night proved false. Forts over in in great force in morning bombing targets North, North West and due West of camp. Gunfire
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heard at night from North-East, East and South. S.B.O. addressed all barracks at 10.30 telling us that latest information received by him placed the Russians 20 miles N.E. and 15 miles East while in the South they had reached JUTEBORG. The last seemed very unlikely
[Underlined] APRIL 21 [/underlined] Morning spent very quietly, but just after soup the defence scheme came into operation. The goon guards all evacuated camp and chaps were running around all over the place. The defence scheme worked very smoothly and everything was soon under perfect control. At night there was lots of artillery fore and some small arms fire. Just after we got to bed a 190 came over and opened fire on the woods just by the camp. Shook us up a bit.
[Underlined] APRIL 22 [/underlined] Woke to find Russians entering camp. Rumours that Americans are near at hand. Lots of rumours as to how we shall be taken out of here. Information given out at night as to what the S.B.O. had been doing all day. Apparently the town is in charge of a Russian Major who has detailed a Captain to look after the camp. When asked about the electricity and water he said it would be seen to at once (They had both been off since yesterday). He said that there was plenty of labour in the town. He also said that they would take over a village and take all their cows etc. to supply meat for the camp. We are to share food equally with the Russian troops. So on the whole the situation is much rosier. We are not to move until the Americans arrive which should only be a matter of days, but oh! what long, long days.
[Underlined] APRIL 23 [/underlined] Meat, potatoes and bread coming into camp all day long. Informed that I should be on guard from 4 AM – 6 AM in the morning. Reported for briefing at 8 P.M. Complete farce, still no water or electricity. Drawing all our water from pool behind the camp. Camp shot up again.
[Underlined] APRIL 24 [/underlined] Wakened at 4 A.M to do my guard. Spent last part of guard finding German store. Managed to get a steel helmet – my first souvenir. Funeral for some Russian prisoners who died of starvation.
[Underlined] APRIL 27 [/underlined] Still waiting for the link-up. General Ruger has been to Marshal Koniyev’s headquarters and received the impression that we were definitely to remain here until the link-up takes place. The one topic of conversation is “when will the link-up be”. A Russian major [indecipherable word] visited the SBO two days ago accompanied by a beautiful girl interpreter, and a [deleted] y [/deleted] bodyguard armed with a tommy-gun. While the general was with the SBO. the guard posted himself outside
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the door on guard. The Russian girl later gave her impression of the camp. She said that the living quarters were disgraceful as accommodation and that under the conditions the British & American officers were remarkably smart and remarked on their cleanliness and bearing. She said that in previous camps which she had visited the prisoners had left the camp immediately the Russian forces arrived and billeted themselves in private houses inflicting a large amount of damage by looting and wilful plundering. None of these, happily, were British. Ours was the first British camp she had visited and she (and all the Russian officers) were amazed and pleasantly surprised to find the place under such perfect control. In all other camps they had had to install order and form an administrative staff whereas here all this was done when they arrived. In all they were most favourably impressed. It appears that the Germans in town have plenty of water but haven’t built up a sufficient head of pressure to supply the camp so the town major sent for the mayor of the town and told them that it would be very unfortunate if this was not done. The mayor appreciated the point and we expect more water almost immediately.
At 8 P.M. news came of the link-up and spirits went up accordingly. American officers have been seen in Luckenwalde and an American War Correspondent accompanied by an American girl passed through on his way to Berlin.
[Underlined] APRIL 28 [/underlined] Repatriation Committee arrived in camp late at night. Brought with them 50 lorries of food. The staff consisted of 15 officers, 20 Women, and 200 other ranks. The whole staff was Russian. They had no news of how or when we return home.
[Underlined] APRIL 29. [/underlined] Todays [sic] local news bulletin gave details of a meeting between the Russian officer in charge of the Repat. committee (Capt Medvedev
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and the Senior Allied Officer. The Captain has brought his own wireless station for direct contact with his Commanding General’s H.Q. at Marshal Koniyevs H.Q. He was surprised and gratified at our organisation and administration and hoped to arrange film shows, concerts, lectures and dances while we await repatriation. He was horrified by conditions in the camp which he considered depressing and very overcrowded. He intends inspecting the neighbourhood for better accommodation.
Following a battle to the E. of Luckenwalde last night 18,000 Germans surrendered.
An Englishwoman (Mrs Thomas of Blackheath) and her 2 Children have arrived in the camp after a 4 day journey from Berlin. It is reported that in spite of being under fire several times, and the fact that their feet are blistered, the spirits of John, aged 10, and Diane, age 7 are not affected.
A later local news bulletin gave details of a meeting between the S.A.O. [Senior American Officer] and General Famin [sic], who is Senior Russian officer in charge of repat of POWs in this area. He had no news of our return -but his own opinion was that it would be Westward, but there is no immediate prospect. He has decided to move everyone with the exception of the Poles and Italians to the Adolf Hitler lager, a German officers’ rest camp, 6 miles from here on the road to Juterborg. It is reported to be a show-place built on luxurious lines in a woodland setting and complete with sports stadium, baths, showers, swimming pool, cinema and excellent living quarters.
[Underlined] APRIL 30 [/underlined] Frank went walking today and he and Reg ran into a party of Germans armed to the teeth, hiding out in
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wood about 1/4 mile from the camp. They had commenced retreating from Guben a fortnight ago, had broken up into small parties and spent 5 days without food, sleeping during the day and moving West during the night hoping to reach the American lines so that they could surrender. They said they would be shot if they surrendered to the Russians. One of them was only 17 but had been in the army for 2 years. Luckily they weren’t hostile and after a while allowed Frank & Reg to leave.
Tonight’s local news bulletin reported that French, Yugoslav [sic] Italian, Belgian and other foreign workers were being directed off the roads into the Adolf Hitler lager. A guard of Americans is being sent to guard that part of the camp allotted to the British, American and Norwegian personnel.
Captain Medvedev had today been apprehensive of a German attack on the camp, but reported after a reconnaissance that though there were many Germans in the vicinity of the camp, an attack was not now likely.
Lots of mortar and machine gun fire around the camp after dark.
[Underlined] MAY 1ST [/underlined] Mortar and machine gun fire continued today. One shell landed in camp but did no harm. Luckenwalde has been declared a war zone. Russians are mopping up the many German troops who are trying to reach the Americans. The Russians have renamed the Adolf Hitler lager – the Joseph Stalin Camp now popularly known by the boys as Joes’ Palace or Joe’s Place. The possibility of an early move there are reduced by the local military situation and the flood of refugees moving into the place.
News from home today of a circular issued by Home Office on “V” day celebrations. Hopes of being home for this great day fall lower as each day passes.
News flash after lights out – Hitler is dead.
[Underlined] MAY 2. [/underlined] The S.A.O. has called off our move to Joe’s Place and
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withdrawn all the guards. The place is now apparently a shambles swarming all over the place with foreign workers who are looting and wantonly destroying valuable material [deleted] elf [/deleted] left by the Goons. Apparently they have destroyed all the films, and projectors. Typewriters have been smashed with crowbars and the whole thing is just wanton destruction. Forced to move from our intended quarters, they took beds and every moveable object with them. Things which had to be left, such as wash basins etc., were smashed. These parties are armed and there was little that our guard could do against them. One of the guard was fired on while riding a cycle.
B.B.C. announced tonight the cessation of hostilities in Italy where German forces have surrendered unconditionally
[Underlined] MAY 3 [/underlined] This morning’s news announces the capture of Berlin which surrendered to Russian forces at 3 P.M. yesterday. All the recent good news – the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini the capitulation of Italy, the surrender of Berlin – arouse but little enthusiasm here where our main thought is repatriation. Our attitude just now is “In spite of it all, in spite of our liberation, we are still behind barbed wire, and none the wiser as to when we shall be home. Take us home and we’ll start cheering.
Was on guard at night, bid [sic] two shifts one from 10PM -12 and the second 4 A.M.-6AM.
Two American war correspondents arrived in the camp. They say that they knew nothing of us here until some of our boys who left the camp turned up there. They are going back tomorrow and taking back Capt Beattie, another correspondent who has been with us since we got here. He is flying to Paris to see General Eisenhower and give him details of us here together with a nominal roll.
[Underlined] MAY 4 [/underlined] An eventful day. Two armoured cars and three Jeeps arrived at the camp. The Americans in them told us that their C.O. a colonel was making unofficial arrangements to have us taken out of here by lorry. Consequently we packed our things and made
[Underlined] Ctd Page 140 [/underlined]
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[Map showing German towns and cities and the border with Switzerland]
[Page break]
127
[Map showing towns and cities in Germany and the border with Holland with a scale]
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[Map of German towns and cities with Berlin in the centre showing ranges from Berlin.]
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[Map showing German towns and cities and a scale]
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[Underlined] The Question of Food [/underlined]
During the stay at Luckenwalde we lived entirely on German rations. These consisted of 6 slices of bread per day, 1 cup of soup and either margarine or some type of spread, enough for about four slices of bread [inserted] and four medium sized potatoes. [/inserted]
At this time the main topic of conversation was food and everywhere could be heard discussions on favourite foods. Frank and Reg and I discussed various dishes [deleted letters] and Frank and I decided that when he came to stay with me as he intends, when we get home, we will try some of these dishes. We decided to draw up a menu for one week and when he comes, to stick to this menu for the week as far as rationing permits. And so here we have the menu for food of which we dreamed:-
[Underlined] MONDAY [/underlined]
[Underlined] BREAKFAST. [/underlined]
[Underlined] PORRIDGE [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRIED LIVER: BACON: EGGS: TOMATOES: [/underlined]
[Underlined] BISCUITS: TEA OR COFFEE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] DINNER [/underlined]
[Underlined] COLD MEAT: FRIED POTATOES: PICKLES: BEETROOT: [/underlined]
[Underlined] STEWED APPLE AND SUET PUDDING WITH CUSTARD. [/underlined]
[Underlined] COFFEE [/underlined]
[Underlined] TEA [/underlined]
[Underlined] DOVER SOLE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] CAKES: SANDWICHES. [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUPPER[/underlined]
[Underlined] PIG’S TROTTERS: COCOA [/underlined]
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[Underlined] TUESDAY [/underlined]
[Underlined] BREAKFAST [/underlined]
[Underlined] CORN FLAKES [/underlined]
[Underlined] HAM: EGGS: TOMATOES [/underlined]
[Underlined] DINNER [/underlined]
[Underlined] STEAK AND KIDNEY PUDDING: CAULIFLOWER: CREAMED POTATOES. [/underlined]
[Underlined] JAM ROLY-POLY. [/underlined]
[Underlined] TEA [/underlined]
[Underlined] HOT MINCE TARTS: TOASTED MUFFINS: [deleted] C [/deleted] [/underlined]
[Underlined] CAKES AND BISCUITS. [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUPPER[/underlined]
[Underlined] FISH AND CHIPS [/underlined]
[Underlined] WEDNESDAY [/underlined]
[Underlined] BREAKFAST [/underlined]
[Underlined] PORRIDGE [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRIED KIDNEY: BACON: EGGS [/underlined]
[Underlined] BISCUITS. [/underlined]
[Underlined] DINNER. [/underlined]
[Underlined] LANCASHIRE HOT-POT [/underlined]
[Underlined] PANCAKES WITH JAM. [/underlined]
[Underlined] BISCUITS AND COFFEE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] TEA [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRIED SKATE [/underlined]
[Underlined] CAKES AND BISCUITS [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUPPER. [/underlined]
[Underlined] WELSH RAREBIT. [/underlined]
[Underlined] THURSDAY [/underlined]
[Underlined] BREAKFAST [/underlined]
[Underlined] CORN FLAKES [/underlined]
[Underlined] JAM OMLETTE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] DINNER [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRIED STEAK AND ONIONS: CHIPS: [/underlined]
[Underlined] APPLE FRITTERS AND CUSTARD [/underlined]
[Underlined] BISCUITS AND COFFEE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] TEA [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRIED KIPPERS [/underlined]
[Underlined] SANDWICHES: CAKES: BISCUITS [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUPPER [/underlined]
[Underlined] FISH AND CHIPS [/underlined]
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[Underlined] FRIDAY [/underlined]
[Underlined] BREAKFAST [/underlined]
[Underlined] PORRIDGE [/underlined]
[Underlined] STEWED KIDNEYS AND FRIED BREAD [/underlined]
[Underlined] DINNER [/underlined]
[Underlined] COLD HAM: GREEN SALAD WITH BOILED EGGS. [/underlined]
[Underlined] STEAMED PUDDINGS AND CUSTARD [/underlined]
[Underlined] TEA [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRUIT SALAD AND CREAM [/underlined]
[Underlined] CAKES AND BISCUITS. [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUPPER [/underlined]
[Underlined] FISH AND CHIPS [/underlined]
[Underlined] BISCUITS AND CHEESE [/underlined]
[Underlined] SATURDAY [/underlined]
[Underlined] BREAKFAST [/underlined]
[Underlined] CORN FLAKES [/underlined]
[Underlined] HAM: FRIED LIVER: EGGS: TOMATOES [/underlined]
[Underlined] DINNER [/underlined]
[Underlined] STEWED NECK OF MUTTON [/underlined]
[Underlined] CHOCOLATE AND RAISIN TART WITH CREAM [/underlined]
[Underlined] TEA [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRIED SOLE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] SANDWICHES: CREAM CAKES: BISCUITS. [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUPPER [/underlined]
[Underlined] FISH AND CHIPS. [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUNDAY [/underlined]
[Underlined] BREAKFAST [/underlined]
[Underlined] PORRIDGE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRIED KIDNEYS: HAM: EGGS: TOMATOES. [/underlined]
[Underlined] BISCUITS. [/underlined]
[Underlined] DINNER. [/underlined]
[Underlined] YORKSHIRE PUDDING: ROAST LAMB: ROAST POTATOES: VEG. IN. SEASON. [/underlined]
[Underlined] STEAMED FIG OR DATE PUDDING WITH BRANDY SAUCE. [/underlined]
[Underlined] TEA [/underlined]
[Underlined] HOME BAKED CAKES; SCONES AND BREAD. [/underlined]
[Underlined] FRESH CREAM CAKES: JAM AND SPREADS [/underlined]
[Underlined] SUPPER. [/underlined]
[Underlined] COLD MEAT SANDWICHES [/underlined]
N.B. Try to work in:- baked herrings, Millionaire pie
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[Underlined] The Question of Food (Ctd) [/underlined]
Whilst these discussions were taking places [sic] many new dishes were heard of and a list of these with a description as close as possible is prepared below.
Bacon or Ham, fried with honey or syrup.
The syrup is spread on the ham, thinly, before frying.
Tomato delicacies. Cut the top [deleted] atoes in two [/deleted] and scoop out the inside. Mix the inside with either, cheese, chopped meat or anything similar Heat and fill up the [deleted] halves of [/deleted] tomato.
[Underlined] Ice Cream Cake [/underlined] Take a piece of fruit cake and cover with ice cream. Freeze as hard as possible in refrigerator. Prepare meringue mixture and cover the cake. Place in very hot oven for 1 1/2 minutes.
[Underlined] Ice Cream Fritters [/underlined] Dip a piece of ice cream into pancake mixture and drop into boiling fat for 1 1/2 mins.
Boil an egg and cut off the top. Scoop out the yolk and mix with butter and milk, and place back in the egg.
[Underlined] Buck Rarebit. [/underlined] Welsh rarebit on toast with egg broken over grilled. Bacon may also be added.
[Underlined] Coffee Cream Money [/underlined] Cream 2oz butter & 2 Tablespoons of sugar in a warm bowl. Add 1 beaten egg, 4 tablespoons of milk, 3 tablespoons of coffee essence, with [sic] cake or crushed biscuit enough to thicken mixture. Beat fiercely in warm place till quite smooth and pour into mould.
[Underlined] Sham Virginia Ham [/underlined] Mix 1/2 lb finely minced ham or spam, with 1/4 lb of flour and enough milk to make a stiff dough. Shape into flat cakes, dip in brown sugar and fry or bake in butter. Serve with fried egg on top and baked beans.
[Underlined] Porridge Fried [/underlined] Fry thick cold porridge in hot butter. Serve with jam, honey or sugar, surrounded by fruit (banana slices or fritters etc) Cover with cream.
[Underlined] Butter Scotch Pie [/underlined] Bring to a boil a mixture of 2 cup of milk, 1 cup brown sugar, 4 tablespoons butter, 1/2 tablespoon vanilla, pinch of salt. Beat 3 eggs in 9 tablespoons of milk and mix into a paste with 3 1/2 tablespoons of flour. Mix butter and egg mixtures together beating to evenness. Stir till thick. Pour into pastry pie.
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[Underlined] Blueberry Fritters [/underlined] (with lamb) Take 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 cup of flour, 1 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder, 1/3 teaspoon of salt. Add 1 egg beaten with 1/3 cup of milk and stir till smooth. Add 1 cup of blueberries. Drop from spoon into baking pan of boiling fat. Drain on paper and dust with fine sugar before serving with meat.
[Underlined] Kidney Omelette [/underlined] Chop kidneys very fine. Put 1/2 into saucepan and crush. Add water to cover and simmer for 1/2 hour. Fry remainder of kidney for 5 mins with finely chopped onion and butter. Add to saucepan, with 1 teaspoon of sherry or teaspoon of ginger powder. Stir and leave to simmer. Make ordinary omelette and fold in kidney and gravy. If necessary, use flour to thicken gravy.
[Underlined] Blueberry Muffins [/underlined] Sift 2 cups of flour, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 4 teaspoons of baking powder. Add to this slowly, 1 cup of milk beaten with one egg, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Add 1 cup of ripe blueberries and bake in greased pan in oven.
[Underlined] Champagne Cider [/underlined] Add 1/5 pint of brandy to 1/2 gall cider and 1/5 cup honey. Let it stand for 2 weeks. After bottling let It stand 1 night before serving.
[Underlined] Blackberry Brandy. [/underlined] 1/2 pt blackberry juice boiled to half with 3/4 lb of sugar. Add to 1 qrt of brandy, 1 tsp of glycerine and 1 tsp of gum arabic.
[Underlined] Egg soup [/underlined] Beat 2 eggs in basin. Boil 1 pint of stock and add 1 tablespoon lard or oil, 1 tablespoon of soya bean sauce. Pour over beaten egg and stir gently till egg is cooked.
[Underlined] Golden Drop [/underlined] Take 1 thick slice of bread and scoop a tablespoonful out of centre. Fry side with hollow. Then turn and break an egg into the hollow and fry.
[Underlined] Stuffed Potato [/underlined] Bake a large potato. Cut off one end and scoop out [missing words]. Mix with cheese, chopped ham, or meat and place back into [missing words] oven to heat. Serve with what is left of potato after [missing words]
[Missing words] pastry mixture as for Cornish Pastie. [Missing words] ocolate in centre of a round of pastry [missing words]
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[Underlined] Pineapple Float [/underlined] Line Pie dish with thick pastry. (puff) Bake, and pour in thick chocolate. Place full slices of pineapple on top and allow to set. Serve cold with thick cream.
[Underlined] Single Sue [/underlined] Place layer of broken sponge cake about 1” thick in greased pie dish. Cover with thick sweet creamed rice. Another layer of sponge cake covered with boiled figs and dates. More sponge cake and thick layer of jam. Cover with sponge cake and bake in oven till brown. Serve with sweet chocolate sauce.
[Underlined] John Tommy Nelson Cake. [/underlined] Line pie dish with puff pastry and bake. Cover with thick layer of black treacle mixed with bread crumbs. Cook for 10 mins. Cover with layer of chopped dates & raisins & nuts. Cook for further 10 mins. Serve hot with cream.
[Underlined] Tolga Rice. (Date & meat [/underlined] mixture. Cook 2 lbs of rice in milk. Flavour with vanilla. Add 1 lb chopped dates, pieces of chopped mutton, 2 chopped red peppers, 1/4 lb ginger. Mix in mutton gravy mixed with 1/4 lb of honey.
[Underlined] Oyster Omelette [/underlined] Take 1 doz eggs, 1 doz oysters, 1 cup diced ham, 1/2 cup diced onions, 1 cup toast breadcrumbs, chopped parsley salt & pepper. Fry oysters etc first, then place in egg mixture & fry as omelette
[Underlined] Flesh Pancake. Dip [/underlined] ham into very thick pancake mixture & fry.
[Underlined] Millionaire Pie [/underlined] Take 3 unopened tins Nestles milk, place in saucepan & boil for 1/2 hour. Open tins & mix milk with 3 beaten yolks of eggs. Pour mixture into pie shell. Beat whites of eggs, add sugar and apply over top to form meringue mixture. Bake in oven till brown.
[Underlined] Tommy Tiddlers [/underlined] Prepare as pastry a pancake batter. Take previously fried sausages, cover with pastry & fry in deep fat. Serve with creamed potatoes & fried onions.
[Underlined] Manchester Pie [/underlined] Line pie dish with
[Bottom part missing as with previous (torn) page]
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[Underlined] Baked or Steamed Apple & Chocolate Roll [/underlined] Prepare pastry, Roll out and cover with chocolate. Roll up. Roll out second piece and cover with chopped sweetened apples. Place chocolate roll on top and roll up together. Steam for 2 hours or bake in hot oven for 45 minutes. Serve hot with custard. [Indecipherable word] be made with jam & other fruit.
[Underlined] Crepe Suzette [/underlined] Make pancakes in ordinary way. Spread with jam and roll. Place in oven for 5 mins. Serve hot with cream.
[Underlined] Cheese & Potato Pie [/underlined] Cook potatoes & cream with milk & butter and large amount of grated cheese. Place layer on bottom of greased pie dish . Layer of sliced tomatoes, potatoes: cover with strips of bacon. Place in hot oven till bacon is crisp. Serve hot.
[Underlined] Chocolate Soufflé [/underlined] Take whites & yolks of 12 eggs; beat with chocolate and heavy cream, to whipped cream consistency. Add icing sugar and place in deep dish. Bake for 5 mins in very hot oven. Serve at once
[Underlined] Marrons Glacé [/underlined] Boil Chestnuts (in jackets) for 5-10 minutes. Shell & skin. Use double amount of sugar. Pour over chestnuts. 1/4 lb of butter, 2 pts milk. Place in pan and boil until whole thing is syrup. Remove and let dry on cooking board.
[Page break]
140 Ctd from 125
[Deleted] Ctd from 125 [/deleted]
ready for the move. Details were given later. There are 75 lorries coming tomorrow and they are to make 2 trips taking 25 each truck. 30 of these lorries have been allocated to the British- 15 to the N.C.O.s, 10 to the Army and 5 to the officers. We are to take 10 Norwegians and 15 British in each of our trucks. The list of order of going will be prepared according to length od P.O.W. service etc.
News received of German Army’s capitulation in Holland and Denmark.
[Underlined] MAY 5 [/underlined] Main convoy did not arrive, but a convoy of ambulances came and took away all the American and a few of the British sick. An American Captain arrived too and said that the main convoy would be here tomorrow.
Received an issue of 1 Canadian parcel to a mess of 20 and a few American “K” rations. Constituted enough for one meal per man.
[Underlined] MAY 6 [/underlined] 22 of the trucks arrived during the day, but the Russians refused to allowed [sic] anyone to leave. When some of the Americans began to load up, the Russians fired over their heads to prevent them going. The situation is beginning to look serious. We are all pretty well browned off. After all, here we are, two weeks after liberation and still kicking our heels around here. Our Red Cross food is all out and the Russian rations are none too reliable. We are hoping that something is done very quickly.
[Underlined] MAY 7 [/underlined] 100 lorries arrived in Luckenwalde today. The Russians still refused to allow us to go. Amid all the confusion of rumours etc., came the news that the war was over. No-one was the least bit excited in fact I should say that the chaps in this camp were about the most miserable in Europe today.
The SBO sent a letter to the Russian o/c and later left in a jeep for Sagan (H.Q. of Marshal Koniyev) a copy of which can be found on Page 106. Reg King managed to get away on a lorry which left this evening.
[Underlined] MAY 8 V.E. DAY [/underlined] The day for which we have waited so very long, and a day full of events for us here. The lorries which came to take us out of here have returned to the American lines empty. Several attempts were made to jump the lorries and indeed some chaps succeeded, only to be ordered off further down the road. Some lorries left early this morning
[Page break]
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taking a lot of the boys with them. We were informed by the Russians that anyone found outside the boundaries of the camp in future will be treated as civilians and will be interned. It appears that the Americans definitely had no official order to evacuate us and were using their own initiative. And so we now have to wait until the Russians are ready to evacuate us in their own way. A Russian colonel had a series of conferences with the SBO and returned to his H.Q. late at night to report that we were all ready for evacuation, and so once again we settled down to wait.
All day long we heard over the wireless reports of the celebrations in England and these succeeded in making us even more miserable than before. We think that we could easily have been home for these celebrations. It only means that our celebrations are postponed however, because we shall have ours upon our return.
I had my first swim of “Konegiedom” when I swam in the lake just by the camp.
[Underlined] MAY 9 [/underlined] The SBO held a parade this morning to thank us for behaving so well. A convoy of Russian lorries arrived at the camp and while no one knows the exact reason for their arrival, it is hoped that they are here to take is away immediately the official permission comes through.
A message was broadcast before the news from England this morning to Stalag Luft I at Barth telling them that they must remain where they are, so apparently they are in the same position as we are. They have my sympathies.
[Underlined] MAY 12 [/underlined] French refugees moved from Vorlager to Joseph Stalin Camp. We are to move into Vorlager tomorrow.
[Underlined] MAY 13 [/underlined] Moved into Vorlager. The huts were in a filthy condition and we had lots of cleaning out to do before actually moving in. There were no beds in our hut and the Frenchmen had been sleeping on straw. The straw was flea-ridden so we took it all out and burnt it. We managed to find enough two tier beds for our room but had to examine them very carefully as most of the beds were swarming with bed-bugs. The beds we have however, were clean enough.
[Underlined] MAY 15 [/underlined] B.B.C. news said that there were still over a million prisoners still in Germany most of whom were in Russian occupied territory, so now we begin to see why we are so long in being repatriated.
[Underlined] MAY 18 [/underlined] Reg Ryden came to see me today about forming a band. We [indecipherable word]
C.T.D. PAGE 150
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144
Joe Brown
23 Houndslow [sic] Av.
Houndslow [sic]
[Underlined] Middlesex [/underlined]
M Reid
12, Greenwell Place.
Govan.
[Underlined] Glasgow. [/underlined]
[Page break]
145
W.A. McILROY.
“FINNIS”
DROMARA.
Co DOWN.
N. IRELAND.
TEL. DRO: 101.
John C. Bridger
1, Broadway
Tynemouth.
Tel. N. Shields 74.
Robert C Forrester,
33 Cairnie Loan
Arbroath,
Angus,
Scotland.
L. Whitely
10, Ladysmith St,
Shaw Heath,
Stockport
Cheshire
REX K BENNETT,
82 GRACEFIELD GDNS
STREATHAM
LONDON
SW16
STR 1809.
Joseph LA FORTe
721 UNION ST
BKLYN, N.Y.
F.G. SMITH,
30, Yeovil Close
ORPINGTON, Kent.
The HATTON PRESS, Ltd,
72-8. Fleet St. London, E.C.4.
Advertising. Books. Optical Products.
WESTON CRAIG
8, LOUDON ST.,
HARTON COLLIERY,
SOUTH SHIELDS.
DOUGLAS HARRISON,
8 ST. GEORGE’S CRES.
MONKSEATON.
[Page break]
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[Signatures]
[Page break]
147
[Signatures]
148
F/O E A WRAKE,
3, Drive Mansions,
Fulham Road,
London, S.W. 6.
[Indecipherable name] F/L
Windsor
Ontario
Canada
[Indecipherable word] Pincher Creek
F/O H.R. Mossop D.F.C.
Elloe Lodge
Holbeach
Lincolnshire
H.K. Hamilton F/L J9934
Apt. 502, Claridge Apts,
1 Clarendon Ave,
Toronto, Ont.
Canada.
F/O A.P. Hennessy.
84 Church Street
Kensington
London W. 8.
F/O J Meek
83 Jamieson Ave
Toronto Ont
278 Washington Ave
Winnipeg Man.
P.V. Boyle.
Dinver
Portpatrick,
Stranraer,
Scotland.
F/Lt T D Hughes.
16 Clerkdale St
Walton
Liverpool 4
E. H. Stephenson
22, Clarendon Gardens,
Wembley
Middlesex
1st LT. G. E. Gallagher
2341 Kemper Lane
Cincinnati
OHIO
U.S.A.
A.K. Baker.
“Stocker’s House”,
Rickmansworth,
Herts.
P.& O. Coryton
The Rectory
Bonchurch
Isle of Wight
[Page break]
149
William W. Fannon
113 Boston St.
Guilford, Conn.
U.S.A.
TED. WOODE
8 HORSLEY TERR.
TYNEMOUTH,
NORTHUMB’D
Wm J. Murdock
709 – 2nd Ave.
LAUREL
MISS. USA.
GRADON GLEN-DAVISON
8. WINDSOR TERR
NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. 2.
J.H. Moss
8, Munden Grove,
Watford,
[Underlined] Herts, England [/underlined]
W.J. NICHOLSON (Nicky)
23 WHITBY ST.
NORTH SHIELDS.
W. Reid
97 Swinton Crescent,
Baillieston
Glasgow
26.1.45. Scotland
Arthur E. Adams. “ZEKE”
49 Fullbrook Road
Walsall,
Staffs.
R.M. KING
C/O BIRCHFIELD
MIDDLE GREEN
LANGLEY
SLOUGH
BUCKS
Graham J. Macrae,
Windgarth,
Andover Road, North,
Winchester,
Hants
G.K. CHAPMAN
19, OSWIN TER.,
BALKWELL,
NORTH SHIELDS
NORTHUMBERLAND.
REGINALD E. RYDER,
97, BRADFORD ROAD WEST,
BATLEY, YORKS.
TRAIN TO LEEDS, GO OUT OF CENTRAL STATION & TAKE 1ST TURNING [indecipherable words] BUS TO BATLEY PARK GATE ( indecipherable words]
[Page break]
150
a few musicians and had a rehearsal. At the rehearsal we were asked to play for a [sic] RAF. dance the next night. So we will have to do a lot of work tomorrow to get everything on trim.
Rumours still fly around and every day brings fresh rumours of when we shall move, but we never seem any nearer moving.
The food situation is terrible. While we have plenty of bread, we have no margarine, sugar or brews. We have had little odd issues of spreads but these are [underlined] very [/underlined] small - a very little jam and cheese. The cheese is mostly in tubes but we have also had cheese powder which has to be mixed with water. The soup comes up regularly each lunch time, but on the whole the diet is very unappetising, just bread, cheese and water for every meal.
[Underlined] MAY 19 [/underlined] Just before our dance was due to start, the sirens sounded the recall signal and it was announced that the repatriation papers had been signed and that the Russians [underlined] hoped [/underlined] to start evacuating tomorrow. Naturally with such good news, the dance went with a terrific swing and was a great success in spite of the fact that there were only 35 women and about 300 men. It finished at 2 A.M. and by that time the boys were almost played out. Still, it was great fun to play at a dance again.
[Underlined] MAY 20 [/underlined] True to their word, the Russians rolled up with their trucks at 10 A.M. By 1.30 we were all aboard and ready to go. The journey to the ELBE was hampered by demolitions etc, but we arrived at the river at 6. PM. We dismounted and marched across a pontoon bridge to the other side where American lorries were waiting for us. These took us to a camp near HALLE where we arrived at about 11.30 American time (12.30 Russian time). [Deleted] We passed [indecipherable word] [/deleted] On the journey south we passed through several villages, all of which showed signs of having been the scene of fighting. Some were very badly damaged.
On arrival at the camp, we filled in a small form, were formed into groups of 25 and taken to billets. After a wash-up we went to the dining hall for a meal of Spaghetti and tomatoes and lovely [underlined] white [/underlined] bread and good strong, sweet coffee, after which we retired to bed about 2.30 A.M.
[Underlined] MAY 21 [/underlined] Wakened for breakfast at 6 A.M. Breakfast consisted of rice, and stewed fruit. The rice was lovely, rich, sweet, unbelievable. We also had white bread and a large portion of [indecipherable word] & butter. After our breakfast we came back to the barracks to sleep and await evacuation
[Page break]
151
We received an issue of 40 cigarettes; I oz bar of chocolate and a box of matches. In the afternoon we saw a “flick” ‘[indecipherable word] was a Lady’. In the evening we had to collect some Red Cross things. I had a handkerchief: a pipe, 2ozs tobacco; 1/4 lb chocolate, a packet of chewing gum, a tooth-brush and tooth paste. We then went to see another film. Laurel & Hardy in “Looking for Trouble”. For dinner at night we had pork chop, beans and spinach. Rice (creamed) and fruit. A lovely meal.
[Underlined] MAY 22 [/underlined] Went for breakfast at 6 A.M. After breakfast one of the boys and I walked round the airfield to look at the Goon a/c. All had been destroyed, the cockpit in each having been completely burnt out. Very interesting nevertheless. Came back to hear that we were on 3 hour readiness and liable to leave after lunch. Nothing happened however and in the evening we went to the films to see a skating & musical film.
[Underlined] MAY 23 [/underlined] [Deleted] I [/deleted] Still on stand-by. A few chaps got away today but the weather clamped down later and it stopped any more going.
U.S.O. show in afternoon. Very good. Film in evening, Charles Laughton in “Suspect”. Very good.
[Underlined] MAY 24 [/underlined] Weather still bad this morning. Frank and I had a walk around the airfield. Came back and went for [indecipherable word]. Film in the afternoon “Having a lovely time”. Pat O’Brien, Carole Landers. Not very good. Weather cleared up about 5 o’clock.
[Underlined] MAY 25 [/underlined] Raining heavily when we rose at 6 A.M. but cleared up about 10 A.M. Just as we went to lunch at 12 a lot of aircraft arrived and we were told in the dining hall that we should probably be leaving this afternoon. In the afternoon we were marched to the airfield where the planes were loading. We joined the queue and were second in line when the last of the aircraft took off. So one more great disappointment was added to our list. Each one seems to get worse. This time it was annoying because a lot of chaps who came in the night after us got away today. We are very cynical now and believe nothing we hear until something happens to confirm it.
[Underlined] MAY 26 [/underlined]
[Page break]
[Envelope with contents]
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/.
Format
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One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Artwork
Map
Photograph
Text. Poetry
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SRutherfordRL146342v1
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
Title
A name given to the resource
Les Rutherford's prisoner of war diary
F/O R.L. RUTHERFORD. R.A.F. 146342 P.O.W. 3276
A WARTIME LOG
Description
An account of the resource
Prisoner of war diary of Les Rutherford, captured the 20 December 1943 and then detained at Stalag Luft 3 (Belaria). It consists mostly of sketches and cartoons but also information on camp life, photographs and German newspaper cuttings. The diary includes the crests of Sagan, Stalag Luft 3, Belaria camp; 50 Squadron. Cartoons of various events and characters. Drawings of Lancaster; Spitfire; Halifax; Wellington; Mustang I aircraft. Selection of poems by different authors about Bomber Command, Escape and Luckenwalde. Memorial to those shot after escaping from Stalag Luft 3, Sagan. Drawings of the camp and its accommodation. Details, photos and programmes of shows held at the prison camp. Details of the contents of the Red cross parcels from Great Britain, Canada, the United States and New Zealand, including German rations for one week. Menus for several meals including Christmas Day. Description of a typical day at Belaria and Luckenwalde. Extracts from POW’s letters. Day to day diary of life in the camps including the march from Sagan to Luckenwalde, passing through Sagan, Surau, Muskau and Spremberg thence by train to Luckenwalde. Maps showing the river Rhine and its tributaries and maps showing Berlin area and the rivers flowing around it and also shows the American and Russian fronts prior to liberation. Name and address of several fellow prisoners of War. Autograph pages of fellow prisoners. Pasted newspaper cuttings are about V-1, death notices, photos of British airborne troops that had landed behind German lines but been captured, two titles of German newspapers both dated 3 September 1944 but with no editorial or news content, a report of the best performances from 1944 Swedish Swimming Championship. There is a cartoon showing the Grim Reaper advancing on top of an American Tank with the word ‘Famine’ across his chest: while another cartoon shows a brutish USSR in the form of a gorilla destroying four men representing East European countries while Churchill and Roosevelt look on and comment on the beast’s playfulness. A clipping exhorts Germans not to gossip because it helps the Allied bombing attacks. The diary was kept at the Lincolnshire Archives until August 1987, when it was withdrawn by the owner.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Les Rutherford
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Alan Pinchbeck
Dianne Kinsella
Sally Des Forges
Jon-Paul Jones
Jan Morgan
Emily Jennings
Laura Morgan
Ashley Jacobs
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Poland
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
50 Squadron
arts and crafts
bombing
displaced person
entertainment
escaping
evading
Halifax
Lancaster
P-47
P-51
prisoner of war
propaganda
Red Cross
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 3
the long march
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/21/49/Memoro 10169.1.mp3
fab50146aa4a614d17bcaebd9df4dd67
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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Memoro. Die Bank der Erinnerungen
Description
An account of the resource
18 items. The collection consists of interviews with German bombing survivors originally videotaped by Memoro, an international non-profit project and open archive of audio or video interviews of people born before 1950. The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Nikolai Schulz (Memoro - Die Bank der Erinnerungen e.V) for granting permission to reproduce and transcribe the testimonies. To see them in their original video form please visit www.memoro.org/de-de/.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC staff
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Memoro. Die Bank der Erinnerungen
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Agnes Stocker: 5. März 1945, hiess es, die Russen werden, kommen näher und wollten die Insel einnehmen. Sie kamen aber momentan nicht über die Dievenow und wir wurden gezwungen, am 5. März alle die Stadt zu verlassen. Wir waren, wurden also evakuiert, mussten uns eine andere Bleibe suchen. Und dann sind wir am 5. März abends auf die Chaussee; und es waren ungefähr bis Swinemünde, bis zum nächsten großen Hindernis, das war die Peene, die wir überqueren müssten, nein die Swine, Entschuldigung, die Swine, die wir überqueren mussten, und die wurde nur mit Schiffen, mit Booten konnten wir übersetzen, dass dauerte natürlich. Und da ist die Stadt, praktisch also wir haben glaub ich nur einen Kilometer in einer Stunde fahren können, war vollkommen verstopft. Und da hat meine Mutter gesagt, nein, sie hat einen Bruder in Kalkofen, das war auf der Strecke, da sind wir abgebogen, dass heisst nicht mit dem Treck, den wollten wir ja mitnehmen, damit ist mein Burder, eine Cousine und meine Schwester, sind bei dem Treck geblieben, wir hatten einen Treck uns gemacht, wo wir auch noch meinen Grossvater mitgenommen haben, der lebte bei seinem Sohn in Hagen. Und ja der ist mit uns dann nach Kalkofen und da hat mein Onkel dafür gesorgt, dass wir mit Booten über das Haff rausfahren konnten nach Ueckermünde. Und in Ueckermünde waren dann wir erst mal ein paar Tage in Kalkofen und dann sind wir rausgekommen und dann haben wir in Ueckermünde auf ein Schiff gewartet damit es, damit wir weiterhin übersetzen konnten, wir wollten nach Neukalen in Mecklenburg. Und das war ein Ort, wo meine Tante aufgewachsen ist und die hatte dort Verwandte und das war unser Ziel. Und am zwölften März war der grosse Angriff auf Swinemünde. Ein grosser Bombenangriff auf Swinemünde Mittags um zwölf. Und da ist, nach den Bombenangriffen, und meine Schwester, also unsere Schwester, und unser Bruder und diese Cousine waren zu der Zeit gerade in Swinemünde. Die sind übergesetzt, die haben so lange gebraucht und die waren gerade in Swinemünde. Und meine Mutter, meine Tante und ich, wir haben in Ueckermünde, das ist Luftlinien-mäßig vielleicht zehn Kilometer weg, und da haben wir das alles mit ansehen müssen, wie viele Bomben gefallen sind undosweiter, und wie die Tiefflieger angekommen sind. Jedenfalls haben wir gedacht das gibt es nicht, das wir, das die drei wenn sie noch in Swinemünde wären, mit den Treck rauskommen. Meine Mutter war restlos fertig, Tante Emi war restlos fertig und ich auch, das haben wir unmittelbar mitterlebt. Die Toten die es dann gab, da ist extra ein Friedhof, das ist der Golm gewesen, also ist auch heute noch der Golm, so eine kleine Bergkupel und da sind, ist ein Friedhof eingerichtet worden, und der war, der ist mit 25000 Toten. Man sprach immer von Dresden, glaub ich, der grösste Luftangriff, aber da waren es noch mehr, so viele Menschen gestorben, die man nicht registriert hat, durch die Flüchtligen, die per Booten über die Ostsee von oben, von der ganzen Küste angekommen sind und, ja, das waren 25000 Tote. Und wir haben dann noch gewartet, ätliche Tage, und auf einmal standen alle drei gesund vor uns, und der Wagen war auch unbeschädigt und die zwei Pferde waren auch unbeschädigt. Sie haben so ein grosses Glück gehabt und sind gut angekommen in Neukalen. Aber da haben wir nur eine Weile gelebt. Wir sind da untergekommen bei Verwandten undsoweiter. Und dann hiess es, die Russen sind über die Dievenow und in Anmarsch. Mussten wir also wieder weg, wir wollten also gen Westen.
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 Agnes Stocker
Description
An account of the resource
Agnes Stocker (b. 1932) recounts her evacuation from her hometown and the journey to Ueckermünde. Agnes tells how she get separated from her sister, her brother and her cousin (who followed the road to Swinemünde), while she, her mother and her aunt first took refuge at Kalkofen and then took a boat to Ueckermünde. Describes the Swinemünde bombing as seen from Ueckermünde - recalls aircraft strafing, emphasises 25000 casualties and compares this operation to the bombing of Dresden. Agnes explains how the high death toll was due to the number of refugees who had fled from the East coast of the Baltic Sea by boat. She recalls how her sister, her brother and her cousin were caught in the city under attack, her anguish at not knowing their fate, and her relief when she eventually reunites with them.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-11-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:06:06 audio recording
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Memoro#10169
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Poland
Germany
Poland--Świnoujście
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Ueckermünde
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-05
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Memoro. Die Bank der Erinnerungen
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
Peter Schulze
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content has been originally published on Memoro – Die Bank der Erinnerungen, which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it as an audio track. To see it in its original video form and read the terms and conditions of use, please visit www.memoro.org and then click on the link to the German section. Please note that it was recorded by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘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.
Language
A language of the resource
deu
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nikolai C C Schulz
License
A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource.
Royalty-free permission to publish
bombing
childhood in wartime
displaced person
evacuation
home front
strafing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/265/3414/AGreggV160720.1.mp3
bebd82b1b8467bdefa782fcc1d82a2f2
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
Gregg, Victor
Victor Gregg
V Gregg
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Victor Gregg (1919 - 2021). Victor Gregg served in the army in India, Palestine and the Western Desert. He transferred to the Parachute Regiment and fought in Italy and at the Battle of Arnhem, where he was taken prisoner of war. He was present in Dresden when it was bombed in February 1945.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-20
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gregg, V
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: My name’s Pam Locker and I’m in the home of Mr Victor Gregg of 13 Springvale, Swanmore, Hampshire SO32 2AU, on the 20th of July 2016. And, Vic, if I can just start by saying thank you very much for letting me come to interview you. And perhaps you’d like to start by telling us about joining the forces and your, your military career, if you like and the experiences you had as a result.
VG: How I come to join the forces? Well, it just happened that it was my 18th birthday and I was out of work which wasn’t an uncommon feature in them days because young boys come out of school at fourteen years of age. They was used as cheap labour in the majority. Especially in the areas that I came from. So, employers used to take on these boys and sack them as they were required according to the order list at the firm I have. So, anyway, I was out of work and I was, I walked down Drury Lane because I was living in King’s Cross at the time. No. I was living in Holborn at the time. In Kenton Street. And I makes me way to the Horse Guards Parade. It was raining. And the idea is to spend half an hour watching the, watching the guards. Watching the army change guard with their horses in Horse Guards Parade which was quite a spectacle in them days. Especially in them days. You could get right up close to them. And I’m watching this and there’s a crowd and this big bloke comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. And I turned around and he’s got all this brass all over his chest and big red band goes down there and he asked me if I’d like a cup of tea and a bun. So, he says, ‘We’ll get out of the rain.’ So, I’d only had a couple of slices of bread and dripping for breakfast so I was a bit hungry so I said, ‘Yeah. Good idea,’ sort of thing. So, he takes me over to Whitehall. The army depot which was just off of Whitehall at Greater Scotland Yard. Marched up the steps. Go inside. He points out a desk where there’s two lads sitting behind a desk. ‘Go and have a chat with them. I’ll go and get the tea.’ So, I goes over and has the chat with them and they ask me how old I am and what’s my name and where do I live. They write it all down. ‘And you’re eighteen.’ I says, ‘Yeah. I’m eighteen today.’ ‘ Oh good. Good, son. Good. Good. Go and see that gentleman over there.’ There’s a bloke with a white coat. So, he says, ‘Take your coat off and drop your trousers and bend over and cough.’ And he says, ‘You’re alright. Button up and then go back to those two gentleman again.’ And I still haven’t — that bloke still hasn’t turned up with the tea and the bun yet but I found out, ‘Sign here,’ he said. So, I signed that and I’m in the army. And the whole thing took about ten minutes. And that’s how it was in them days. In them days the British army was a haven for — like a magistrate would have a bloke in front of him and the magistrate, according to advice from the government if they wanted more soldiers or something, instead of doing five years on Dartmoor you can sign up for seven. Seven and five. So, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘I’ll sign up for seven and five. And you used to get blokes who had run away from their wives. Blokes who were riding out. Blokes who had come down from up north to get the treasures of the south which didn’t exist. All sorts of odds and sods they were in the army and they took them all. They took them all with open arms and they took me. And the next day I was on the train from from Waterloo down to Winchester where I spent the next six months at Winchester. Then I came out of there. I was in the 1st Battalion, The Royal Brigade which was at Tidworth. About four months there and I’m on a boat to India and it’s 1938 and Munich has just come about. So, we get to India. Done about nine months there and we were packed up. We’re off to Palestine. So, it was in Palestine and then of course we was on, we was on a patrol in Palestine on September the 3rd and the colonel pulled us all out into this field and told us that we was about to earn our keep because war had been declared. And that’s how I come to join the army. I didn’t actually join. It was, in them days it was an open door. Open door. You didn’t even have to be press ganged. You didn’t have to sign anything. You didn’t have to do any exercises or prove that you could write your name or anything like that. As long as could stand up that was it.
PL: So what happened next? After Palestine?
VG: Well it didn’t. The army didn’t, it didn’t affect me much because I’d already come from an area that if you didn’t stand up for yourself you’d had it. From, from infant school onwards. That’s the sort of area it was. You had to. You learned to stand up. So, joining the army we had the same sort of things that have like that have been reported in the last few years in the British army. What they call bullies. But you always had, always had that sort. That sort of individual who tried to put other people down in order to make a name for himself. But no. That didn’t affect me for the simple reason I knew how, I knew how to handle those sort of people so yeah I thought it was good. Three good meals a day and I had a pair of boots which didn’t let the water in. I was worried about, I was worried about what my mum would think because my mum was on her own. Well she was with my brother and my sister but my mum was being looked after my grandparents. More or less. My mum was like, she was always in work. So, there wasn’t a problem. I think she probably thought it was for the good because we was living in two rooms, the four of us. So, I was out of the way. So, that’s how I joined the army. And from Palestine we went to Egypt and then of course let battle commence and it never stopped. For six years. So, on the way, on the way I lost nearly everyone. Everyone who I’d known. The four lads who came down with me on the train only one of them survived but he died about two years after the war ended. Something the matter with his brain. So, I was the only survivor of the four lads who got on that train at Waterloo to go down to Winchester. But we go down there and they formed a squad of about twenty eight men and boys. Men and boys. Twenty eight. And that’s the squad that’s going to go forward. Train for six months. Learn all about everything and then get put in a battalion. In this case it was the 1st Battalion. So, I can’t say that, I can’t say that I felt out of place. I thought it was easy actually. Simple life. I didn’t have to go, I didn’t have to go burgling or anything like that off Sloane Square. I didn’t have to do that like all the other lads where I lived, you know. They — a lot of them ended up in the nick one way or another or they didn’t lead very [unclear]. Of course, the schooling was so basic. Unless you’d been to grammar school you couldn’t get a decent job.
PL: Did you, did you feel proud or did you feel this is a job? Did you feel proud about being in the army or did you feel it was just a job?
VG: No. No. I didn’t feel — no. No. No. I never felt. The only time I ever felt proud was when we was in Italy and you’re going along. You’re pushing these Germans back and then you go through these villages and little towns and all the people come out cheering and they’re happy and they’re throwing flowers and they’re offering you their vino and stuff like that. You really feel, you really feel that for the first— because this was the first time you, as far as I was concerned — I’d been in the Middle East — this was the first time I’d come into contact with civilians in a battle area because on the desert there are no civilians. It was man against man. Literally. No women. Nothing. But when you, when we got into Italy, of course, it was different. There was women and children and stuff like that and I really felt, that’s the only time I really felt proud is when people have, you know, they [pause] you know jolly well that they ain’t got nothing because you were giving them food but they offered you what they’d got. So, yeah, that’s the only time I ever felt proud really. Otherwise it’s just, just life. Not an existence. It’s life. A subtle difference I think.
PL: Absolutely.
VG: You get, you get institutionalised in to that way of life. Kill or be killed. If you’re in a front line unit. If you’re in [pause] if there’s an army corps, say of about of forty thousand men — fifty thousand men, and out of that fifty thousand you’ve only got about eight thousand that are actually front line soldiers. All the rest are in the chain of command. The line of command. The line of supply. All the rest — and it takes, it takes about, if its reckoned it takes nine men to service one, one soldier on the front line. So, although we all get the same ribbons and medals. Campaign medals. It’s only these few like Rifle Brigade, [Carriers?] the Devons, Northumberland Fusiliers and all those sort of light infantry units and the Tank Corps, the 4th Tanks, the 3rd Tanks. And some of the, some of the artillery units. The light artillery. Twenty five pounders and stuff. They’re the, they’re the only people who are actually in action. And of course, as far as the air force is concerned that was non-existent. They were still using twin, twin wing Gladiators. If they wanted to, if they were flying over and they wanted to drop a message then the gunner, who was sat behind the pilot, used to drop a note tied to a piece of string telling us what was going on. And that was — of course the Germans, the Italians were the same because they had twin engines the same but that was the level of aircraft style because the poor old, the poor old airmen they had these horrible bloody Blenheims and Whitleys and things like that and they used to get shot down as soon as they went up in the air. As soon as they turned up over enemy territory they were shot down because they were so slow. So quite a lot of the lads who got into those planes — they never come back. You get used to it. You get used to it. A lot of people won’t never understand that.
PL: So, when did you feel things started changing? You know, in terms of there being a war?
VG: Eh?
PL: You know, you’d been in, you’d been in the army for a couple of years and then the war started so was there a sort of a moment when you felt this is, everything has now changed and different?
VG: I think I was in, it might have been a couple of years. A year and a half. Something like that. I can’t recall that we felt anything. The colonel got up.
PL: You just got on with it.
VG: He got up on a sort of collapsible chair in this field. He called us all in from this. All the companies were spread out on this manhunt that we was doing over the, over these hills in Palestine. And we were all called together. About, I think it was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And so the whole battalion was there and he just told us that we was about to earn our keep. That war had been declared. ‘Cause I don’t think it came as a surprise because certainly it wasn’t a surprise to me because I’d already, I’d already experienced the black shirts and stuff like that in Whitechapel. I knew what it was all about. Even as young as I was. No. A sense of anticipation I suppose. Go down the canteen, have a few beers and you forgot all about it.
PL: So, what was your first battle?
VG: Well the first big battle, the first real big battle was at Beda Fomm. That was after Wavell had started Operation Compass where they drove all these Italians back. The whole Italian army. And we got to this place near Sirte and then we were pulled out. We were pulled out to have a rest. That was, it was a small group consisting of the Rifle Brigade, the second RB, the fourth RHA and I think there was a couple out of, out of the 3rd Tanks or 4th Tanks. Only about six tanks. That’s all. Light stuff. And we was this, at some fort or another, I’ve forgotten the name of it but anyway we had to — what had happened was they’d got some information that the Italians were leaving Benghazi and heading for Tripoli. The whole army. The whole Italian army and we was told we had to cut the road. And the best place to cut it in a straight line was this place at Beda Fomm. So we’d only, and we’d got back, they’d sent back to this area for a rest. We hadn’t even got the tea on. And the blue flare goes up so we’d got to get going and they’d tell us about it afterwards, you know. This is what we’re doing. The 11th Hussars had gone in front and they’d gone on a compass bearing to this point. Whatever was in the way we had to get over it. Very rough. And a lot of the mechanised stuff couldn’t get through. So we find that the next day we landed on this road. So, there’s about five hundred riflemen, I suppose there was about thirty gunners from the 4th RHA with twenty five pounders. And a few with two pounders which were useless. And we’re spread across this road and there’s an army of about forty thousand coming towards us. Complete. Complete with their tanks, guns and everything. But what the forty thousand didn’t know — they didn’t know we were there until, until whoever was in charge, like Wingy Renton — he wasn’t in charge but he was really. Wingy Renton was the company commander of 2nd RB. He, he — these Italians were only about twice the distance from that house over there and they still didn’t see us because we were laying flat, see. And then he opened with the twenty five pounders. That blasted the front ranks and the twenty five pounders demolished, demolished the tanks over open sights. So, and that first salvo there was about ten tanks caught alight, half a dozen lorries and there was about two hundred men laying. They were never going to see the next day. All in front of us. All lying on the ground. And they’d had it. They’re either dead or they’re howling out in pain or something like that. And we haven’t even, we haven’t even moved. We’ve just, we’ve just or we were going to or anything like that. And that’s how it was. That’s how it went on. Through all that day and then through the second day. People do say that the Italians are not good fighters. They’d never been in situations like that because the ground was absolutely strewn with their dead bodies and they still come on. Of course, what was driving them on was the rest of the British army had now caught up with their rear echelons. So, the rear echelons of this Italian force was trying to push forward and they was pushing the front echelons forward into our line of fire. And that was the first victory that England, that the British allies, and the only victory up to Alemein. It was the only complete victory we had and we’d got the whole of the Italian army. Caught the lot of them. And what did we lose? Yeah. We had a, my section commander got, he got hit in the arm. And then we had a lad who come from South Wales. Of course his name was Taffy. Naturally. But he used to make the tea. He was our tea boy and cook. Yeah. A bit of a joke but he used to like doing it and he got hit with a bit of shrapnel and of course that was it. He was dead. So, that’s the only casualties that our section had. But I don’t think we, I think we lost, I think the force as a whole, in that battle, I think we lost about, probably about eighty men. Which is not a lot, considering. A few more wounded. But, and then of course we went on. After that we went on for another couple of weeks and then they pulled us all back and these lads who had come over on the next draft took over. Of course, once they came in, once they came up against the Germans who were there they didn’t stand a dog’s chance. So they pushed them all back and that’s how it went for three years. Backwards and forwards. And one by one — you don’t lose, you don’t lose men. In the sort of unit that I was in you don’t lose, you don’t lose men a dozen at a time or two dozen at a time. They go in their ones and twos. All of a sudden you go over to another platoon. You know, to see a mate who you want to go and see. ‘Oh, where’s Charlie?’ ‘Oh, he got his lot yesterday.’ ‘Oh.’ And then you think. That’s the way it goes on. It’s, it’s so gradual you, you get used to it. Course as the months and the years go by and both sides get more weapons so, it gets fiercer and fiercer. By the time you get to battles like Sidi Rezegh in 1941 it’s nothing short of a bloodbath. But you still, you still soldier on through it. By that time, if you’re in a good regiment, in a good regiment, then if somebody gets a bit bomb happy there’s, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. Instead of like, if he was in the Guards he wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d say, ‘Get up there.’ You know. You’d get shot for cowardice. They wouldn’t do that in these sort of regiments. They’d just quietly send the lad back and because he’s, he’s more danger being with him. It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. It’s a life where, a life in a war is like that. Where you get so used to the ever present danger that it’s a way of life. So, I’ve never seen, I’ve never seen blokes pray. I’ve never seen blokes clutching their beads as some, like the Yanks do, you know. Never seen anything like that. Just take it as a — once they get used to it then it becomes a matter of fact. ‘What do you think they’re doing now?’ ‘Oh, they’ve packed up for the day.’ ‘Well, let’s get the cards out.’ You don’t know what’s going to happen the next day. And then you get, then you see a load of aircraft come over, ‘It’s alright. They’re ours.’ See, but the sods in the planes doing about six hundred miles an hour. They can’t tell. They see a load of stuff down below and, you know, a load of dust and down they come, you see and shoot you up. And then while they’re shooting you up you’re watching bloody Germans shooting their own troops up about two mile away. Complete balls up really. So, yeah. You get, you get [pause] it’s difficult for people to understand how it becomes a way of life. Living on bully beef and biscuits. We actually had biscuits issued to us which they’d dug up from food pits which Allenby had laid down in 1916. It’s the truth. The armoured cars that the 11th Hussars were using were the same armoured cars that Allenby had had in the First World War. These old Rolls Royce, long nosed armoured cars which were — the only armour they had was the 303 Vickers and they were set against the Italians who had forty millimetre anti-tank guns that went through them like a knife through butter sort of thing, you know. We was completely unprepared. The British army. Completely unprepared. They only — we had three weapons that were any good. We had a rifle which was the best rifle going. The Lee Enfield 303. We had the Bren gun which they bought from Czechoslovakia in 1937. And we had the twenty five pounder. And that was the three weapons. That’s all we had which would, which would do any damage to the enemy. And there we are sending troops all over the world. And they pulled through. Not because, not because of these idiots who had been educated at Eton like that who thought they, you know, they were indestructible but ordinary, ordinary English. English sort of men. British. British manpower. British men who had been brought up in hardship. Out of work. On the dole. Stuff like that. And then of course after, after the end of 1940 and ‘41 when they brought in conscription then of course you got all types. But there was no [pause] we wasn’t, we never had any aircraft support worth thinking about until we got to Alemein in 1942. At the end of ‘42. Then of course, by that time, we had superiority. Complete. The air force had all sorts of weapons. They had all these Spitfires, Hurricanes and American planes. And we had the six pounder which could put any German tank out of business. But then Alemein was brutal. Was brutal. You had two armies facing each other. Both dug in. And then we had to go forward and try and break them out of it. And you can bomb them all day long and shell them all day long but if they’re in a hole you’ve got to hit the hole before you do them. Shelling very seldom clears, clears a way through. These light bombers that the RAF were issued with they done more damage than the shells. But if you had — at Alemein they had a gun every twenty yards over twenty mile. There was a twenty mile length of the battlefield and they had a gun every twenty yards and they all opened up at the same time. And when that lot went off the Bren carrier which I was in, the Bren carrier actually lifted off the ground with the shock. We was all told to block our earholes up because these shells were only landing about four hundred yards in front of us. But it didn’t — it looked bad, it sounded bad. It looks impressive but after it had all died down and you approach them it’s as if you had never had anything. Their machine guns opened up and you were in business again. Its [pause] and then you take a couple of prisoners and after a little while you find they’re just the same as you. They don’t — they’re not, the majority of them I don’t think knew a lot about, I don’t think they knew a lot about these death camps. I think the German civilians did obviously but I don’t think the blokes in the army knew. The lads who, the only Germans who were different were the Germans who had been to, had been against the Soviet Union and been pulled back because I think they were dead scared of losing the war because they knew what they’d have to face when they come out of it for what they’d done. Well not what not the actual ordinary Wehrmacht soldier had done.
PL: So, Vic, do you want to talk a little bit about when you were a prisoner of war yourself?
VG: Well, I came home from Italy. Because by that, at the end, at the end [pause] at the end of it, coming up three quarters of the way through 1943 all the fighting in North Africa ceased at Cape Bon. So, they’re going to send the second RB in. They’re going to send them back to the Middle East. Palestine. And quite a lot of us — we wasn’t very happy about this because we knew [we’d been beat. See once you’re in a peacetime area we didn’t want nothing to do with that. So, then they come and asked for volunteers to form this new parachute regiment. And it’s alright. You volunteer and if you don’t like it — you’re going to go down to Tel Aviv and if you don’t like it, you get two weeks leave and if you don’t like jumping out of planes you can come back and we’ll take you back alright. The whole battalion stepped forward. They’d been in the desert three and a half years. So, they get a promise of two weeks leave and a trip back again. Nobody’s going to blink an eye. Nobody is going to be stupid enough to — of course there were a few sensible blokes who through the — because it was still mainly, even after three years of war it was still mainly a regular battalion, filled up with regular soldiers and you never volunteer for anything. You see. That’s the, that’s the first thing. You never volunteer for anything. But they volunteered in that case so they had to take the names out of the hat and I was one of them that came out of the hat. So, that’s how I happened to be in the 10th Parachute Battalion. And so, I ended up in Italy and got, and then after Italy when they brought us home they brought us home as the second front. And of course eventually they used us up — they took us over the channel a couple of times in those early days of the second front when they were going to use us and they brought us back because where they was going to drop us there was so much movement that where they were going to drop us they thought, you know, the Germans were in charge of that area. So, every time you go up there was about twenty or thirty blokes who can’t make it anymore. Their nerves are shattered. But — so eventually we were off to, we’re off to Arnhem and our division was dropped on the second day. The first day was the 18th. We was dropped on the 19th and we dropped on the DZ which was full of the dead bodies. From the blokes who had jumped the day before. Now, three quarters of the battalion had never fired a shot in anger. The only people who knew what it was like was these people who had come from the Middle East and, the colonel in charge, he had the sense to keep them separate. All us blokes, he put us in what was called Support Group. We had the three inch mortars and the machine guns. Stuff like that. So, anyway, over we jumped to get on the DZ and then so there was about five hundred of us jumped and about — I think there was three hundred of us turned up. Made it. Made it off of the DZ. We left two hundred on the DZ — dead. And then on the second day we only had eighty men left standing. And then of course because I was on a machine gun I’m getting put here, there and everywhere and by the second day, by the third day I’ve already been through two crews. For some reason, I’m sitting in the, I’m sitting number one on the gun and I’m sitting up like that. See. And the number, and the number two is down here, laying on his, laying on his stomach, feeding the ammo and the number three is laying on the other side of the gun tidying up the empty belt. They’re lower than a snake’s belly but those are the blokes who got killed for some reason or other. For some reason or the other I lived through it. I don’t know how. Because it just carried on until, you know, on the 6th day, mind you we only had food for three days, two days so we was drinking water out of what was on the road. Puddles. And we run out of ammo so this officer who I’d never seen before who’d been [unclear] to be with his remnant he’s going to go back. A and this is about 11 o’clock at night, he's going to go back and see if he can find some more ammunition. Find another box of ammo. So he goes back and then he comes, after about twenty minutes he comes back. He crawls back and says, ‘There’s nobody there. They’ve all gone.’ And he thinks that we’re surrounded. Completely surrounded by the Germans. There’s no way out so we might as well give ourselves up. But no. No. No. We didn’t give ourselves up. We crawled out of this, some of us. There was about four of us, half a dozen of us I think there was. We managed to crawl out and we lasted the first day and on the [eighth?] day — I think it was the 28th . On the 28th I got captured. And this German — we was in a ditch. Absolutely exhausted we were and this German’s looking down at us pointing a gun at us. ‘Come Tommy. Come. Come. Come. Krieger [unclear]. That’s it. So, I get sent down to this camp. 4B. And this is full up with people who have been there since Dunkirk. Hundreds of them. So you’re wondering, you know, I mean four years. Anybody ever try and get out of here. ‘No. You can’t get out of here.’ Well they was wrong because it was dead easy because they come and ask you if you want to work in a work camp but the NCOs who were in charge of the prisoners they think that they’ve got to keep all the prisoners together. So, they give us a lecture, ‘When they come around to ask you to go on these work camps say no.’ But I didn’t. Three of said, ‘Yeah, why not. Yeah. Let’s get out of here.’ You see. So, we were on these work camps and they sent us down to this camp at Niedersedlitz which was about six kilometres or five kilometres south of Dresden. And this, this little work camp had about, there was about eighty men in it and we used to go out and do all these jobs like sweeping the roads, collecting the cabbages off the ground. It was February. Two feet of snow. Emptying the, doing the [unclear] as the coal come in off the coal. Empty the trains. Anything like that we used to do. So, yeah so three times we, the four of us who had formed a little group, three times we tried to get away. And on the third time, the third time the Feldwebel came up and he has us in a line. He said, ‘I can’t do anything else,’ he said. ‘I’m going to give you a job now that is hard,’ he said, ‘But if you do it anymore,’ he said, I’ve got to report you.’ He was alright. He was alright — the old boy. And so, he sent me to this soap factory. The punishment was not the work in the soap factory. The punishment was the walk to the soap factory which was another six kilometres through two foot of snow in the morning and at night. And so, in order to make it easier for us he issued us with, he’d got these wooden clogs made in the village and he issued us all with these wooden clogs. The soles were about that thick. See. So that was alright. So, I get teamed up with this bloke. This Yorkshire bloke. Big bloke he was. Harry. So, we’re in this soap factory and our job is to shovel all this pummy powder in to a big wheelbarrow and wheel it up the ramp and empty it into the mix here. Now, this was a soap factory but they never had any fat or oil. So the only soap which was available in Germany at the time were these lumps of pumice stone which was, that this factory used to make. But on the other side of the shed there were some Italians building a wall and they had a big pile of cement which is exactly the same colour as pummy powder although the consistency is different. So, we thought it would be a good idea to put two barrel fulls of cement in to the mixing machine. Which we done. See. And it was late in the afternoon so the Feldwebel, the bloke in charge, he’s rubbing this stuff with his fingers and he’s puzzled because it’s too wet. Never happened before. Must have put too much water in it, see. So, he’s going to leave it till the next morning and then I leave it to the next morning. I’m beginning to get butterflies. Harry, Harry’s saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be a joke if it all seized up?’ I said, ‘Well it aint no joke mate,’ I said, ‘We’re the people who put it in there.’ ‘No. Don’t worry about that. No. They’re too stupid to work that out.’ I said, ‘They’re not stupid. They’re Germans.’ Anyway, I go along with Harry all the time, laughing and joking and sure enough, the next morning, half past six in the morning — freezing cold and it’s snowing. And this Feldwebel, this bloke in charge had this big wooden lever on the war and at the end of the lever was a rope and the rope pulled down another lever. It was a sort of old Heath Robinson affair. That was, the electric switch was up in the roof, see. So, he pulls the lever. He pulled it down anyway. And nothing happened. Keeps on trying. Nothing’s happened. Then all of a sudden everybody becomes aware there’s a load of smoke up on the roof. Course the roof is full of fat because this place has been a soap factory for a couple of hundred years. Everything’s saturated. And all of a sudden it all bursts in to flames doesn’t it. So it took them about ten minutes to suss out who was responsible and I give Harry a look, I said, ‘Here you are mate. They’re not stupid,’ so they put us in this, in this sort of, in the meantime they phoned up the police and the police come down. Put us in this black, sort of black Mariah which was [pause] and as we drew away, out of the window, we could see the window, as we drew away, as we drew away all the roof fell in and there were sparks everywhere and everybody was cheering and clapping. I don’t know. They wasn’t cheering and clapping for me and Harry. We was on our way to this bloke who was shouting and screaming at us and telling us all about sabotage and the Fuehrer said that there’s only one answer. Shoot us dead. Firing squad. Tomorrow morning. So that doesn’t sound too — but Harry’s still taking the mickey out of this bloke. He’s blooming speaking absolutely perfect English. He really is. He’s been to Oxford. That’s obvious.
PL: Keep going.
VG: He’s been to, he’s been to Oxford or somewhere like that. He’s obviously been educated in England and I was trying to kick Harry to get him to shut up, see. And I could the, I could feel the earth moving. So anyway, they marched us off and put us in this little car and we drive through Dresden. And then the sun come out. All the snow stopped and it was lovely. Beautiful. And I’m looking around me at this old city. It really, it really looked like one of these things on a Christmas card and just people walking about normally. So, and they take us into this place right in the centre. Right in the centre platz it was. This building. This sort of red brick building. It had sort of a gothic arch and when we got in there it was full up. Full up with people. About five — four or five hundred. Absolutely packed like sardines with these smelly, stinking, unwashed. Individuals of all nations. They were all in there and in the roof was a sort of a glass cupola over the centre bit. So, we’re in there and we kick and push our way ‘til we get near a wall ‘cause we were quite big blokes me and Harry. In them days. I wasn’t a shrivelled up old wreck like I am now. We could handle ourselves. And Harry went walkabout. So, he comes back and he’s brought this American with him. And there’s two of them and they’ve been put in there for looting. They said, ‘It’s alright,’ they said. We tell them the sorry tale that we’re going to get shot tomorrow. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘You won’t get shot tomorrow.’ I said, ‘How’s that then?’ He said, ‘Well they take out thirty every morning. Dead thirty. Every morning. They take them out, put their names down on a sheet of paper, cross them, tick them off, and they go out and you hear a rattle outside. You hear. And that’s them dead.’ They used to shoot thirty every morning. Very methodical. So, Harry says, ‘Oh, that’s alright, Vic,’ he says. Well, he didn’t say Vic. He called me Mac. ‘Cause everybody called me Mac because my name was Gregg. It tied up with MacGregor. ‘Cause in the army you have a, you have a nickname the day you join you see and my nickname was Mac because of that. See. ‘It’s alright Mac,’ he said, ‘There’s about five hundred in here. If they take out thirty a day the war’ll be over by that time.’ But I didn’t go along with that line of thinking. I thought we was in — I thought to myself, a bit of trouble here. But as it happens that was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon when they put us in there and they come around with some food, or some sort of goulash. Without any meat naturally. That didn’t look too appetising. We wasn’t all that hungry so we didn’t eat any of that. And then the guards disappeared, shut us all up, shut all the doors and then everybody tried to get a bit of kip. You’ve got to really push and shove to get, make some space. So, we got away from the centre of the place down to a wall that was right in the corner. And then all of a sudden, around about 9 o’clock we hear the sirens go off. And we still don’t worry about it because we think Dresden’s not going to get bombed. They’re going to bomb, they’re going to bomb some of these big cities that are around, you see. And then, after twenty minutes, everything’s full of light and there’s all these things coming down. You can see them coming down through this glass roof. They’re all coming down. Look like big Christmas trees. Alight. So that’s it. We knew exactly what they were. So, then of course they start. All the bombs start dropping. There’s about six hundred planes I think in that first. Six or seven. Six or seven hundred in the first wave and then at the end, almost at the end of the first wave this big blockbuster landed outside the building and blew all the wall in. Kills nearly everybody. Picked me up. Picked me up and blew me right up to the other side of this place and part of the roof came in — fell on top of me. I’m covered in dirt. In debris. But Harry, when I finally got to him and found him I tried to get clear of it. He was as dead as a doornail. He was killed by blast. There was nothing. Nothing hit him. It was just blast. Threw everything out of him. So, I covered him up and then as like the building was collapsing so there was about thirty of us, I think, got out of that building and I was one of them. And then what you do? You’re surrounded by all this fire. Everything’s alight. Or you think everything’s alight because that’s what it looks like. So you’ve got to get out so somehow, somehow or the other because it’s not too bad. This is only the first raid and it’s just like a normal bombing raid. A lot of people dead. It’s true. A lot of buildings alight. A lot of people down. So — but that’s normal. You don’t think much about that. So nobody can understand it. They’re all foreign to each other — these people in this place. They were all there for one reason only. They’d fallen foul of the German law and they were in there to be shot. So, if somebody forms a line, whoever’s in front I ain’t a clue but they start going forward. You follow them. Now, what saved us was we had the wooden clogs. See. If Harry had been with me he didn’t have wooden clogs. He would have had it because the ground was getting warmer by the minute. Anyway, the raid finished and we landed up in this sort of place where it was a bit open. A bit of open land and the deep depression. There was a little railway line running. It’s still in the centre of Dresden. We hadn’t gone very far but we were away from the dead centre. So, we think, well that’s, everybody thinks that’s alright. That’s alright. So, we’re all settling down to have a rest. None of us know each other and they don’t know anybody. And then this, we see this crowd of Germans coming along. Well not a crowd of them. About a dozen. They’re pulling this big, sort of two wheeler, barrow. Full up with all sorts of things. Pick axes, big drums of water, stuff like that. Ropes. Everything. Crowbars. So, the bloke in charge pulls up. The bloke in charge is the only bloke who ain’t got a helmet on. So, I think he’s in charge. See. So, he sizes us all up. He gets us all to fall in line and he picked out about eight of us who he thinks might have the strength to do what he wants them to do, see. So, get in line. So, three of them tried to run for it. This bloke just calmly got a revolver and shot two of them. Like that, see. And the other bloke came running back quick as possible. Now, believe it or not, I didn’t worry about that because it occurred to me at the time that you had to have somebody in charge because it would be mayhem and if you’ve got to maintain discipline by that method then so be it. It’s better to have discipline than no discipline whatever. Whatever. So, I didn’t take umbridge at that and I began to, you know — after the first hour and the second hour he used to call me Tommy ‘cause any English soldier was called Tommy. ‘Come Tommy. Come.’ See. And I used to call him, I called him [stress] the general. Not the general. The general you see and he used to like that because I don’t think he was a general. So that was our job. His job was to get into the bombed-out areas and try to open up as many of the cellars as possible. Get people out. He wasn’t, it wasn’t his job to fight fires. His job was to rescue these people. And he had these, he had about ten other Germans with him but that’s not enough, see. They were all issued with pickaxes, these whacking great crowbars, stuff like that. Ropes where you tie yourselves together when you go into the buildings. And that’s what we done. So anyway, we just about got back into the, into where it was getting a bit warm again and well it wasn’t warm. It was bloody hot. And then the air raid sirens went off again didn’t they? But the second raid of course, the first raid was only a sort of hors d’oevre. It was the second raid when they killed all these thousands of people. Because the second, you could actually, the bombs were so big you could see them coming down. They were enormous. And the incendiary bombs — instead of being sticks of incendiaries they were big blast bombs of about five thousand pounds. And when that hits the deck anything within three hundred yards is immediately incinerated, see. So that raid went on for about an hour and so we couldn’t do nothing. You couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t get back in there because — mind you we was only on the, we wasn’t outside of the fire. The fire was still raging all around but we were in this middle bit which was like, like a London square. That’s what it was. Which had had trees in but the trees were all burnt out. So, then, and the next thing is that he moves us off, he moves us on, I’m trying to remember now. He moves us off and we get to this sort of place where there’s a railway. There’s a railway line near the railway station. And he has got, he’s got one of these empty carriages which had been craned off and that was going to be where we were going to kip. In this. His crew were going to kip in this. And then of course they came up. They got lorries come up for the workers. They’re full of big barrels of, sort of, stew. I don’t know what. It wasn’t a lot of meat in it but it was something hot and brown bread was their salvation. So that’s alright. We’d got food. We’d got water. And we’re not in much danger now. So, that’s what I’m thinking. Everything might turn out alright in the end. So, but this bloke — he had one idea. He had to get in and get as many of these people out as he could. And after three days we still hadn’t got anybody out alive. And then he had to go off on the fourth day. So, there’s another couple of blokes took over in his place. Two blokes and a young, a young lad in uniform who had a — he had a Schmeisser and he was dangerous because I thought he was going to press the trigger at any minute. But we find this, we find this sort of tunnel. We get down under these houses and we find this tunnel which has been shored up and we gradually break our way through it to the end and we find these four women. Four women. Three women and four little girls. I think it was either that or the other way around. Four women and three little girls. Anyway, that’s what it was and they were all huddled up the in the corner of this room. It was like a bloody oven it was. So, anyway, we gradually get them out. It took us about an hour to get them out and when we get them out this crew of about twenty of us were all laughing and dancing and hugging each other and Christ knows what. It was really great. We brought these people out and none of us, I mean hardly any of them knew — only the Germans knew each other. The others didn’t know each other but the whole crew of us were so full of it. And of course the bloke who was in charge, the general as I called him, he missed that because he’d had the day off. And that’s the only time we pulled anybody out alive. So [pause] it’s — you’re in a, you’re holding on. You’re in this second raid. It’s really set things alight. So, as everything’s burning and heating up and using up all the oxygen and to replace it all this air is being drawn in from outside. And unless you can hold on to anything and you’ve got the strength to hold on you’re going to be pulled out and sucked up and then you get sucked up into the air and then when you get so high up, so far, the pull of gravity lets you go and you all drop to the ground again. ‘Cause you move out with the wind you see and you see these people all alight. Women and children. Things like that. Old people. There wasn’t no soldiers. And, I mean I’m not talking about one of them. I’m talking about dozens because these sorts of things are happening all over the place. These fires. And you can’t — I don’t think you can, you can’t tell people what it was like because they’re, like yourself — because your mind won’t accept it. It just won’t. It’s so horrible. It’s so horrible that your mind won’t accept it. That you see these women dragged along holding on to a little kiddy and they’re both alight. They’re both alight. They’re still alive and they’re being dragged along and then you see them get swept up in to the air like that. They disappear in to all this smoke and of course there’s fires up there. Smoke and red and all sorts. You can’t see the sky and at the same time every time you breathe in it’s like putting your face in an oven which you’re cooking the Sunday roast in and the only way you can survive is to face head on in to these gale force, not gale force — they’re two hundred mile an hour. They’re coming in fast. And you’ve got to face and you’ve got to walk and trying to keep your mouth shut and any air you want has got to come through your nose. So, because if you turn your head away from that you’re going to breathe in. You’re going to breathe in this hot air. You don’t learn this. It comes to you. It comes to you in the first twenty seconds. As a survival sort of system when you’re in a situation like that because what you are, literally you’re in the middle of a bonfire. Now, I mean after, after five days we still couldn’t get anywhere near the middle. You couldn’t get near the centre because everything, everything was hot. We prise open, we prise open this big shelter which was — had big metal doors. It was a proper shelter and locked from the outside so that they would stop the overcrowding. And so we had to break all that out open and when you open that out there was nothing in there. But then after, when you open the door all the dirt outside gets drawn inside because it’s going into a vacuum. There’s no air left in there at all but on the ground there is all this sort of greeny gooey mass of, sort of jelly, which is what’s left of the bodies. Five thousand of them. And of course, you’ve a few bones which haven’t [pause] what you’ve got to try and do if you can do it is any form of identification . This was the job. You had to get the identification. It might be a slip. It might be anything. And then try and bring whatever you could out. And then they put it all — if it was a body they just stacked them up by the roadside. Stacked them up in their hundreds and then what they’d do they’d cart them away and put them on and they had these big, the had these big concrete water things what were never full up. Half of them were empty. The ones that had been filled up, the people who were in the street jumped in the water to keep cool and they got boiled. They couldn’t get out because the sides were concrete. They couldn’t climb the concrete. Couldn’t get a grip on it. So, they were boiled alive. So [pause] so, yeah so that [pause] finally I got away. I got away from there which is another story. Got hardly anything to do. On the 5th day I decided that I was going to, I was going to get away. So, that morning I got way because you know it was all — nobody’s guarding you. I got up at about half past four and started walking east. Couldn’t walk west because there was too many troops. Started walking east. Got over the river bridge. I got over the Elbe and there’s all these refugees coming from the east and they’re coming towards the west and I’m going against them and I was starving hungry. And the second day I bumped into, well I didn’t bump into them I heard them coming through the bushes but I didn’t care about it all that much because I was so hungry and tired. But yeah they put me in a sort of, a sort of a compound and get some bread and stuff, some sort of goulash, until they found, about the third morning I was with them, and they was trying to start this old Chevy lorry and it wouldn’t start. So they were getting ready to pushed it so I just stepped forward out of this place, lifted the bonnet because I knew exactly what to do with a Chev. I knew them like the back of my hand because I’d been in the long range desert group. And I got a bit of cloth, a bit of shirt, I forget what it was now and I just wiped all the, all the distributor head. Got the wet out. Got the damp out. Cleaned the — took all the plugs out. Cleaned them. Put them all back. Down there. Give it a push because there was no electrics. No battery. Give it a push and vroom and away. And after that I was alright. I was alright. Kept me there. Fed me. And I was up with their front line troops. There was no resistance. No resistance. There was thousands of them. Thousands of these Russians. They were like ants crawling over. Nothing could have stopped them. So, when I get, I finally gets to this river. The night before we was in this town and I’m listening to this, there’s another bloke there and a group of ex-POWs they’d picked up and one of them’s got a wireless set. And they can hear Churchill talking about, like — peace. Peace in Europe. And of course, there’s firing going on. Shooting everything all around us so of course. Women getting raped by the dozen. It was terrible it was. So, anyway, the next morning we’re by this river and these Canadians come over in a sort of a dingy and picked me up, took me back, put me on the back of a motorbike and whisked me away to this transit camp. And then I have to go up in front of these young officers because I looked half German. I had all sorts of odd clothes on and all my hair was burned and singed. Everything. I looked a right sight. And they wanted to know who I was and what I’d done. ‘Why did you go east? Why didn’t you go — why didn’t you go west?’ So, I tried to tell them. ‘But you could have gone west. You didn’t have to go east did you?’ ‘Yeah.’ In the end I walked out. I walked out on them. So that was my introduction to [pause] and after that, I mean, I was a complete, I mean, when I got home I was alright for about, I suppose I was alright for about eight or nine months. But even, even then people were shying clear of me. But I didn’t really, I didn’t really understand what it was all — all I know was that if anybody gave me orders they can go and whistle in the wind. I ain’t going to take no orders off of anybody. And I was quite — there was an example where I’d had a row with Freda. It wasn’t, it wasn’t her fault. And it was about 11 o’clock at night and I went for a walk down the Thames where I used to walk when I was a kid. And I was halfway across Waterloo Bridge and I’m I’m looking, I’ve stopped and I’m looking down at the river and I felt this sort of clamp come down on my shoulder, see. So I didn’t think. Nothing occurred to me. I just I put my arm around him, grabbed this bloke and put him on the parapet and I was ready to throw him in the river. Then I realised it was a copper. I realised he was a copper. I had a copper there. A policeman. I could see his number on his epaulet, you know. So I, you know, pulled him up, put him upright. So, I said, ‘I’m sorry mate.’ So he didn’t say nothing so, I said, ‘I suppose you’re going to nick me now.’ ‘No, I ain’t going to nick you,’ he said but,’ he said, ‘I thought you were going to jump in the river.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘No. I’m not stupid like that, I said, ‘I’m just a bit fed up. That’s all.’ So, he said, ‘Well, I can understand it mate.’ So, it must have been a bloke who had been through it. So, I never heard any more of that. He walked with me back to The Strand. Make sure. Just to make sure. So, we walked back to The Strand, ‘You can go home from there.’ But anything like that [pause] anything against authority. When I was finally, when I was finally picked up by — when I was on road haulage and of course I joined the communist party when I was at Battersea. On the Festival site. But I didn’t join the communist party because I was a lover of Uncle Joe. I just joined the communist party because the Daily Worker was the only paper that came out querying the eighty million they’d given to Krupps. They were supposed to give, government was supposed to give eighty million as its part in the rejuvenation of Germany and it all went to Krupps because they said that was the only organisation that they could give it to. And so, I thought that’s not a bloody good thing. And I read all the other newspapers. The Daily Mirror, Daily Express, The Daily Herald. All of it. Good thing. I thought nothing’s good about Krupps. And so that’s when I joined the party. And of course, I [pause] and then they learned, British Intelligence, because of its moles everywhere learned that the Moscow Nordea Bank wanted a chauffeur because the chauffeur they had was retiring. For some reason anyway, they wanted a chauffeur. So, they gets on to the, they get on to party headquarters in King Street and of course King’s Street’s got its moles hasn’t it. So British Intelligence knows. They come around this café where I was working on a Saturday morning when we was waiting for our wages and told me what they, what was going to happen and there was a chance to redeem myself, you know. Take this job on as a chauffeur and I would meet people now and again and I’d tell them who. Where I was going and who I was picking up. Things like this. You’ll be home every night. You can more or less state your own wages. Nice clean job. You don’t want to keep going up the road like a gypsy. You’re going to, you’re going to end up like your last employers. In the nick. They were doing, they were a couple of right rogues they were. They were a couple of old Jew boys and they had a big store room in Silvertown full of stolen goods. They was in league with another, with another firm in Birmingham and they had a warehouse at Ashton-under-Lyne. The two of them stacked up with stuff. And there was about eight lorries and I was introduced to them when I was out of work and I was up at Penton Street at the Labour Exchange. And I went over the pub and a bloke tapped me on the shoulder and it was one of my old mates in the carriers at 2nd RB and he was a right, he was a right rogue he was. Normally, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. ‘I can get you a real good number. I can get you — [pause] while all these clowns are working for thirty pounds a week you can take home a hundred every week.’ Night and day see. And of course, so that’s, I started working for the Moscow Nordea Bank and there it all started. As far as, like what you’ve come, as far as Bomber Command or anything out there it doesn’t really [pause] I respect them. I respect them for the courage of the blokes. I presume it was courage which took them into those planes every night. ‘Cause when they get, when they climbed that ladder into that plane, in to that Stirling, Wellington or whatever it was. They knew jolly well that they’d be lucky if two thirds of them would be back. They knew that and yet they went up night after night. So, I don’t really, I think of my own experience that you can get behind a machine gun and you can hammer away at a line of troops which are, say, five hundred yards away, three hundred yards [pause] and of course you’re killing them but you’re not aware of it until you’re within, you’re within spitting distance and you’re both hitting each other with rifle butts like we were at Beda Fomm and Arnhem ‘cause that was really close quarter stuff. Those lads in the RAF were six mile up. They were always, I mean, already they were, they’d say ‘Can you let the bombs go and let’s get home while we’re still alive.’ You know. So, I’ve never laid any blame on the crews of those planes. What some of them must have suffered later on in their life when they realised what had happened. What sort of things. Trouble has caused. I mean if you take, is it Chichester? Chichester is it? I mean that bloke went right into religion, didn’t he? In a big way. Get started on all these homes for people. But no. No. I blame the people who sent them up there. I blame. I’ve always blamed Churchill and those people who designed, people who designed the bombs who sent these blokes to kill all these civilians. They’re the people I blame. There’s not many of us left to tell the tales you see and people who have been in that sort of situation very seldom talk about it. They don’t. Because one reason is that they think that [ terrible excuse? ] they won’t believe it because it’s not, it’s not part of the natural world but if you’ve experienced it at close quarters. I’m, I’m lucky that I’ve been, I’ve been right through it. I’ve seen every sort of evil thing that man can think up of to do to his fellow man. And that’s the lesson I try to impart. Not self-aggrandisement. I don’t want that. And what I try to portray is what happened to me has happened to a lot, thousands of other men. And probably their families don’t, they’re dead now a lot of them, a lot of the families never knew. Oh yeah, my old granddad he was a bit of sod he was. But they don’t know what they’re old grandad went through because he never spoke about it. That’s what it’s all about.
PL: So —
VG: Swallowed all that drink have you? How would you like a little drop of gin.
PL: I think I need it now Vic.
VG: Eh?
PL: I think I need it now. So [pause] so how do you think, I mean I know that you have very strong feelings about how, and you’ve written about it. About how men were affected psychologically because of war. Do you want to record any of your thoughts about that?
VG: I’ve got [pause] it was about 19 [pause] four years ago, three years ago now. No. Two years ago that was. Two years ago. No. I was working in Taunton ‘cause me and Bett had gone to Taunton. Moved out of London. And I was working at Anglia Point because I had my own little business and I used to put sort of protective coatings on all these areas that suffered from radiation. And I was coming home one night and this, I was on my motorbike and this bungalow was alight. And it had a thatched roof. And there’s a couple of fire engines there. It wasn’t in the town. It was outside. At Bridgewater. And there’s this woman and she’s hanging out of the window and her hair’s alight. And I didn’t think much of it at the time. I didn’t even stop. I went straight up. Carried on up and I went to bed that night. And I never knew nothing after that until four days later and I woke up and Bett’s there and there’s a couple of nurses there and a doctor and I’d been like it for four days. Ranting and raving and screaming and shouting and sweating. And then, so after that I thought, I thought well I’m better now and the quack I went to see, he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’ve lived with it inside you all these years. You’re probably better now.’ I wasn’t quite sure whether I was or not until about, it was about two years ago now, and I got a letter from the Dean of, the Dean of Coventry and he wanted me to go up to the cathedral on the 13th of February to give a talk on Dresden you see. The anniversary. Because they’re twinned. They’re twinned with Coventry. Dresden and Coventry. So, I wasn’t going to go see because I’d got nothing in common with the church at all. But I thought oh well if all these people were coming from Germany there I thought, ‘Oh well. No. I’ll go.’ So, I went. So when I went there I said, ‘Well what do you expect me to do?’ ‘I want you to climb the stairs up in that pulpit and talk about twenty minutes about what you experienced in Dresden.’ I said, ‘Well can’t somebody else do it?’ He said, ‘There’s nobody who’s, there’s nobody who’s — there’s nobody.’ I’m the only one. The only Englishman who was in Dresden that night and who survived. So here you are. Give a talk to all this congregation. The cathedral’s full up. I went on for about twenty five minutes and then all of a sudden, I stopped. Just like I stopped just now. And then they give me a standing ovation. Never been known before in a church, see. So then after that I came down off the pulpit and they were all, and what the Dean wants them to do, he wants them all to hold on to each other and cuddle each other and talk about all these different nationalities. We were all at peace at last. And this old girl come up to me. She was German. I think she was as old as I was and she was hugging on to me and tears are streaming down her face. And I put my arms around her sort of thing and I really, I really hugged her and I really felt as if there was one person there. Not two. And I think that’s what really cured me. That. After all that time. Fifty years. Fifty years I went and you don’t know, you don’t know. What it is it’s a Jekyll and Hyde sort of life where there’s one side of you is really evil. Well it’s evil to outsiders. You don’t think it’s evil and you’ve got the other side which what do you want. You want this loving life. You’ve got this woman who you’ve known donkey’s years. You’ve got three kids and you’ve got everything there and you want it. You want it but then there’s this other side which butts in, keeps butting in. And somehow you can’t [pause] somehow the good side can’t control the bad side. And it’s difficult to talk about it. It’s difficult to explain it. I think you’ve got, I don’t think you can explain it by going to college. I think the only people who can explain it are the people who have suffered from it. I think with the best will in the world, go to college and all this. Like you’re going to go there, people are going to listen to it but whether they are going to absorb it or not is another thing. I don’t think they’re capable of it. I don’t think people, I don’t the human mind is capable of absorbing those kind of horrors ‘cause otherwise they’d just, I think they’d all turn into animals. If they were capable of absorbing that then you’re not a human being anymore. You’re something else. So, yeah, so what is it? People haven’t learned. They’re still. They’re still. I wrote a piece for the paper about, I think it was eight years ago now. There was a British cruiser at Libya, Benghazi, and its shoving these tomahawks into Benghazi. Eight hundred thousand pound a time. And one of them missed the target and hit a boy’s school. But it was alright because it was in the dinner period and there was only four boys in there. Instead of eighty boys. So there was only four boys killed. So that wasn’t too bad. That really got me that did. Four boys. Four boys were worth eight hundred thousand pound. And they’re still doing it. They’re doing it in Palestine. They’re doing it in Gaza. And they’re doing it on people who are absolutely helpless. Who’ve got nothing to do with the troubles of which they’re living through. And we applaud them. We sign deals with them. Their prime minister comes and has dinner with the queen. So, you can see that I still haven’t altered. The thing with me, I’ll take my [hatchets?] down six foot under with me. And I’m sure there are a lot of other people who are taking it down with them as well. I’m not alone in that. Now, what we — so for all that suffering what do we get? We get idiots. Idiots and clowns and buffoons who are supposed to manage our foreign affairs. If I was younger of course I would be on the streets but young people today what have they done? All that struggle over the last, all during the period from the First World War. All we had — the struggles for the forty hour week for a living wage. For equality between the sexes. For stability. And to get away with, do away with the slums. Its all gone for a burton. Now they’re reduced to working for zero hours. ‘Oh, we haven’t got enough work for you. There you are. We’ll put you off.’ ‘But I’ve got to pay the rent.’ ‘Oh, can’t help about that.’ They’re better off in bongo bongo land [laughs]
PL: Vic, is there anything else that you want to add?
VG: No. No. No.
PL: That’s it.
VG: Cup of tea.
PL: Cup of tea. Vic Gregg it’s been —
VG: A cup of tea, a cup of splosh is the eternal medicine. Don’t have to have all this foreign muck like all these different types of coffee like they have today. You go into a coffee shop. Work out what you want. ‘Coffee.’ ‘Yeah what type?’ I say, ‘I want coffee with milk. A gallon of milk and a half a tonne of sugar in it.’ ‘We don’t make that sort of coffee.’ ‘What do you make?’ ‘Mocha.’ ‘What’s mocha?’ What’s a mocha?’ ‘I ain’t got a clue.’ ‘Is it coffee?’ ‘Well, yeah, it’s a sort of coffee.’ ‘Well, what is coffee? Is it a coffee bean?’ I ain’t got a clue where it comes from mate.’ I say, ‘Well it probably comes from Brazil because that’s where coffee came.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ I said, ‘There’s a song about it.’
PL: Vic, it has been an absolute honour to speak to you.
VG: It’s not an honour my darling.
PL: It really has.
VG: It’s been a one off.
PL: It is. It’s been a lovely experience
VG: It’s a one off. It’s a one off.
PL: Thank you very very much.
VG: Yeah. Yeah.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AGreggV160720
Title
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Interview with Victor Gregg
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:30:49 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-07-20
Description
An account of the resource
Victor Gregg joined the army on his 18th birthday. He was stationed in the Middle East when the news came that war had been declared. His first major battle of the war was at Beda Fomm. He later volunteered and was posted to 10 Parachute Battalion and landed at Arnhem. After several days of fighting and enduring critical conditions, he was eventually captured and became a prisoner of war. He was in a work camp near Dresden and was sent to work in a soap factory which he and a friend managed to sabotage. They were sent to a prison in Dresden and told they would be executed. The prison was full of inmates awaiting execution and executions were taking place daily whilst the city was being bombed. Victor and other survivors helped with the rescue of civilians. Then he experienced the Russian advance in Germany before finally being repatriated.
Coverage
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British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
India
Middle East--Palestine
Netherlands
Germany--Dresden
Netherlands--Arnhem
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
Contributor
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Julie Williams
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
displaced person
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
shelter
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1159/11718/PTillbrookEHA1603.1.jpg
537662c74ac95ce55720fa05a8210f7d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1159/11718/ATillbrookEHA160105.2.mp3
c4544032c3a8eac3b0d330f2e10c7de6
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
Tillbrook, Ernie
Ernest Hector Angelo Tillbrook
E H A Tillbrook
Ernest Hector Angelo Pedrazzini
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Ernest Tillbrook (b. 1923, 188677, Royal Air Force), documents and photographs. He flew operations with 431 Squadron as a flight engineer.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ernie Tillbrook and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Tillbrook, EHA
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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PL: Ok. So this is Pam Locker and I’m interviewing Ernest Hector Angelo Pedrazzini.
ETP: Pedrazzini.
PL: Pedrazzini. Which was his birth name and service name but later changed to Tillbrook, at his home at xxxxx, in Hull on the 5th of the 1st 2016 at 11 o’clock. Well, Ernie, can I start by just saying an enormous thank you.
ETP: Sorry?
PL: Could I start by saying an enormous thank you to you on behalf of the Bomber Command Memorial Trust for sharing your story with us.
ETP: Very kind of you. Thank you.
PL: So if we could just start, just before we started the recording you were telling me a little bit about your father. Perhaps that would be a great place to start.
ETP: Well my father was Italian. My mother was very English. So it was a little bit of a mix up. However, my father really lived his life in the trade. Restaurant trade. Eventually, because he was a naturalised Italian rather than British he went to, in the army. The Italian army. Unfortunately, I can’t find much about what happened. All I know is that he never, hardly ever received his payments because he had enough money from England. So he paid other army people to go and take his payments. Anyway, finally he was in the retreat of Caporetto which is a well known Italian retreat at the time. And there, somehow or other, he escaped. I don’t think he escaped so much as walked out of a prison camp with about thirty thousand prisoners. From there on, being a son with insufficient knowledge of what my father was doing I found that he eventually reached Russia or the Ukraine. He reached it by eating turnips and potatoes in the field and in effect pinching them. Anyway, he finally reached the Ukraine I think and luckily got a job is all I can say in, with a very rich — what one would call a [pause] head man in a big mansion. Unfortunately — he was very happy there but and had very good food and everything but of course at that time in Russia the Bolsheviks came in. And eventually the communists as they are known now. He then left and somehow or other without passport or any means of knowledge got to Moscow. And from Moscow he eventually got to Italy and found his family. His sister and presumably other members of the family. Finally he left Italy and reached England where of course his wife, my mother, and two sons were there. I’m a son of later birth. I was born, for some reason, nine years after my brothers were there. Now, shall I go on? From there on I suppose I come to Gillette’s. My first job after I left the, sorry, the school. And I had a very nice, I really enjoyed Gillette. It was one of the best companies you could be in at the time. However being young or foolish I wanted to be like my brother who was then in the British RAF. Having said that of course my brother got thrown out of the RAF because he was part Italian. It’s a long story. He became eventually a very [pause] sommelier in the Hyde Park Hotel. From there some very prominent air marshall or something said, ‘What’s a young man like you doing in the air force.’ Or whatever. Which was a little bit foolish but anyway my brother said, ‘Well I’d like to get back. And this air marshall, whatever he was, got him back in. But funnily enough in his records there’s always a name there to tell anybody that knew that he mustn’t be posted without permission of the commandant of the place. That’s the story of my brother. He eventually got into Bomber Command of course and he was with 637 Pathfinder force. Unfortunately, in August of ’44, just before I joined a squadron, he was shot down by the German Air Force and was killed. Funnily enough his bomb aimer — by the way my brother was an observer or navigator, his bomb aimer escaped. An Australian. He escaped somehow but tragically a few weeks later he was shot by a German patrol. So, that’s the general story of my brother. As far as I’m concerned, as I say being young and brash I decided that I had to go in to the air force. I could have been in a reserved occupation at Gillette’s but oh no. Brave Ernie Tillbrook or Ernie, sorry Pedrazzini at the time had to go into the air force. I joined a place somewhere in Victoria. One of these big offices. And there I was interviewed for all sorts of things which as far as I know I passed. But my final interview was with three dear old squadron leaders sitting at a table and I thought this is alright. I’m going to get through here. But oh no. They finally found that apparently I couldn’t see far enough from my eyes. Now, I’m not sure that anybody in an aircraft coming towards me I would know, be put off by somebody coming quite near me on my eye. Anyway, that was the story. So again I should have gone back to Gillette’s but oh no. I decided I’d go in to the — an ordinary airman as a flight mechanic. Which I did. I eventually got the wonderful, wonderful promotion as a leading aircraftsman which funnily enough I was prouder of that than any other promotion I took after. Anyway, that was in Wales. I had a nice time there. Eventually somebody asked quite a few of us at the time in Cosford, would we like to become flight engineers. So of course Charlie boy here goes again and volunteers to be a flight engineer. After a long story I eventually passed out as a flight engineer at — in Wales. St Athans in Wales. And that was the end of it. Eventually of course I went to 634 Squadron up in Yorkshire and passed out as a flight engineer on the Halifax’s. There, unbelievably, being a flight engineer I joined a crew who had been flying Wimpies and things for a long time. Of course there was no flight engineer so I had to join. People sometimes say to me, ‘Oh you must have all joined and been together and worked with each other.’ Forgive the expression but that’s complete balderdash. I went in to a large room where several of the other airmen were there and eventually I saw a funny looking chap with a pilot’s wings. Dear old Don and said, ‘Do you want a flight engineer?’ He looked at me and there must have been something in my face that he liked. He said, ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ in a real Canadian voice. And that was it. That’s how I became on Halifaxes at the beginning as the crew of, of course in those days, seven crew. So there it is. I eventually went to Croft which is a horrible place from the point of view of weather. And I can remember, if I may tell you the story, the Canadians there who allegedly were used to hard winters and lord knows what, they shivered. In fact, getting in to those terrible bunks we had they used to — one I can remember wore his pyjamas, his clothes, ordinary clothes and then his flying suit over the lot to try and keep warm. We did have a fire of some sort. One of these big fires but of course we never had enough coal. The only time we had any was when we scrounged some coal from somewhere or other. Having said all that of course I had an excellent time with the crew and as a sergeant and then I was with Halifaxes and we lived quite well. One or two odd spots which made me very nervous but we got through. Until eventually we went to Lancasters. Which of course despite the, one might say, the joy of the Halifax which seemed to be a much sturdier kite at the time we went to, on to Lancasters and I don’t know how in these days we ever transferred. Because with the Halifax we had Bristol engines and typically with the Lancaster we had Merlin engines, but that’s the time. We learned very quickly, and that was it. I completed the rest of the tour. Thirty one trips. And eventually left to go in to Transport Command on Yorks. Is that? I’ll go on?
PL: So, tell, tell me first of all what your job involved as a flight engineer.
ETP: As a flight engineer. I’m sorry. As a flight engineer I was, I was, in command. Well, I had charge of the engines with the cooperation, with the pilot who really was the one that was the master. But I would look after the engines, all the hydraulics, any other things. Flaps. Ailerons. Anything that went wrong it was my responsibility to see if I could do something. If we had a fire on board it was my responsibility, with the pilot to, to stop the engine. Hopefully. And we had a Graviner fire extinguisher, which again hopefully would stop it. We did have one accident. One of our aircraft had a fire while we were flying to [pause] I think Germany somewhere. But anyway again being press on Charlies we kept on with three engines. And my job then was to see that the petrol was in the right sequence and in the right order for carrying on with three engines. So, I think that’s basically what my job was. But, as I say, in general it was to look after the aircraft and its working throughout. Which was a job a bit different to the rest because really the pilot was the pilot and obviously controlled the aircraft. The bomb aimer was the bomb aimer. And which, by the way I often did the bomb aiming when it was in cloud. And then of course you had the navigator who for obvious — doing the navigation. The wireless operator for doing the wireless operating with various jobs of looking out for German codes. And finally those poor devils, or at least particularly the rear gunner who had the job obviously on the rear guns. I don’t know how anybody [pause] and my rear gunner was called Hal who was an excellent pianist, but however, he stayed in those things for sometimes up to nine hours in the cold. I don’t know how anybody could do that. The mid-upper gunner was in a similar position but at least he could occasionally move down fairly easily, so it wasn’t quite so bad. I think that’s the crew as I knew it.
PL: You said that in cloud you used — sometimes when there was cloud you did the bomb aiming. So why? Why was that? Why was it specifically when it was in cloud?
ETP: If you were looking for a target then sometimes the target was covered by cloud so you couldn’t really find any point of aim. So what you did — you had various things. Gee and various navigational aids and you pinpointed as near as you could by means of the navigation aids where, where the target was. Purely guess work. Sometimes of course you could already see the pause] sometimes you could already see the markers from PFF planes through the, through the haze or through the cloud but if you couldn’t really see you just bombed. What should I say? Rather in hope than anything else that you could hit through the target. So there we are. Should I go on?
PL: Please do.
ETP: I ended, as I said before with thirty two trips. We all left each other. I did see my skipper some years after but as far as the rest of the crew we never saw them again. Just as a part of it my skipper, at one time, in his usual way managed to get into a Spitfire and practice with a Spitfire. Which of course he came too close where I was flying in a Lanc on another occasion and nearly shook the living daylights out of me because he was too close. From there on I went again to some place in Victoria in London. And a chap said, ‘Ah. Just the man we’re looking for. We want you to go to India.’ That scared the living daylights out of me because India was right in the whole thing. So I said, ‘Well are you sure? I thought I was going somewhere else.’ He looked up his papers. Typical RAF and said, ‘Oh I’m very sorry. You’ll be going to Transport Command.’ So anyway.
PL: So why was that?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: Why was that?
ETP: Why what? Well it was a mix up in names and I think they just saw me. Probably didn’t even recognise Pedrazzini anyway and thought I was another chap that had come in. How should I say? A bright looking man. No. And as I say luckily much to my happiness I eventually went to Riccall in York. To train as a, further train as a flight engineer on York aircraft which was really a transport aircraft with same engines. Merlin engines. And there I did many trips to India [pause] well India, Calcutta. I’m not sure now. One’s India. One’s Pakistan. But anyway, wherever it was I went there and did several trips backwards and forwards from England.
PL: What sort of things were you transporting?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: What sort of things were you transporting?
ETP: Oh. We were transporting all sorts. Mainly service people. One trip was very nice. We had a whole load of nurses. Which was excellent. But in general it was squaddies. No. I can’t call them squaddies can I? Army personnel flying and one particular incident by the way, if I may explain it, we were flying from London — from Gibraltar to London or to, sorry, to England and over — passing over I think the Massif in France and believe it or not we were up at seven thousand feet because we couldn’t fly higher than that because of the air. No oxygen. We were flying at seven thousand feet and suddenly — boom. We fell over three thousand feet. Now the Massif must be going somewhere near four thousand feet. I don’t know. Luckily I had a New Zealand skipper who had enough strength. I mean I was hopeless. I was just stuck on the ceiling. He was able to grab the stick and eventually managed to bring it back under control. I’m not sure to this day how because I was useless. As I say I was stuck on the ceiling. My navigator was just trying to hold himself on a seat and that was it. Eventually we got back. We got back and of course the first thing was — oh by the way, in getting back the first thing we brought back a bunch of Scottish Highlanders in their, and of course they were dressed to come back. They were khaki true but with, forgive me for saying — a skirt. I don’t know what the Scots would tell me about that. But anyway —
PL: Their kilts [laughs]
ETP: And as they came up of course it was quite a sight. All their, forgive the expression again, all their skirts flew up and, mind you I didn’t have time to look to see what was happening but to cut it short we landed in Bournemouth. Somewhere near Bournemouth and of course me being, you know to, I went, I did honestly try and see some. There was one poor little squaddie at the back who got a special pass to come back to England and unfortunately the stick which holds the undercarriage when it’s still rose up and hit him. But anyway we managed to do that and we got back, and of course I got back kissing the ground and lord knows what when somebody came up and said, ‘Did you know your tail’s missing?’ Well the York had a mid-fin. And that was made of steel rods and canvas. Well that had flew off. But anyway we hadn’t noticed it obviously. And, finally, as a final story forgive me for saying this a [pause] what do we call the people that look, you know, careful you’re not stealing anything from the —
PL: Security?
ETP: Customs man. Customs man. Because we had those. Oh yes. We had those. We had to be careful. Anyway, customs man came up and took a look and said, ‘Oh you’ve had a bit of a trouble.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Don’t go up there.’ There was a ladder to go up. He said, ‘Oh yes. Why not?’ I said, ‘Well, just don’t go up there. It’s a bit mucky.’ Oh no. He couldn’t believe that. So up he gets and if, how do I put it, he then found that he had a handfuls of excrement from the elsan which we had, which was the only means of toilet we had in the plane had all flown up. I’m sorry about this but there it was. That was a true story. And if you customs people will forgive me we were very happy about it [laughs] but I’d better not say anymore.
PL: So, so what —
ETP: But then eventually I carried on.
PL: Can I just stop you before we move on?
ETP: Yes.
PL: Because I’m just curious to, to, what was the cause of the loss of altitude then? What caused the near accident?
ETP: Well of course most people say its, what do they call it, anyway basically it’s the downdraft of air. People say it’s all sorts of mysterious but frankly it’s a downdraft. Particularly if you’re over hilly country. Or mountainous country. You get a sudden downdraft. There’s nothing you can do and remember these kites were big things like they are today and we just went down. So down draft is the true explanation.
PL: And the, and the chap at the back who got hit by the lever from the —
ETP: Yeah the little chap, the little —
PL: Was he all right?
ETP: I call him squaddie, forgive me. Little army chap. I think he was going back special leave and he was sitting right at the back quiet as a mouse and the poor little devil — this big stick which is used to jam the undercar, wheels underneath which should be there [pause] he just, it wasn’t fixed and it just came up and turned around and hit him. Not too badly I think but obviously we had to take him back to the medics. I think that’s it.
PL: So losing the tail fin. That was part of dropping so —
ETP: Well the York — the Lancaster as you know had two whatevers, sorry about this, had two but for the York, to give it more stability it had this centre fin which is only a canvas and whatever and of course that just ripped off. But of course I was to eager to get away. I didn’t realise it until somebody said, ‘Oh you’ve lost your tail plane.’ [laughs] Sorry. There we are.
PL: I’m interested Ernie just to go back a little bit to a couple of things that you talked about. The first thing is that you said that you were in Lancasters and you were nearly hit by your old pilot in a Spitfire. So how did that come about because you’ve told me that you were in Halifaxes?
ETP: Oh sorry.
PL: From Croft.
ETP: Unbeknown to me at the time Don Hagar, our pilot, managed to get a trip or managed to get, before he went back to Canada, managed to get a trip or joined a Spitfire squadron and so I don’t know to this day how he did it but anyway typical Don Hagar he realised that I was flying a Lanc with another pilot and of course the temptation was just too great. He just swept so near me. Too near for me as far as I was concerned and said, ‘Hello,’ in fact out of the cockpit.
PL: So what was the job?
ETP: I wasn’t sure I liked it at the time. Pardon?
PL: What were you actually doing?
ETP: Oh we were doing a cross country check for some reason.
PL: Right.
ETP: It was after my tour, and I was joe’d as a flight engineer to go with some other pilot to do a cross country check or something. I can’t remember now what it was but just to fly and see that the aircraft was ok and we landed back.
PL: And you nearly didn’t.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: And you nearly didn’t. You nearly didn’t. Because of the —
ETP: Oh yeah. Well that’s what I thought. He was probably further away than I thought. I thought that’s typical Don. Get out of it [laughs]
PL: How funny.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: So Ernie, what about, what about your tours. You haven’t spoken very much about the tours that you did.
ETP: The?
PL: The tour that you did.
ETP: Oh. Well in those days — 1944, one must remember that frankly it was getting towards the end of the war. Not that everybody realised it at the time. We still had great trouble. We did trips. The first trips we did were possibly in relation to the D-Day landings and we, in other words we were doing daylight trips to Calais and various French ports but of course that was in the late summer so of course there was more light then. So as I say we were doing more daylights which were allegedly were easy [laughs] but quite frankly a lot of planes, a lot of aircraft were lost at that time because the Germans had plenty of flak, you know and night fighters at the time over there. But eventually of course it began to get darker and then we started the long trips to people like, to places like the Ruhr. Castop Rauxel which is one of the petrol places. I never did a Berlin trip but one long trip we did was to [pause] sorry. Munich. Munich. That was a very long trip. Nearly ten hours. Which was pretty tiring as you can imagine. Funnily enough there was raids on Munich before which we weren’t in, and they had terrible time. They were shot down, a number of them. But rightly or wrongly by the time we got to Munich there was hardly any defence at all. I think the people which I suppose one might say, poor people then but that never occurred to me as such. We, we bombed from about nineteen thousand, twenty thousand feet and had hardly any flak at all ‘til we came back. Then it got a bit dodgy as we got into Germany deep and of course the fighters started to come up. I think once we were hit by flak. I was very nervous. Hit by flak but as I say really didn’t have a scratch. The only thing was of course, typical RAF, having done all these daylight raids that was considered to be much easier than going to Germany and all the rest of it, which is a load of typical RAF bosh. Anyway, instead of doing thirty trips, which was enough, they made us do thirty two trips. And why? Because some boffin or other in the RAF decided that we wouldn’t just get a number of points for a trip. We would get a point in order of the trips. In other words a trip to France would only be two points. A trip to Germany would be three points etcetera etcetera. So then that is why we did thirty two trips and those two trips made me very nervous at the end. But again, I got through alright so, and as I said just now lucky enough to get onto transport command. Which is quite hairy in its own way. Shall I explain?
PL: Yes. Please do.
ETP: We used to land in Libya. Castel Benito. That was our first landing. From Castel Benito we went to Egypt. From Egypt we went to a place called Shaiba in the desert. And from Shaiba we’d land in Karachi. Which is by another name now which I’m not sure. Is it Mumbai or something like that? Anyway, that was Karachi and sometimes we went over to Calcutta. I landed in Calcutta once just before the monsoon and that was a most horrible experience. There was no water. There was nothing. But, anyway, I got over that. And of course at the time there were a lot of riots you had to be careful of particularly in Calcutta. Because as you know the Indian and Pakistan people began to riot. Mostly amongst themselves rather than to the Raj. I eventually made a trip, oh yes, that was a trip worth knowing. If I can think of the name. No. Forget that bit. I’ve forgotten it. It out in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a holiday place now.
PL: The Canaries or [pause] the Canaries or something like that.
ETP: The Azores.
PL: The Azores.
ETP: Yes. The Azores. That was rather interesting. We landed in the Azores. You had to find it. If you weren’t careful you’d miss it. Anyway we found it there and the strange thing was that as we were going in our van to the airport where we were staying for the night — the big red crosses on the doors. And of course in those days of course it was suffering from disease. Disease which I’ll think of later. Anyway, that was —
PL: Not the plague.
ETP: The good thing about the Azores, sorry is what I was, we were all to bring back all sorts of goods free of custom. Forgive me for saying but particularly silk stockings for the ladies. Anyway, there you are. That was our one trip to the Azores. And that was it really.
PL: So what were you — why were you going to the Azores?
ETP: For some, I think they had a base there for something. Partly an air force base but I think it was also an army base. And presumably went out to do food or whatever, every so often. I think we did have, yes we had, we were loaded with big crates of food and mail and stuff like that which we took back to the Azores.
PL: Fantastic.
ETP: Now, you carry on.
PL: Now, something else I wanted to, just before we move on from your, from the tour that you did was there anything else that you wanted to talk about your tour. Any particular experience.
ETP: The what? Sorry.
PL: About your tours. Your thirty two trips. Anything that you wanted to —
ETP: Well I’d like to but typically, you know, we went through the tour. Basically we escaped without a scratch but of course we had one or two nasty trips in, I think it was Castop Rauxel where the flak got us and its very frightening. I think I was in a Halifax at the time. It’s very frightening to hear all the shrapnel tinging against the side. Oh — one beautiful trip we had, if I may put it that way, was to Norway. One of the big towns in Norway. And we went from here which was England obviously and Don was Darlington sorry, well near Darlington. At Croft. And we flew at a level of I suppose about three, three thousand feet all the way. It was lovely. It was a sunny day. And you could see all the Lancasters, no, sorry they was Lancasters at the time, we could see all the Lancasters going across, and our poor bomb aimer, our skipper was a bit of a devil, said to the bomber, ‘Hey, come out here. Have a look at this.’ Well I was already looking. I could see what it was. But this devil of ours, Don, the pilot he must have been almost at sea level because you could almost see the spray coming from the propellers. Well, of course when poor old McKenzie, the navigator came out of his little hole, hut and looked out in to the sea it scared him like nothing on earth. He quickly got back and said, ‘You’re too low.’ Which wouldn’t have been much help anyway. But anyway we weren’t too low and suddenly as I say the fantastic flight and seeing everybody rise up to about ten — ten or twelve thousand feet and we bombed Stavanger or somewhere in Norway. Unfortunately, the tragedy was we, well bombed it because it had various factories and things on it but unfortunately one of the bombs and I don’t know whose, I hope to God it wasn’t ours, hit a school. One can only say It was part of war I suppose but it was very tragic. Other than that it was one of the wonderful, most wonderful trips I ever had in a Lancaster at the time. Yes, I’d love to say we were very brave and we were shot all over the place but quite frankly apart from when one aircraft, one engine failed we had a pretty good trip. Sorry about that [laughs] I’d like to think of all the others but I’d have to go through all the papers and try to think of it.
PL: No. No. That’s fantastic.
ETP: There were one or two remarks in the thing I made in the thing I made about high level of flak. Low level of flak. All sorts of things like that.
PL: So just a couple of things that I’d like to go back on that you mentioned. What are Wimpies?
ETP: [laughs] sorry. Wellingtons. My apology.
PL: Not at all.
ETP: Wimpy was taken from a cartoon in the paper showing Wimpy whatever he was and from then on of course they were called Wimpies.
PL: Fantastic. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about your, when you were in Croft what sort of things did you do in your free time?
ETP: Yes. We visited —
PL: Darlington.
ETP: Darlington. Yes. It was a very good, nice life in Darlington. Everybody was very friendly. But then I think all Yorkshire or northern people are friendly. But anyway I can remember one point we went to a cafe. And remember it was wartime. But anyway they did us well. I think we had a meal which consisted of dinner, no, what’s the first thing you have at dinner?
PL: Starter?
ETP: Starter, dinner and —
PL: Pudding.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: Pudding.
ETP: Yeah. Pudding. All on one plate [laughs] It was wonderful. Yes. I can always remember that. They really did us proud I suppose. But we did that. In general we went around. We saw York. We went to — yes we had a big ceremony at the cathedral. What’s the other cathedral?
PL: York Minster.
ETP: Yeah. York Minster but then there’s — was it —
PL: Durham Cathedral.
ETP: Sorry?
PL: Durham cathedral.
ETP: Durham cathedral. I think we had a, there was a plate put in for us. So we had various little trips like that to various places. I quite liked Darlington. It was [pause] yes but in general of course we were up in the north. And it was quite odd for the Canadians who had never been — well some had been to strange places as well I suppose. But in general I did like it there. And Croft. Well Croft was a typical out station. We had a good canteen thing there. Funnily enough, if I may say, and I hope it doesn’t upset anybody, we were with a French squadron. The Alouette. Our own squadron was the 471. The —
PL: I have it here.
ETP: Iroquois Squadron, sorry. I’ll think of it in a minute. Yeah our own squadron was the Iroquois but there wasn’t very much friendliness. There was friendliness between one or two of the people but in general there wasn’t much friendliness between the French and the Canadians. Yeah. I know they were all Canadians but you know what I mean. So, my memories, in general of Croft is going to the local farms with the young lasses. Nothing wrong with, in getting bread and onion sandwiches because there was nothing else much. And we went, you know, went out to, go off to go to a flight. We’d go along to the local farm. And as I remember two young lasses used to come in and feed us with this big hunks of bread. Lovely bread. And onion. And that got us off to a good start on the aircraft. As I say unfortunately with Croft, I’ve been around to various places — I’ll sing a song to you in a minute if I dare.
PL: Yes.
ETP: And you know I I did go around to various places and saw people but it was Yorkshire and quite honestly as a Londoner, very much, I didn’t know much of what else was going on in Yorkshire. I enjoyed what there was there but other than that. Yes. We used to sing songs. Horrible ribald songs during the time.
PL: Go on Ernie. Give me one of your ribald songs.
ETP: Dare I?
PL: Yes.
ETP: I can’t sing now. You know that. You can hear.
PL: It doesn’t matter.
ETP: Well I’ll just — it’s rather a sad one. “A flight engineer he was dying, as beneath his Lanc he did lay, to the engineers gathered around him, these last parting words did he say. Take the crank shaft out of my kidney, take the con rod out of my brain, out of my back take the cylinder and assemble the engine again.” Bom bom. Sorry about that. I told you it was a nasty one.
PL: Dear.
ETP: There was more to it than that but —
PL: Lots of black humour, lots of black humour I would imagine.
ETP: Oh very much black humour I’m afraid but that was the way it was.
PL: Of course. Of course.
ETP: We got up all the tricks you see on the films of jumping over chairs and squalor. When I — more on Transport Command. We had a lovely billet in Holmsley South. Beautiful old house. With a bar. Typical. Obviously a bar. But really when I think about it, very often on a so-called dining in night which was very formal or should have been. The bar would be swimming with beer on the floor. Everybody would be doing all sorts of tricks. Lord knows what. And then suddenly it was all stopped one day because the, what would he be, above a squadron leader. Wing commander I suppose or maybe above, came in and saw what was happening, oh no, he came in and said, ‘This much stop. You must behave like gentleman.’ And then unfortunately the squadron leader said, ‘Oh I’ll help you out, sir,’ and immediately the, he slipped over the beer and landed on his backside. Which didn’t help. After that what was called dining in nights, dining in nights were very formal. I was just lucky. Normally the lowest officer, you know, pilot officer or something would have to give the speech at the end. Thank goodness I just escaped it. Some poor little chap of a pilot officer had to give a speech. And of course they were all dressed up. Obviously we were only dressed up in our number ones but the army people would come up in their full regalia and I think the [pause] the what did they call him? Not squadron leader.
PL: Wing commander.
ETP: Wing. No. One above. Air — [pause] I’m not, anyway, let’s say the wing commander. He, he wasn’t a happy man having slipped on the beer. Oh yes. We were only allowed a sherry after that. So there we are. We became gentlemen once again. Hopefully. There we are dear.
PL: That’s wonderful. There’s two other little things I wanted to ask that are sort of personal questions really but obviously you’re, because of your nationality you — because of your nationality you’re unusual in the people that I’ve spoken to. Did you, with having an Italian name, did you experience any prejudice because of that?
ETP: Hardly any. I experienced lots more later which is, without going into it one of the reasons I changed my name. But before that? In the air force. Yes. I had one. I can remember one chap when we were all in the hut. I was only a squaddie at the time. He got a bit niggly but everybody else jumped on him anyway. So, frankly no. I never suffered any. Unless you can say, we had the typical corporals and I hated corporals in general and at that time and he [pause] what did he do? I’ve forgotten what he did now. Anyway, the corporal came in demanding something or other. So being a big head myself I said, ‘You can’t do that corporal.’ Now I was only, I think I was leading aircraftsman at the time. So naturally he stood up and said, ‘I can do what I like.’ Well, I suppose I acted as a bit of a [pause] —
PL: Lawyer. Barrackroom lawyer.
ETP: Barrackroom. Thank you and told him in no uncertain times that, God knows how I knew the names but anyway told him he couldn’t do that. So, yeah, obviously otherwise I mean I never had any trouble that I can remember. Luckily. In fact, if anything, it got me on because people you can imagine when you’re going to say about the corporal, he’d be there, we’re all on parade and he’d be saying, ‘Jones.’ ‘Smith.’ And then suddenly he’d say, ‘Ped ra zzini.’ ‘Corporal. Pedrazzini.’ ‘You?’ Because I was auburn haired, very fair, typical I suppose one could say British boy and there — Pedrazzini.
PL: Lovely.
ETP: Anyway, I got away with it.
PL: How old were you then?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: How old were you then? In 1944.
ETP: Twenty. Twenty one. Twenty. Very brave. I don’t think. Anyway, yeah, no, on the whole again I had a very good time. I was glad I went in. I was even happier because really I wanted to follow my brother so I was happier that I was a flight engineer. But as I say before that I had quite a good time. I suppose if I’d have been lucky I would have eventually become a corporal. Lord help me. But anyway, you know, I got — I eventually got my sergeant. Obviously when, you automatically got that. And then, luckily in the Canadian I got flying officer. Pilot officer and flying officer. Very brave [laughs]
PL: You mentioned, you mentioned you brother who of course you sadly lost. But you said you had two brothers.
ETP: Yes.
PL: What did your other brother do?
ETP: Jimmy? Funnily enough he was in the Savoy hotel. He was a chef. A trainee chef in the Savoy hotel. The story goes that, in fact somewhere I’ve still got a bronze medal of the competitions they did. But rumour has it that he would have got a silver or a gold medal but two chefs or two trainee chefs were on the same thing and the trainee chef allegedly overcooked or left it on and blistered the fish that my brother had. But he died unfortunately. He was only thirty one. He was very young. Shame really. My other brother was in Clapham College which was a very high college. It was a Catholic college at that time. I’ve heard some of the tricks he got up to [laughs] but I won’t repeat them. But anyway he was very good and of course he could speak perfectly French and Italian. Which was really the tragedy when he got shot down. And yes, he — I think I’ve always regretted of course losing two brothers. Although one was ten years older and one was nine years older than me. Because I suppose the gap was when my mother, when my father went back to Russia and things. I’m not sure. If you work out the dates it all looks a bit odd but anyway yeah. It was a shame really.
PL: So how did your, how did your parents meet?
ETP: Ah. Believe it or not. In the catering. There was a place in Hyde Park. A very big restaurant. And it’s still there I think. It’s a bird sanctuary and something there now. Yeah. Well way back it was one of the places to parade around. I’m talking. I mean I didn’t know them but anyway way back. My mother was a Devon lass who for obvious reasons I suppose came to London which they all did if they could and met my father. And that was how they met. My mother of course in those days immediately stopped working. And my father went on to places like Oddonino’s, the Cafe Royal. All sorts of places like that. Places I can’t even think of now. Yeah it’s quite — my brother went. He was in a very good position. As I say you may have not heard of the Embassy Club which was with the old Prince of Wales and all that lot and the [pause] it’s gone. The chap who was in India. In charge of India. British chap. Anyway —
PL: Mont?
ETP: Got it? He was killed by the IRA.
PL: Was it Montgomery?
ETP: No. Not Montgomery.
PL: No. No. I always get them muddled up.
ETP: Anyway, anyway, he was killed by the IRA.
PL: I know who you mean.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: I know who you mean.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: Yes.
ETP: All that crowd. Him. The Prince of Wales. The old Prince of Wales. They were all in that crowd. My father used to hate them because they couldn’t leave until the last one had drunk his whatever. So it was pretty rough for people in a way but anyway that was all part of it. Silly. Isn’t it?
PL: Yes.
ETP: Mountbatten.
PL: Mountbatten hurray.
ETP: Mountbatten.
PL: I’m so glad you got it Ernie. I’m so glad you got it. I was wracking my brains.
ETP: Well as you can see I have lapses. I keep telling everybody when I can’t think of something. I say, ‘I’ll give you a ring at 2 o’clock at night and tell you what it is.’ Oh dear. I’m talking too much.
PL: Moving on, moving on to after the war. After you’d finished your service what happened to you then?
ETP: I went back to Gillette’s. By the way I’d been a, what did they call it? Jack of all trades and master of none I suppose. Yeah. I went back to Gillette’s but I felt then I couldn’t get on with my learning. You know my —
PL: Your training.
ETP: You’ve got to realise a lot of people had stayed in Gillette’s and they were getting this and that. Probably me but I thought I wasn’t getting there. So believe it or not I was a grocer. Now, this was in the, a grocer when there was rationing and everything so I made money. I was with a so called friend. Unfortunately. And we had a shop and eventually we got another shop. But it just didn’t work out. And it’s rather funny, just to, not to bore you but as far as I — we used to take three hundred pound a week. Now, that sounds ridiculous now. But in those days it was and I know when I got there and it must have been my wonderful voice or something we made four hundred pound a week. Which was a lot of money. Anyway, that’s it all ended pretty tragically. So believe it or not I went back to St Thomas’ Hospital. And I was a, I suppose they’d call it a technician now. In the early days of electronics. Yeah. So —
PL: How interesting. And you, are you able to tell me about your wife?
ETP: About?
PL: Your first wife.
ETP: Yes. That was a bit unfortunate. I lived in something buildings in Lambeth and let me say first of all I should never have left the air force. That was the tragedy. And anyway, yes, she was in the army or whatever they called it. What do they call them?
PL: In the WAAF. Was she in the —
ETP: Not the WAAF. The army part.
PL: Oh sorry.
ETP: Anyway, it doesn’t matter.
PL: I can’t remember.
ETP: She was that. So I don’t know. It all went wrong soon after. We went, we went through the Blitz. I went through the [pause] she was a warden, I was, no I wasn’t a warden I was a messenger or something. I was what? Nineteen. Eighteen nineteen. We went all through that. We had a fairly happy time but it just didn’t work out. Unfortunately we had two children. Which I’ve got two children now. Well not unfortunate. One’s a vicar and one’s a vicar’s wife. So what more could I ask?
PL: Absolutely.
ETP: I’m hoping I can get a good [laughs] no. No. I mustn’t say that [laughs] yeah. So yes I don’t know what to say really. I was probably a bit of a snob. Probably. And it just didn’t work out. There was further complications to which I can’t really go into it.
PL: No. no. difficult times. Let’s move on from that because that’s your personal, personal story.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: Going back to — I’m really interested to hear about your experience during the Blitz.
ETP: During the Blitz.
PL: Yes.
ETP: Oh wonderful. I was in Lambeth as I told you. Every so often we were showered with incendiaries. We had a big church. Unbelievable. It’s still there. Most of it. With a huge tower. Have you ever been down to near Waterloo? Well if you look through Kennington Road.
PL: My son lives on Kennington.
ETP: Pardon?
PL: My son lives on Kennington Road.
ETP: Really. He must be a rich man then.
PL: He’s not. He’s in a room [laughs] anyway tell me about —
ETP: Anyway, yeah. Well, your son will know it. There’s a big tower. It was an American built tower and at the top it had stars and stripes or something. And you’ll never believe it. Our warden’s post was underneath that lot. And well, we did the usual. Every night around about 5 o’clock [brrrr] thing and we used to dive in to there. And I, as a, I don’t think I was a warden. No. I was some sort of messenger or something. And there was this steeple, the huge steeple as I say but also there was a wooden steeple and that just went up in flames one day. A bomb hit. I was in, we were all in the shelter, again ridiculous really, when you think about it. One good bomb there the whole lot would have gone. And we were there one day and we were all trying to sleep as you did. And suddenly — boom. Right opposite there was a bomb. Luckily it was a small bomb. Of course brave Mr Tillbrook, no, Mr Pedrazzini at the time, came along and a chap got up and panicked completely. I remember it to this day. I don’t know how this happened, ‘Stop everybody,’ that was me. Stopped the whole lot. Because there was quite a crowd. There was two shelters. One here and one. And that stopped. As I say other than that one of our friends or at least he was a warden at the time. An older man. He went out into the middle of the road , playing about and suddenly he was surrounded by incendiaries , yeah at the time he was sort of dancing, ‘Look at me.’ You know playing about and he said, came around. The other thing was we had a rather —
PL: What happened to him?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: What happened to him?
ETP: He was alright [laughs] he got through. We went into this so-called shelter which was only a church entrance and luckily no big bomb hit it. Incendiaries hit it but no big bomb. We were saved on the whole thing because the people — wardens and myself and things like that we were able to take all the incendiaries away. Or see that we were. Used to cover them with sand or something [laughs] terrible. And they were all up in the church there but luckily we managed to get them all and save the whole place otherwise like all the other churches around it would have gone up in smoke. St George’s Church which was my Catholic church is St George’s Cathedral actually which is just along from Kennington we thought oh this is great nobody’s been hurt during the weeks. But suddenly May the 10th my birthday we had the biggest raid. One of the last raids luckily. The biggest raid And I think every church except this one went up in flames. So I got married in the place near the church because that had gone up in flames. So, Bishop Amigo Place it was called. But that was it. Another thing — I’m not boring you with all this am I?
PL: Not at all.
ETP: Another thing was in Lambeth which I think was [pause] not like Kennington Road. The next road. Westminster Bridge Road I think. There was a, what were commonly called a doss house. You know. You may have heard of them. Which is a great place. A lot of army people used to come in from Waterloo Station. Go there for a — I don’t remember how much it cost. A few shillings a night. But forgive me for saying but one of things, every man had, what can I call it? A pee pot. Sorry.
PL: A jam jar.
ETP: I can’t think of the other name for it. A gazunder some people used to call them. And anyway, a Hermann Goering bomb landed right in the middle of the place. It didn’t explode. It imploded. And the whole place, again, I’m sorry but, I can always remember we went — it was Christmas. It was one Christmas and my brother and I had been to sleep. We thought brave boys, we’d been sleeping in the house. The old house we had. What happened there? There was suddenly a [voom]. Anyway, we got up. Couldn’t see a thing ‘til we got around the corner and there was the old doss house. Whatever it was called. Quite a big place. And I’m sorry about this but it was surrounded by pots. As I say it had imploded rather than exploded which was probably lucky in many respects and it did affect, it was called Lambeth North Station and it affected there. It was so deep. It was a big Hermann Goering thousand pound bomb or something. I’m laughing about all this. It wasn’t very funny at the time. Anyway, I was ok.
PL: So all the pots were outside.
ETP: Yeah. I don’t know why. I’ve got a picture of them all sort of —
PL: How weird.
ETP: I don’t know why it did that. Where they went, but — and for months I was in the shelter and for months after people were coming from all sorts of places asking if they knew of [pause]. And of course it was almost impossible to know who was there and who wasn’t. I think there was some sort of record when you went in but —
PL: And presumably they were all lost.
ETP: Yes. Most of them were lost. Yes. I think most of them that were in there were lost. I can’t remember anybody. Excuse me. That got out particularly. But it was all a bit hazy at the time. There we were. You know. You can imagine. We got — suddenly saw this big crater.
PL: Yeah.
ETP: Anyway, there it is. But funnily enough all around wasn’t too bad. If it had exploded it would have devastated the whole place. But it imploded. Very deep implosion. So sorry about this. I’m boring you.
PL: Did you, did you — no. It’s absolutely fascinating. Did you —
ETP: By the way, I did say your son was probably a rich man and you said he wasn’t. Do you know where I lived in Lambeth Road which is a little bit away, they want one million something for a house. God knows what we paid. My mother paid. Or father paid for it. A few hundred probably. But there you are. That’s the way it’s gone.
PL: So during that time, during the Blitz.
ETP: Sorry.
PL: During the Blitz.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: Were you afraid, were you excited? Were you. How was it as a young man being involved with this extraordinary event?
ETP: Frightening but quite exciting in its way. As I say regular thing 5 o’clock at night. Around about five. Sometimes a bit later. Sometimes a bit earlier. The old [brrrr] the old things would go and my mother, my mother racing along. And suddenly as we were racing along a bomb came down. Not that near actually. I can always remember this, my mother laid flat on the ground and I think I laid flat but whatever but nothing happened because we were much further away than we thought. In a way we were lucky around about that time because we were right near the train station. One or two nasty places but on the whole we didn’t get too bad considering we weren’t quite in the middle. I mean the middle was the east end and that place but we had — I can remember oh sorry, I mustn’t, you’re getting me —
PL: No. No. Keep going.
ETP: We went to the pub. 10th of May. Why not? In I go. With my wife at that time. We were all in this pub and [brrrr brrr] off it went. So we thought being very keen citizens we’d better go out and help and that was the 10th of May which was the worst blitz of the lot in that area. Loads of — you could stand out and see fires everywhere. So there we are. But again, being young you don’t see or take much notice of half these things. It’s all a great adventure. Sorry dear.
PL: So did you, how often did you — how often were you on duty?
ETP: Well, in effect, every night. We had the warden’s post we used to go in. The chief warden was there. He, by the way, was a communist [laughs] but anyway, yes.
PL: Is this the same one that was dancing in the street?
ETP: Sorry.
PL: Was it the same one who was dancing in the street?
ETP: Oh no. No. No. No. No.
PL: That was another one.
ETP: Oh no. No. No. No. He was a very, I think he was a, no he wasn’t a docker. He was, he had something to do with the docks. Righting something or other. No. He was a nice chap actually. No, laughing his head off like an idiot and suddenly realised he was in the middle of all these incendiaries.
PL: So you went —
ETP: He got away with it.
PL: So you worked at Gillette’s all through the day.
ETP: Yes.
PL: And then you went and did the wardening at night.
ETP: Afraid so.
PL: So when did you finish?
ETP: No.
PL: When did you sleep?
ETP: The best time was when I was with the Middlesex Home Guard with my rifle. Guarding the factory. Gillette’s. Lovely factory. And one night I was in the, not the workshop, it was the [pause] in effect it was the -- what do you call it, anyway I was there in the, we had a little office place where I used to make things. It was lunchtime and I fell asleep. Lovely. [Knock knock] next minute. ‘Did you realise you were asleep Ernie.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Why were you asleep?’ I said, ‘I’ve been up all night.’ He said, ‘Why have you been?’ It was unbelievable. Ten miles away you didn’t know a thing about what was happening. I mean occasionally a bomb would come but you really didn’t know.
PL: So where was the Gillette factory then?
ETP: Hounslow. Near Hounslow.
PL: Right. So it was sort of really that bit out of London.
ETP: Sorry?
PL: It was that bit out of London
ETP: Oh yes. Roughly ten miles out of London. Made all the difference. You still got bombs occasionally here and there. Oh what’s the name of the place? Have you been that way at all?
PL: Not really.
ETP: No.
PL: So how —
ETP: The Great West Road.
PL: Right.
ETP: Along there. Yeah. As I say —
PL: So how did you get in and out? Was there a problem getting home and out to work? How was travelling?
ETP: I used to get the train.
PL: Right.
ETP: To Waterloo.
PL: Right. So that wasn’t affected by the bombing?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: Was the train not affected by the bombing?
ETP: Not usually. Occasionally it did because obviously being in London but then if that happened I’d stay in Gillette’s. Because I used to sleep very often at night.
PL: Right.
ETP: As a Home Guard with my rifle.
PL: Right. So was that an additional job?
ETP: Hmmn?
PL: That was an additional job was it?
ETP: Oh yes.
PL: So you had three jobs. You were a warden.
ETP: Yeah.
PL: And you were in the Home Guard.
ETP: As I say more a messenger than a Home Guard.
PL: Right.
ETP: And then I went to Gillette’s and had a job and then I don’t know every day or two I was with my rifle. I even got a medal for shooting then. In Gillette’s.
PL: Goodness.
ETP: Wonderful place. Anyway, yeah, that was it. Yes, so I suppose we did have three jobs.
PL: So did you have any interesting times in the Home Guard?
ETP: Well at that time we were in Hounslow. Near Hounslow. I don’t know what, anyway, near Hounslow Barracks. The only thing I can remember. We used to do practices you know. And I can always remember one day we had an exercise with the guards of all places, of all things and there we are all night with our rifle or machine gun or whatever we had. All there in a ditch. And suddenly the guards came over. I can remember them now. They came over the top of a power [unclear] factory. Came over the top and I said, ‘You’re dead.’ I won’t tell you what he said. But he said something like, ‘Bloody well get off.’ [laughs] and that was it. No, we used to do exercises in Hounslow. And we’d do exercises at Gillette’s. But more, we used to have fire guards. Do you remember? Fire guards. Well — and we had a big tower. Gillette’s, if you can see it, had a big tower with a clock in it. There used to be an old boy in there. I’ve forgotten his name. He used to be in there at washing, and they had maps and they used to get information by telephone which way the plane was, the bombers were coming. And they used to make us sit in, and if they came to near they would sound the alarm and the whole factory would shut down. Yeah. Making thousands of blades a day. Very good.
PL: So that was, so Gillette’s. So what was Gillette’s doing? What was the factory making? Did you say?
ETP: Basically razor blades.
PL: Right.
ETP: You know every army man needs a razor blade.
PL: Yes. Absolutely. Of course. Of course. I just wondered if it had changed to other sort of war work.
ETP: Well yes it did. At one time I was making some sort of thing for an aircraft. Oh I know what it was. It was the, not the Lancaster. Not the Halifax. The Stirling. It was built like a flipping boat. Horrible thing it was. Although I’ve met some Stirling people and they’d kill me if I said that. Yeah. And it had hydraulics and things of all sorts. As far as I was concerned I thank God I never went in one. But anyway a lot of people did and a lot of people famous for it. What was I saying? Yes. Oh yes. We made parts. One of the things was a hydraulic pump thing. And of course you had to get down to minus temperatures to test it. Well, if you’ve ever seen the lark we used to get to try and get up to test this thing. I don’t think we ever did actually. But there it was so off it went. Somebody hoped it worked.
PL: So what did you do?
ETP: Pardon?
PL: What did you do? How did you do? What did you do to test them?
ETP: Well we used to have a tank with ice and everything in it. That’s as far as I can remember. We tried. I suppose nought degrees would be the maximum we could get down to. I think that may have been the test and you just hoped for the best after that.
PL: Absolutely.
ETP: They were, they were a literally, as far as I can remember they were literally built like a boat rather than like an aeroplane but that’s my opinion of it. Well, I can’t say a lot more. We made one or two things during that time in Gillette’s. Made a little, I can’t really remember. Not a lot because the main industry for them was the razor blades because as I say every personnel wanted razors. Well apart from the navy with their beards. They wanted razor blades. And they were flown all over the world. Given all over the world as well. So yeah. I loved it there. Had a good canteen. Clean. I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the factories in England. Terrible. They were. Maybe a bit better now. I wouldn’t work in them for love nor money. Yeah. But anyway there you are. That’s it dear.
PL: So one, my last question is going back to Bomber Command and being involved with Bomber Command. What did you think about how Bomber Command was treated after the war?
ETP: How we were treated generally? Well first of all remember we were pretty young. Croft, I suppose, looking at it was a bit rough. But then this was general then. I mean who had enough heat and light and all the rest of it. But other than that I had, as far as I can remember, I had a pretty good time. How were the RAF people treated?
PL: I suppose in terms, I was thinking more in terms of the perception of Bomber Command’s role in the war.
ETP: Ah. To be blunt we didn’t think of it. We had a job to do. We didn’t like the Germans and especially when he heard some of the, later when we heard some of the things they were doing. So we didn’t like the Germans. We were there to do a job. A very nervous job at times. It was only after the war, later that we saw some of the atrocities that they got up to. I think that caused us more trouble. But then of course as I say now in general in the RAF if you were in any sort of position like a sergeant you weren’t treated too badly. A bit rough at times but not too badly. I still remember that place at Darlington with that big food. No. So that was, it had the old fashioned — I say army perspective of how people should behave which got a bit lost in the end. It still got a lot of discipline which you have to have really. It was very disciplined. I know I was too good to ever get too bad but probably I deserved it sometimes. The things we got up to. I did a court martial for one chap. They were pretty rough on the, with the WAAF and the men if there was any mixing. Taboo. It happened of course. But it was very much taboo and I got caught in the — I had to go to a court martial. This chap I was unfortunate. I was there one night with the WAAF sergeant. Ooh no she was more than a sergeant. WAAF officer. And we were doing the rounds to see that everybody was behaving. And this idiot came up and tried to be funny. He was going too go out. He was going to take his girl back. Well you don’t do that sort of thing. You might like to and probably many did but you didn’t, you didn’t profess it. So of course he got caught. And I hated it. Obviously we turfed him off and the squadron leader or whatever came in and I had to do a court martial. And I think the chap [pause] have you heard of LMF. Lack of moral fibre. I think he was eventually. He was an officer I don’t know? To this day I can’t remember what grade he was but anyway he went too far. He was out. Lack of moral fibre’s an interesting one. A lot of people are against it now but in effect at the time say for instance I did one trip, or didn’t do it. Was all trained up to go and do a trip and I suddenly got nervous or too frightened. Well then you’d be — even if you were an officer, or a sergeant in particular you were taken down to nothing again. So from that point of view it was pretty tough. I can always understand it because I suppose one could say you didn’t realise what you were getting into. But on the other hand you did a lot of training. You knew something of what could happen and so you just said, ‘I don’t want to go anymore.’ And of course with all that training and everything it was LMF. Which was a bit of a fatal word. You still read about the paper about how bad it was. But to a great extent I’ve got sympathy with the fact of the hierarchy. I don’t know.
PL: And how do, how do you feel about the fact that it’s taken so long for Bomber Command to be recognised?
ETP: Sorry.
PL: What do you think about the fact it’s taken so long for Bomber Command to be recognised for its contribution?
ETP: One word. Disgusting, I suppose. Yes. We were killing people. I never thought about it on a whole. I have occasionally thought God I wouldn’t like to be down there with those poor devils. But no, you were doing a job. You were told that it was them or us to a great extent. I never really felt any conscience of bombing people. Because they were bombing us you see. So it’s a bit of a tricky one. I know some people thought very much about it after but Dresden as you know. Everybody says Dresden. Well to me that’s a farce because Dresden wasn’t just a place with pretty pictures of people and these things there. They were just as much in the war with making things as anybody else was. What do I say? I was never sorry for them but I can have sympathy with them. In other words I wouldn’t have like to have been underneath them at the time. I think it was a farce because we know, if anybody had any truth, that Dresden there was the Russians wanted to come in there with Dresden. Obviously Dresden was a place with manufacturing so it was a natural target. And of course since they were escaping from the, from the Russians they were coming across in to Germany or into the, what do you call it, coming across into the south. That’s not the word I want but anyway I think it’s unfortunate of course there were a lot of refugees as such but then again what do you do. For all you know those people that were coming could have been escaping from the German army — or from the Russian army anyway. And the Germans, German soldiers and things coming in. So it’s a bad choice I know but at the time I never even, I wouldn’t have considered it if I’d been there. I didn’t actually have to go because it had ended. The main thing. And it was only afterwards. I’m sorry I’m going on a bit. I don’t know quite what to say.
PL: No. Not at all.
ETP: I was never really let me put it this way I was never sorry and nor could I understand all this nonsense about Dresden. As far as I was concerned it was another town. Whether that town should have been hit is another matter. Anyway, that’s about it dear.
PL: Well that’s fantastic. And I guess my last question is, Is there anything else that you want to add to this?
ETP: Probably.
PL: Wonderful story that you’ve told me.
ETP: I’ve been talking too much anyway.
PL: Not at all.
ETP: I can’t really think of anything. If I think of anything else. I told you about Norway. That was one in a strange way a beautiful trip despite what happened at the end.
PL: Well that’s —
ETP: I often, I often used to look out when we were over Germany or somewhere and you would see all these flares and everything. Quite a sight if you could put your mind to looking at it. Once or twice I was brave enough to look out. The navigator and bomb aimer very seldom looked out anyway. And as I say I did a lot of bombing myself rather than the bomb aimer because in those days with the, all the new techniques and things one could do that. I think that’s about it dear.
PL: Wonderful. Well can I just end by thanking you very much indeed on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre.
ETP: I hope I haven’t gone too far with it.
PL: You’ve told us an absolutely fascinating story. Thank you very much indeed.
ETP: Thank you.
[recording paused]
PL: So Ernie having switched the recorder off you then told me a wonderful story about your father who was — and his role in the war.
ETP: Yes. My father, I was going to say funnily enough but it wasn’t funny at all. When the Italians walked in to the war a [paused] he was interned but luckily he was never taken to the Isle of Man or anywhere as most of them did. He then, imagine, with two sons in the air force my father wasn’t allowed a radio. He wasn’t allowed a bike. And he wasn’t allowed to go beyond, I think, a five mile radius. And I must tell you now against all the laws if the radio was there my brother and myself used to come in and turn on the radio because my mother wasn’t allowed either. ‘Cause she again was not allowed. She was Italian you see because of her marriage. Yeah. So finally he had no job. Some of the, oh I must be careful, some of the people in the restaurants wouldn’t allow people like my father to work, so he had no job. He had to go on the dole which he’d never been on before. I think it was still called the dole. I don’t know. Anyway, he finally got a job, sort of doing odd jobs in the big church which I — and the church was actually, not Wesleyan. I think it was either Wesleyan or something. It was an American based church. And so he got to work. He used to do odd jobs in the church and acted as warden I suppose. In his best Sunday suit, very well dressed, he used to greet the congregation and I still picture to this day, in a Wesleyan or whatever church it was greeting all the congregation with an Italian accent. I thought that was marvellous. Anyway, he was very happy for a time until a bomb hit quite near and the water gushed in and his lovely boiler which he’d got in pristine condition, a pretty old boiler, he’d got in lovely good condition he got drowned, his boiler got drowned because it was below the ground. It was drowned in this boiler room. I think he cried his eyes out with that. Anyway, eventually it was pumped out and he got back.
PL: And he did that for the whole of the, did he do that — he stayed in the same place until the end of the war. Until you came home.
ETP: No. Eventually remember the Italians gave in in 1944. Something like that. So he was able to go back into the restaurant business. Oddonino’s I think it was at the time which you may know was a big restaurant. Well not very big but was a very well-known restaurant of the time. And later on unfortunately he died of so called nephritis which is a disease of the kidney. As far as I knew he wasn’t a big drinker. He like his beer and strangely enough although he knew Italian wine like the back of his hand he used to love a pint of beer.
PL: How lovely.
ETP: Except when he was in Devon one day and at the local Crown or Cushion or whatever it was called. No, the three, four — the Seven Stars Hotel I think. A small hotel I think in [pause] anyway. In Devon. He was convinced to go in because it was so much cheaper to go and drink a pint of cider. Well unfortunately he drank two pints of cider which he thought was quite tasty and quite good. But he went to bed and sometime in the afternoon and never got up until about 7 o’clock at night. Yeah. So there. He got back into the hotel trade as I say. But at sixty five he caught and in those days of course there weren’t the same things for kidney disease and the rest of it. I think they gave him pills or something to try and cure him. Not cure him but help him and it was rather tragic. Just went on for a few months and that was the end of it.
PL: Well thank you for sharing that additional story with us Ernie.
ETP: I hope its, there’s probably more I could have told you.
PL: It adds more colour to your story. Thank you very much.
ETP: It’s a pleasure.
[recording paused]
PL: So, this is Pam Locker again making another recording with Ernie Tillbrook on the 5th of the 1st 2016. There was just a couple of additional things that Ernie was going to add to his story. So Ernie you were telling me a couple of stories about bombing. You go ahead.
ETP: About?
PL: The first one was about taking off.
ETP: Oh yes. Yeah. Oh yes. Oh dear. The most frightening time I ever had. We were coming in to land from somewhere and my dear skipper, Don, overshot the runway. So the natural thing to do was wheels up and off. Back up. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened. Whether my plug came out of my hearing or what. I didn’t hear the order to lift up the undercarriage. So we were flying very low and as far as I can remember when I was looking out the side, nervous as hell, I remember we just about went over the top of a hangar. Luckily Don was quick enough to see what was happening and pulled up the undercarriage which allowed us to just miss by feet, or even inches, the hangar. I was so nervous. Partly because I thought I’d failed. Partly because it was a frightening thing to see. I know I got out of the aircraft and wouldn’t talk to anybody for some time after. To such an extent that my crew wondered what was, wondered what was wrong with me. That’s it.
PL: Terrifying. And then the other story you were going to tell me was about the island.
ETP: Oh yeah. One of the things which, how can I put it, was exciting for me but probably wasn’t very exciting for the poor devils that were on the island. As far as I know they were a load of army personnel manning some guns which had to be destroyed because they were in the way of the Mediterranean in general. So, we all came along at about ten thousand feet. Can you imagine a great load of Lancasters all with bombs flying over this poor little island called Ile de [Cezerre?]. No. Ile de Cezembre and all I can remember is looking out over the side. Our gunner, rear gunner was having a wonderful time shooting everything he could see. And when I looked out there was a poor, what I presume was some form of army personnel running like mad trying to get away, but being bombed. With bombs falling all around him and presumably obliterating the whole island. There you are. Don’t get me too far. I’ll keep thinking of stories.
PL: Thank you very much Ernie.
ETP: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for listening.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Ernie Tillbrook
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Pam Locker
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-01-05
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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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ATillbrookEHA160105, PTillbrookEHA1603
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Pending review
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01:45:36 audio recording
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Julie Williams
Description
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Ernest Hector Angelo Pedrazzini was the son of an Italian father and an English mother. After the war he changed his name to Tillbrook. Ernie’s father escaped from a prison camp during the First World War and finding his way to Russia and employment in the pre-revolution years before escaping to Moscow and making his way back to Italy and then to his young family in England. Ernie Tillbrook was employed at the Gillette’s factory when he left school and experienced the London Blitz as a messenger before he volunteered for the RAF. He started as a mechanic before undertaking training as a flight engineer and flying operations with 431 Squadron.
Temporal Coverage
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1940-05-10
Spatial Coverage
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France
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Yorkshire
France--Cézembre Island
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
431 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
civil defence
displaced person
fear
flight engineer
Halifax
home front
Home Guard
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
military living conditions
perception of bombing war
RAF Croft
sanitation
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1001/11341/BHiltonPHiltonPv1.2.pdf
4df75a71f26ae98e9ae65a7e04afb7fd
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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Joseph, David
D Joseph
Description
An account of the resource
22 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant David Joseph (1576383, Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations, log book, memoirs, correspondence and a list of prisoners of war at Stalag Luft 4. He flew operations as a pilot with 76 Squadron from RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor until his aircraft was shot down on 18 March 1944 on an operation to Frankfurt and he became a prisoner of war. The collection also contains a letter to Mrs Ramsay about the loss of her son, Flying Officer Kenneth Ramsay and photographs of his final resting place. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Brian Joseph and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on Kenneth Grant Ramsay is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/223173/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-22
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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Joseph, D
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[Blank front page of booklet]
[Page break]
Written by Paul Hilton.
[Underlined] CHIEFY [/underlined]
On the night of 1st June, 1942, Bomber Command mounted the second of the now famous thousand bomber raids on Germany. The night before, amidst much publicity, we had taken part in the first thousand raid on Cologne, my first as Captain of a 4 engined Halifax.
All 35 Squadron (at Linton-on-Ouse) returned safely that night and we all felt that at last we were doing something positive to help the war effort.
The Germans were somewhat taken by surprise and our overall casualties were low considering the number of aircraft taking part.
On 1st June our target was to be Essen in the Ruhr valley with Krupps as the pinpoint.
Tremendous excitement and enthusiasm was general with ground crews as well as aircrews and we all attended briefing and prepared for the take off with hopes for another successful show.
In due course we were taken to our dispersal point in the usual trucks where we unloaded parachutes, harnesses, charts etc., and duly went through the run up and check procedures. We had air tested our aircraft that morning and everything was still functioning satisfactorily, so in due course form 700 was presented to ne for my signature by the LAC of our ground crew.
I signed and then with all four engines running we started the slow crawl from our dispersal point towards the end of the main runway.
We must have moved about 50 yards when one of the ground crew ran in front of us furiously waving two torches. I pulled up smoothly, strict RT silence of course, and soon someone shouted up through the front escape hatch “return to dispersal.” We managed to turn the heavily laden Halifax and return, where I was told to switch off engines. Flight Sergeant (Chiefy) McKay, a dour little Scot then appeared and told us we had a glycol leak in our port inner engine. How did he know?
[Page break]
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He said he could smell it. He had just happened to be walking behind our aircraft when he caught a whiff. No doubt, we couldn’t go.
I was furious, how long to fix it. Not tonight, too bad.
The rest of the Squadron were all taking off and disappearing into a black sky, and soon all was quiet. We trooped back disconsolately to the Sergeants Mess feeling very dejected and sorry for ourselves. Once again, our Squadron operated without loss, only this time we had missed out.
On reflection, however, we would almost certainly have lost that engine either during take off or very soon afterwards and the thought has often gone through my mind, would a 20 year old pilot with just 400 hours in his log book have coped with an aircraft full of fuel and 6,500 lb of HE and incendiary bombs. I know I would have tried a landing had we managed to get airborne, but who knows.
I can’t remember if I thanked “Chiefy” for almost certainly saving us. I don’t think I ever bought him a drink in the Mess. If he is still around I should like to do it sometime. You see we didn’t have much time, we were shot down the next night, so perhaps it didn’t matter much after all.
[Page break]
[Underlined] Gone for a Burton [/underlined]
Early in May 1942 I returned to my old station “Linton on Ouse” in Yorkshire, where I had previously served with 58 Squadron on Whitley Vs. I had been with “58” from October 1941 until they joined Coastal Command at St. Eval in Cornwall early in April 1942. At this point I elected to convert to Halifaxes at “Marston Moor” near York and managed to get posted back to Linton where I joined 35 Squadron.
With 58 I had survived the winter as a second pilot, sitting helplessly in the right hand seat for five operations and in March had successfully completed the customary two “Nursery Trips” as Captain.
During May I was crewed up and together we did a number of cross countries and other details working up towards the big thousand bomber raids starting with Cologne on 30th May.
Both my parents lived in Seremban, Malaya and with the entry of Japan into the war, they had been forced to make their way with other Europeans to the Island Fortress of Singapore. The surrender stunned us all and I had anxiously awaited any news of my parents whereabouts.
I had lived through the winter at Linton and had no illusions as to our chances of survival on Bomber Command. Both 58 and 35 had had their share of losses. Of the course of six pilots at Driffield just after Christmas on a blind approach procedures course, I was by then the only survivor.
Singapore had fallen in February and the chances of either of my parents reaching safety by now seemed somewhat remote but with the complete lack of news there was nevertheless a remote chance that one or the other might still turn up.
I thought in that case, particularly my mother might need some financial assistance which would ultimately be my responsibility. If I was around, I would be able to arrange a dependant’s allowance, but in my absence, this might be a bit difficult.
[Page break]
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I decided to seek the advice of the Squadron Accounts Officer and had an interview with the Flying Officer Assistant i/c Accounts. He listened to my unusual story and was obviously at a loss to comment. He was used to straightforward questions with answers neatly tabulated in his little book or covered by the syllabus of his Chartered Accountants examinations and seemed reluctant to pass this on to higher authority. He paused for a while and then at last drew himself up in his chair and with great deliberation said, “Well Sergeant, if you are afraid of going for a Burton, why don’t you make a will?
My total assets, £25 in the Post Office Savings Bank and a broken down Austin 7 in the car park, seemed unlikely to be much help in the support of either parent for any length of time and I felt that further discussion was unlikely to lead anywhere so I thanked him kindly and took my leave.
I intended bringing the matter up with “Welfare”. I believe we had someone in that capacity, or more to the point, Wing Commander Marks or my flight commander, Sq.Ldr. Peveler. I knew either of these two would have raised the roof, but I determined to await an appropriate moment.
I had often wondered what “gong for a burton” was really like and very soon on the night of 2nd June I found out.
Incidentally, neither of my parents were in need of any help I could have given them. My father stayed the whole time in Changi Jail, Singapore, but Mother nearly made it. She was on board one of the last ships to leave Singapore, the “Vyner Brook”, a small coastal steamer loaded with refugees which was bombed off the south east coast of Sumatra. Mostly women and children, they were all interned in camps at “MuntoK” and “Palembang” where more than half of them, including my mother, succumbed to the rigours of malnutrition and tropical diseases.
Bomber Command crews had a slim chance of survival whilst actually flying but once we became “Kriegies” (POWs), thanks to a comparatively civilised enemy and thank God also for the Red Cross, most of us lived to tell the tale.
[Page break]
[Underlined] Curse my luck. [/underlined]
Not many of us fighting on the Allied side ever thought we would welcome the sight of advancing German troops. In my case, I reckon they arrived just in time to save my life.
I was pilot of a “Halifax” returning from a raid on Essen in the Ruhr valley on the night of 2nd June, 1942 when we were unfortunately jumped by three JU 88 night fighters. It was a clear night with a full moon, our exhaust flames must have been clearly visible for a considerable distance and the fighters soon made short shrift of both our inner engines. Our two gunners put up a spirited fight despite the unequal battle between out 303 rifle bullets and the enemy’s canon fire, but the action was inexplicably broken off, leaving us limping homewards on our two outer engines.
We were just sorting ourselves out when alas our starboard outer developed an internal glycol leak, whether it was overstressed or due to enemy action we shall never know, but this meant the end and I had to give the inevitable order, “Bail Out”.
We were a bit low by then and when my turn came, the thought of ditching on what looked like a patch of swamp or water seemed my best chance. I turned off course towards this area but very soon found this to be ground mist obscuring a row of trees and some houses. Too late, I was on the point of a stall and mushed into a house. The starboard wing was ripped off at the root and the remainder of the aircraft spun around in a flat cartwheel through 180 degrees. I was in fact thrown backwards in my seat.
I must have been unconscious for a second or so as when I came round, the port outer engine had just caught fire. I then had a violent struggle with the escape hatch over my seat. It moved at last and then I managed to crawl out onto the top of the fuselage and jump down onto the port wing. The dinghy was inflating and I just had enough presence of mind to grab the package of iron rations as I passed.
[Page break]
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My first reaction was to get clear as quickly as possible, there were still several hundred gallons of high octane too close to the burning engine, so I started running towards the cover of the trees I could see almost alongside in the moonlight.
I ran between two of them and was just about to go along the road that they were bordering when there was a piercing scream of “Halt” from right behind me. Almost immediately I was prodded with a viscious [sic] jab from a rifle muzzle in the small of my back.
A terrified lone German sentry had just escaped being hit by the Halifax which by now was nicely ablaze and too darned close for safety. My captor didn’t seem to be aware of our imminent danger and continued prodding and screaming in a hysterical manner. I wondered where his trigger finger was. The safety catch would certainly be off and guns, I was always taught, were dangerous and shouldn’t on principle ever be pointed at anyone. My greatest fear was that he would let the darned thing off by accident. He was so excited that anything could happen. He might do it on purpose, “The Englishman started to run”, no one would disbelieve him. Perhaps his family had been bombed in Cologne three nights before. Such thoughts raced through my mind. The fire was getting hold of the port wing and I knew all those gallons of high octane were bound to go up at any moment. Any minor explosion would make him jump and pull the trigger inadvertently. The prodding and screaming continued, how long could this last, my all too short twenty years seemed almost over. A pity, I had so much to experience and done so little. This was the moment of truth. I felt so helpless and had no control of the situation and this was when I really knew what fear was. I was hot but the sweat running down my back was cold. A minor bang, one of the outer wing tanks had blown up and another prod. I was still there, but how long could this go on. Suddenly a torch shone in the distance and I heard some shouts and saw another torch. Fortunately my sterical [sic] captor saw and heard them too, and the tension began slowly to ease, eventually after what seemed an eternity, I was surrounded and someone had the sense to move us all away to a safer distance. Just in time, the main wing tanks went up with a muffled roar and we could all feel the blast of heat. My original captor melted into the background. I never even saw him but could hear his excited story being related in the distance.
[Page break]
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I stood for a while with my liberators and we watched the remains of the Halifax burning furiously. A fearsome sight, one I hope never to get too close to. I remember one of the troops found my parachute harness and “Mae West” life jacket which I had dumped in the field in my haste and I was then led off to the local barracks. I was later to find out this was in St. Leonard near Brecht in Belgium, right in the middle of an intense curfew area, literally crawling with German troops.
I was taken inside and led to a standard German army double tier bunk bed, complete with wood wool palliasse, a type I was to get to know so well over the next three years. I suppose I must have been suffering from a certain amount of shock as I lay down, boots and all and went out like a light.
I didn’t have time to curse my luck at having been shot down, but later I came to realise that far from being unlucky I had in fact survived a whole succession of miracles in the short space of less than half an hour.
[Page break]
[Underlined] FOR YOU THE WAR IS OVER [/underlined]
By now we were some way inside Germany en route from Cologne to Frankfurt in a corridor type railway coach. We were free to wander along to the toilet and our three guards had completely relaxed. They undid their belts and left their revolvers lying on the seats. After one visit to the toilet I actually sat for some time on one of these weapons and only moved off because it was somewhat uncomfortable.
I was dressed in the usual clothing, battledress, submarine sweater and, of course, the inevitable flying boots, the old green canvas type, fur lined, in which one shuffled along as if wearing oversized carpet slippers. The thought of being able to walk any distance, let alone run from a train in broad daylight, was quite out of the question.
When first captured in Belgium the story was quite different. I was pounced upon within minutes of stepping from the blazing wreckage of the Halifax, and the local German army unit and the Feldgendarmarie kept a very close watch on my every movement. They handed me over to the Luftwaffe in Antwerp airport who continued the process. Sitting on a toilet seat looking at a jackboot keeping the door open is an unforgettable experience and quite puts one off the job in hand.
Our guards on the train were flying types, one Feldwebel (Sergeant) and two Obergefreighters (sort of Corporals). One spoke a little French and with him I tried to carry on something of a conversation. I learned he was a Navigator and had recently seen service on the eastern front. He and his comrades would get a couple of days leave near home after escorting us to Dulag Luft, the reception and interrogation centre at Frankfurt.
The time was early June 1942. The Germans were at the height of their success. Tobruk had recently fallen and their troops were at their furthest points in the Caucasus. Our position was not encouraging. Singapore had
[Page break]
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fallen only four months previously, but we still endeavoured to keep up the appearance of high spirits, even though we knew we were in for a long wait. Sooner or later the obvious remark had to come. My navigator friend grinned from ear to ear and said, “For you the war is over”. I smiled back and said, “Yes, aren’t we lucky, but for you it has not yet started.”
[Page break]
[Underlined] GOOD APPETITE [/underlined]
We always called him Cyril. This wasn’t his real name but that of the chap with whom he had swopped identities. I was one of the large mob of new Kriegies brought in to Luft 3 Sagan just after the thousand bomber raids on Cologne and Essen in May and June 1942. We were housed in 39 and 40 Blocks, but somehow a few old Kriegies from Lamsdorf, the big Army Stalag, had been pushed in with us. Most of the batch from Lamsdorf were swop overs.
When Goering decided to bring all the RAF Kriegies together at Sagan, quite a mixed bag was collected and Cyril was one of these. What his real name was I have quite forgotten. It was unpronounceable. He was from Israel, ‘Palestine’ in those days, and he had served in the British Army, Military Police I think, and was captured in Greece. I believe he was born in Riga but had emigrated to Palestine when quite young. He already spoke a number of languages, Russian, Polish, German, French and, of course, Hebrew and Yiddish. Only English seemed to have escaped him and so, finding himself among British soldiers was a blessing in disguise. He soon set about the task of learning the best of English with all the necessary Anglo-Saxon descriptive adjectives. When I knew him these were apt to get somewhat out of context, especially when he got excited, with comic results.
I an effort to learn better English he decided to swop identity with an RAF navigator. As a private soldier he had to go out on working parties and at Lamsdorf many RAF sergeants swopped over to get out of the camp with the obvious possibilities of escape.
At Sagan, Cyril made the best [sic] use of the library, such as it was, and was soon one of the best read among us. I was also trying to learn German and Cyril was always a great help. He had a great sense of humour and was able to tell a joke against himself.
[Page break]
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English, it would appear, is about the only language that does not have an expression equivalent to “Bon Appetite” or “Guten Apetit”. We only have “Cheers” or “Bung Ho”, or some other equally fatuous expression before we drink, but, alas, nothing before we eat. Whilst in his early days at Lamsdorf, Cyril was endeavouring to say the right thing to his British Army comrades and one day noticed one of his friends just about to start on a bowl of soup. He quite naturally made a literal translation of “Bon Appetite” and said, “Good appetite my friend”. His friend stopped short, looked up and said, “What do you mean ‘Good Appetite’? Of course I have a ****ing good appetite!”
[Page break]
[Underlined] 40 HOMMES 8 CHEVAUX [/underlined]
It would be interesting to know just how many thousands, nay, millions, of troops, prisoners, internees and others have travelled, some on their last journeys, in this famous four wheeled French rail wagon in both the last two wars. I can well remember our trips from Heydekrug (East Prussia) to Thorn and later from Thorn to Fallingbostel during the summer of 1944.
The side doors were opened wide and each end was crossed off with barbed wire spread over wooden frames. A small door or gate was built in for access.
Three guards occupied the central area, about one third in total, and 24 prisoners were confined to each end. Space was somewhat limited and we all lay heads to the outside with a pile of feet in the middle. No toilets were provided. On long trips prisoners had to wait until the train stopped and were then allowed out in batches to operate in the countryside. The two trips I remember were relatively short and there were no stops for calls of nature, however, during daylight we were allowed singly to come through our little holes in the wire and pass water along the line through the side door, hanging on to the vertical rail on the side of the wagon.
I recall the journey from Thorn to Fallingbostel was by night and at first light the queue started. This became a verbal process among us and my turn was some way down the line, by which time I was nearly desperate and had built up a good head of steam. At last it came and I scrambled through the hole and clung on to the vertical rail with my right hand, with my left I feverishly undid the remaining metal trouser buttons (they were always popping off, no zips in those days), and started literally groaning with relief.
At this point or shortly before, the train had been slowing up and to my horror (I was still a bit embarrassed), I saw that we were slowly approaching a level crossing on the outskirts of a German village. About
[Page break]
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thirty citizens of Hitler’s Reich were patiently waiting to cross and I passed slowly by, just out of reach, still in full spate.
I noticed no reaction from my hosts, so I can only assume that they were used to being shown respect by their captives in this manner. Needless to say, my embarrassment soon passed and I enjoyed my unique point of vantage. I even had an almost uncontrollable urge to give a Nazi salute which I thought would be appropriate, but of course, my right hand was fully occupied in holding on to the rail at the side of the door. A pity, I felt this would have completed the performance.
[Page break]
[Underlined] “Welche Nummer” [/underlined] (What Number)
There are few more morale shattering sounds than that of a heavy cell door shutting behind you and the bolt going clonk in the lock. There is something positive and very final about it and it gives one a feeling of complete helplessness. There you are, it’s no good banging on the door, no one will take any notice.
It was early autumn 1943 in Stalaf [sic] Luft 6 Heydekrug in East Prussia near the Baltic coast. One particular morning an unusual number of ‘Ferrets’ (security troops) in dark blue overalls with all their tools had descended on our barrack block. They were proceeding to turf us out and to tear the place apart. I don’t know what they were looking for, a tunnel perhaps, but they meant business. In the initial confusion we were all milling around and I happened to be close to a table where a lot of the tools had been laid, hammers, crowbars, jemmys, saws, screwdrivers and a large pair of pliers. I took a fancy to the pliers and when no one was looking they quickly disappeared into my trousers pocket. Unfortunately, when I grabbed them they were open and in my haste they clicked shut. One of the Ferrets heard this, looked round and started asking his friends whether any of them had picked up his pliers. I took this as a cue to get lost and started to saunter out of the block. I looked for anyone I knew to off load but before I could get a dozen paces away out of the door I was grabbed and hauled up before the security officer, Major Peschel. He growled something which I suppose meant “Lock him up”, and there I was in the so called “Cooler”.
The cell was six feet wide and nine feet long. It had a double bunk bed with a complete set of boards but no palliasse, a stool and a metal jug for water. The tiny barred window had a “Lichtfanger, a wooden partition on the outside allowing a view of sky or a small area immediately beneath the window.
I sat down on the stool for a while to assess the situation. I was there for I knew not how long, so I supposed I had better make the best of it. I was allowed to send a note into the camp for a few things,
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tooth brush, razor, knife, fork and spoon, and a couple of books. One was a German Grammar which I was steadily ploughing through. Now here was a chance, I could really get some useful work done and might even get some help from my jailers.
There were about half a dozen other inmates in the twelve cells and one soon learned how to make contact and to know the ‘drill’ or mode of life. The legendary W/O John Snowdon was already there doing one of his numerous stretches, so advice was readily available.
The cooler was a rectangular building with only one entrance. The guard room was just inside the door. A corridor with six cells on either side had a toilet at the far end. I forget what type and a fire bucket of sand near the toilet served as a post box. Only one inmate was allowed out at any one time apart from the half hour daily exercise when we walked around in a large circle, well spaced apart.
When you wanted to visit the toilet you knocked on your door. The duty guard would come out of the guardroom and shout “Welche Nummer” to which you had to reply (in German of course) the number of your cell. In my case “Sieben Bitte” (seven please). He would then say “Komme sofort” (coming) and go back and fetch the key to your cell. He would then have to hang around while you operated, no doors or partitions, and when complete lead you back to your cell and by then someone else might be waiting to take their turn.
The cooler was outside the main compound but in the so called “Vorlager” an outer area but still within the main outer barbed wire fence. Our own medical officer had pronounced the cooler water unfit to drink so we had to have bottled water from the main camp cook house. To this was added milk and sugar and tea or coffee. It was understood that the guards helped themselves which was allowed for at the cookhouse. Food was another problem. We were supposed to be on bread and water with one day of normal food in every three. Sometimes if the guards were willing. A prisoner on his good day would be sent in enough food to feed the others as well. It depended on the guards. There were two shifts of 24 hours each with an “Unterofficier” (Corporal) and two or three men.
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One of these shifts I remember well. We didn’t see much of the Corporal, but I got to know “Bruno”, a thick set chap with closely curled hair and “Franz”, a tall, gangling, untidy type with spectacles somewhat out of line. He had no pretensions as a soldier. It wasn’t for the sake of cigarettes or any other form of bribery but Franz and Bruno both wanted a quiet life and seemed to respond to common courtesy. Impatient inmates who shouted abuse and banged on their cell doors generally had to wait while those of us who “cottoned on” got the best service, or at least the best of what was going. As I was trying to learn German I was soon learning all the best polite phrases and making good progress through my grammar book.
As the cooler emptied somewhat (the population was always fluctuating), the service improved. We dropped to about three inmates and by then Franz used to knock on my cell door first thing in the morning and I would say “Come in” and Franz would hand me my coffee in bed. With a cheerful “Guten Morgen Herr Hilton” we would converse for a while, any news, the weather etc. We both seemed to know instinctively that this was the sensible way to behave. It cost nothing and generally made the best of a bad job. We were not alone in this. At another time in the same cooler I heard tell of a German guard trying to learn English who was taught to say “Good morning, Sir. Your coffee, Sir.” I never managed that, but to both Franz and Bruno I was always Herr Hilton, even though they were both considerably older than I. But alas, all good things come to an end. One night the Heydekrug tunnel broke and unfortunately only five or six managed to get away, the remaining thirty odd being dug out and pushed straight into the cooler with us.
Chaos reigned for a day with up to four to a cell until all were documented and the majority sent back to the main camp to await their turn for the customary sentence of fourteen days.
For the rest of my time in the cooler we stayed two to a cell. No more coffee in bed and I was now subjected to a companion who talked incessantly.
One had to wait ones turn, quite a long time on occasion, for the inevitable trip to the toilet. On one of these poor Franz quietly apologised to me for the deterioration in the service, but hoped I would understand.
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[Underlined] The Hero’s Return [/underlined]
Appearances do seem to have a marked effect upon the way one is treated through life and the healthy, robust figure usually commands respect. The invalid or under-nourished, on the other hand, has often to struggle to keep his place in society and to attract any attention.
I had just returned from Germany after three years as a P.O.W. I was one of the first batch to be released and we had gone through the RAF reception depot at Cosford rather before they were ready for us. Although they had done a surprisingly good job, they had nevertheless omitted to order enough badges of rank so the first of us, mostly Warrant Officers due to automatic promotion, were sent home on leave in Airmen’s tunics and greatcoats with no badges on our sleeves. Not that we cared much for that but these things seem to make a difference in a somewhat class conscious society.
I was released early in April 1945. Most of our camp were marched eastwards towards the River Elbe, but because I had spent most of the winter in our camp hospital with a chronic form of bronchitis and a bout of pneumonia thrown in, I was left behind in our camp hospital. My 6ft. 2 inch bone structure was carrying an all up weight of about eight stone with a “Belsen Horror” like expression to match. RAF Cosford clothing stores had done their best, but I was never an easy one to fit anyway.
I left Cosford on leave with new kit but also as much of my old kit as I could manage to salvage which had survived the delouser. I think we were done at least three times, clothes and all. DDT was squirted up sleeves and trousers with reckless abandon until I was quite raw in many sweaty and tender areas.
I passed through London and deposited my considerable collection of kit at the Services left luggage office on Victoria Station. I wanted to visit the hairdresser in the catacomb under the station. A haircut was long overdue, “these things were important then”.
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I settled in the chair for the first proper haircut for some considerable time. I thought that this was also a special occasion and I would be having to kiss a number of female relatives within the next two hours or so, so on completion of the haircut I suggested a shave. The barber stroked my 23 year old chin contemptuously with the back of his hand and said, “You don’t need a bloody shave.”
To this day I have still never had a shave at a barber’s.
I crept back to the left luggage office and started to load up my two kit bags and haversack only to hear a loud Australian voice, which could be heard halfway across the station, “Why don’t you hang your ( ) out mate”, a well known coarse service expression meaning if you load up like a horse why not dress like one.
In the compartment of the train to Haywards Heath I was obliged to listen to the sad tale told by an ATC officer of a young clerk who had recently been jailed for masquerading as a Wing Commander, complete with DSO’s, DFC’s etc., and who had given thrilling lectures to factory workers and ATC squadrons. It was considered by all to be a huge joke and such a pity the poor lad was jailed. The authorities certainly lacked a sense of humour.
I am afraid I couldn’t comment. I had known too many real ones, mostly now dead, and if anything I felt sick. I crouched further into my featureless greatcoat and when we arrived at Haywards Heath I loaded myself up again like a horse and crept quietly home.
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[Underlined] CORNED BEEF [/underlined]
I had just arrived back from Germany and was unpacking my kit. Apart from being equipped with new clothing from Cosford, a specially organised reception centre for ex-POWs, my belongings were meagre. I had a half kit bag of new gear and a small army rucksack which I had acquired just before leaving Thorn the previous August.
I took out the few items brought from Germany, tin mug, fork and spoon, toothbrush etc., and a small tin, 1/2lb I believe, of Corned Beef. I can’t remember when I first got hold of this tin, sometime during the last autumn when Red Cross stocks were still available. These petered out during the winter and we had been subject to very small issues for some time, leaving us on German non-working civilian daily rations, i.e. 400 gm bread, margarine and jam to cover this, and about 1/2 litre thin swede soup (pea soup Sundays).
Being a careful sort of chap I usually had a few odd bits left over, a small tin of jam but not much else. Once opened, a tin of meat had to be eaten and I had managed to hold on to the corned beef for the last emergency. I remember eating one in the cattle truck ride from Thorn to Fallingbostel, digging the meat out with my pocket knife and gnawing at a piece of hard bread. My reactions were to do that again, but I then thought ‘Why, here I am back home in civilisation, I can’t behave like that now’, so I took the tin downstairs to the kitchen and handed it to my aunt.
I was staying with my father’s two sisters, one was married with a daughter a little older than myself. Despite the war time shortages, my relatives always kept up appearances and did their best to live in proper style. The next lunch time was no exception.
The highly polished dining room table was, as usual, set with place mats and lace doilies. The sub [sic] shone on the cut flower vase and the two sparkling cruets. Each place set with two, or was it three, knives, forks,
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serviettes in silver rings, the lot. Salad was the order of the day with the usual salad creams, vinegar etc., and then, somewhat to my surprise, a large plate was produced upon which stood in solemn state, a small naked piece of corned beef. My long treasured tin had been breached at last.
My uncle, an engineer, took great pride in his ability to carve and was always meticulous in the sharpening process. I remember this day he paid particular attention to a long corrugated knife which he then used with great dexterity on the tiny lump of corned beef. Wafer thin slices soon started to fall to one side and at last these were dealt out rather like cards.
At this point my cousin came into the room and exclaimed, “Corned beef, Mummy! Where did you get that?”. “Paul brought it”, was the prompt reply. Here my other aunt joined in, an ex-nursing sister and sometime deputy matron with a voice and manner to match, “Paul brought it! Good heavens, we haven’t seen corned beef for months.”
Like most ex-POWs I was suffering from so called “withdrawal symptoms” and I was quite unable to add anything to the conversation. My throat contracted and it was some time before I was able to swallow. My thoughts at this point were ‘What’s the use.’ I soon forgot this incident and only remembered it about ten years later when I was able to regard it with some humour.
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[Blank back sheet of booklet]
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
Flying Stories by Paul Hilton
Description
An account of the resource
Nine accounts of flying activities during the war.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
'David Joseph's son Brian met Paul Hilton in the 1980's through work, and he was wearing a prisoner of war tie. In conversation it became clear that Paul had some common experiences with David's, and a meeting was arranged. They had been in the same camps and on some of the same forced marches, had many common memories, but had never previously met.'
Creator
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Paul Hilton
Format
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20 typewritten sheets
Language
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eng
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Essen
Belgium
Belgium--Antwerp
Poland--Toruń
Lithuania--Šilutė
Germany
Lithuania
Poland
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
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Pending review
Identifier
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BHiltonPHiltonPv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
35 Squadron
58 Squadron
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
dispersal
displaced person
Dulag Luft
fear
ground crew
Halifax
Ju 88
prisoner of war
RAF Cosford
RAF Driffield
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Marston Moor
Red Cross
sanitation
shot down
Stalag 8B
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/192/3573/AJahnichenW180314.1.mp3
9c173e93f2f85dfff4ecb6704a84ed55
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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Jähnichen, Wolfgang
W Jähnichen
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Wolfgang Jähnichen, a survivor of the 13 February 1945 Dresden Bombing. He recollects various episodes of the firestorm and elaborates on the legitimacy of the attack within the context of the bombing war.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-14
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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Jähnichen, W
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PS: Bevor wir anfangen, bitte ich Sie folgende Fragen zu beantworten, damit wir sicher sind, dass dieses Interview nach Ihren Wünschen sowie den Bedingungen unserer Sponsoren gemäß registriert wird. Sind Sie damit einverstanden, dass dieses Interview als eine öffentlich zugängliche Quelle aufbewahrt wird, die für Forschung, Erziehung, online und in Ausstellungen verwendet werden kann? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ja.
PS: Danke. Das dieses Interview unter einer nichtkommerziellen Creative Commons Attributionslizenz, die mit den Buchstaben CC-BY-NC dass heisst das sie nicht für kommerzielle zwecke benutzt werden darf, das dieses Interview öffentlich zugänglich gemacht wird? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ja.
PS: Danke. Dass Sie als Urheber und Author des Interviews anerkannt werden? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ja.
PS: Danke. Sind Sie bereit, der Universität das Copyright Ihres Beitrags zur Verfügung zu stellen, damit es zu jedem Zweck verwendet werden kann, und sind Sie aber dessen bewußt, dass es nicht Ihren moralischen Anspruch beeinträchtigen wird, als Urheber des Interviews identifiziert zu werden, dem Copyright, Design und Patentsgesetz 1988 gemäss? Ja oder nein?
WJ: Ehm, ich habe eine Zwischenfrage.
PS: Ja.
WJ: Auf welche Universität bezieht sich das?
PS: Das ist die Universität Lincoln, in England.
WJ: Ist das eine private Universität oder eine staatliche?
PS: Das ist eine staatliche Universität.
WJ: Ok, ich bin bereit, ja. Die Antwort lautet ja.
PS: Danke. Ich füge noch hinzu dass, ich kann Ihnen noch zusätzlich eine E-mail schicken mit weitere Informationen zum Projekt, auch ein Link zu dem Projekt, es gibt schon ein Besucherzentrum und das Archiv wird in einen Monat, knapp einen Monat online [unclear].
WJ: [coughs] Ok.
PS: Ich bitte sie jetzt um fünf Minuten, fünf Sekunden, sagen wir,
WJ: Zeit.
PS: Nein, Schweigen damit der Techniker.
WJ: Ja. Alles klar.
PS: Gut, jetzt, also fangen wir an. Dieses Interview wird für das International Bomber Command Digital Archive durchgeführt, das an der Universität Lincoln angesiedelt und vom Heritage Lottery Fund finanziert wird. Der Interviewer ist Peter Schulze, der befragte ist Herr Wolfgang Jähnichen. Heute ist der 14 März 2018. Wir danken Herr Jähnichen dass er bereit ist, sich interviewn su lassen. Ehm, also, Herr Jähnichen, wenn Sie mir erstmal von ihren früheren Leben erzählen können, wo Sie geboren sind und aufgewachsen, Ihrem Elternhaus, die ältesten Erinnerungen die Sie haben.
WJ: Ja. Ich bin 1939 in Dresden geboren und dort auch aufgewachsen und haben in einen Einfamilienhaus in Dresden Gruna gelebt und habe bei diesem, in diesem Einfamilienhaus auch den Terrorangriff der Britischen Air Force vom 13 Februar 1945 persönlich miterlebt und sehr gut in Erinnerung. Ich bin dann ausgebombt worden, bin anschliessend dann zur Schule gegangen, habe an der Internatsschule des Dresdner Kreuzchores mein Abitur gemacht, Altsprachlich, Latein und Griechisch, habe dann in Hannover auf der Technischen Hochschule studiert Bau- und Verkehrswesen, war dann persönlicher, persönlicher Referent des Vorstandsvorsitzenden der Hamburger Hochbahn, anschliessend Gründungsgeschäftsführer einer Tochtergesellschaft der Rheinischen Bahn, die sich mit U-Bahnbau beschäftigt, war dann Abteilungsdirektor Verkehroberfläche der Hamburger Hochbahn und gleichzeitig Betriebsleiter und Sicherheitsbeauftragter und war bis zu meiner Pensionierung Geschäftsführer der Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe und in Personalunion des Mitteldeutschen Verkehrsverbundes. Anschliessend bin ich dann, anschliessend bin ich dann selbstständig als Berater von grossen und internationalen Verkehrsunternehmen tätig gewesen und derzeit bin ich ehrenamtlich in sieben Tätigkeiten da. Ich bin Vorsitzender einer grossen Deutschen Partei in einer Stadt mit 50,000 Einwohnern, bin dort Fraktionsvorsitzender, gehöre der Stadtverordnetenversammlung an, bin President eines Rotary-Clubes, bin Mitglied des Vorstandes der Deutschen Ingenieure VDI, bin Lesepate in einer Grundschule auf dem Wedding mit ausschliessich ausländischen Schülern und bin Mitglied vieler vieler andere Gemeinnütziger Gesellschaften, ich hoffe Ihnen damit genügend gesagt zu haben.
PS: Ich wollte vielleicht ein bisschen zurück gehen auf Ihr früheres Leben. Ob Sie mir eben ein bisschen von Ihrem Elternhaus erzählen können, in welcher Umgebung Sie aufgewachsen sind.
WJ: OK, ich bin, ja, ja, ich bin 1939 am zweiten August geboren und mein Vater war Rechtsanwalt, Dr. Hans-Georg Jähnichen, Fachanwalt für Steuerrecht. Und mein Vater wurde, als ich noch nicht ganz zwei Jahre alt war, zum Militär eingezogen und ist dann erst 1948 aus Russischer Kriegsgefangenschaft wieder zurückgekommen. In der Zeit von 1939 bis ‚45 habe ich in Dresden Gruna gelebt, in einem Einfamilienhaus bei meinen Grosseltern mit meiner Mutter und wir sind dort ausgebombt worden am 13 Februar 1945. Über verschiedene kleinere Orte sind wir dann bis zum Herbst, bis November 1945 da überall mal untergekommen und haben dann in Dresden Trachau 1945 im November eine Wohnung bekommen und dort habe ich gelebt bis zu meinem Abitur 1957, was ich an der Internatschule des Dresdner Kreuzchores altsprachlicher Zweig gemacht habe, mit acht Jahre Griechisch und vier Jahre Latein, umgekehrt, acht Jahre Latein, vier Jahre Griechisch.
PS: Wie war die Stimmung zuhause, also wie war, sagen wir, die Wahrnehmung der damaligen Zeit und des Regimes zu hause?
WJ: Ich stamme aus einer Familie die Sozialdemokraten sind, bei Ihnen würde man Labour sagen. Mein Grossvater war in dem Hitlerreich rausgeflogen weil er Sozialdemokrat war, hat dann im Hitlerreich Wiederstand geleistet. Meine Grossmutter hat mich beispielsweise im Kinderwagen gefahren und unter der Matratze hat sie Flugblätter gehabt und die hatt sie da illegal verteilt. Und mein Grossvater hat Wiederstand geleistet zusammen mit der Bekennenden Kirche, das ist eine Art der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, die sich von den Deutschen Christen unterschied, zusammen mit Kommunisten, zusammen mit Zeugen Jehovas und also Wiederständlern. Mein Grossvater hat dann 1945 die Sozialdemokratische Partei in Dresden mitwiedergegründet und hat dann das Buch weggeschmissen als es in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone zur Zwangsvereinigung von Sozialdemokratischer Partei und Kommunistischer Partei kam mit der Begründung, es kann nicht richtig sein dass die Kommunisten die Ziele und die Sozialdemokraten die Massen stellen. Daraufhin wurde er von den Kommunisten als Sozialfascist bezeichnet, das hat er nie überwunden, mit denen hat er selbst Wiederstand geleistet und deshalb bin ich in meiner Kindheit immer antikommunistisch erzogen worden, aber auch antifaschistisch. Antikommunistisch erzogen worden, Ich war nie Mitglied der Jungen Pioniere oder der Freien Deutschen Jugend, das sind die Jugendorganisationen der Kommunisten in Deutschland.
PS: Was, Ihr Grossvater hat nicht im Ersten Weltkrieg gekämpft.
WJ: Nein, da war er freigestellt, er war Stadtbaudirektor in Dresden.
PS: Was machte Ihre Mutter?
WJ: Meine Mutter war, hatte Gesang studiert und war Gesang- und Oratoriensängerin.
PS: Welche Erinnerungen, habe Sie irgendwelche Erinnerungen als kleines Kind vor dem,
WJ: Terrorangriff. Mein Vater war im Krieg, ich bin bei meinen Grosseltern und meiner Mutter gross geworden. Ich habe in Dresden gelebt, einer Stadt die bis zum 13 Februar ‚45 nie in Kriegsgeschehnisse einbezogen war. Lediglich im Oktober 1944 hat es mal einige ganz kleine Bombenabwürfe gegeben und da kann ich mit entsinnen da sind wir da aus Sensationslust hingeströmt und haben gesehen dass vier oder fünf Häuser kaputtgegangen sind, das war im Oktober 1944. Ich bin dann anschliessend mit meiner Mutter durch die Innenstadt gefahren, wir waren in der Frauenkirche, die ja auch in England sehr gut bekannt ist durch das Kreuz von Coventry und wie gesagt ich war ein wohlbehüteter Junge der, dem es relativ gut ging mit Aussnahme der politischen Überzeugungen und meine Grosseltern haben immer, da kann ich mich auch entsinnen, meine Grossmutter ist eine gebürtige Amerikanerin gewesen die dann einen Deutschen geheiratet hat und in Deutschland gelebt hat, die hat immer verbotenerweise, wir haben als Kinder gesagt, den Bum-Bum Sender gehört, das war BBC London, und das war in Deutschland verboten, da stand die Todestrafe drauf, sie hatt’s trotzdem gehört und ich durfte das als Kind nie wissen.
PS: Was, wie lebte man zu der Zeit, also, haben Sie Erinnerungen von den anderen Kinder, waren Sie in Kontakt mit anderen Kindern?
WJ: Ja, ich habe eine Sandkastenfreundin gehabt, die im Nebenhaus gewohnt hat. Wir haben in der Kriegszeit natürlich alles nur aus Lebensmittelmarken kaufen können aber es ging uns nicht schlecht, wie gesagt, wir wurden allerdings durch die Hitlerpolizei bespitzelt weil meine Grosseltern Sozialdemokraten waren. Wir mussten uns sehr aufpassen. Ich kann mich noch entsinnen, ich habe immer, wenn ich jemandem traf Guten Tag gesagt und man musste damals ‚Heil Hitler‘ sagen und das haben wir in unserer Familie nie gesagt. Und da ging ich mit meiner Mutter mal in Dresden spazieren oder einkaufen und da haben wir gegrüsst und da habe ich gesagt: ‚Guten Tag!‘. Und dann fing dieser Nationalsozialist an über meine Mutter herzufallen, ich war wie gesagt fünf Jahre, um zu sagen: ‚Frau Jähnichen, der Wolfgang, das ist mein Vorname, der muss doch den Deutschen Gruss sagen, ‚Heil Hitler‘ und so. Jedenfalls ich kannte das überhaupt nicht weil wir zuhause immer eben nur Guten Tag gesagt haben. Ich will damit nur mal unsere Einstellung zu dem Faschistischen Staat sagen.
PS: Welche andere Erinnerungen haben Sie an die Zeit?
WJ: Ich habe Erinnerungen dass Dresden eine wunderschöne Stadt war, mit vielen Flüchtlingen, die aus dem Osten gekommen waren, und zwar Anfang des Jahres 1945, als die Rote Armee, di Sowjetische Armee dann nach Ostpreussen und nach Schlesien kam, hatten wir in Dresden, Dresden ist eine Stadt gewesen damals 600,000 Einwohner, die hatte damals im Anfang 1945 statt 600,000 Einwohner eine Milion Einwohner, da waren viele Vertriebene, die aus den deutschen Ostgebieten gekommen sind. Es war eine völlig unzerstörte Stadt, wir haben im Krieg nie etwas erlebt bis dann der schlimme Bombenangriff vom 13 Februar 1942, 1945 kam. Das war ein Dienstag, ein Fassnacht oder Faschingsdienstag, ich kann mich entsinnen, ich war als Indianer verkleidet, wie man eben als Kind da so geht, und meine kleine Sandkastenfreundin war als Prima Ballerina verkleidet und wir haben sehr schön mit einander gespielt. Sind dann jeweils von einander unabhängig abends so gegen, was weiss ich, so gegen zwanzig Uhr zu Bett gegangen und ich wurde dann gegen einundzwanzig Uhr aus dem Schlaf gerissen, geweckt, weil Bombenalarm war aber ich nehme an da werden Sie extra noch Fragen dazu stellen.
PS: Ja, können Sie mir das eben jetzt so erzählen?
WJ: Ja, das kann ich Ihnen gerne sagen. Wie gesagt das war völlig neu für uns, wir hatten nie Bombenalarm in Dresden, das galt so quasi als der Luftschutzkeller Deutschlands, und die Sirenen heulten und ich wurde geweckt und wir sind in den Keller gegangen. In dem Keller, da waren wir drinnen ungefähr von einundzwanzig Uhr bis zweiundzwanzig Uhr dreisig, ohne das etwas passiert ist. Es gab ja mehrere Angriffe in Dresden, der erste Angriff war zwischen einundzwanzig Uhr, was weiss ich, zehn und einundzwanzig Uhr vierzig, so in dieser Zeit, da ist uns nichts passiert. Wohl aber ist die Wohnung meiner Eltern, in der wir nicht mehr wohnten, weil da Flüchtlinge aus Berlin drin waren, die ist total zerstört worden aber das hat uns relativ wenig tangiert denn wir wohnten bei meinen Grosseltern im Einfamilienhaus. Und dann, mein Grossvater war Stadtbaudirektor in Dresden, und er hörte dass die ganze Innenstadt brennt und das furchtbare Zerstörungen in Dresden sein sollen. Und dann, das habe ich nur so gehört von meinem Grossvater, passiert war in dem Stadtteil, in dem ich gelebt habe zum ersten Angriff nichts. Aber es kamen dann gegen Mitternacht, es kann auch ein Uhr gewesen sein, ein zweiter Angriff und diesen zweiten Angriff da wurde auch unser Haus getroffen, wir waren dann auch abermals in den Keller gegangen. Und dann meine Grossmutter war dann mal rausgegangen mitten in diesen Alarm und da sagte sie: ‚Unser Haus brennt! Unser Haus brennt!‘. Und dann sind wir fluchtartig aus dem Haus heraus, das Haus hatte eine schönen, grossen Garten. Und dann hatte ich so eine nasse Decke um, das hatte man damals so, und meine Grossmutter war neben mir und dann kamen Tiefflieger und diese Tiefflieger schossen auf uns. Das habe ich genau gehört und gesehen. Die flogen ganz ganz tief und sie schossen aus, entweder Maschinenpistolen oder Maschinengewehren, das weiss ich nicht. und da rief meine Grossmutter, mein Spitzname war damals Mell: ‚Mell, schmeiss dich hin!‘, da habe ich mich hingeworfen und da zischte es und da hatte ich mich auf Phosphor geworfen. Mir war aber deshalb nichts passiert weil ich eine nasse Decke um hatte aber es zischte, meine Grossmutter hat mich sofort wieder hochgezogen so dass mir also nichts passiert war. Offensichtlich hatten die Engländer auch Phosphor abgeworfen oder Phosphor Bomben abgeworfen und auf so eine Phosphorstelle hatte ich mich geworfen. Als dieser Bombenangriff dann zu Ende war, vielleicht eine halbe Stunde oder sowas dauerte das, die erste viertelstunde waren wir ja noch im Keller und dann brannte das Haus, dann waren wir draussen, sind wir aus der brennenden Stadt geflüchtet. Und ich kann mich entsinnen dass ich mit meiner Mutter und meinen Grosseltern über die Strassen gegangen bin und ich musste dann, wirklich im wasten Sinne des Wortes, über Leichen gehen. Die Strassen waren voller Leichen und wir sind dann in einen Vorort von Dresden, vielleicht zwanzig Kilometer zu Fuss geflüchtet und sind dann bei völlig fremden Leuten untergekommen. Meine Tante, die auch mit im Haus wohnte, konnte nicht da mitkommen, die hat dann am nächsten Tag erlebt, aber wie gesagt, das habe ich nicht erlebt, das habe ich nur durch Erzählen von Ihr, das gegen Mittag des 14 Februar, so gegen dreizehn Uhr, ein Angriff, aber nicht der Royal Air Force sondern der American Air Force stattgefunden hatte, als das brennende Dresden nochmals bombardiert worden ist. Und bei dieser Gelegenheit ist das Wahrzeichen der Stadt, die Frauenkirche, die jetzt wieder aufgebaut worden ist, auch in Schutt und Asche versunken.
PS: Wenn Sie noch etwas hinzufügen, können Sie auch ruhig frei weitersprechen.
WJ: Na das sind, ich bin dann, wir sind dann geflüchtet in ein Vorort, sind von ganz fremden Menschen aufgenommen worden und ich war so verstört als fünfeinhaldjähriges Kind, ich habe 14 Tage kein Wort mehr gesprochen. Meine Mutter hat schon gedacht ich hätte irgendwie einen geistigen Schaden, ich habe 14 Tage kein Wort mehr gesprochen. Mir geht’s heute noch so, wenn Sirenen heulen, läuft mir ein kalter Schauer den Rücken runter. Und ich werde den Geruch des brennenden Dresdens nie aus meiner Nase heraus bekommen, ich werde diese Zeit in bis zu meinem Tode werde ich immer daran denken, das war das bis dahin für mich schlimmste Erlebnis meines Lebens. Und habe an diese Zeit ganz ganz traurige Erinnerungen weil ich praktisch aus einem geborgenen Einfamilienhaus wo wir recht gut gelebt haben trotz des Faschismus, der natürlich schlimm war, da gibt es gar keine Frage, wir mussten also, nur das habe ich als Kind nicht so gemerkt, aber meine Grosseltern, meine Mutter mussten sich immer vor den Nazis vorsehen, das sie nicht angezeigt wurden. Wie gesagt, meine Grossmutter hörte immer BBC London und das war natürlich verboten. Und aber wir haben in dieser Zeit in der andere deutsche Städte, ich denke Hamburg, Berlin, das Ruhrgebiet, Köln und wie auch immer schon zerstört waren, war Dresden nichts, alles intakt. Und erst am 13 Februar 1945 kamen diese schlimmen Angriffe, erst der Engländer und dann der Amerikaner. Ich bin mir bewusst, aber erst, natürlich erst nachdem ich in der Schule war, dass diese Gewalt, die da gegen die Zivilbevölkerung von Dresden ausgeübt worden ist seitens der British Air Force und der American Air Force darauf zurückgeht das Hitlerdeutschland den Krieg angefangen hat und das Hitlerdeutschland auch vorneweg Coventry und Rotterdam, nur mal um zwei Beispiele zu nennen, auch bombardiert hat und das dort ebenfalls Engländer beziehungsweise Holländer ebenfalls gestorben sind und ein ähnliches Schicksal erlitten haben, wie wir es dann, oder wie ich es dann 1945 erlitten habe. Ich sehe deshald den Krieg als eine ganz ganz schlimme, deshalb bin ich auch Sozialdemokrat, eine schlimme Sache an und werde aber nicht hingehen und sagen: ‚Nur die einen sind Schuld, nur die anderen sind Schuld‘, beide sind Schuld, aber den Krieg angefangen haben die Nazis, die natürlich noch viel viel schlimmere Verbrechen auf ihren Kerbholz haben. Ich denke beispielsweise daran dass jeder der Mosaischen Glaubens war, verfolgt und getötet wurde. Mein Vater hatte beispielsweise, er hat, er war Jurist und war mit vielen Juden befreundet und die gingen dann alle im Laufe der Naziherrschaft weg und ich kann mit entsinnen dass meine Mutter mit mir in der Strassenbahn in Dresden fuhr und da durften, das muss ‚42 gewesen sein, durften Juden noch mitfahren, mussten aber auf den Paron stehen, also durften sich nicht auf Sitzplätze setzen. Und da hat meine Mutter, als Solidarität, mit mir sich zu ihren Jüdischen Freunden gestellt und ist ebenfalls nicht in den Wagon hineingegangen sondern hat auf den Paron gestanden und hat mir dann, ich wusste gar nicht warum das ist, hat mir das erklärt was man diesen Jüdischen Mitbürgern für schlimme Sachen seitens der Naziregierung antut.
PS: Ja, ich wollte, wir kommen dann zu einiger dieser Themen wieder zurück, ich wollte jetzt zurück gehen zu einigen Sachen die Sie mir früher erzählt haben.
WJ: Ja bitte.
PS: Zum Beispiel der Luftschutzkeller.
WJ: Ja.
PS: Können Sie mir erzählen, wo war dieser Luftschutzkeller, wie hatten Sie Zugang, Sie und andere Menschen, wie hatten Sie Zugang zu diesem Luftschutzkeller?
WJ: Das war ein Einfamilienhaus und der Keller war als Luftschutzkeller deklariert, das war ein ganz normaler Keller. Wir sind aus dem, wir haben gewohnt im Erdgeschoss und der Ersten und Zweiten Etage und, als dann dieser Bombenalarm kam, sind wir in den Keller gegangen. Und, ja, und da hörten wir immer es krachen, und da Bomben fielen aber wir wussten natürlich nicht wo das war und dann ist ich glaube meine Mutter mal rausgegangen und hat mal geguckt, und hat dann gesehen dass das Haus über uns lichterloh brannte, so dass wir dann aus dem Luftschutzkeller herausgekommen sind, nicht durch die kleinen Luftschutzkellerfenster sondern noch über das Treppenhaus, das heisst, es brannte das Haus nur in der ersten Etage und in der zweiten Etage. Wir sind also noch während des Angriffes, sind wir noch aus dem Haus herausgekommen.
PS: Da gab es keinen Luftschutzwart, der euch hineinließ?
WJ: Es gab mit Sicherheit einen Luftschutzwart der spielte nur keine Rolle. Denn, es war, natürlich musste damals jedes Haus eine Luftschutzeinrichtung haben aber bei uns im Einfamilienhaus war das der ganz einfache Keller. Das hat der Luftschutzwart mit Sicherheit schon einmal begutachtet aber das war ein ganz normaler Keller eines Einfamilienhauses. Und wir sind nicht, weil der Luftschutzwart da irgendwie etwas gesagt hatte, in den Keller gegangen, sondern weil die Sirenen heulten.
PS: Hatten Sie, erinnern Sie sich ob Sie Angst hatten im Luftschutzkeller oder ihre Mutter?
WJ: Ja, ich hatte furchtbare Angst weil dieser Keller ja nur diese kleinen Kellerfenster hatte. Und ich habe richtige Angst gehabt, wenn ich durch diese Fenster raus muss komme ich da überhaupt durch, habe ich eine Riesenangst gehabt. Aber, wie gesagt, ich musste nicht über diese Fenster heraus sondern ich bin ganz normal über die Kellertreppe zur Haustur heraus aber das Haus über uns brannte schon.
PS: Und auch Ihre Mutter hatte Angst oder?
WJ: Mit Sicherheit aber wer hat damals nicht Angst? Das war ja, Sie müssen sich vorstellen Dresden war eine Stadt im Gegensatz zu Hamburg, zum Ruhrgebiet, zu Berlin, die noch nie einen Luftangriff erlebt hatte. Für die Hamburger, so blöd es klingt jetzt, Herr Schulze, war das schon Routine, weil die Berliner hatten praktisch alle zwei Tage so einen Luftschutzangriff, die gingen routinemässig schon in den Keller. Ich kann Ihnen auch sagen, Dresden hatte keine Luftschutzbunker, im Sinne von Hochbauten, wie sie beispielsweise in Berlin und in Hamburg heute noch anzutreffen sind aus Beton, das gab es alles in Dresden nicht. Dresden war eine unbefestigte Stadt. Ich kann mir nur deshalb vorstellen dass Dresden, dass man Dresden bombardiert hat, aus zwei Gründen. Erstens, es war ein Verkehrsknotenpunkt und alles was aus dem Osten kam, aus Breslau [coughs] und Königsberg in Richtung Westen und Süden ging über Dresden. Es war also ein wichtiger Verkehrsknotenpunkt. Zweitens, man wollte die Moral des deutschen Volkes brechen. Man muss fairaweise sagen dass viele Deutsche dem Hitler zugejubelt haben und diese Angriffe, die natürlich Terrorangriffe waren, da gibt es gar keine Frage, aber diese Angriffe sollten auch die Moral der Deutschen brechen, die ja teilweise noch bis kurz vor Kriegsende dem Hitler zugejubelt haben [coughs], man darf ja nicht vergessen dass viele deutsche, wie gesagt, wir gehörten nicht dazu, den, doch den Nazis nahestehend waren.
PS: Konnen Sie mir etwas von den, Sie haben vorher von den Tieffliegern gesprochen.
WJ: Ja, wir kamen aus den Keller raus, das Haus brannte lichterloh, es war also hell obwohl es abends so, nachts so gegen eins war, also es war nach Mitternacht, da man sah alles genau, das Haus brannte, die Nebenhaüser brannten, also es war nicht dunkle Nacht. Es war natürlich dunkle Nacht, aber durch die Brände war natürlich alles hell. Und dann sind wir in den Garten gegangen weil unser Haus brannte und, das habe ich Ihnen gesagt, da kamen die Tiefflieger und da haben wir uns hingeworfen und diese Tiefflieger und das weiss ich definitiv haben auf uns geschossen. Die wissenschaftlichen Forscher sagen: ‚Nein, das ist nicht so‘. Ich kann es aber wirklich bezeugen, dass die auf uns geschossen haben [mimics the noise of a machine gun]. Und das kann nur von oben gekommen sein denn es gab ja keine Panzer und keine Infanterie. Das waren Schüsse, ich kann Ihnen nicht sagen ob es ein Maschinengewehr oder eine Maschinenpistole war, das weiss ich nicht, aber es waren Maschinenschüsse, Maschinengewehrschüsse und die konnten nur von den Flugzeugen kommen weil es ja keine, keine Kampfhandlungen auf der Strasse gab, es gab ja keine Panzer und dergleichen mehr die da irgendwie da in Dresden einmarschiert sind, das ist ja erst, das war ja dann erst die Russen am 7 Mai 1945, aber wir sprechen ja über den 13 Februar.
PS: Sie haben mir auch von Ihrer, sagen wir, von der Erfahrung mit den Phosphorbomben gesprochen.
WJ: Womit bitte?
PS: Mit dem Phosphor.
WJ: Phosphor, ja. Ich habe, da müssen irgendwelche Phosphorbomben abgeworfen worden sein, die allerdings nicht das, also mit Sicherheit hat unser Haus gebrannt dadurch dass Phosphorbomben geworfen worden sind, aber nicht alle Phosphorbomben haben das Haus getroffen. Es sind auch im Garten Phosphorbomben da gefallen, da so genau kann man die ja auch nicht zielen, die sind ja aus grosser Höhe gekommen. Und auf so eine Phosphorbombe habe ich mich hingeworfen weil die Tiefflieger kamen, das heisst also die Phosphorbombe muss schon eher aus grosser Höhe abgeworfen worden sein, ein Teil der Phosphorbomben haben das Haus getroffen, ein Teil nur den Garten. Und auf diese Phosphorbomben die im Garten gefallen waren, auf die hatte ich mich hingeworfen und das zischte und da hat mich meine Grossmutter zurückgezogen und mir ist deshalb nichts passiert weil ich rein profilaktisch eine nasse Decke hatte. Es zischte nur furchtbar, ich habe damals als fünfeinhalbjähriger gar nicht gewusst was Phosphor ist, das haben mir dann erst, haben mir meine Grosseltern und meine Mutter erst erzählt. Ich habe nur gemärkt es zischte und meine Grossmutter hat mich sofort geschnappt und hochgezogen. Aber wir haben uns deshalb hingeworfen weil die Tiefflieger kamen. Ich kann mich auch entsinnen dass wir regerlrecht die Kanzel gesehen haben. Die müssen in einer Höhe, was weiss ich, von fünfzig Meter oder so etwas geflogen sein, aber wie gesagt auf die fünfzig Meter möchte ich mich nicht festlegen, denn ich war damals ein Junge von knapp sechs Jahren und kann das nun nicht so genau schätzen aber es waren Tiefflieger, ich habe die Cockpits gesehen. Und wir sind daraus beschossen worden, nun weiss ich nicht ob wir aus dem Cockpit beschossen worden sind oder aus dem Heck, das weiss ich nicht. Aber wir sind von diesen Tieffliegern beschossen worden. Und zwar mit so, mit Feuerstössen [mimics the sound of the maschine gun] also nicht nur irgendwie mal einen Schuss und so etwas.
PS: Jetzt wo Sie sich an diese Episode erinnern,
WJ: Wie bitte?
PS: Jetzt wo Sie sich an die Vergangenheit erinnern, kommen Ihnen bestimmte Bilder von Gebäuden vor, oder?
WJ: Ja, ja, ich werde nie vergessen wie, also ich kenne natürlich unser Einfamilienhaus im unversehrten Zustand und wir haben ja dann anschliessend in Dresden gelebt und Dresden ist ja erst, zehn Jahre später hat man angefangen wieder Dresden etwas aufzubauen in der Stadt. Die ersten zehn Jahre nach Kriegsende war Dresden eine reine Ruinenstadt in der Innenstadt. Es gab in der Innestadt quasi kein intaktes Haus mehr, in den Vorstädten ja aber in der Innenstadt die Strassenbahn fur durch, im Anfang konnte die Strassenbahn gar nicht fahren, das ist klar, weil ja die Trümmer überall lagen, aber dann nach ungefähr, nach sagen wir mal vierzehn Tagen, drei Wochen fuhr dann die Strassenbahn wieder aber die ganze Innenstadt war ein einziges Trümmerfeld. Und ich kann mich auch entsinnen, wie auf den Altmarkt, der Altmarkt ist der Hauptplatz von Dresden, ich glaube drei oder vier Tage später, Gerüste aus Stahl aufgestellt worden sind wo die Leichen verbrannt worden sind. Man, wir hatten damals als ich Kind war gehört das es in dieser einen Nacht in Dresden 35,000 Tote gegeben hat, neueste Berechnungen haben gesagt es sind nicht 35,000 sondern 25,000 gewesen aber Sie können sich vorstellen und es spielt jetzt keine Rolle ob 25 oder 35,000 Tote da sind, das die lagen ja überall rum und die wurden dann am Altmarkt da aufgestapelt, das war alles abgesperrt und wurden dann dort, ich sag mal, wie ein Freilichtkrematorium dort verbrannt und die Asche dieser dort verbrannten ist dort auf den Heidefriedhof in Dresden in ein Massengrab beigesetzt worden. Jedes Jahr findet am 13 Februar in Dresden eine Gedenkveranstaltung an die Toten des 13 Februar statt, auf dem Friedhof. Leider wird diese Gedenkveranstaltung von der AFD, das ist eine rechtsextremistische Partei, dazu genutzt um hier Stimmung gegen England und gegen die Alliierten zu machen. Natürlich war das nicht schön was da passiert ist, das war ganz ganz schlimm aber diese heute stattfindenden Demonstrationen vergessen immer dass es Deutschland war, was den Krieg angefangen hat.
PS: Also jetzt wollte ich Sie auch nochmal, eben zu diesen Thema wollte ich Sie eben fragen,
WJ: Ja bitte.
PS: Haben Sie noch etwas hinzuzufügen über Ihre, sagen wir, Ihre Ansichten, wie Sie das jetzt, ehm, wie Sie das jetz heute sehen? Zurück auf die Zeit eben.
WJ: Ich, Ja aber da hat sich nichts geändert denn ich komme aus einer Antifaschistischen Familie. Wir haben immer gewusst dass Hitlerdeutschland den Krieg angefangen hat. Und das was uns passiert ist haben wir Deutsche anderen Völkern auch angetan, so das man nicht hingehen kann, das man sagt: ‚Das ist die Schuld der Engländer oder der Amerikaner‘, das ist genauso unsere Schuld die wir als deutsche den Krieg angefangen haben. Wissen Sie, ich bin als Deutscher stolz auf unsere deutsche Vergangenheit, auf Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller, aber ich muss mich auch dazu bekennen, das eben auch es Deutsche waren, Verbrecher waren die den zweiten Weltkrieg ausgelöst haben, die Juden verbrannt haben, alles das, dieses Unrecht ist ja damals von deutschen Boden ausgegangen. Das darf man nicht vergessen bei dieser ganzen Sache. Natürlich ist das ganz ganz schlimm was passiert ist und deshalb sag ich, ich bin ja jetzt ein Mann von achtundziebzig Jahren, desshalb wende ich mich ganz aktiv gegen die Machenschaften der AfD und anderer rechtsradikaler Parteien in Deutschland.
PS: Ich wollte Sie noch fragen, Ihre Erfahrung als Ausgebombter,
WJ: Ja.
PS: Gibt es eine Verbindung zwischen, ehm, hat Ihre Erfahrung als Ausgebombter eine wichtige Rolle gespielt für Ihre Ideale, für Ihre, sagen wir, politische Ideen, gibt es eine Verbindung?
WJ: Ja. Nein, nein, da nicht aber als wir ausgebombt waren, da waren wir natürlich Menschen zweiter Klasse. Das heisst also wir haben keine Wohnung gehabt, wir, es gab ja auch nichts zu kaufen. Wir haben da rumgeirrt, sind dann in der Umgebung von Dresden in einem Kinderheim untergekommen, das heisst ich habe vielleicht ein halbes Jahr oder ein dreiviertel Jahr überhaupt kein Zuhause gehabt, wir haben da mal im Kinderheim geschlafen, mal dort geschlafen, erst dann haben wir durch Zufall eine Wohnung wieder bekommen. Dann natürlich war man als Kind dann, ich sag mal, neidisch auf die die nicht ausgebombt waren. Aber ich bin ja durch meine Eltern immer so erzogen worden, wer Sturm säht, wer Wind säht wird Sturm ernten. Das heisst also, dass hier man nicht von einer Schuld sprechen kann, näturlich ist es für mich schwer zu ertragen oder halte ich es für falsch dass Ihre Queen den Harris ausgezeichnet hat, das halte ich für eine sehr schlechte Art, das ist das einzige was ich den Engländern regelrecht übelnehme. Weil der Bomber Harris das alles angeordnet hat, dass er das machen musste, habe ich Verständnis aber ihn dann noch dafür auszuzeichnen, das halte ich für schlimm gegenüber den Opfern die durch diese Bomber zu Tode gekommen sind. Wie gesagt, den Grund weshalb die Bomber nach Deutschland gekommen sind, der Grund ist in Deutschland zu suchen, das ist richtig, aber trotzdem halte ich es für falsch wenn man so jemandem, der wirklich darauf ausgesehen hatte, drauf abgesehen hatte, die Zivilbevölkerung zu töten, nicht irgendwie ein General Montgomery und so, Hochachtung dafür gibt’s überhaupt nichts, aber der Harris hat ja bewusst die Bevölkerung, das war natürlich eins der Kriegsziele, das muss man sagen, den auszuzeichnen, halte ich für schwer, einen schweren Fehler den die Queen gemacht hat. Wie gesagt, Hochachtung vor Montgomery, Hochachtung vor Winston Churchill, gibt’s überhaupt gar keine Frage, der eine als Militär, der andere als Politiker, haben sich völlig korrekt verhalten. Aber diejenigen die dann diese schlimme Vernichtung der Zivilbevölkerung befohlen haben, die noch auszuzeichnen, dass sie das machen mussten, dafür habe ich auch Verständnis, aber sie noch auszuzeichnen, sie zu adeln, das halte ich für einen ganz ganz gravierenden Fehler den die Queen gemacht hat oder genauer gesagt, den die Berater der Queen gemacht haben, in dem sie die Queen animiert haben, den Harris auszuzeichnen. Dass er seine Arbeit machen musste, dafür habe ich Verständnis, aber ihn dann noch auszuzeichnen das halte ich für falsch. Das wäre dasselbe, als würde man im Mittelalter einen Henker auszeichnen, ein Henker der musste seine Arbeit machen die, die Richter haben das so aufgeordnet, der wird aufgehängt, und der Henker hat das machen müssen aber da wird doch nie jemandem auf den Gedanken gekommen sein, den Henker auszuzeichnen. Also das ist für mich ein ganz ganz schwerer Fehler ihrer Queen gewesen. Die Auszeichnung. Bitte, ich habe vollstes, vollste Hochachtung vor Montgomery, beispielsweise vor Churchill, vollste Hochachtung und das ist auch einen geben musste, der diese Befehle ausgeführt hat, wie Harris, auch dafür habe ich Verständnis, aber ihn noch auszuzeichnen, der wirklich die Bevölkerung da getötet hat, nicht ermordet hat, getötet hat, das halte ich für schwer, einen gravierenden Fehler. Aber ich will nicht derjenige sein, der im Glasshaus sitzt und so tun, als hätten die Deutschen nicht ebenfalls gravierende Fehler gemacht. Natürlich, auch das, nur Sie haben mich gefragt nach meiner Erinnerung.
PS: Gut, also ich, ich würde jetzt Schluss machen.
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Title
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Interview with Wolfgang Jähnichen
Description
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Wolfgang Jähnichen recollects being a five-year-old boy in Dresden at the time of the 13 February 1945 bombing. Gives a vivid account of the attack and recounts various episodes: the time spent with his mother in the cellar used as air raid shelter, being strafed by aircraft, incendiaries, corpses piled up and cremated in the Old Market Square, and the city flooded by refugees. Describes growing up in a socialist environment mentioning different anecdotes: resisting the regime within the Confessing Church, subversive propaganda leaflets, and listening to Radio London. Discusses the political exploitation of the bombing today and criticises the knighthood bestowed on Arthur Harris, comparing the decision to knighting a medieval hangman for just doing his job. Elaborates on the bombing, dubbed as ‘terror attack’, but stresses German responsibility in starting the war. Mentions Coventry and Rotterdam, emphasizing how civilians supported he regime until the end of the war. Describes how the attack shocked and caught everyone off guard because it was completely unexpected, unlike cities like Berlin and Hamburg where air raids had become part of everyday life. Stresses how Dresden was considered an open city, unprepared and undefended. Gives two justifications for the bombing of Dresden: it was a legitimate target as transport hub and the the operation was intended to beak German morale - he was so shocked that he didn’t utter a single word for two weeks. Remembers hardships and homelessness at the end of the war. Tells how the stench of burning Dresden still haunts him, and the sound of the siren still sends shivers down his spine.
Creator
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Peter Schulze
Date
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2018-03-14
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Format
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00:51:44 audio recording
Language
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deu
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Germany--Dresden
Temporal Coverage
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1945-02-13
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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
Conforms To
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Pending review
Identifier
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AJahnichenW180314
anti-Semitism
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
childhood in wartime
civil defence
displaced person
evacuation
home front
incendiary device
perception of bombing war
shelter
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/694/22598/BBarrettRBarrettRv1-part1of2.2.pdf
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/694/22598/BBarrettRBarrettRv1-part2of2.1.pdf
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Title
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Barrett, Raymond
R Barrett
Description
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30 items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Raymond Barrett (1924 -2017, 1863228 Royal Air Force) a memoir, diary, documents and photographs. He served as an engine mechanic in North Africa, Italy and India.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Raymond Barrett and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-05-15
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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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Barrett, R
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[underlined] MY OVERSEAS SERVICE [/underlined]
[underlined] PART 1. [/underlined] [inserted] – 5 [underlined] 2 [/underlined] [/inserted]
BY
[underlined] R. BARRETT [/underlined]
[page break]
The Writer trusts that readers of this book will associate many of the instances described with their own experiences during war time service.
This book is dedicated to all service men and women of [underlined] ALL [/underlined] nationalities who left their homeland never to return, during the period of the Second World War.
[page break]
There is not one word of fiction in the following pages.
This book is just the simple story of one person who spent part of his life overseas and which is similar to how thousands of other airmen spent their lives in the very different countries during the war.
[page break]
[inserted] PART I – PAGE 1 – 25 – 94
- II PAGE 26 – 84 [/inserted]
[underlined] MY SERVICE OVERSEAS [/underlined]
How well I still remember that morning of Thursday the 15th of July 1943.
It was pouring with rain when I awoke that morning to do my last minute packing. After parading with my kit outside the billet, myself along with the other fellows in the same billet were marched to the Astoria Theatre where we joined hundreds of other airmen who had come from other billets in the town. After forming up in our respective drafts, each draft in turn were then marched out of the Theatre and along the sea front. Although we whistled cheerfully as we marched along, I expect everyone of those fellows were wondering what the future held in store for them. One could hardly feel happy knowing that you are spending your least few hours on English soil and carrying a heavy pack on your back, wearing webbing and ammunition pouches containing 50 rounds of rifle bullets and over one shoulder carrying a large kit-bag and a rifle on the other one.
By the time we reached Morecambe [deleted] from the [/deleted] [inserted] PROM [/inserted] Railway Station I was feeling utterly miserable, my back was aching and the kit I carried seemed to weigh twice as heavy as it did when I left the theatre, and as it had poured with rain continuously since I had set out, my great coat was soaking wet and rain drops kept dripping off my hat on to my nose, this was annoying me in itself. All I can say is how would you have felt under those conditions, luckily my other kit-bag had been sent on the day before, if I have had to carry that one as well I should have staggered on to the platform. At the entrance of the station I was met by Betty where, with tears in our eyes, we had to say a hurried goodbye.
As we marched on to the platform to board one of the long troop trains that were waiting for us, we were each given a bag of rations to eat during the rail journey. Each bag contained sandwiches, cake, fruit, mars bars etc.
I was very much relieved when at last I had got myself settled in a compartment along with my kit which took up twice as much room as myself. It was a good job there were only four of us to a compartment as we filled it as it was.
I had my last glimpse of Morecambe at approximately 9.30 a.m. I think I shall remember that view for a lifetime. I had my head out of the carriage window waving to Betty with tears streaming down my cheeks. I was very lucky having someone to see me off. Most of the other fellows contented themselves by poking their tongues out at the S.P.S. [inserted] (SPECIAL POLICE) [/inserted]
cont’d…..
[page break]
- 2 –
Then came the view of the Amusement Park on my left hand side, with its Scenic Railway called “The Cyclone” towering above evrything [sic] else on which I had had many rides and a lot of fun during the previous week. The view to my right was of the Winter Garden Theatre.
When the station had become no more than a speck in the distance, I sat back in my seat to enjoy my last glimpses of the Lancashire countryside.
We stopped at Carlisle and were given a cup of tea in the station NAAFI Canteen, it went down very well with our rations. I managed to dash over to a bookstall situated on the other side of the station and bought some books and papers to read during the rest of the journey. The rest of the trip was quite uneventful. I spent it reading my books and watching the Scottish scenery and waving back to the many people who waved to us from railside houses as we passed by. A few of the fellows threw their last letter to be written in England out of the carriage window as we passed one of the many stations, hoping that someone would pick it up and post their letter for them.
Early afternoon we arrived at Gurrock, [sic] near Grenock [sic] in Scotland. On descending from the train on to the platform, we were lined up and a roll call was given to see if anyone was missing. We were then each given a Berthing Card (see opposite page) before we boarded a large steamer that was nearby. Carrying our kit once more so I stepped off British soil.
In peace-time the steamer did Pleasure Trips to Ireland and back, I wished it had been only a pleasure cruise that I was going on. As soon as we were all aboard off we steamed until we were in the centre of the Clyde, where we drew up alongisde [sic] and were transferred to a d the S.S. “Volendam” it was of approx. 17,000 tons. It was a Dutch boat and most of the crew were made up of Dutchmen. Early in the war the ship had been torpedoed. One torpedo landed on the bows but failed to explode but unfortunately, another one hit her that did go off, but the damage was repairable and here she was still doing a useful job. With the aid of my Berthing Card and after a long search I at last found the correct deck that I was to live on, the the [sic] correct mess followed by the correct table. My next move, as was everyone else’s was to stow away all of our kit into the racks that were above the table.
Two fellows from each table in the mess went down to the galley and fetched back the meal for their respective tables and then they split the lot into 14 portions or however many fellows that there were living at their particular table.
Cont’d…..
[page break]
- 3 –
Two different fellows fetched the meals each day and did the washing up and cleaning and sweeping etc. That was the only duty that I got caught for during the voyage. Some of the chaps got caught for many jobs.
By the time we had finished our first meal on board ship everyone began to think of sleep as we had all had a very tiring day. There were 100 fellows in our Mess and five tables. Some had to sleep in a hammock slung on hooks above the tables and others on matresses [sic] on tables and on the floor. I had a hammock and what a time I had putting the blankets in and climbing myself into that first night. After about four attempts I finally managed to get in and stay in. It was just like a comedy act. By the time everyone of the 100 were settled there was not much room to spare as the Mess was only approx. 30 ft. x 25 ft. But as I said before, I was feeling very tired and consequently I was soon fast asleep.
After breakfast, whilst the other chaps were cleaning up the Mess decks ready for the ship’s daily inspection carried out by the Captain and when the other fellows had to help out in the cookhouse bakery etc., I used to go up on to the top deck and hide myself away along with a book in some obscure corner.
Our first throughts [sic] when we awoke on the first morning were whether we had moved during the night. So after dressing and folding up my hammock and blankets I went up and took a stroll around the promenade deck before breakfast. It was a very pretty sight that met my eyes when I reached the open air, we were still anchored in the middle of the Clyde and on both sides the green hills of Scotland dotted with small woods and houses, sheep and other cattle rose up to meet the bright blue sky. To my left situated on the waters edge was the town of Gurrock, [sic] from where we had embarked. Three or four destroyers were tied up alongside the jetty. Anchored in front of us was the giant liner the “Aquitania” and astern were anchored the great and mighty battleship “Howe” and a large cruiser along with two aircraft carriers and six converted ones. All had aircraft on their top decks.
I spent my first day on board watching supplies being taken aboard from small ships that drew alongside. I also wrote a letter and read a book. During the afternoon we had a sing-song amongst the troops made up of R.A.F. and men from the Royal Artillery, the Argyle and Sutherland and the Black Watch Regiments. There was also an Ensa Concert Party on board and the full Royal Artillery Band which consisted of 60 players. The band gave a musical concert every afternoon on the top deck and every evening an impromptu concert was given either by members of the R.A.F. Army, Ensa or Officers. A talent competition and a Brains Trust was also held during the voyage and a dance band was formed from amongst the troops.
Cont’d…..
[page break]
- 4 –
During one of these concerts we suddenly noticed that we had begun to move. At that moment a great cheer went up from us all. The time then was 8.20 p.m. on Monday 19th of July. As the sun set it was making the hills look blueish and the water silvery [deleted] and [/deleted] we steamed out of the Clyde into the open sea and the coast of Britain gradually diminished in size and from sight in the growing darkness. By the morning we were steaming just off the coast of Northern Ireland and our convoy was made up of 1 Cruiser, 8 Destroyers and 25 Ships.
Everyday we had a lifeboat drill, we had to wear our lifebelts at all times and sleep with our clothes on. As soon as the alarm signal was given each day we immediately made our way to our various boat stations where we formed up ready to lower a life boat. As each day went by so everyone reached their action stations in shorter time. I had to climb from B deck up to A deck on a very thin iron ladder to get to my point.
It was very warm at night in the Mess deck. All the portholes had to be closed because of the black-out.
On a few of the evenings members of the ship’s crew gave boxing displays. The game of housey-housey was played quite a bit during the voyage.
In all we put the clock back 2 hours and then on 2 hours. At one time we must have gone half way to America. The ship zig-zagged continuously during the trip to fox any would-be submarines. We completely changed course on two occasions because an enemy U boat was following us and at three separate times depth charges were dropped by our escort destroyers, but whether or not they sunk any U boats I do not know, but we could see the destroyers circling around and great spurts of water shooting skywards. Also, once the cruiser opened fire at an unidentified aircraft, but it soon made off.
On the 23rd we changed into our new tropical khaki kits. Everything misfitted as usual. It felt very funny at first with our persil white knees showing, but I soon got used to it. When it was sunny during the day I used to sun bathe and go to sleep on the deck. It was whilst I was attending the evening service held on deck on the 23rd that the convoy split in two. We changed our course to Eastwards and the rest of the convoy continued steaming Southwards. We were left with the cruiser, 6 destroyers and 15 ships.
There was a NAAFI Canteen on the ship, but to be able to purchase anything from it meant queueing up for at least two hours.
Everyday the [inserted] SEA [/inserted] seemed to differ in the shade of green or blue when we reached the Med.
Cont’d…..
[page break]
- 5 –
On the 24th whilst walking around the deck I heard someone call out my name and when I turned round I found it was Arthur Holloway who worked at the same firm as I did before joining the forces.
That same evening at dusk we sighted the coast of North Africa. I could just make out its dim outline in the growing darkness. At 10 p.m someone shouted lights to the Starboard side of the ship. Everyone rushed to that side and eager faces looked across the waste of water towards the coast where a series of light-houses circled their bright beams of light on to the sea. We were passing at that moment just off the neutral town of Tangiers. It made a lovely sight with its twinkling lights, streets and neon lighting. Such a vast contrast after living in a black-out for the past 4 years.
As I stood by the rail I felt a thrill that I had been hoping for since I had embarked on the voyage. Thoughts flashed through my mind of new lands, adventure and I wondered what experiences lay ahead for me. Memories of my school days came flooding back, sitting at a small desk in shorts listening to geography lessons and there I was seeing places that in those school days had just been a name on my atlas.
On the following day we kept near to the coast zig-zagging all the way. The only thing worth mentioning for the day was the flying fish anything up to 3ft 6 in. long that kept jumping in the wake of our ship.
Next morning we were each issued with rations and when I went up on deck the first thing that caught my eyes was the first glimpse of Algiers. In front of us lay many ships of all types lying at anchor, then came the great dock installations built at the waters edge and behind the docks the town rose up built on the side of a hill which rose up hundreds of feet, or rather I think that is well over a 1000 ft. to the summit. From the sea the town looked very impressive with its mass of white buildings glistening beneath the scorching sun, above and behind the town up to the hill top was made up of green grass and scorched earth.
As the convoy formed into single file each ship followed the one in front through the submarine boon that protected the harbour. Most of the ships at anchor had a silver barrage balloon flying above them in case the harbour and ships were attacked by dive bombers. As we entered the outer harbour and ships were attacked by dive bombers. As we entered the outer harbour we could distinguish the traffic passing along the dock front. Beneath the sun it looked a very sleepy and lazy town and made you feel the same yourself. By 1.45 p.m. we finally managed to tie up in one of the many shipping berths. I remember that along the quayside by the ships were stacked thousands of big bombs. It was a little later when I staggered down the gang plank beneath the weight of my kit and set foot on African soil. I loaded my kit onto a waiting lorry and we then formed up in three’s and we then set off along the coast road.
Cont’d…..
[page break]
-5- 1 –
[underlined] THE MEDITERRANEAN. [/underlined]
The full understanding of North Africa and its place in the war will come [underlined] after [/underlined] the importance of the Mediterranean has been perceived.
Little more than a century ago it was in the grip of pirates who successfully flouted the European States, Christian slaves were at work on the coasts, and the Turks had power.
About 12,000 years ago, according to some authorities, it was not a sea at all, but a stretch of swampy land, with some small lakes and several peaks. The peaks remain as islands, and the main flood that then broke through the Strait of Gibraltar was halted only by the mountains that practically surround the sea.
The Mediterranean divides almost evenly at the shallow narrows between Tunis and Sicily.
European civilisation flowed from East to West. The Phoenicians from Tyre and Sidon explored the Mediterranean, hugging the coast, and discovered the Strait of Gibraltar (which secret they kept from their neighbours), passed through and voyaged to Cornwall and Liberia.
Tyre and Sidon gave way to Carthage, whose loosely held and shallow empire was confined to the coastline, save for deep penetration into Tunisia. The Greeks came along the northern coasts, and laid hold on Sicily, which still possesses some of the best relics of Greece, Rome, taking her turn, flowed back from West to East; The Republics, Genoa, Venice, Pisa, flourished and did great commerce.
For centuries the Mediterranean was the only commercial sea; other countries were largely uncivilised when the Mediterranean peoples were of advanced culture.
When men became blue water sailors, other territories were discovered and the Mediterranean diminished in importance. The Suez Canal restored that importance.
The Mediterranean is said to be tideless, but that is only figurative. In places the tide is normal and regular, at others practically non-existent. There is no change at Gibraltar worth mentioning, off Tunisia the tide is slight but regular. There is no tide in the Black Sea.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
- 5 – 2 –
Fed by the Atlantic, on which it draws for an inch a day over its whole area, the Meditteranean [sic] loses more by evaporation.
In places it is 1,200 feet deep, in others 12,000, while in the sea of Azof the masts of foundered ships show above the surface.
The Mediterranean is of prime strategic importance, and Malta is the key to the Eastern half. Had Axis forces been able to neutralise Malta, the Allied effort would have been gravely hindered. Possession of Malta would have facilitated the Axis effort to sweep along the coast, close the giant pincers, open the Russian flank, and expose India to grave peril.
Allied strategy prospered in the North African and Libyan campaigns, giving greater control of the southern coast, which, with the command of the Strait of Gibraltar, now exposes what the Prime Minister called the “underbelly” of the Axis. Southern Europe is brought into more economic range for attacking bombers. The menace to Allied convoys is reduced by the easier provision of fighter protection. What other headaches this occupation of North Africa will give to the dictators will be felt as the war develops.
The Allied nations struck for initiative, not for territorial extension. Compare the North and South coats [sic] of the Mediterranean and you will see that from Tangier to Derna (excluding Spanish Morocco) Allied forces control most of a coast as long as the coasts of Spain, France, Italy, Albania and Greece, which lie to the north. And, along the southern coats [sic] are good, well spaced ports.
[underlined] NORTH AFRICA [/underlined]
North Africa, so far as this section is concerned, is divided into Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania. French Morocco (Spanish Morocco is a narrow strip on the Mediterranean coast covering some 13,000 square miles) is a Protectorate. Algeria is part of Metropolitan France. Each department is normally represented in the French Chambers by one senator and two deputies. Tunisia is a French Protectorate. Tripolitania with Cyrenaica, until the Axis forces wre [sic] driven back, was an Italian colony, under a Governor.
North Africa has figured largely in history for nearly 3,000 years; woth [sic] remembering when first contact is made with the present native population.
The strength of ancient Rome is probably better grasped by following the Roman road across North Africa than by wandering in Italy. At Timgad, Algeria, for example, there is a complete Roman town, whose plan is as perfect as the day it was finished. The streets run at right angles in the modern fashion of the New World, the forum remains, broken
Cont’d…../
[page break]
- 5 – 3 –
but suggestive, there are still the evidences of amusements, and little shops where the garrisons made their purchases.
Many of the place names in the country are corruptions of the ancient names. For example: Tunis was Tounes (and much earlier was called Libya). Carthage was first Kart Hadash and then Carthago. Tebessa was Theveste, and Teboursouk was Thurbursicum Bure.
The language is Arabic, but the spoken language varies widely. Written, it can be understood by all who can read, although the spoken language of Southern Morocco is unintelligible in Algeria or Tunisia. It is easy to pick up the few really essential words in each district and a few of the formal polite phrases will make good feeling. The Arabs are extremely sensitive to all acts of courtesy.
Just as the language differs, so does the land and outlook. North Africa, although one land mass, is not a unity. You will find variation in tribal customs, habits and force of character.
[underlined] PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS. [/underlined] Physically, North Africa is broadly divided into three zones: the Tell, or coastal plain (Sahel in Tunisia), the High Plateaux, which lie between the mountain ranges and the desert, and the Sahara.
From about Agadir, stretching diagonally across the country to the Algerian-Tunisian border, the Atlas ranges rise behind the coast. Subsidiary ranges, such as the Aures (between Constantine and Biskra) strike inland. The Atlas Mountains in Morocco are divided into the Middle Atlas, the Great Atlas, and the Anti Atlas. The Algerian range is known as the Little Atlas, behind which, on the desert side, rise the hills of the Saharan Atlas. Spanish Morocco is dominated by the Riff, a continuation of the Atlas.
[underlined] COMMUNICATIONS. [/underlined] Road and rail communications, up to the outbreak of war, had been progressively improved. A main line stretches from Rabat (Morocco) to Tunis, with branches and extensions serving the most important areas. In Morocco, from north to south there is a railway from Tangier to Marrakech, following the coast as far as Casablanca and then striking inland. There are branch lines from Quercif to Medelt; Sidi bel Abbes and Algiers to Djelfa. A line from Constantine runs to the Saharan outpost of Touggourt, and from Tunis standard or narrow gauge railways connect all the coast towns and much of the interior.
The railways were never very well services, [sic] and rolling stock could well be improved.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
5 – 4 –
Considerable attention was given to roads. It is possible to travel in fair comfort by the coastal road from Agadir to Gabes and beyond. The main roads are quite good; secondary roads are poor, particularly in the rainy season.
The heavy rains – and they are heavy – which occur between mid November and the end of February play havoc with roads and railways. The roads become almost impassable, parts of the permanent way are sometimes wrecked and bridges broken by floods.
Inland, travellers may see massive and well-tended bridges standing derelict. They are there to bridge the seasonal floods that sweep down from the mountains during the rains.
[underlined] ALGERIA. [/underlined] Algeria went through all the tides of ancient history, but its real story begins with Turkish rule in the 16th century when the Barbarossa brothers, pirates, helped to defeat the Spanish and claimed Algiers as the perquisite. Kheir ed Din then made it the base for corsairs, who plied their trade along the coast for centuries, defying expeditions from Europe and America, until temporary peace was enforced by Lord Exmouth’s mixed squadrons in 1816. France took drastic action in 1827, after the Dey of Algiers smacked the French Consul with his fan. That outburst of temper cost the Dey his power, a reparation of £2,000,000 and his country. Pacific action was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war and final control only came about in 1900, since when improvement in conditions has been rapid.
French colonists have prospered in agriculture and trade; the native population are well understood and humanly treated, allowed much independence and freedom.
[underlined] THE PEOPLE. [/underlined] The population of Algeria is about 7,000,000 including 1,000,000 Europeans of French, Spanish, Maltese and Italian origin.
Native races are many and mixed. The majority of the Arabs are nomadic, living on the plains either in tents or earth huts. The Berbers are settled in the hills of Kabylia (on the coast about 50 miles from Algiers) where small houses, with sloping tiled roofs, are clustered together on the hill sides. They are a short, stocky people, fiercely independent and suspicious.
The M’zab, an area of burnt and arid desert about 125 miles south of Laghouat, is peopled by a race which may be Berberm driven south by persecution in the 11th century. A rocky, forbidding zone which nobody wanted, has been made fertile, with hundreds of thousands of palm trees, an irrigation system fed by wells, and seven cities relatively gay with flowering plants, shrubs, fruit trees and vegetables.
Moors and Jews, mostly traders, are seldom far from the towns. Negroes are scattered from the coast to the heart of the Sahara, and come mainly from the Sudan.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
5 – 5 –
[underlined] PRODUCTS. [/underlined] The fertile coastal regions produce large crops of cereals and es3/8arto [sic] grass. Market gardening is lucrative. In the south are vast plantations of date palms watered by artesian wells sunk by the French engineers. There is considerable olive cultivation. The same profusion of trees and flowers is to be found as in Morocco.
Before the Axis Commissions got to work, Algeria possessed vast herds of poor quality domestic cattle, sheep, goats and camels.
Mineral deposits include iron, copper, lead and manganese.
[underlined] PORTS AND CITIES. [/underlined] Algeria has several large and modern ports, in addition to a number of useful harbours. Oran is a purely commercial city, once a Spanish penal settlement. It has good harbourage and port facilities. Algiers, second only to Port Said as a Mediterranean coaling station, has ample accommodation and safe harbourage for large vessels; Bougie, well sheltered and modern, anchorage for vessels of any size. Phillippeville is one of the best harbours in Algeria and Bone (Bona) is smaller but modern.
[underlined] ALGIERS, [/underlined] is a city of about a quarter of a million people, beuutifully [sic] situated. It divides almost naturally into the native and the French quarters. The French town is cosmopolitan, there are several good hotels, cafes and restaurants (suffering now from Axis occupation).
The native town centres on the Kasbah. Should you be lost in the narrow streets, turn down hill, keep going down-hill towards the sea, and you will reach one of the main avenues of the French town.
[page break]
- 6 –
We set out in perfect order with an officer at the head of each party. Just[deleted] er [/deleted] after we had set out my blanket that was tied on top of my back pack became loose and kept dropping down. By the time we had marched approx. one mile down the road, the sweat was pouring from me with the heat from the sun which was then at its height. My back pack got heavier with every step that I took. The parties by then were all mixed up and everyone was having a rest when they felt like one.
At one place I stopped an African soldier who came out of a nearby building and gave me a drink of ice water. Never have I appreciated a drink so much as I did then. The thing that struck me most whilst resting at that spot was the natives dressed in rags walking along bare-footed on sharp stones and not feeling them. My feet at that moment were burning and aching like hell.
So on I went continuing on my journey passing the wrecked harbour buildings caused by an ammunition ship full of German mines blowing up or by our shelling of the city by warships before it fell. I then passed by a half sunken oil tanker which was still on fire. At that moment a loudspeaker van came along telling us to keep moving as we were blocking the road and that transport was waiting to pick us up two miles further along the road.
As soon as I heard that, I sat down for another rest and watched the hundreds of other airmen staggering along the road. Whilst sitting there more Arab children passed by in their rags and tatters, bare feet with their eyes and face covered with flies.
When I finally reached the picking up point, there were still about 2,000 chaps waiting, so I had one big long rest. After about an hour had passed my turn came and I clambered onto a lorry and along with others we were driven 17 miles round the bay to the Transit Camp where we would stay until we were posted to a unit.
On arrival there we were put into tents. As we walked around the camp to find our tents we kicked up so much dust that we nearly choked ourselves, also the flies were very annoying., they would keep settling on me and I would knock them away but they would just come back and settle on me once more. They were very quick and artful, it was quite a job to kill one. I often used to crawl under my mosquito net to get out of the way of them.
After tea on the first morning that I was in the camp I spent [inserted] A CONSIDERABLE TIME [/inserted] [deleted] finding [/deleted] [inserted] LOCATING [/inserted] [deleted] out [/deleted] my kit-bag from a great pile of thousands of them. We finally laid all the bags out in rows. It reminded me of a graveyard as everyone was slowly filing down the rows of kit-bags looking at the name on each in turn until they found their own and carried it away.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
- 7 –
The camp was situated by a small wood by the sea, so that it was nice and shady around the tents during the daytime. Beside the camp there was a nice sandy beach from where you could see the town of Algiers across the bay.
At night the town looked life fairy-land with all the twinkling lights on the hillside.
I often used to sunbathe on the beach and go for a dip in the deep [inserted] BLUE [/inserted] waters of the Med. At times the sand became so hot, that if you walked on it barefooted it burnt them.
I found sleeping under a mosquito net strange at first and I also found out that the sand was very hard to sleep on after being used to a nice soft bed. Sometimes, during the night insects came in bed with me, it was also very annoying if you happened to shut a mosquito in with you at night. Just as you got settled down he would start to dive bomb and zoom around in circles just above your ear, but everytime [sic] you struck out at him he would dodge your hand and you would be striking out at him until you fell asleep. In the morning when you could see him your first thoughts is to kill him and get your own back, and on squashing him you would find that he is full of your blood that he has taken out of you during the night.
It took me a little time to get used to the currency, which was all in francs, 200 to the £1. and nearly all the notes which were very bright and colourful were in denominations of 5: 10: 20: 50: 100: 500: & 1000’s. One day whilst riding on a tram I was given 20 coins for 2d change. Each coin was a centime and 100 centimes equals a franc.
In the undergrowth around the camp there were plenty of large coloured lizards and frogs that were about ten times the size of English ones. There were also many wild canaries living in the trees.
About a mile from the camp was the village of Fort-de-Laue (fort-of-water) which contained a few small shops and one out of every two was a wine bar. Wine was very cheap indeed, the chief drinks were Muscatelle, Veno and Cap-Bon, Vin Blanch and Vin Rouge, all of which were made from grapes. Fruit was also plentiful and cheap, melons, grapes, peaches, oranges and tangerines, lemons figs and dates etc.
There was also a small cinema in the village that used to show English films, but they were generally very ancient, ones that I had already seen years before.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
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I remember one night when one of my friends and myself decided to raid a tangerine grove nearby the camp to pick some fruit to send back to England. We had to tread around very carefully as there was a native guard in the grove with a shot-gun. A short while after plunging into the grove I lost my friend in the dark, and when we reached each other a little later we both thought that the other was the guard, as a result we bolted from the grove. I came away with my shirt, pockets, hat etc., filled with tangerines. When I put them on the scales they weighed 10 lbs.
We had to wash all our own clothes. Oh’ how I hated doing it. [underlined] I always swore that when I married I would see to it that my wife would never had to do any washing [/underlined].
Each week we were issued free a bar of chocolate and 50 cigarettes. Cigarettes cost us 1/6d for 50 whereas in England the cost was 6/3d.
For the first two months that I was at the camp I never saw it rain at all.
I used to go to the village cinema on an average of once a week and sometimes a concert was given there either by Ensa artists or by airmen from our camp.
Some nights we used to sit in a clearing in amongst the trees around a fire and have a sing-song accompanied by fellows who owned musical instruments.
Another nearby village was called Maison Carrie, it was a bigger place than Fort-de-Laue. This village possessed two cinemas and quite a few shops and a Y.M.C.A. canteen and a kind of Arab Covent Garden market and Pettycoat Lane combined. Half of the twon [sic] [symbol] had been demolished through a munitions train which blew up on the outskirts.
I remember one night when there was an air raid on Algiers, the barrage put up by the shore batteries and from the ships in the harbour was terrific and we could hear the enemy planes begin their bombing glide just over the camp. What with the noise of the H.E. shells exploding, bombs going off and streaks of tracer and incendiary bullets in the sky it seemed more like Guy Fawkes night. It was very exciting when the searchlights caught a plane in their beams, every gun seemed to be concentrated on it, they made the ground tremble, but he somehow managed to get away from the beams before the gun-fire could shoot him down. Anyway I bet the pilot had a few anxious moments and I was glad that I was not where he was.
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Three planes were brought down during the raid in which not very much damage was done. The State Prison was partly demolished.
One Sunday I went to Maison Blanche Aerodrome nearby to work, helping to handle 200 tons of smoke bombs which were to be used to cover the invasion of Italy five days later.
There were hundreds of British and American aircraft on the field, Spitfires, Beaufighters, Lightning fighters and Douglas & Liberator Troop carriers.
On 3rd September the fourth Anniversary of the war and the day Italy was invaded and surrendered, I met my cousin in Algiers. He worked at General Eisenhower’s Allied Force Headquarters. He landed in Algiers by air the same [inserted] TIME [/inserted] as I arrived by boat.
On 13th September I was posted temporarily to 351 M.U. Hussan Dey, which was about 5 miles along the coast road from Algiers.
On arrival at the M.U. we had to erect our own marquee before we had anywhere to sleep. There was hundred of us in all that came from the transit camp.
Whilst at the M.U. we worked from 7.30 a.m. until 6.0 p.m. with an hour for dinner and one day off a week, either a Friday or Sunday. The camp was situated half on the beach and half on the other side of the main coast road. The place had been a French Calvary Camp at one time.
I spent my first day at work making a bed for myself. It was a good job too as the same night it poured with rain and we were flooded out in the tents. The water rushed in one end and out of the other into the next tent down the slope, floating everything that we kept on the floor, then to crown it all a part of the side of the marquee collapsed. It was very amusing – chaps waking up and saying “where am I” when they saw the stars above them and felt the rain coming into their mosquito nets and on jumping out of bed they landed in inches of water. Luckily, my side of the marquee was not the one that fell in. The chaps on the other side did not see the funny side at all.
We had a cinema on the camp which showed two different films each week. The admission was free to us.
During my work I came across quite a lot of equipment made at my old firm of P.B. Cow & Co. Ltd.
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On 18th of September I was lucky enough to draw a ticket to go to a concert that evening. I was taken by lorry to an open air theatre situated in an Army Petrol Dump Camp about 8 miles away. The theatre holding about 2,000 was nearly filled to its capacity when I arrived. The seats were set out in a half circle and in tiers around the stage. It was a very impressive scene and overhead the sky was cloudless and it was pitch dark except for the light given off by the stage footlights and by the twinkling stars above.
Among the artists, was the first visit of Gracie Fields overseas during the war. She was given a tremendous welcome and sang a great variety of songs. Trying to find our lorry amongst 200 or more all of which were very similar after the show had finished, reminded me very much of trying to find your coach after the Aldershot Tattoo.
I paid many visits to Algiers on my days off. As soon as you arrived in the [deleted] tram [/deleted] [inserted] town [/inserted] you would be surrounded by shoe-shine boys who would pester you until you paid one of them to clean your shoes. When I was there prices of goods were excessively high. If we saw something that was very very [sic] expensive, we used to go into the shop or stand at the stall if we had a few moments to spare and argue and argue about a quarter of an hour then the shopkeeper would finally agree to a reasonable price that we offered, we then said thank you we do not want it and walk away leaving the Arab or Frenchman standing there.
One day whilst I was in the town it started to rain and I can say it was not very nice as at that moment I was in the native quarter roaming around. In a few minutes the torrential rain swept down the narrow alley ways, [inserted] x [/inserted] [inserted] [underlined] ADD [/underlined DRIVING ALL WAY [indecipherable word] [/inserted] beggars etc., from the streets [deleted] came [/deleted] [inserted] AND [/inserted] into the nearest shelter they could find under old crumbling archways and derelict buildings. I soon made my way down the hill back into the main part of the town and into a picture house feeling like a half drowned rat. By the evening the pitiless rain which had been driving in from the sea since early that afternoon showed no signs of abating. If anything, the wind had increased in violence, causing terrific squalls and solid sheets of rain to sweep across the open spaces and spend themselves up against the shops and buildings. I certainly did not linger out in it more than was necessary.
Whilst I was in North Africa it was the time of the Ramadan. For one night the gates of Heaven are said to be open and the prayers of the Faithful are heard. It is the twenty seventh night of the Feast of Romadan, [sic] Laylat El Kadr, the night of power which comme[deleted] nced orated [/deleted] [inserted] morates [/inserted] the first Koran revelation to the Prophet.
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Ramadan, which means “the month of Intense heat” is the ninth month of the Arabic calendar. It is movable, following the phases of the moon. It derives its name from the first Islamic year when it happened to fall during the height of summer. The name remains, though in a 33 year cycle the Fast runs through all the seasons. Ramadan begins when the crescent of the new moon is first sighted. It begun on September 1st 1943.
Throughout September Moslems abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours. Only after midnight are they permitted to eat two meals, knows as Aftara Shoor. During this solemn period the Mosques are crowded with rich and poor. The rich go by car and the peasant takes his family in a donkey cart.
On the thirtieth day the Fast ends and the Feast begins, the Feast of Fetre Bairam. Now the melancholia turns into a Bank Holiday spirit. It is a season of spring cleaning and buying new clothes and sending presents to friends. The poorest native Arab buy Gaudy-Galabicks, the long shirt-like garment worn by the natives. The richer Algerians or Egyptians buy new clothes in the fashionable stores in the large cities.
In Algiers at dawn and dusk a gun is fired from the Citadel each day during the Feast to tell the Moslems when they must stop and when they can begin to eat. The natives are very faithful to their religion. I have seen food offered to starving natives and they have refused to eat it, no matter how hard the person tried to tempt them. If you gave them anything eatable during the day, they would keep it until dusk came.
One day I decided to go on an organised tour of the city run by Cook’s Tour Agency. A party of twenty to thirty servicemen [inserted] x [/inserted] [inserted] [underlined] ADD [/underlined] FROM ALL COUNTRIES [/inserted] set out at 3.0 p.m. from the Agency. We first boarded a trolley-bus that took us to Government Square. A French interpreter came along with us. From the Square we walked to a nearby Mosque. We had been given special permission to venture inside as long as we took care not to walk or step onto the carpet with our shoes or boots on. If we had done so we would have been turned out as it would have been an insult to Mohamid [sic] in the eyes of the worshippers that were there at the time. From the Mosque we walked to a nearby Princesses Palace, which was built by a Turkish King for his daughter. From outside the building it looked more like a prison, but on passing into the small courtyard situated inside there was some wonderful workmanship and carvings to be seen. Nearby we passed one of the old Turkish King’s Palace, then used as the Native French Troop H.Q. and into the Roman Catholic Cathedral which was next door to the Palace. The Cathedral was built on the site of an old Arab Mosque that had fallen into ruin. Here again much marvellous workmanship was to be seen.
From the Cathedral, we walked back to Government Square and took our seats in the tram again and as soon as everyone was settled we set off.
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As we twisted and turned up and up the road which led to the top of the hill we left the European part of the town behind and found ourselves in the native quarter which was called the “Casbha”. We stopped outside the “Casbha Fortress” and got out and toured the Fortress which contained the city’s museum and there we had a commanding view of the whole of the bay of Algiers. Looking down, directly beneath us was the native quarter made up of ramshackle houses made of wood, bits of tin, sheeting, tin petrol cans and others made of brick and which were nearly falling down. Then there were the narrow alleys and passageways winding downwards and from the whole area rose a very bad odour. It is very unadvisable to walk anywhere in the “Casbha” unaccompanied. In fact it is best not to go without being amongst a huge crowd of friends. Many a man has ventured into that maze of alley-ways never to be seen alive again and some[deleted] how [/deleted] [inserted] [indecipherable word] [/inserted] just disappears in there. These conditions continue half-way down to the sea, where the European part of the town commences and the wide roads and big modern buildings continue down to the Dock area. The Dock can accommodate the largest of ocean going liners and battleships.
The port was first used years ago by Pirate Ships operating along the North African coast. The ships that were anchored in the harbour at the time, looked like toys from where we were standing in the Fortress. To our left the buildings run right around to that end of the bay and looking to our right we could clearly see Cape Materfue which formed the other wing of the bay. It was on this Cape where the big naval guns were housed that had to be silenced by our troops before the invasion of Algiers commenced.
Nearby to where we were standing were a row of guns pointing over the town that had been taken from a Turkish Pirate vessel many, many years ago.
On leaving the Fortress we walked through parts of the “Casbha’s” outskirts. We found it advisable to light a cigarette before starting on this little walk as it camouflaged the smells a tiny bit. In the native bazaars there is a market for everything. I even saw one fellow that had rusty bent nails for sale and also old bits of moth-eaten rags.
We walked passed the State Prison which was in the process of repair, after being damaged in a bombing raid.
We next visited an old Moorish house which was very similar in design and architecture to the Princesses House, but it was nowhere near so elaborate.
We than [sic] continued our walk through those twisting alleyways and down stone stairways and along the Street of Shoemarkets into the Arab main Shopping Street, which was situated just behind the big Opera House where our tour came to an end.
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In the town there were quite a number of cinemas that showed English speaking films and the American Red Cross had a cinema of their own to which we were allowed to enter free of charge. Canteens were in good supply, 2 NAAFI’S, 2 Y.M.C.A’s and 2 Salvation Army ones, where we were able to get tea and cakes. The only place that I know of where I could get a meal was the R.A.F. Malcolm Club, I often went there also for a game of draughts, table tennis, darts etc., before catching a lift home. Lifts received were all kind of vehicles, from jeeps to 60’ 0” trailers.
As a sequel to my tangerine picking trip, one evening a friend and myself set out to go lemon picking. It was pitch dark when we finally thumbed a lift on a lorry. The driver said he was going in the direction that we wanted so we climbed on board. When we finally stopped we found out that he had taken us up the wrong road and we were stranded out in the wilds. We decided to make the best of a bad job and started to walk along the road. After covering a distance of two miles we met a couple of soldiers walking in the opposite direction and on enquiring, we found out that we were walking away from our objective instead of towards it, so we had to turnabout and retrace our steps along the road and then we walked over hills and across fields until we finally same [sic] to a spot which we recognised. As it was too late to continue on our expedition we started to thumb a lift going back in the direction of the M.U. After a while two American Officers picked us up in their jeep and the driver told us that he was going past the M.U. After he had dropped off the officer that was with him. After driving for a full half hour we stopped to drop off the officer and where should the place be but exactly the same spot where the other driver left us stranded earlier in the evening.
One day I had to go out and work at a farm where the M.U. had dispersed some of their equipment. The farm was only a few miles from the foot of the Baby Atlas Mountains at a place named Reva. The farm comprised of hundred of acres of vineyards that stretched as far as the eye can see.
The equipment that we had to move was stored on top of wine vats in a large building. Each vat was full and held 5,000 gallons of wine and in all there was seven of them. Each was completely enclosed except for a kind of manhole at the top. Some of these were open and we could see the wine fermenting and bubbling away. Some of the vats had been sealed for more than 3 years.
Whilst on the farm I saw how true the old saying “as stubborn as a mule” was. I watched a mule being put into harness for the first time. His back legs came up in the air time and time again nearly kicking the cart harnessed to him into bits and when he calmed down it took the mules owner half-an-hour before he could get it to budge an inch.
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Another job I had was in charge of seven Italian prisoners and a lorry. We had to take six propellers each trip from the M.U. to a garage at El Bier situated in a town at the top of the of the hill above Algiers.
On November the 5th I was posted back to No. 1 Base Personnel Depot at Fort-de-Laue. It was back to an easy life comprising of sleeping, sunbathing, and swimming in the Med. Also reading books and playing cards every day. One disadvantage was having to sleep on the ground once more. Although it was late in the year we still had sunny weather for a week. By then my skin was beginning to turn from red to brown as a result of all my sunbathing. Then the rains came and often I would sit in my tent and watch a small pool of water gradually form itself into a small lake in the large clearing amongst the trees. For three days I worked at the 96th General Hospital in Maison Ca[deleted]wies[/deleted] [inserted] RRIE [/inserted]. I was very glad when the job came to an end.
To celebrate my 1st year’s Anniversary in the R.A.F. we discovered fleas in our tent and I spent the afternoon hunting them down.
The less said about Friday November the 12th the better. I went for a walk into the village with a few of my friends. On arrival there we were feeling very thirsty, so we went into one of the many wine-bars to buy some lemonade. As they never had any left in stock we decided on a Muscatelle & Cap Bon drink. It tasted quite good and first [inserted] DRINK [/inserted] was followed by a second and so on until we had each drunk 15 of them. By this time I felt very lightheaded and a bit merry and the other were well passed the merry state. What a job I had getting them back to camp. One of the fellows got up next morning for breakfast and as soon as he had drunk a cup of tea, he was staggering around again. He went straight back to bed and never rose again until the following day.
One night it rained exceptionally heavy and the edge of that small pool I spoke of a few moments ago reached our tent at about 3.0 a.m. in the night. Then a little later one of my friends on the other side of the tent fell out of [inserted] HIS [/inserted] bed and touched water under it, luckily just as the edge of the pool reached the foot of my bed it stopped raining and the flood water started to recede from the tent. My bed then was a large sheet of wood raised on four petrol tins. The chaps on the other side of the tent spent all the following day drying out their kits.
Every day we had to parade at 9.0 a.m. and 1.0 p.m. to see if our postings had come in. Fellows had gradually been posted day by day to units all over North Africa. I was one of the last remaining ten airmen to be posted out of the thousands that came overseas in the same convoy as myself.
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As I was on a day off on the 22nd of November I decided to spend it in Algiers, a pal out of the tent came along with me and we spent the morning looking around the shops and stalls, bazaars and stores. There was quite a number of civilian cars and traffic on the main roads, most of the cars were owned by Frenchmen. A common sight in the streets were mules covered and matted with dirt, being tormented by flies, dragging an old ramshackle waggon. Sometimes I would see two mules of very unequal size together in an old leather harness which was nearly falling to bits and tied up in places by bits of string or wire etc. Sometimes a mule would come along carrying such a big load that only the bottom of its legs and its nose are visible.
After we walked to the trolley bus stop where we boarded a tram that took us [inserted] FROM [/inserted] outside [deleted] a [/deleted] [inserted] THE [/inserted] big impressive Post Office building, along the main road that runs to the top of the hill. The trolley buses were very much like our old English type trams. They were always packed by people of all nationalities, young, middle aged and old Frenchmen or European or native dressed Arabs wearing the old fez hat and the native women wearing their yash-mak over their nose and mouth, then there were servicemen from many of the Allied nations. When it gets so that you cannot move an inch the bus moves off and the natives left behind jump and hang on the sides of the vehicle so as to get a free lift. Then at each stop one is jostled around by the people wanting to get out and it is worse still when the women are carrying big baskets as they generally do.
On reaching St. George’s Hotel way up the hill we descended from the bus ourselves and walked into hotel grounds passing the sentry at entrance. As we walked up the drive boarded by orange and lemon trees we passed by many high ranking officers of the Allied Army, Navy and Air Force. This was the Allied Expeditionary Force H.Q. On entering the hallway I was given a form to fill in stating who I was, where I had come from and what I wanted and after showing my identity card the form was signed and I was allowed to enter and roam around. I made my way to the Signal Section where I met my cousin and he showed me one of the radio units that was in direct communication with London. It was not much bigger than a normal set. We all then walked to the nearby English Library next to the English Church of St. George’s. We had tea at the library and talked over old times before it was time my cousin to go back to work. My friend and I then caught a trolley bus that took us back down to the Post Office.
We then went to the “Empire” which was the American Red Cross cinema where we saw a picture named “Happy Go Lucky” I had seen it once before but it took me a long while before I could remember where it was that I saw it. Then later I remembered it was in Cardiff while I was waiting for a train to take me home on my Embarkation leave, but I was hardly in the mood to appreciate the film then, but during the second time I saw it I do not think I had laughed so much since coming overseas. The film was in technicolour.
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When we came out of the cinema we walked to the R.A.F. Club for supper and a few games of draughts before thumbing a lift back to camp which was quite a job to get to where we lived. Anyway we did the journey eventually in three stages, and arrived back in camp in pitch dark well after eleven-o-clock. On reaching our tent the other two occupants informed us that, at last, my posting had come through during my absence. I went up to the Movement Office and received my Movement Order which was to 242 Squadron Gioia, Italy, and I was told that I was on the move at 6.30 a.m. on the following morning. My pal was posted too, but to another part of Italy.
The next step for us to take was to pack up all our kit, which we had to do by candlelight. I was at it until just after 1.0 a.m when I went to bed. I was up again at 5.30 a.m. and after doing my last minute packing I went to breakfast. Just then it started to rain and whilst I was waiting for our transport a thunderstorm developed and the rain then came down in torrents. By then we were all pretty wet, a little later 5 lorries, 3 of which were open ones turned up outside the Movement Office. We loaded the rations and our kits on the open lorries. You can guess how wet our kit-bags were.
All of us then crammed on the two remaining lorries. There was over thirty of us in the lorry I was in and the space was no more than 7’ x 12’. We very near had to take it in turns to move. Luckily it stopped raining and the sun came out just before noon. Some of the chaps then transferred to the open lorries, we were then able to ride a little more comfortably. By lunch-time we had travelled across the coastal strip leading up to the Baby Atlas Mountains and had begun the first stage of the journey over them.
I was very surprised with how much ploughed land that there was in the area around the foot of the mountains. In places the road we travelled on was flooded as a result of the trains, but nowhere was it deep enough for us to stop. It was a marvellous journey. The convoy of lorries going up and down all the time, twisting first one way and then the other just like a worm. We stopped for dinner on quite a flat stretch of cultivated ground, but not so far away we could see snow on the peaks of the mountains. We took some of our rations to an Arab house or rather it was a stone barn near the roadside where we obtained some wood which enabled us to start a fire on which to heat some water to make tea, to go with our tin of Bully Beef and hard biscuits. After the meal had been consumed we continued on our upward twisting journey. Sometimes there was a drop of hundreds of feet on one side of the road and on the other was solid rock stretching up to a height of hundreds of feet and the road would be only just wide enough for two lorries to pass.
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At times we would pass a gap in the sort of fence or wall when there was one, where something had gone off the road and crashed into the depths below, not a very reassuring sight.
For a long time that day, alongside the road ran a dried up bed of a river about a hundred yards in width but as we ascended higher into the mountains, it started turning into a small stream, which a little later in the year would be a mighty river as the rain water rushes down the mountainside. It was a lovely sight with the road and the stream winding side by side and with sheer rock of many beautiful colours rising up on either side of us and in places water was cascading from crevices into the stream a 100’ 0” or more below. In a few places the roadway had to be tunnelled through the solid rock.
Also during the journey, we passed by a few camels. I had only seen a couple up until then since I had arrived in Africa. The most remarkable thing was, that everytime we stopped for a few moments way out in the wilds there was not a soul in sight and yet within a few minutes hundreds of Arabs seemed to appear from nowhere out of the hills wanting to buy anything at all that you would like to sell them. Many Arabs stood by the roadside waving a stack of currency notes in their hands as we went by. In places we could look into the valley and see parts of the road that we had travelled along half-an-hour previously. Also at times we could see the tail end of our own convoy below us.
For a time we were driving along in the clouds that enveloped us like a mist and when we came in the clear again we could see smaller clouds floating in the valley below and the rocks 50’ 0” above us were covered in snow. It was hellishly cold travelling along this part of the road.
By evening we were in the first range of mountains after being up at a height of 6,000 ft. at times. We were then between the two ranges that separate the coast from the Sahara Desert.
Darkness had fallen when we stopped for the night at a few Nissen Huts built on the roadside about ten miles east of the twon [sic] of Setif. First we lit two petrol fires, one to make the tea in and the other to heat the meal which was a bit of a mixture. We opened a dozen tins containing an assortment of things and mixed them all in together, as by that time we had all acquired a terrific appetite [deleted] and [/deleted] it tasted fine. We then settled down to sleep, personally, I would not recommend a concrete floor to sleep on, especially up in the mountains with only two blankets with which to keep yourself warm in. Once when I awoke during the night wild dogs were howling away near to the hut and they did not make a very comforting noise.
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When I arose next morning, fires were already on the go and breakfast was nearly ready. Now that it was daylight I was able to see what my surrounding looked like. Except for the hut, a small Arab dwelling and the mountains in the background, nothing else was to be seen. It was very bleak and desolate in whichever direction I looked. There was also quite a lot of frost on the ground which made the atmosphere a bit nippy. I was very glad to wear my greatcoat. Once again the usual crowd of Arab natives were gathered around us wanting to buy anything and selling oranges, tangerines etc. Although I do not know how they managed to get hold of their goods being miles from anywhere. One chap was selling sheep-skins at 15/- each and another was selling knives. I nearly bought a skin with which to line my battledress tunic with but I changed my mind. A few children were there selling eggs, these did interest me as I had not had a real egg since leaving England, so I bought a couple to go with my bacon and biscuits. I then lit my own little petrol fire in a cigarette tin and proceeded to boil the eggs in my mess tin and after consuming same we got away to an early start to continue on our journey.
The building of the railway, road and bridges were built over the mountains, a feat of marvellous workmanship. In a few places the road became no more than a wide gravel pathway. During the course of the morning an aeroplane made our lorries a target, for practice, diving and straffing. We passed through many native villages and a few small towns. Once we felt so cold that we stopped and had a game of football with old tin cans by the roadside until we felt warm once more. Round about noon we reached the ancient town of Constantine where we stopped for lunch. The town was quite modern in parts, in others it was the usual dirty native hovels. As the place was built on a hillside it was very much like a miniature Algiers. The parts that stick out most in my mind was the large suspension bridge built over a 200’ 0” gorge and the flocks of sheep and goats wandering all over the rocky hillside. The spot where we stopped was just outside the town.
Our meals consisted of much the same things as the day before except that we had tinned fruit to follow our bully beef. Whilst waiting for the meal to be prepared we discovered a small stream the water of which was quite warm, in a few moments everyone was having a bath in it. I felt very much refreshed after I had been in. A little later our convoy became a worm once more only this time we were descending towards the direction of the coast. It was just on 3.0 p.m. that same afternoon when feeling very travel weary we drove into our destination town of Phillipville, after covering a distance of well over 300 miles since leaving Algiers. We travelled a further six miles along the coast to an Army Transit camp where we were to wait for a boat to take us to Italy.
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There was a hundred of us airmen altogether and we had one Flight Sergeant in charge of us. The camp was so packed when we arrived that for the first night we had to sleep 17 in a Bell tent plus kit. What a night it was. Once I had set myself in a position I had to stay in it, as there was no room whatsoever to move and around the centre pole was just one pile of feet. Things were better next day when an Army Regiment moved out leaving us plenty of tents to move into. As it was an Army run camp, us R.A.F. Fellows did not get troubled very much. During the whole 12 days that I was at the camp we only had to go on parade once and that was to draw pay. I mostly played cards or read a book and as we were right by the sea-shore I went into the sea quite a lot. Once I went in when I did not want to. I was walking along the sands by the waters edge with my thoughts miles away when all of a sudden a huge wave came along which I had not noticed and before I knew what was happening I was up to my knees in water. I looked like a fish out of water as I was floundering to get back onto dry land.
Quite often I did not get out of bed until nearly dinner time. I shall always remember the camp because of the very nice 1 lb. tins of steak and kidney puddings that we used to get for dinner every other day. I nearly always had second helpings when that meal was served, then feeling so full up I would have to go back to my tent and sleep. I always used to get a second tea and then keep it for supper time when I used to light a fire of twigs and then make toast to go with my cheese and jam etc. I used to enjoy those evenings sitting by the firelight beneath a clear starlight sky. There was a hill about 100’ o” [sic] in height just behind the camp and at night I used to like climbing to the top of it and look down on the whole of the camp and see about fifty or more flickering fires dotted all over the place and then behind the camp I would see that light of the moon casting its silver rays upon the sea and hear the soft lapping sound of the waves rolling up the beach.
One day about a hundred Americans came into the camp, they were survivors from a ship that had been torpedoed the day before between ORAN and Phillipville. Many of them had been in the water for hours and just had the clothes on that they left the ship in. A very great number of their comrades were not so fortunate and were still missing.
Altogether I went into the town about a half dozen times. There was nothing special to see there. The place is built on the side of a hill facing the bay, population is approx. 30,000 (including all natives). The town possesses Docks in which can berth six or seven good size ships.
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[underlined] PANTELLERIA ISLAND NEAR LAMPURDUSA. [/underlined]
[photograph of Pantelleria Island]
[underlined] ITALY’S [indecipherable word] – WHICH SURRENDERED AFTER IT HAD BEEN NEARLY SUNK BY BOMBS 1943. [/underlined]
[two symbols]
AS SOON AS WE WERE A FEW MILES OUT TO SEA LIFE BOAT DRILL AND GUN FIRING PRACTISE WAS HELD. WE WERE THE ONLY SHIP TO SAIL AND HAD TWO DESTROYERS AS AN ESCORT. [symbol]
I FOUND OUT LATER WHY WE WERE ON OUR OWN. THE REASON WAS THAT THE SHIP WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FASTEST LINER IN THE US & AT THAT [indecipherable word] AND I THINK SHE PROVED THAT [indecipherable word] ON THIS JOURNEY. BY TEATIME WE COULD SEE BIZERTA ON OUR STARBOARD SIDE WITH ITS BARRAGE BALLOONS THAT PROTECTED THE HARBOUR. THEY FLEW HIGH ABOVE THE HUNDRED OR MORE VESSELS ANCHORED IN IT. ONLY A COUPLE OF MONTHS BEFORE THIS SPOT HAD BEEN HELD BY THE [indecipherable word] AND WAS THE SCENE OF A LANCS BATTLE.
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On Sunday the 5th of December we were told to pack up our kit as we were moving off that afternoon. We sent our two kit-bags to the Docks on a lorry. The hundreds of soldiers that moved off that day had to march the 6 miles down to the Quayside. I felt very sorry for them as they had to carry a rifle and full pack with them. Our Flt/Sgt. told us we could hitch-hike down. So after thmbing [sic] for 1/2 an hour I managed to get a lift in an ambulance all the way.
After retrieving my kit-bags and forming up for roll call I found myself walking up a gang plank once more. At the top I was given a Berthing Card, what a job it was getting along the narrow passage ways carrying kit bags & rifle and pack. I was very glad when I found my mess deck. The boat which was of some 15,000 tons was a French one named the ‘Ville de Oran”. This time I had no trouble slinging and getting into a hammock.
Next morning we sailed at 8.30 a.m. so I said good-bye to North Africa as the coast line gradually receded into the distance and then from sight.
[inserted] [symbol] ADD [symbol] [/inserted]
I spent that evening standing at the bows of the vessel which continuously dipped and rose, just like nodding to the sky. It was breath-taking standing there on deck with the very strong wind almost reaching gale force blowing through my hair and in my face as we headed straight into it. As darkness fell the ship increased its speed to what must have been just on 30 knots. She seemed to skim the top of the water as she went along. As we ran into the storm the sea became a bit rough and the ship began to roll which made a good number of chaps sea-sick. Later when the storm cleared all became calm once more. I was up on deck when on our Starboard side we passed the Island of Lamperdusa which loomed out of the water, and was just a dark patch in the darkness which was slightly illuminated by the thousands of twinkling stars, which in the cloudless sky of the East shine much brighter than they do in England.
Next morning after rolling up my hammock I went for a stroll on deck to breathe in some lovely fresh morning air. On emerging into the daylight I discovered that on our Port-side, the South West coast of Sicily was to be seen, but it was only a thin line on the horizon. As time went on we could make out the cliffs, then the fields followed by the houses and roads, then finally moving objects such as cars etc. At 9.30 a.m. we slid through the entrance gap in the submarine boom and by wrecks of sunken vessels, some half submerged and some with only just their mast heads showing above the water. The sunken vessels included two hospital ships. As we steamed alongside the Quayside ropes were thrown out from the ships and we were secured to the shore and a few moments later the ship dropped anchor and we found ourselves looking upon the town of Syracuse. Around the harbour the houses looked like buildings of a 17th Century English fishing village.
Cont’d…../
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I shall remember for a long time the lovely tone of the peal of bells that rang out from the quaint little ancient church. As the sun set it was just like a picture painted by an expert artist. There was the harbour as I have described with its sunken ships and the village fishing vessels, the peasant houses surrounding the harbour area and the church rising up above it all, and in the background. In the distance we could see Mount Etna and other mountains looking mauve and purple in colour with their white snow tops and the sky was one mass of glorious colours of red, yellow, orange around the deep red fire ball of the setting sun.
We stayed in Syracuse until 4.30 p.m. when we weighed anchor, cast off from the quayside and made for the open sea. As soon as we left the harbour our faithful destroyer escort came up on each side.
On the following morning I was up early once again and I found that we were then sailing in the Bay of Taranto. With Taranto (the great Italian Naval Base) itself in sight. No wonder that we could not get at the Italian Fleet from the sea. It is virtually impossible for any enemy craft to get near to the Base from the sea.
First comes the Bay itself in the shape of a horse-shoe, with an anti-submarine net right across the bay centre. Then 8 miles further towards the coast came a second net, which forms the entrance to the outer harbour and to get into the Naval Base which is the inner harbour each ship has to travel through a canal approx. 150’ 0” wide by 300 yards long. At one point one of the town’s main road’s leads over the canal which is bridged by a movable bridge. Which when closed allows traffic to go over it and when open allows big ships to enter the inner harbour. This strip of water divides old Taranto from modern Taranto.
After sailing passed more sunken ships we docked in the outer bay at 9 a.m. after gliding by the statue of the Pope standing at the harbour entrance. Completing our journey from Africa to Italy in 36 hours sailing time. It was noon before we disembarked on the quayside and loaded most of our kit onto a lorry. Now that the battle front was less than a hundred miles to our North my thoughts were that I shall now be able to do a job of work in helping to win the war. I was hoping to go right through Italy as the Germans fell back and then perhaps across Germany and then Home (the only place that I looked forward to going). Anyway we formed up and started marching around the outer harbour. After passing two more ships we came to one with equipment being loaded on it belonging to [underlined] 242 Squadron 322 Wing [/underlined] (the Squadron that I was joining). We continued on our march and thousands of army chaps were also marching away from the Docks in parties. Each party had to be at least 100 yards apart in case an enemy aircraft appeared overhead and start to machine gun the columns.
Cont’d…../
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Our march took us through old Taranto and over the swing bridge into the newly built part of the town and then on another 300 yards to (or what used to be) a big Hotel overlooking the Naval Base. The R.A.F. were using it as a Transit Camp. We were put into rooms after we had gathered our kit that had been dropped outside the building. My room was situated seven floors up and I was feeling very exhausted when I had finished carrying all my equipment up all those stairs. All the rooms were fully furnished except for beds and there was a wash basin in each and also four bathrooms on each floor. What a vast difference it was from the other Transit Camps that I had stayed at, but my luck, as always, never lasted for long. Within an hour of being there I was told that my Squadron were leaving Italy on the following day. After getting settled in we had a meal (what a meal). The cookhouse was situated on the roof top. I shall always remember my meals in Italy, every meal consisted of cold Bully Beef and dog biscuits. It was hardly worth climbing the stairs for. From the roof we had a commanding view of the inner bay where a large proportion of the great Italian Navy that would never come out and fight lay at anchor. Now it had all surrendered to us, Modern Cruisers, Light Cruisers, Destroyers, and Submarines all anchored side by side stretching as far as the eye could see. Some of the Italians had been in the Navy for 3 years or more and had not yet been to sea. Also from the roof top I could see damage caused by our torpedo raids on the Harbour.
Early afternoon I watched units of the fleet steam pass the bridge into the outer bay, the crew of each vessel were lined up to attention on the deck all the time that they were going through the channel. On reaching a few miles out in the bay the ships would drop anchor and come back on the following day, when other units of the fleet would go out for the night following. This was as far as they ever went and the trip that I have described above was only done to keep the ships in a seaworthy condition. During the afternoon, transport arrived to take some of the airmen that were posted to Squadrons in Southern Italy to their units. I spent quite a good while of the afternoon saying goodbye to many of the fellows that had travelled all the way from Algiers with me.
Most of the civilian population in Italy were nearly starving at that time and they would pay any price for food. Some of the poorer people came around the hotel begging for something to eat. Most of the inhabitants were very well dressed and had plenty of money, but the Germans had taken away all the food that they could lay their hands on. , when they had retreated before our armies. Early evening I crossed the bridge once again with some of my friends and explored the narrow streets in which the tops of the houses on either side nearly touched one another, but we did not come across anything worth seeing so after coming to a dead end turning, we about turned and retraced our steps along the cobbled roadways. We sat down for a while on a seat on a little bit of green outside the old Town Fortress what had been taken over and being used by the British Admiralty.
Cont’d…../
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[inserted] [symbol] VERY MODERN BUILDINGS, [/inserted]
We then decided to have a look at the new part of the town which turned out to be much more interesting, with its [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] green parks and the very large and up to date Town Hall. It was very enjoyable walking in the parks under the moonlit sky. Of course all but a few shops were closed for the night at that time. After a little more wandering we came across a NAAFI Canteen which we entered. In Italy the currency was in Lira 400 to the £1 and at the time we only had French francs on us, but after talking nicely to the Manageress she changed a little of our money for us to enable us to have a good feed of cakes and sandwiches. The canteen was very nicely furnished with easy chairs and all the time light classical music such as “Ava Maria” etc., was being played by an orchestra made up of Italian musicians. All were professional musicians and their playing received a good ovation after each [deleted] time [/deleted] by the audience. I enjoyed the concert very much indeed. As we came out of the door it was crowded with children asking for cakes as they were hungry. We then went back to bed at the hotel. Before I got to bed I had to put [inserted] TO BED [/inserted] one of my mates that was in the same boarding house as myself at Morecambe. He had wandered off somewhere during the evening and I am afraid that he had been visiting too many wine bars as he would persist on using his boots for a pillow. So you now know that the Italian drink called Veno does to you.
We were up early next morning and consumed the proverbial breakfast of Bully Beef and biscuits! Next I had to lug all my kit down that narrow stairway again. A little later a lorry arrived at the hotel from 242 Squadron to pick myself and the other three airmen that had been posted to 242 Sq. it conveyed us down to the docks and to the same jetty that we had disembarked from the day before. Out of the four of us two were Flt/Mechanics (Airframes) myself FM/Engine and the remaining chap was a parachute packer. The whole of 322 Wing (were moving) which consisted of 4 Squadrons 154, 232, 242 & 243 and No. 108 Repair & Salvage Unit and also Wing Headquarters Unit.
After wandering around a bit we found the [deleted] airm [/deleted] [inserted] AIRMEN [/inserted] of 242. You will find the History of Squadron up until then on the opposite page. After an hour of waiting, our turn came to go on board. So I found myself walking up a gang-plank for the third time after coming down one only the day previously. I do not know how I managed it, but I succeeded to get all my kit on board in one trip.
This time the boat was called “SS” Neauralia” and was a British one. It had been a troopship during the war of 1914-18 and had a displacement of approx. 18,000 tons. We sailed at 3.0 p.m. the same afternoon and I said goodbye to Italy after a very short and pleasant stay in the country of 26 hours.
Cont’d…../
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There were many guesses going around as to where we were going to but the only thing that was definite was that we were to be on the sea for five days. We slowly made our way through Sub-booms out into open sea where we met five other troopships and our escort of seven destroyers. We were issued with life-jackets and an Emergency Ration containing 1 lb slab of chocolate and we were told to carry all three things with us constantly. It was always a great temptation to eat the chocolate and at the end of the journey when the time came to hand back the ration quite a few of the fellows had conveniently lost it.
Later on all of a sudden a series of short blasts of the Klaxon horn sounded throughout the ship which was the action station signal and once again it was boat drill. On my first day with the Squadron I received mail, very much to my surprise, it had been sent on from Algiers whilst I was at Phillipville.
One day whilst sitting at my Mess table at a mealtime the fellow sitting next to me showed me some photos of his son. I happened to glance at the back of the envelope and saw a Slough address. It turned out that his home was in Twingners Lane, Slough, and that he used to work at Ken acres in Windsor Road. It just shows what a small world it is. My activities on board were very much as before, dodging fatiques, [sic] reading and sleeping, playing cards and housey-housey. By our amateur navigation (very much so) by the sun each day we could tell that we were heading South., South-East and then due East. On our fourth day at sea we sighted land on the Starboard side and we followed along its dim outline for most of the day. The same morning we had split away from the convoy and were proceeding on our own with an escort of two destroyers. At 4.0 p.m. we had a big scare, our escort was ahead of us when suddenly on our starboard side a conning tower appeared above the surface of the sea followed by the body of a submarine, but it was a British one, luckily for us.
Next day which was a very misty one, we entered the entrance to the Suez Canal and dropped anchor there by the town of Port Said. So it was back to Wog land as we called the natives – [underlined] Western Oriental Gentlemen. [/underlined] I had hoped that I had seen the last of them when I set foot on European soil a few days previously. When the mist cleared from over the canal area we could see familiar advertisements on the quay-side buildings, Johnny Walker, Variety Theatre and there was even a Woolworth’s to be seen. A little later “Z” boats drew alongside our ship and in turn we carried our kit down the gangway and transferred ourselves to the “Z” boat. Each boat held about 350 men with full kit. We chugged across to the East side of the canal and down a few waterways and finally came to a stop at an Army Transit Camp. The “Z” boat was built very similar to an invasion barge and as soon as the ramp was let down we stepped out on the sand once more. After carrying my kit about so much I felt like throwing it into the canal.
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The worst trouble with the camp was if you did not get in the queue early at mealtimes you had to wait for over 2 hours before you were served, as the whole Wing consisted of some 1,250 men they were all served at the one cookhouse. There was a very nice NAAFI on the camp which sold chocolate, tins of fruit, sweets, beer and suppers of eggs and chips, which were all a thing of the past to myself. We had plenty of money on us but were unable to spend a penny of it as it was all in the wrong currency. In Egypt they are Pesatos, 100 to the £1. The coins were of all shapes and sizes, some were square other had serrated edges and others had holes in the centre. Our mouths certainly watered as we watched the chaps stationed on the camp eating all those good things and as we were confined to camp that night, we were unable to take the ferry boat that ran every ten minutes from our side of the Suez over to the town side.
Next morning, we were all up at 4.30 a.m. and later on we boarded the old “Z” boat once more and were taken back along the waterway and passed the big liners and merchant ships to the Western side of the canal where we boarded large lorries and were driven through the town of Port Said and the bits I saw of it were the now familiar [deleted] site [/deleted] [inserted] SIGHT [/inserted] to me of a shamble of dwellings and smelly filthy alleyways. We travelled along by the sea shore and then parallel with the railway and the Suez Canal which was extra busy at the time, with ships going through [deleted] camping [/deleted] [inserted] [indecipherable word] [/inserted] supplies to reinforce our armies in the Far East. The road railway and canal in many places run in a dead straight line. We saw many Egyptian sailing boats and barges, they are still exactly the same design as they were hundreds of years ago. The same applies to their way of living in wooden or tin huts or tin shacks. The state that they live in really is appalling and has to be seen to be believed. Most of the kiddies were covered in sores which in turn were covered in flies.
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25 – 1 –
[underlined] EGYPT [/underlined]
Winter in Egypt is healthy. During peace time many people travelled there to reap the benefit of the climate. During the period of hostilities, only the fortunate will enjoy winter there, but it should be remembered that from November to February, Cairo itself is not so healthy for invalids. There are frequent changes of temperature, nights are cold, and call for heavier clothing. Chills often result in intestinal disturbance, particularly diarrhoea and sometimes an intermittent fever.
One popular handbook to Egypt makes a comment that should not be taken too literally, however encouraging it may seem. This is to the effect that Nile water has a slightly aperient effect on some people, who consequently find it necessary always to take a little brandy with it.
There are other, equally effective, antidotes.
At all times remember that flies are a plague. Once you have seen Arab children standing round with a dozen flies in the corners of their eyes – not an unusual sight – it will be understandable why eye trouble is one of the scourges of the country.
Mosquitoes are also plentiful. Both insects are disease carriers, and every precaution should be taken against them.
Flies disappear like magic as the sun goes down; but not so the mosquitoes.
Climate: The most pleasant period of the year in Egypt is between October and April, with the qualification already mentioned that conditions between November and February are not quite so good in Cairo itself.
Until the end of December, heavy dews fall in the Delta, Cairo, and the Nile Valley, and there are frequent heavy morning mists.
The Khamsin begins in April. This is a hot wind that lasts usually for stretches of about three days.
Money: The Egyptian pound (£E) is worth about £1.0.6d in English. It is divided into piastres and milliemes (100 piastres and 1,000 milliemes).
Tipping: - bakshish – is a habit. Give little, because the recipient will not be satisfied anyway, and when an argument starts the slightest increase can put an end to the protest.
Clothing: Light for summer. Tropical kit will be heavy enough. Medium is for the between seasons, and heavyish for the cold nights of winter. A light overcoat is necessary.
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It is an old traveller’s advice to keep the kidneys (called the “kitchen” in the traveller’s vernacular) warm and protected against chill. There is not much need for a topee except in summer and in the desert, but it is always advisable to keep the back of the neck protected.
For convenience, Egypt is divided into Upper and Lower districts. It has been so divided from the time of the Pharaohs. Lower Egypt stretches from the Mediterranean to Cairo. The rest is Upper Egypt.
Egypt is dependent on the Nile. The silt from the river in flood makes the fertile stretches, which vary from a few yards to 10 or more miles in width, and the regular inundation is the basis of all profitable crops. Irrigation has added to the fertile area. The natives use irrigation streams for water for washing, bathing and cooking. Often they use it as it comes. The European must not, for it is full of potential disease.
Water must always be purified. The normal practice is to filter the water first through porous jars, usually large called Iziers) boil it, and then pass it again through a really efficient candle filter. When this is not possible, the water should be first filtered through porous jars, boiled and chlorinated.
The European should never bathe in canal or river water. That the natives do so is immaterial; they catch certain diseases from the practice which would be far more harmful to service peronnel [sic] than they are to the native population who acquire a certain immunisation.
Dysentry is dangerous and should not be neglected. At the first sign of acute diarrhoea, see the M.O.
Make it normal practice to keep the bowels open, and avoid too much sun; heatstroke is not uncommon in the summer months, nor is it unknown in the winter.
In Egypt avoid alcohol until the sun goes down.
The People. You will find the Fellah, or farm labourer, a good, solid individual. He has his own code, that is to say he counts certain things as ‘perquisites.’ We might call their acquisition pilfering; but the outlook is not the same.
The fellah is a hard-working individual, tough and loyal to his master. He is especially loyal to the European master.
The town-bred Egyptian is of a different character. He has acquired a certain amount of Western culture; sometimes superficial; although there are very many who have assimilated real culture and learning. The town Arabs are a somewhat mixed crowd. Many are in the towns for the purpose of making a living by one means or another out of the visitors.
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The destruction of two ME.109’s a few days ago by an RAF Spitfire Wing brought the Wing’s total victories to 300 1/2 enemy aircraft destroyed in less than a year.
The Wing was formed for the North African invasion, and its ground parties were the first of the RAF Squadrons to land at Algiers. The C.O. of the Wing, Group-Captain Appleton. D.S.O., D.F.C., led the first formation of Spitfires to land at Maison Blanche aerodrome, Algiers, and put down when it was still in French hands, and had not been captured or surrendered to our ground forces.
The RAF Ground parties landed at 0300 hours on November 8th, 1942 and the Spitfires landed at 1100 hours. That same afternoon they flew defensive patrols. The Squadrons had an encouraging start in North Africa, for the next day, the 9th November, the Luftwaffe carried out a heavy dusk raid on Algiers. The Wing’s Spitfires and Hurricanes together with Naval ack-ack, brought down seventeen of the enemy. The German radio admitted the loss of twenty-seven, indicating that many of the probables and damaged never reached their bases.
Three days after landing, a detachment of the Wing moved eastwards to provide cover for the advancing First Army. Wing-Commander (now Group-Captain) P. H. Hugo, D.S.O. D.F.C, and two bars, Croix de Guerre and two Palms, of Victoria, South Africa, flew this detachment to Djidjelli, and this field was also still in the hands of the French – in fact, it was thirty hours later that First Army Units appeared.
The Motor Industries Squadron remained at Djidjelli, while the rest of the Wing moved forward to Bone on November, 13th, only five days after the initial landing. At Bone, a U.S.A.A.F. Spitfire Squadron was attached to the Wing, and remained there until 11th January, 1943.
Operations during November, December, and January, were carried out under extremely difficult conditions, yet the scale of effort was maintained. The air war over Bone was a battle to ensure the survival of the strung-out ground forces. Vital supplies and reinforcements had to get into the port. Outnumbered on every occasion, the Spitfires never let up in their defence of this key supply position.
On one occasion, as many as two hundred enemy aircraft raided the harbour, docks and airfield in a period of twenty-four hours. Despite the Luftwaffe’s large scale efforts to knock/ [inserted] out [/inserted] the Spitfires, the ground crews worked without sleep in mud and rain, and kept the aircraft fit for flying, and the pilots kept on knocking the enemy out of the sky. For instance, on January 2nd, the Wing claimed seven destroyed, five probables, and four damaged, without loss.
On November, 28th, the C.O. Group-Captain Appleton, was badly wounded in an air raid, and lost his foot. Wing Commander Hugo assumed command, and the post of Wing Commander Flying was taken up by Wing-Commander R. Berry, D.S.O., D.F.C., and Bar.
On March 15th, the Wing moved to Souk-el-Khemis, and Group-Captain Hugo handed over to Wing-Commander Berry, as he was transferred to an assignment with the U.S.A.A.F., and later to a RAF Fighter Group. After the fall of Tunis, the Wing moved to Protville, and then on May 31st, moved to Sousse for embarkation to Malta, the Squadron-Leader Flying being Gus Carlson, D.F.C, a New Zealander from Wairapapa, Wellington Province.
From Malta, the Wing took part in the brilliantly successful air cover to the invasion of Sicily, and the command was again taken over by Group-Captain Hugo, Wing-Commander Berry having returned to England. The Wing-Commander Flying was now Colin Gray, D.S.O., D.F.C, and Bar, the top-scoring pilot in North Africa. Before his tour was completed during the Sicilian campaign, Wing-Commander Gray had 28 1/2 victories to his credits. During the Sicilian campaign, the Wing had its greatest day. On July, 25th, the Spitfires intercepted a formation of German Ju. 52 transports, which were trying to fly in supplies to German forces. In the one sweep, 25 Ju’s, together with four escorting fighters, were destroyed. In the afternoon, another four Me.109’s were shot down, making thirty-three victories the total for the day. The transports were bringing in petrol and troops.
The Wing-Commander Flying who took over from Wing-Commander Gray in Sicily was a South African, Lieutenant-Colonel Wilmot, D.F.C., of Capetown, who had flown in East Africa and Abyssinia, and in the Western Desert.
After operating from Lentini during the final assault on Cetania and Messina, the Wing moved to the North coast of Sicily – to Milazzo. It was from here that one of the most difficult assignments in the Wing’s history began. With long-range tanks, the Spitfires covered the landing at Salerno in Italy, and as soon as the Servicing Commandoes and the advance Wing ground parties were ashore, the Spitfires landed on hastily prepared strips on the narrow bridgehead.
P.T.O.
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Here they were refuelled and re-armed, and during this period the landing strips were under enemy shellfire. The whole wing operated under conditions which never have been paralleled before in warfare; Allied artillery was located between the airfield and the beach, and the guns were firing over the field at enemy strong-points in the hills. Similarly, enemy shells were ranging out the beaches over the Spitfires as they re-fuelled. It was lierally [sic] a case of operating in the middle of a battlefield. Group-Captain Hugo, in discussing the Wing’s 300 1/2 victories, said that the highest praise was due to the ground crews. He pointed out that while very few of the original pilots are still in the Mediterranean zone, the ground crews are the same men who landed in North Africa a year ago. “Day in and day out,” he said, “they have done their work in cold and heat, mud and dust, and have never lost their energy and enthusiasm. Without their efforts, the Wing’s success could never have been achieved.”
The Wing has been fortunate in its leadership. Group-Captain Hugo, who had been in command during the greater part of the Wing’s existence, has had a brilliant record. At the beginning of the war, he went to France, and began his career as a fighter pilot. After the evacuation, he was engaged in the hazardous task of shooting-up enemy flak ships. Then came the Battle of Britain, in which he fought with distinction, after which he led fighter sweeps over France. The Tunisian campaign was next recorded in his log book, followed by Sicily and now Italy. He has a total of 520 operational hours to his credit. Group-Captain Hugo has destroyed twenty-one enemy aircraft, and on many occasions, his un-selfish leadership has enabled less experienced pilots to secure victories that could have easily been secured by the Group-Captain.
Up to the 23rd October, 1943, the Wing’s record is:-
North Africa……………………..205 1/2 destroyed
Malta……………………………….34 destroyed
Sicily………………………………..55 destroyed
Italy………………………………… [underlined] 6 [/underlined] destroyed
[underlined] 300 1/2 [/underlined]
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25 – 3a –
Some will act as dragomans, other will peddle various ‘curiosities’ reputed to be of archeological [sic] value (but generally imitation) beads, walking sticks and various oddments. Others are the counterparts of our own city workers, working hard to make a living, doing the ordinary jobs of commercial life.
In Cairo itself, and in most places from Alexandria and Port Said through the valley of the Nile to the border of the Sudan and Abyssinia you will find members of what may be called the upper classes, who are as cultured and aware of the world as any people you may meet anywhere. It is unwise ever to judge immediately by appearances.
Many of the student class have been educated first in their own country and then in Great Britain or other European countries. That they have a nationalistic outlook is to be accepted. Some of the enthusiastic outbursts on the part of the students may be discounted; but they must be understood. The Egyptian yields to no one in patriotism. At the same time, most of them are aware that they do owe a debt to Great Britain. We have many friends, although we undoubtedly have a number of critics there. It is a part of our job to develop the friendship and accept, while tempering, the criticism.
The religion is chiefly Muhammedan, [sic] although there are many Copts. Muhammedanism [sic] in Egypt demands some study. It dates from the early years of the seventh century, and is a missionary, or proselytising religion, which arose in the first place as a protest against the corrupt forms of religion then current. The Muhammedan [sic] is a fighter, he derives inspiration from his faith and is a redoubtable adversary. He can also be an excellent co-worker and a good friend.
Formerly, the position of women left a lot to be desired. Much improvement has taken place in recent years, and although polygamy is permitted according to the tenets of Muhammedanism [sic] it is not so frequently practised.
The Copts, although their Churches has suffered a spiritual decline, are in the main quick and shrewd. In the early days they suffered considerably for the sake of their religion, and were steadily persecuted by the Muhammedans. [sic]
In common with the Muhammedans, [sic] they enforce seclusion on their women.
In the greater cities, French, English and Arabic are fairly generally spoken. Cairo is essentially cosmopolitan, and practically every language can be heard there at one time or another. The telephone operators, for example, are usually efficient in four or five languages.
Cont’d…../
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25 – 4a –
Along the coast are many pleasant resorts, mostly with a long history, stretching from Mersah Matruh – Cleopatra’s playground – to Port Said and beyond. Bathing is good, but there is a strong undertow, and none but really strong swimmers should venture beyond their depth. Certain approved beaches have been established.
Egypt offers many opportunies [sic] for sport, and there is much interest to be got from the remains of what was a great civilisation.
The beginnings of Egyptian history are indeterminate. Scientists differ, so that it is impossible to say, with certainty nearer than a thousand years, when civilisation reached the country. It probably came from the East, perhaps from India, although this is not certain. Roughly the period may be placed between 6,000 and 5,000 B.C.
The Dynasties, which grew from the consolidation of various districts under one energetic tribal chief, begin with Mena, the founder of the first Dynasty. Mena began at or about Abydos, and extended his domain to Memphis and Aswan; which means that he united Upper and Lower Egypt.
The pyramids date generally to the time of the Fourth Dynasty, Khufu (or Cheops), the most spectacular of which stand just outside Cairo, facing the desert.
A vast storehouse of antiquities remains, some have been excavated, and almost everywhere you may go in Egypt you will find the signs of archeologists [sic] who have been at work.
Many of their results – if they are still on view – will be found in the Museum at Cairo, including Tutankhamen’s treasure, one of the outstanding treasure discoveries of our time.
Merely as a point of interest, it is always worth while, when other duties do not prevent the relaxation, to scout around, for there are certainly many more discoveries to be made.
Any handbook on Egypt will provide interesting reading, and the knowledge so gained will be profitable.
After the Dynasties, which had varying fortunes – from rise to decay and rise again, Alexander the Great ruled over the country. He is reputed (and it is probably true) to have travelled to Siwa to consult the oracle, at the temple of Jupiter Ammon.
Alexander was followed by the Ptolemies, fifteen of them. Incidentally, there were six queens who bore the name Cleopatra. The Ptolemies were in power for the 300 years which ended the pre-Christian era.
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They were followed by the Romans, who had control until the beginning of the seventh century, when the Persians reigned for another short spell, to be replaced by the Romans and later by the Muhammedans [sic] who more or less dictated their own terms. The Turks were masters by the sixteenth century, when Egypt was governed by the Mamelikes.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Egypt was the battle ground of Turks, French and English. Napoleon took Alexandria, intending to cripple the mercantile expansion of Britain. Nelson knocked out the French Fleet in the Battle of the Nile, Great Britain made a treaty with Turkey, and Napoleon’s men were finally forced out of the country. The English withdrew at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The next hundred years were marked by uprisings and intrigue. Muhammed Ali murdered the remaining Mamelukes, conquered Syria and destroyed the Turkish fleet. Russia and France intervened, and Turkey again was put into power, with a reversion (under tribute) of the governorship of Egypt to the descendants of Muhammed Ali. Ismail Pasha who succeeded was ineffectual, and 1879 was deposed after pressure had been put on Turkey. Tewfik succeeded, and, had he been surrounded by men who were willing to co-operate, a period of prosperity and quiet might have followed. Instead, the factions created further disturbance. English and French forces were gathered off Alexandria in support of Tewfik. The French, however, believing perhaps that a demonstration should be enough, took no further action and the British took on the job alone.
Action followed. Sir Garnet Wolseley defeated the dissident army at Tel el Kebir. British officials were put at the heads of departments. The Sudan, still in revolt, remained so until Abbas succeeded his father. Then a joint Anglo-Egyptian force reduced the Sudan. This force was led by Lord Kitchener, who completed the operation in September, 1898, but reports came of a French force under Major Marchand at Fashoda being attacked by natives. After successful operations, against the native troops, negotiations between France and Britain led to the withdrawal of Major Marchand.
Further disturbances led to the ‘occupation’ becoming a Protectorate.
Now, by recent changes, Egypt is self-governing, although certain protection rights are still retained by Great Britain.
THE SUEZ CANAL. This highway, connecting the eastern oceans with the Mediterranean, gives Egypt its chief strategic importance. The two ports (Suez and Port Said) commanding the Canal, serve as bases.
Before the canal was cut, the route along which it runs was in use by trading caravans, and was the highway of invasion along the Sinai Peninsula.
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The Canal is a key highway, undoubtedly one of the prizes that the Nazis would be glad to win. Its defence is of primary importance, and Von Rommel’s campaign was launched in the hope of breaking through after the Italians had failed. The armies under the Italian leader Marshall Graziani were first engaged, and in a two months’ campaign lost 133,000 men taken prisoner, in addition to the killed and wounded. One thousand three hundred guns and over 400 tanks were taken in the same period.
German stiffening introduced another phase of war.
Most of the action has taken place in the western desert, where life, under service conditions, is more strenuous than it is in the more leisurely times of peace.
To make the most of it, it is necessary to get some idea of the particular desert, and to have an idea of what desert means in general.
First of all, it must be rememberred [sic] that the Libyan Desert is as large as a continent, stretching over 1,200 miles from Cairo to the Tunisian border, and south for more than a thousand miles to the woodmen’s tracks that run into Abyssinia. Only a cluster of massifs, rocks that might reasonably be called mountains, separate the Libyan Desert from the Sahara.
The desert is not completely waterless. Rain, it is true, falls only occasionally, but in the depressions, sometimes near the surface, sometimes deep down, are water deposits. Small oases are gathered around shallow wells. Large oases, such as Siwa have a fairly constant and reasonably plentiful supply of water.
Desert is not all sand. There are long stretches of broken stone; others are pebble-strewn, pocked by eroded hills. The ground may be hard, or it may be carpeted with a thick layer of dust.
From the ‘high’ desert it is often possible to look down a steep cliff-like formation to the ‘low’ desert, with a panorama of sand dunes which slope gently on one side and fall away steeply on the other.
Transport in the desert is not essentially difficult from the mechanical point of view. It is far more difficult from the point of view of direction. It is easy to move, but easy to lose the way, and travel becomes a matter of navigation just as surely as is the case with sea-borne traffic. In fact, the desert is very much like the sea, save in the one particular that the desert is dry.
That dryness imposes sever restrictions. Water fit for human use is precious and rate. Most of it has to be transported, especially in a campaign. It must therefore be husbanded most carefully, and used sparingly.
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All suffer alike, and there is no sense whatever in pretending that discomfort, dirt and shortage must not be accepted.
The discomforts are increased by the changes, often great, in temperature; from hot days to cold nights, and the farther inland you may be, the greater will be the extremes.
Strong winds raise sand and dust storms, according to the nature of the particular bit of desert. The finely powdered sand gets into everything that is not hermetically sealed. Don’t walk barefooted. Wear the Arab desert boots, made of camel skin.
In the Western Desert (so called to distinguish it from the Sinai Desert), which runs from Egypt through Cyrenaica, there is a strip of country which may reach 5 miles in width that occasional rains turn into a ‘sea’ of mud, as happened during the later phases of the push against Rommel.
Although sand will generally defeat nearly every precaution taken against it, it is better to take those precautions.
Goggles should be worn when possible, as a protection against sun and sand. When drinking water is short-rationed, take a little at a time, and hold it in the mouth – this revives the tissues – before swallowing it. Water should never be gulped down in quantities. The thirstier you may be, the slower you should drink. Near wells there are scorpions. A few snakes can be found, usually harmless.
Avoid strong spirits, not necessarily because of any objection to the reasonable use of alcohol, but because spirits dry up the natural moisture of the body. The simple illustration of that truth is to be found in the almost feverish desire for quantities of water ‘the morning after the night before.’ Beer (if, and when you can get it) is not in the same category; but spirits and drinks with a high alcohol content are not worth the aftermath.
Use some of your precious water to wash your eyes, and if you can get a little boric lotion, so much the better. Keep flies out of your eyes, never stay longer than you must in the neighbourhood of any pollution, whether it be malarial bit of a lake or decaying matter. Where the flies are thickest is a danger spot.
Neglect no small abrasions, sores or cuts. A quick application of iodine or other first-aid dressing will often save serious trouble.
Avoid sudden chills as the sun goes down. This is a word worth repeating.
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When travelling on foot in the desert, take a compass if you can. If you have no compass, do as the natives do who are used to the desert – mark the course you have taken.
Marks, particularly the marks of vehicles, last for an incredibly long time in the sand. Explorers have found the tracks of forerunners who went along their route ten or more years earlier.
A very simple, but often useful, trick is to mark each turning. Just drag the toe of your boot deeply in the loose sand at the base of a rock, to show which way you turned; mark any right or left turn as you go, again by deep scuffling of the sand. It will often enable you to retrace your steps with accuracy, and prevent you being lost.
Don’t trust the desert at all until you know it. It is full of surprises, full of similarities. The sand dune that you may be tempted to take as a landmark is all very distinct and individual – until you have travelled on for a few miles and learned that it is only one of many, all bearing the same outline.
Practise self-control on all journeys. It is better to arrive with a slight thirst and water in the bottle than to have been thoughtlessly extravagant on the early stage of a journey that took longer than you expected. Begin to ration yourself when you think you have plenty to spare.
It is our custom to take clothes off when we are hot. The natives, quite as often, cover themselves even more completely. This is particularly noticeable among the Bedouin. There is a good reason for each of the practices. We perspire more than they do, and so keep our temperatures down. Follow the M.O’s advice. When water is short and perspiration retarded, many practised explorers and desert workers have learned to use wraps as protection against the sun.
One of the first essentials in hot dry countries is to eat and drink moderately; better little and often than large doses at longer intervals. Keep the bowels open, regard constipation with almost as much apprehension as you would diarrhoea. Never lie naked on a bed during the heat or you may experience ‘Gyppy tummy.’ Take a good dose of castor oil – and make it a [underline] good [/underlined] one. Gyppy tummy generally arises from chill on the stomach.
[underlined] Political Considerations. [/underlined] Only the very wise, the very old, and the very inquisitive can appreciate all the political undercurrents in Egypt. There are some wise counsellors, there are some place-seekers, there are many highly educated, fervently patriotic people, and there are packets of people who want to make trouble; why, there are not always sure. Demonstration is a characteristic. Just as the workers in remote places like to put on a ‘fantasia,’ so in some of the more thickly populated places there are those who treat demonstrations as a bit of fun.
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It is not always fun, however.
There is still a certain amount of ‘clearing house’ business going on in the cities. Not every man in Egypt is Egyptian. The cafes and the hotels are by no means innocent of people there to collect and disseminate information. It is a good rule to leave politics and the discussion of military subjects alone.
That does not mean that agreeable social contacts cannot be made, for the good Egyptian is an excellent host. He is lavish but ceremonious. Many may wish you the pleasure of a very large family…and mean it. Don’t laugh. It is the formula for saying ‘I wish you well, and that you may be blessed of Allah.’ It is, in fact, what they say to each other.
Treat all their formality and ceremony with respect, it has grown up with them, is part of their culture, and all take pleasure in it, even in the lengthy greetings and farewells.
Finally, watch the amusement question with care. The women of the country are mostly jealously guarded. Some, but not all, not so guarded may have lost standing.
When women do lose standing they can degenerate into extremely careless – to put it as gently as possible – representatives of the people. In many ports women are exploited for amusement, and somebody is reaping the profit, without reference to the amused who may not reap any profit at all.
In these matters straight disipline, [sic] good sense, and an appreciation of responsibility will serve well.
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[underlined] MY OVERSEAS SERVICE
PART 2. [/underlined]
BY
[underlined] R. BARRETT [/underlined]
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We stopped once during the journey at a roadside Y.M.C.A. canteen, where we had tea and cream cakes (another thing of the past to us). At one point we saw two surrendered [inserted] ITALIAN [/inserted] battleships in the canal. The further we travelled the more it became real desert scenery, miles and miles of sand dunes dotted with scrubs and cactus and near water there would be seen palm trees.
We arrived at Kabrit R.A.F. Station in the afternoon after having travelled 60 miles by road. Here we were put into wooden huts with concrete floors and we had palliasses filled with straw on which to sleep. We were delighted when we found that the huts possessed electric lighting and that we were able to buy almost anything we needed at the camp’s NAAFI. We stuffed ourselves mostly with cream cakes and fruit drinks. The camp was situated at the Southern shore of the larger of the two Bitter Lakes that link up the busy Suez Canal.
We were 60 miles South of Port Said and 90 miles North East of Cario. [sic] I spent most of my six days stay at Kabrit playing football, reading etc., and twelve days before Christmas I went swimming in the Bitter Lake. One day I sat down and wrote four long letters and was I mad when I was told that they had all been rejected by the censor, after all the time I had wasted whilst writing them. On another day I obtained a pass to enable me to go out from camp until midnight the same day. A friend and myself set out early morning and started to take a short cut to the main road by walking about two miles across the sand and on reaching it we started to thumb a lift into Ismailia 30 miles away to our North. A jeep being driven by an Army Officer stopped in response to our signals and said that he could take us 12 miles up the road and as every little helps we went with him. I do not think that I have ever covered 12 miles so quickly on the ground as I did on that trip. We had no sooner got in the jeep than it was time to get out again, we must have averaged 75 m.p.h. The officer dropped us off by the two Italian battleships anchored in the lake. From here we were soon able to get another lift that took us a further two miles up the road. Then we had a wait of well over an hour before anything would stop. We were just going to abandon our trip and go back to camp when a lorry drew up and took us the rest of the way into town.
I was very disappointed with the town. As soon as I descended from the lorry I was besieged by a swarm of Arabs trying to sell me souveniers [sic] of some sort or wanting to change something. “Want to buy a wallet” “Shoe Shine” “Any Broken Watches” “Fountain Pen” these remarks rang in my ears from all sides. They followed us along the road and as fast as we got rid of one another fellow would come up to us. It was the worst place I have been to for being pestered. I think they thought that Lord Nuffield had arrived in town instead of A.C. Barrett. After having a meal in the Y.M.C.A. we took a stroll around the town and we thought it funny after wandering around for half-an-hour or so and not seeing a single European in that time and when we did finally meet up with another serviceman and asked him where the cinema was we also found out that we had been wandering around the worst native part of the town that was out of bounds and that we had not been in the town proper yet.
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There was not much even in the main part of the town to speak of. Native music blared out from their dark and dismal cafes and there were two main streets of old shops with their windows full of mostly souveniers [sic] for visitors to the town to buy. After a visit to what the town called a cinema we picked up a lorry once more that took us back to the battleships once again. As there was not any traffic along the road we decided to start walking along the road back to camp, hoping that a vehicle would come along and pick us up. As we had covered the distance so quickly in the jeep coming down we did not think it was very far back to camp. A few cars passed us from time to time but none of them would stop. One minute the Suez Canal lake edge would be alongside the edge of the road and a little while later there was nothing but sand on either side of us. There were rows of bright lights on the horizon as we walked along which illuminated a large prisoner-of-war camp. We were still plodding along when all was silent and still except for the sound of our own feet on the road when all of a sudden we caught sight of a black blob about 8’ 0” off the ground and bobbing up and down, growing bigger and bigger as it advanced towards us. I was just getting ready to run and was wondering what the hell it was, when a greeting in Arabic rang out at us and then an Arab dressed in a flowing cloak and riding on a camel. We could only see the black cloak and the camel did not show up or make a noise moving across the sand. We hailed the rider who pulled up and we made him understand that we wanted to know how far it was to the cross roads by saying Kilos and making crosses in the sand and he told us it was two kilos up the road by putting two fingers up at us. By then it was 10.30 p.m. and we dare not sit down or we would never get started again, but we promised ourselves a rest at the cross roads when we reached them. Anyway after covering another 4 kilometres we still had not reached them and by then we were feeling very tired and weary and in not too good a temper and our feet were very sore. It was 12.30 a.m. when we arrived in camp after well over 12 miles.
I shall not forget in a hurry either the day we left the station. We first went on parade at 5.30 p.m. with out [sic] kit and some of the chaps were taken by lorry out to a desolate spot miles from anywhere, in the desert and dropped beside a single line railway track and then the lorries came back to the camp to pick up more men. Everytime the lorries came back we paraded once more to see if it was our turn to go, but no such luck, we waited and waited. After the lorries had done three trips and had taken about 250 airmen away some bright officer decided that they were all to be brought back to camp for supper. We were then all dismissed and told that we would be called out when needed. I had just settled down in the hut and on the point of dropping off to sleep whilst lying on my paliasse, [sic] when someone shouts “on parade outside quickly” so out we went once more dragging our kit and then a roll call for the fourth time that evening and were then told to load our kit on the waiting lorries and it would be taken down to the track before us. Then it was back to the huts again and we were all asleep when called out for the fifth time. By then it was past 11.0 p.m. and getting cold and to put it in a polite way we were all very fed up but this was not the end of it all.
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When we arrived at this out of the way spot there were approx. 1,000 men’s kits spread over a wide area. Unfortunately, that night there was no moon and there we were roaming up and down the line following the Adjutant like lambs as he tried to locate the Squadrons kit with the aid of his troch and as we went along we all made a sheep bleating noise. What a chaos it was. We eventually found our pile of kit and sorted it out with the aid of matches, then we sat on the sand and waited by the railside. Dead silence descended over the area for a while. None of us knew what was happening and there was the W/O roving up and down muttering to himself “It is all very well keeping these moves secret but someone should know something”. I was just dozing off to sleep again when a train whistle in the distance pierced the silence. Of course, everyone jumped up but as sound travels such a long way it was a full 1/2 hour before the train pulled up alongside. We then had to drag our kit along to the 242 Squadron carriage and long after I had settled in, some of the chaps were wandering up and down the train trying to find a seat.
We moved off at 3.30 a.m. in the morning. This was my first experience of travelling on the Egyptian State Railways and I would have been glad if it had been my last. The carriages were very similar to our old trams and they had narrow wooden seats which were lovely and comfortable to sit on (like hell they were). All the small luggage racks and the whole of the gangways between the rows of seats were filled with kit. So we had to sleep sitting upright. That first night my head kept dropping and dropping until it was nearly in my lap and then I would wake up with a start.
When daylight arrived we were still travelling alongside the Suez. I saw two weird sights during the morning. You all know the old saying “camels being the ships of the desert” well here is another version. The Suez was about 1/4 of a mile from the carriage so we could not see it, as the water level is beneath the tip of the sand, we could only see 5000 tonne Merchant Ships which appeared to be gliding across the sand. The other sight which sticks in my mind was when we passed a Arab graveyard in the desert I saw a great big vulture with its wings outspread sitting on top of a stone cross of one of the graves and there were many more vultures circling overhead. At approx. 10.0 a.m. we crossed a bridge and on to the East side of the canal and started our trip across the Northern end of the Sennii Desert where there was nothing to be seen except sand and more sand and a few shrubs.
We stopped for dinner near to the Egyptian/Palestine Frontier. The following scene was the same at every station, we stopped for meals throughout the journey. As soon as the train pulled into the station, a thousand or more men clambered out carriage doors, windows and all started to run hell for leather across the railway tracks, with their eating utensils rattling in their hands towards one spot (where they were issuing out the food). If you happened to get caught up in the window or were late getting off the mark, you had an hour’s wait in a queue. The following procedure was usually adopted if you arrived there at the beginning, at anyrate it was by me. As soon as the queue dwindled down to nearly nothing, I would join on the end again ready for a second meal.
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[underlined] FACING 27 1.A [/underlined]
[four cartoon drawings]
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[underlined] MEN YOU MAY MEET. [/underlined] [inserted] [underlined] BY CAPTAIN. (W.E. JOHNS.) [/underlined] [/inserted]
Egypt is the hub around which are set the vital aerodromes of Iraq, Palestine, Transjordania. Aden and the Sudan. On one of these aerodromes a large proportion of cadets will one day find themselves, so now let us glance at the local inhabitants, the Arab, or Beduin. [sic] There is a vast number of them scattered over the millions of square miles that lie between Turkey and Arabia, between Persia and the Western Desert; and as they have been there a lot longer than we, they have certain fixed ideas which are well to know, for an understanding of the Bediun [sic] may not only save trouble, but may make life a lot easier. Of course, no European really understands the subtle working of the Arab mind, but it is possible from time to time to get a glimpse of it.
Probably more hooey has been written about the Arabs than any other race on earth. Incredible romances have been woven about the sheikhs of the desert. The first thing to do is to forget that. The next thing in trying to understand the Arab is to discard European standards of judgement. What is a sin in London may be a virtue in Baghdad.
First of all, the Arab is a realist. He has to be, for to him life is, and always has been, a grim business. Quite a number of Arabs live perpetually on the verge of starvation. There are some those who dwell in the desert – who hardly know what it is to drink to repletion. Against this state of affairs the Arab has no complaint. It has been with him so long that he is hardly able to comprehend any other mode of life. But he knows what he wants, and to him any means to that end are justified. He will lie with such barefaced yet engaging effrontery that against one’s better judgment one is often taken in. Perhaps the most shattering lies of all are those which he tells to please you. So charming, courteous and hospitable is the Arab that he simple cannot bear to tell you something that he knows will cause you disappointment or pain.
For example, if you say to an Arab postman “Are there any letters for me?” he will invariably answer “Yes” knowing perfectly well that there are none, because he hates to disappoint you. If he says there are many letters for you, you can reasonably expect one. As a guide, the average Arab is utterly unreliable for this same reason. Admittedly, he has no idea of time or distance. Rarely having anywhere in particular to go, with all his life to get there, this is not surprising. But if he sees you are thirsty he will shorten the distance to the nearest water rather than see you downcast by being told the bitter truth. Thus, if he says there is a water-hole one hour’s march away, you would be wise to reckon that it is at least six hours.
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The next important thing to remember is: an Arab will take any amount of punishment without a murmur. If he knows the punishment is deserved he will expect it, and bear no malice; in fact, hard though it is to believe, if he does not receive the punishment he knows is warranted he may feel insulted, and hate you for it. He does not regard this as leniency on your part, for leniency is something he does not understand. To him it is weakness, and once an Arab thinks you are weak he has no further use for you. No, he takes the view that you think so poorly of him that he is no worth punishing. This is “loss of face” and to lose face in the Orient is the most frightful thing that can happen to a man. For this reason never try to be funny at the expense of an Arab. Above all things, never hold one up to redicule. [sic] Hit him if you will, and he will get up smiling; but to make an Arab look foolish in front of his people is to make a deadly enemy. The next point is manual labour. The true Arab has a rooted objection to anything in the nature of work. Arabs who work for cultivators of the soil or fishermen, for example, are looked upon as the scum of the earth by the desert Arabs, who consider that the only honourable calling in life (apart from fighting) is the breeding of camels. They even regard breeders of goats and sheep as people far down the social scale. Work is a low and degrading business, for the Arab cannot conceive of anybody working unless compelled to do so by utter poverty. In the Middle East a white man who carries his own bag or digs his own garden at once loses face. He sinks at once to the very dregs, and is treated accordingly. No Arab could believe that a man goes for a walk, or digs in his garden, because he never likes that sort of thing.
Nevertheless, the Arab can be a very lovable character. I once had a batman who was a liar, a thief and a rogue; a more plausible rascal never lived, yet I couldn’t help liking him. Arabs affect you like that. We need not say much about religion. The Arab has his own religion; he takes it very seriously, and expects you to respect it. It would be in the worst possible taste not to respect it.
In my experience a white man has nothing to fear from any Arab wherever he may meet him. If you have a forced landing, or are stuck somewhere in a car, you will find his behaviour exemplary. He will be polite, and do his utmost to help you. This is the ancient law of the wilderness, where help and hospitality are offered automatically. In such circumstances an Arab will rarely steal anything. He might “borrow” something out of your tent because he knows it will not seriously inconvenience you; but he would not take anything if he found you in a bad way, stranded somewhere. Nor does a desert Arab expect a tip for his assistance. The town Arab is different.
As a worker the Arab is a failure, often a fool. It may take ten Arabs to lift a case that two white men could handle, because Arabs have no idea of team-work. Each man lifts when he feels like it. The white man who one day persuades ten Arabs to lift together will have performed a miracle.
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[underlined] THE MIDDLE EAST [/underlined]
Before proceeding to notes on the various countries which lie within the active zones of the Middle East, it should be realised that everything possible has been done for the welfare and comfort of personnel proceeding there.
In the established bases all medical protection has been provided. There are comforts that you will perhaps be surprised to see. For instance, billets, food, recreation, rest and amusement are all good.
At advanced bases, comfort is naturally less; but even there it is probably better than the old campaigner will expect.
The following detailed notes are intended as an introduction to countries with people whose ways and speech, whose outlook on the world at large, differ considerably from ours.
Palestine, because of its religious significance, has long been a battle ground. It has been a battle ground for much longer because of its geographical significance.
It makes contact with Syria, Trans-Jordan and Egypt, and consists of an irregular strip of country which rises gently by foothills from the sea to the hard core of higher ground (from Nablus to Beersheba) and slopes down again to the boundary, which runs almost due south through the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba.
The Coastal Plain varies greatly in width, diminishing to a mile or two at Acre, nothing at Mount Carmel and steadily widening along the coast to Jaffa, through to Gaza to Egypt.
This coastal region has figured in history as one of the great military roads for the invaders, who swept down through Syria, by Mount Carmel and along the plain of Sharon to the south.
Palestine has also its desert region, stretching south of a line roughly drawn from Gaza to Beersheba and terminating at Rafa, near the Egyptian border, where the Sinai desert begins.
After Biblical times, Rome held power, disturbed by revolt until final subjugation in about 135 A.D. Rome governed Palestine for about 300 years. On the division of the Roman Empire, Palestine fell to the Byzantine rulers. Who were overthrown in the seventh century by the Arabs, on the upward surge of Muhammedan [sic] expansion.
Cont’d…../
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Until the middle of the eighth century it was ruled from Damascus.
The Crusades began towards the end of the eleventh century, with a religious backing to political and mercantile adventure, and had fluctuating fortune until the early part of the thirteenth century. Then Turkey took over. The Turks of that period were expansionists, and although there was schism, they contrived to get a very strong hold on much of the Mediterranean.
Thereafter the history of Palestine follows to some extent the history of Egypt, with Napoleon playing a considerable part at about the end of the eighteenth century.
The British mandate, following the brilliant campaign of 1917, saw the end of the Turkish period.
It also saw the revival of the ‘national home’ movement for the Jewish people who had clung to the idea since their dispossession by the Romans.
Lord Balfour pronounced himself in favour of the movement, and a considerable migration followed. The executive body (Palestine Zionist Executive) derives its funds from Jewish people throughout the world. Much has been done; but there is still a considerable body of antagonistic Arabs who do not look with favour on the transfer of their lands, either by sale or otherwise.
The friction that has persisted for the last twenty years on this ground has not disappeared. Population figures show a total of 1,435,285 of whom 900,250 are Muhammedans, [sic] 411,222 Jews and the 111,974 Christians. The prevailing language is Arabic, and many of the Jews in Palestine are of relatively recent migration.
The Arabs include a considerable percentage of nomads, who live in tents and move their flocks much as did the early peoples. Some are cave dwellers, and there is little association between tribes, many of which are merely small clusters of people, closely related.
This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the various religions, or the various shades of religion in the country; nor is it immediately necessary to discuss the complicated political situation. The best advice is to leave both alone, and by example of forbearance, with firm justice, to avoid adding to the fires that are certainly there, whether smouldering or in flame. Time may bring about a quiter [sic] period and skilled leadership reduce the difference to a good working basis.
As may be expected in a country of such contrasts, the flora and fauna are extremely varied. Tropical and subtropical flowers add colour to the landscape.
Cont’d…../
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The larger animals have disappeared or been reduced in number by the introduction of the sporting rifle, so that the remnants are now protected, and the shooting laws are moderately strict. They should be referred to on the spot.
Palestine is on the migration route of many birds familiar to us, and the bird population is constantly changing. Few birds are really resident, but nearly all the migratory birds will be seen there, on their journey south or north according to the season.
Many survivals will be observed in the agricultural life, such as sowing the seeds by hand, harvesting with the sickle and treading out the grain on the threshing floor. These practices persist in the small farms of almost all districts in this part of the Mediterranean.
But, although there are survivals from the past, it does not necessarily follow that no modern ideas have percolated.
Political stresses have made their inroads. The Arabs and the Jews have absorbed many ideas; not all well founded, but many leading to a certain violence of expression. Beware of them.
Other modern ideas have taken hold: there is an advance in fruit farming, prospecting for minerals (including oil), education and culture.
Tact will be strained sometimes. It is not the task of service personnel to decide on the various rights of majorities or minorities. It is, however, the task of personnel to push the war effort forward. That is the first job; interest, minor and major researches into the great history and archeological [sic] remains can only be secondary. But, in the leisure moments, when they come, there is a great deal to be seen and learned. Just as in the last war many people went to Palestine and Trans-Jordan and came back with a new and personal interpretation and understanding of age-old truths, so now it will happen again. Any man who is willing to keep an open mind and a kindly spirit will benefit from the mission on which he is sent.
[underlined] Climate. [/underlined] There is an extreme difference between maximum and minimum temperatures according to seasons. The differences in one day are equally marked. It may be freezing at night and roughly 75 degrees (Fahrenheit) by day in winter in certain parts.
According to the Bible a young man slew a lion on a snowy day. That is neither a miracle not necessarily unusual 9except [sic] that lions are now scarce). In the vicinity of Jerusalem there is snow often enough in winter. The city has been snowbound for days.
Cont’d…../
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- 4c –
Summer can be hot.
During the winter months such clothing as is worn in England at the same period is right; stout underwear and overcoats. In summer, semitropical (or even tropical kit) should be worn with a little extra clothing after the sun goes down.
The winter months are either rainy or snowy. Spring is slow, but from May to October there is constant fair weather.
Generally, the precautions to be taken are the same as for Egypt; beware of flies and mosquitoes, drink no defiled water. Take no chances with dogs. Approximately 12,000 animals were killed in one year in a campaign against rabies.
The Muhammedan [sic] Calendar will be a little perplexing, but does not enter into commercial affairs. It is a calendar dominated by the moon (as ours is by the sun) and is divided into twelve lunar months, so that the religious calendar moves on more swiftly.
The Financial calendar is according to the sun, as is the Hebrew calendar.
The dates are unlikely to worry any service personnel, but the differences may be noted as a matter of interest.
- - - - - - -
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[inserted] [10 Piastres Lebanese Note] [/inserted]
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During our first stop I changed my money into millions (1000 to the £1 sterling) at one of the money-change stalls on the station, of course, we lost a small percentage on the transaction which the fellow kept for changing it for us.
Early that afternoon we started travelling through Palestine. The country is very much the same as Egypt with regard to the living conditions. The most select town in the country is Tel-Aviv. Around the costal [sic] plain the ground was well irrigated and the sand disappears and the green trees, waving palms and fig trees and orchards of orange and lemon trees loaded with fruit and tangerine groves appear.
Whilst playing a game of cards in our laps in the candle-light the train pulled up with a jerk in Gaza railway station. Cards flew everywhere, mess-tins, knives, forks and spoons appeared from nowhere. Some of the chaps who were sleeping arose with a dozed half sleepy expression on their faces wondering what the trouble and row was about. Then they too would rummage through their kit for their eating utensils and in a few moments not a sole [sic] would be left in the carriage. Everyone was stampeding towards the platform in the dark. It was a wonder that none got hurt, what with the falling out of the windows and tripping over railway lines etc. We received such a small meal at this stop that I had to buy a pile of sandwiches to fill up the empty spaces in my tummy at the railway canteen.
It was 10.30 p.m. by the time we drew out of Gaza continuing on our trip. I soon started to try and find a space in which to sleep as I did not want to spend another night like the previous one. I chose the floor space between the seats which was just wide enough for me to lie on my side. It was a bit hard on my hip bone as the floor was not smooth as a series of wooden strips about 3” apart ran accross [sic] it and it was chilly lying there with just a greatcoat over me and if I had tried to find my bed roll I should have had to disturb at least a dozen other chaps. Also as they were only 4’ 0” long I could not bend myself at all and the extra two foot of me stuck out in the passage-way with my head and shoulders resting on my bumpy kit bag packed with tin hats etc., and to crown it all above me two other fellows were sleeping with their legs on one seat and their bodies on the other one. You can guess how I felt not being able to move, getting cramp etc. I had just dozed off when I was awoken by the train coming to a halt with a jolt and found myself half suffocated and gasping for breath through lack of air, after that every so often I had to ease myself up a little more into the open. Then every so often someone would climb over my head or step on my face when climbing over the kit to get to the lavatory. Eventually I did get fully off to sleep and the next thing I knew was of being awakened by everyone scrambling about in the dark and as the train was at a stand-still I immediately grabbed for my mess tin etc., only to be told that we were changing trains there.
Cont’d…../
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So, in a semi-stupor, by the aid of matches, I gathered all my kit together (God only know’s how I found [deleted] them [/deleted] [inserted] IT [/inserted] all) and began to evacuate same and myself through the carriage window. It was then pitch dark and 3 a.m. in the morning. My next step was to put my kit in one of the 10 tonne cattle trucks that were stationed on the next rail alongside our train. We did not wait to be told where to go, we just piled in the near [deleted] side [/deleted] [inserted] EST [/inserted] truck. There were about 20 of us in the one that I scrambled aboard. It was every man for himself and after grabbing myself a bed space, I went along to one of the station building’s where meals were being dished out and it was there that I found out we were at Haifa North. I spent the rest of the night in comparative comfort, except for a draught coming in from where the sliding door would not close properly. I could not even move [deleted] to [/deleted] [inserted] AND REALLY [/inserted] stretch my legs full length without kicking somebody on the head. The floor, which was made of wooden sleepers was smooth.
When I awoke next morning we were travelling along beside the deep blue water of the sea, with its golden sandy beach leading up from the waters edge to the railway track and to the other side of us were more fruit groves along with tiny native villages scattered about the green and rocky hills which reached up to a height of some 1,500’. We were also nearing the border line between Palestine and the Lebanese States and at 10.30 a.m. we pulled into Beruit [sic] which is their capital, which shortly before had been the scene of many riots. It was here that I had breakfast. I should have said breakfasts which is more accurate and I also bought some egg rolls from a stall nearby the station. I managed to have a hurried wash beneath a water pump before we moved off once more.
As the following part of our journey was to be mostly uphill our train was split into two halves. I think I enjoyed this stage of the trip most of all. As we drew out from Beruit, [sic] banana plantations were to be seen and hardly anything else. There were millions of plants each laden with thousands of bananas. At one point the train slowed down so out from the truck I jumped armed with a knife and made a dash to the nearest plants. I had only covered a little over half the distance to them when I heard a blast from the train’s whistle that told me that it was on the move again. As I had got so far [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] I [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] stopped at the plants long enough to enable me to slash off [inserted] CONTINUED MY DASH AWAY [/inserted] a few bananas with my knife before making my sprint back to the train. When I started the train was a good way from me travelling at a good speed and there was I running along the track with my hands full of bananas. I was just about on my last legs and gasping for breath when arms stretched out towards me and I was hauled into the truck landing on my face. All my trouble was in vain, as the bananas were not quite ripe and tasted like a cucumber. During the rest of the trip the train stopped at posts stationed at every few miles along the line. At each post the driver received information that the next station of the line was clear.
Cont’d…../
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We were still travelling by the sea around many beautiful bays that would make natural harbours, if ever needed, also passes cut in the rocks. Later on that day we were passing by rugged, rocky mountains situated a little inland which rose in parts to approx. 5,000 ft. and most of their peaks were covered in snow. Next we came to the Bay of Tripoli and at dusk we drew into Tripoli railway station where dinner was consumed at 6.0 p.m. in a nearby Army Camp. We had a stop here of over three hours, so during that time I ventured a little way away from the station, but I only came accross [sic] a few dingy fruit stalls lit up by little oil lamps. At one of them I bought a supply of oranges, tangerines and bananas, but I thought it unwise to venture any further in the dark.
The front half of the train had arrived at Tripoli two hours before us. As the time drew near for us to leave I started to look for my truck. At first I could not even find the train and when I did come accross [sic] it I could not find my truck in the darkness. The two halves of the train had now been joined together and all the truck positions had been altered. There were at least four trains in the station at the [deleted] town [/deleted] [inserted] TIME [/inserted] and they all looked alike in the dark, and the truck that we cam in on was empty.
After walking up and down the 40 odd trucks four times, looking in each of them, I at last discovered the one I was travelling in a little way out of the station. It had not been shunted on to the train.
As soon as we moved off at 8.30 p.m. I lay down on my blankets and the next thing I remember was waking up for tea in Hormes in Syria at 4.30 a.m.
When daylight arrived we were travelling in the wilds. Everywhere there was flat and stony, rocky, ground. The area’s around the few villages that comprised of a series of stone eskimo huts had been ploughed where it was not rocky by an ox pulling some queer implement held by a native which makes a single furrow as it goes along. It was a wonder that anything grew in such a desolate spot. There were many hawks to be seen with wing spans anything up to 5’ 0”.
As mid-day neared we could see more white topped mountains and at 12.30 p.m. we reached our destination which was Alleppo. [sic] In the station we could see waggons loaded with guns, tanks, supplies etc., bound for Turkey and trains leaving for Baghdad, the capital of Persia.
After detraining we were taken by lorry for a 30 mile ride in a slightly North Westerly direction along a road full of hair pin bends which led through very open rocky country.
As we left the town of Alleppo [sic] behind us the road led upward and we could look down and get a birds eye view of the town, which from there, looked very modern with its mass of white buildings.
Cont’d…../
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The population of the town is approximately 1/2 million and it is the gateway to Turkey, the border of which is 20 miles to the North. Alleppo [sic] is a very important town as it is the nearest one to Turkey and it was especially important during the war time as Turkey was neutral and next to her is Bulgaria which was enemy territory and the frontier between Turkey and Syria is only a marked line without any defences on either side whatsoever and is only patrolled by French Guards stationed at posts every few miles. Therefore, it was very easy for enemy spies to slip accross [sic] the border into Syria and so to any part of the Middle East. Naturally, it worked both ways as we sent Agents through neutral Turkey into Bulgaria so to anywhere in the Balkan countries.
At that time this was the only spot in the world where we had direct contact by land with each other. Alleppo, [sic] naturally, became a spy centre and whilst we were there at least 4 were shot to my knowledge. Anyway our 30 mile ride took us to a spot called Affisse North, I do not know where it got its name from as there was only the aerodrome there stuck in a very bleak spot. There was only room for 16 aircraft which were dispersed around the taxying track which ran right around the runways, which were made of concrete. As we drove past these bays I caught sight for the first time, the Squadron’s aircraft which were 12 Spitfire fighters Mk 4 & 5 armed each with 2.20 mm cannons and 4 machine guns, all of which were situated in the wings.
We were put into and lived in tents erected in little stone compounds about 3’ 6” high and on a concrete base as follows:
Tent on concrete floor [symbol]
Stone wall [symbol]
[drawing of stone compound]
Each tent and compound was situated near to an aircraft bay. So that we were able to just pop out of the tent and be at work. The drome had been built for 3 years and had not been occupied since, it was used against our troops by the French during the Syrian Campaign. So you can guess how damp our concrete floor was after being exposed to all weathers since that time. There was still French bombs scattered about the drome when we arrived there. We were the only Squadron at Affisse North. The other Spitfires of the Wing were stationed on other aerodromes around Alleppo [sic] and along the Turkish border. The only people on our aerodrome when we arrived were the advanced party that had been flown there by transport planes all the way from Italy and a small detachment of R.A.F. Regiment airmen who acted as aerodrome defence.
By the time we had settled down in our little pens it had become very dark and cold and we had no lights whatsoever and it was Christmas Eve. The R.A.F. Regiment possessed a small canteen to which I went to in the evening. I passed time by playing a few games of cards and we all sung carols to the accompaniment of an accordian [sic] played by one of the airmen.
Cont’d…../
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I had intended to go to the midnight carol service that was to be held that night, but by 8.30 p.m. I was feeling so cold and miserable that I walked the mile back to my tent and crawled into bed. I can safely say that this Christmas Eve was the worst night that I have ever spent in my life. I could not get to sleep or keep warm. The concrete floor was not at all comfortable and was very damp and the wind was howling across the open bleak rocky land and our pen only broke the wind slightly. I only had my ground sheet and one blanket beneath me and one on top. I was very glad when daylight dawned on Christmas morning after what seemed an endless night. All I found in my socks that Santa had left me were two lumps of solid ice (my feet).
Another thing that I did not like about the place was the distance between my tent and the cook-house. I had to walk at least six miles a day for meals, unless we were lucky enough to catch a lorry going up that way along the taxying track. Some of the fellows who lived in the tents near the disposal bays at the other end of the taxying track on the other side of the drome had at least 12 miles to go each day for meals. Most of them never ventured out in the cold morning wind and severe frost to go to breakfast.
On that first morning I first wrote a letter and then we paid [deleted] several [/deleted] [inserted] SOCIAL [/inserted] calls on some of the other chaps. At 12 noon a waggon came round the taxying track stopping in turn at each pen and picked up its inhabitants [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] for dinner. [inserted] [symbol] AND TOOK US ALONG TO THE COOKHOUSE TENT [/inserted] We were waited on throughout the meal by the officers of the Squadron. It consisted of the following; Turkey, Pork, baked Potatoes, Stuffing, Apple Sauce etc., Christmas pudding and Custard. Oranges, Nuts and Bottles of Beer, with second helpings of anything if you wanted it. I managed to pick the remains of a complete turkey and two lots of pudding as extras. Everyone turned out in the afternoon to watch the football match between the Squadron team and the R.A.F. Regiment. Despite our lusty words of encouragement, our team lost the game. We all had the following day off as well and on the day after that I joined “B” Flight.
For the first few days I did not do much except watch the other fellows working on the engines and starting the aircraft etc. As soon as I got used to the way of things I was given my first aircraft. It’s letters were LE-Y LE., being the Squadron’s code markings. It was a Spitfire MK. 5.
The only flights done during those weeks were training trips. Each day a different Squadron did stand-by in case enemy aircraft appeared in the vicinity. Every fourth day from dawn to dusk we had to stand by our aircraft at the end of the run-way in readiness for a quick take-off. We took it in turns of about 3 hours each to do the duty and the pilots did the same. Luckily dusk arrived very early in the afternoon at that time of the year. We had plenty of time to ourselves as on most days we finished work between 4 and 4.30 p.m. and on some afternoons we never had to go in at all.
Cont’d…../
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The football team played quite a few games against the local service units and we used to hold inter-section games. For the help of my readers who are not familiar with the R.A.F. I have drawn out a little plan of how [deleted] a bus [/deleted] [inserted] OUR [/inserted] Squadron was split up.
[underlined] Squadron Commander [/underlined] Sqdn. Ldr. M.C.D. Bodington D.F.C. D.F.M
Adjutant
Sqdn Etchelon
Warrant Officer. – Discip Office. – Orderly Room. – Signals Sect. – Parachute Sect. – General Duties. – Stores. – Pay Accounts.
Inspection Flight. – Engr. Officer. – [underlined] As “B” Flight. [/underlined]
“A” Flight – As “B” Flight.
“B” Flight. – Flight Sgt. – N.C.O’s. – Fitters. – Riggers. – Instruments. – Wireless. – Electricians. Armourers (Tech. Trades)
Motor Transport Section.
Medical Officer.
The only entertainment that we ever had on the station was the mobile cinema that paid us a visit about once every ten days, which showed a film that we had generally seen years before. By then I was feeling much happier as we had been issued out with three extra blankets, a felt lined leather jerkin, a black mackintosh for when it rained and gum-boots to enable us to plough through the mud. It was quite cosy and homely in our tent after it was installed with electric lights and a Valor stove. One did not feel like venturing, far during those cold evenings if we did walk up to the canteen it was to listen to the wireless there. The waterproof equipment certainly came in handy during the times that it teemed with rain and left the ground a sea of red mud. The soil in the area was quite deep red in colour and it was not at all rocky.
Cont’d…../
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Ten miles away to the North East a range of snow topped mountains were to be seen along with the peaks of a second range situated behind the first. This second range of mountains were on Turkish soil, the rest of the surrounding country consisted of rocky hills.
I remember on one occasion during a terrific storm we all had to get out of bed during the night and hang on to the poles of the tent otherwise the wind would have lifted it up and away in the air. Another unpleasant thing that happened quite often was whilst patrolling on guard during the dead of the night, when all was silent except for the rustling of the tall weeds that covered the surrounding ground, all of a sudden and without warning a jackal would start howling, and a few moments later an answering howl would ensue from a nearby relation. As sound travels so far in the open, it appears that they are only a dozen or so yards away from you and in the dark the howl made your skin creep and would make you go cold all over. Usually jackals run away from you during the daytime. One night jackals cum wolves that must have been on the point of starvation attacked a nearby village and killed 4 natives. In my opinion, the natives lived in much better conditions in Syria than either Palestine or Egypt. I by far preferred the look of those stone or mud eskimo huts to the huts of bits of tin, tree branches and palm tree leaves etc. The majority of the Syrian huts were of mud which had been compressed into square bricks and left out in the sun to dry solid before being put together.
In other ways the kind of living conditions were the same as everywhere else in the Middle East, dressed in smelly rags etc. The currency in Syria was pesetas, 100 to the Syrian £1 which is worth 2/3d in England. It was very confusing at first as in Egypt we were used to the peseta equaling [sic] 2 1/2d and in Syria the peseta equaled [sic] just over a farthing. It seemed strang [sic] being able to draw £15. per week but in actual fact was worth only 33/9d. there are no coins at all as everything is paid for with notes. Our issue of cigarettes whilst in the country were the world famous “V’s” that tasted like camel manure. In our tent each week we would put them into a pool and traded the cigarettes for eggs with the local Arabs. Every morning we used to cook the eggs and fry bread in a mess tin on top of our valor stove. Our cooking fat consisted of margarine smuggled from the cookhouse table and to obtain the bread we used to ask for an extra slice at each meal time. I could be seen walking back to my tent with a suspicious bulge under my battle dress tunic. If it was very cold of if we arose too late and did not have time to walk to the cookhouse and back before worktime, we cooked more eggs for ourselves.
Once a week we could go on a day trip into Aleppo if we wanted to and quite often I took advantage of this opportunity. As I have said before about 60% of the town is comprised of modern buildings and the rest were of the usual native shambles of dirty dwelling houses of stone and narrow alleyways. Nearly every passageway is alike and it is easy to lose oneself as I did on one occasion and it took me well over an hour to get out of the maze and during that time I did not see another Englishman or even a European. At times I feared that someone would jump out of one of the many dark places at me with a knife in their hand.
Cont’d…../
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It would have been easy to have robbed me as it would not have any use to shout for help in that area. In the main few streets there was a very good shopping centre where there was much more to buy than there was in Algiers although the prices were just as high. I expect things will be changed now that the war is over. As I reached the cosmopolitan market in the square of Aleppo, I negotiated a difficult passage, forever being pestered by crowds of would be guides, shoe shine boys etc., and on through into the main road jostling along amongst the mixed crowd of Arabs, Jews, French civilians, British and Allied soldiers and airmen. In the back streets and alleyways native music ensued forth from tiny dirty half hidden shops, while dirty ragged hawkers and equally dirty foreign shopkeepers jabber away in broken English both eager and anxious that you should purchase all kinds of souvenirs for the people at home. Some of the goods had probably been exported from Britain, but for all this, it was very interesting viewing the genuine Eastern work.
The town possessed six cinemas where English speaking films were shown. It was very queer to see translations in French, Arabic and Greek on a small screen either side of the main one. I used to visit either the Y.M.C.A. or NAAFI for meals when I was in the town. I did not like the look of the native restaurants and I like to know what I am eating.
During one week whilst at Affisse I had five innoculations. [sic] My arm felt like a pricked sausage by the time the M.O. had finished with it. I will now give you a rough idea of the description of work I was doing.
Generally, the crews are made up as follows:
1) Pilots and one each of the following trades to each aircraft:
Fitter, rigger, armourer, electrician, wireless and one oxygen man to every four aircraft.
My first job on reaching the plane each morning was to take off the engine and cockpit covers and then fetch an electric trolley from one of the other disposal bays and plug it into my aircraft and then clear any stones away from under the propeller so that it will not get damaged, and see that there is nothing directly behind the aircraft, I would then climb into the cockpit:
a) Put on the brakes and see that:
b) Switches are off.
c) Undercarriage light reads down.
d) See that gun firing switch is in the off position.
e) Switch petrol on.
f) Flap in up position.
g) Open throttle lever open 1/4".
h) Prop lever is in increase revs position.
i) Close air intake shutter.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 36 (A) [/inserted]
[underlined] ALEPPO.
DECEMBER – 1943 [/underlined]
[head and shoulders photograph of R. Barrett]
[photograph of four airmen, one sitting on a mule]
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j) See that Boot and Oil pressure gauges read Nil.
k) Pull control stick right back and keep the rudder control level and then shout “All Clear” to the fellow out at the starter trolley under the wing and if no one is in the way and everything is O.K. he will reply “All Clear”. I would then prime the engine with petrol as required and switch on the magnets and then shout out “Contact” and press the starter buttons and the other fellow presses the button on the trolley.
When the engine starts the other fellow would take out the plug and I would run the engine at low revs for 1/2 a minute, then I would note the oil pressure and see that it is not too high and then open the throttle until the engine is running at 1200 r.p.m. and when the Coolant Temperature reached 600 Centigrade and the oil is 150C. I open throttle wider and run the engine at 1600 r.p.m. and check each magnetos [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [underlined] ADD [/underlined] [symbol] IN TURN & TEST THE SUPERCHARGER, IF ALL WAS WELL, I THROTTLED BACK & PULLED THE SLOW RUNNING CUT OUT & WHEN THE SINGING STOPPED I SWITCHED OFF THE MAGNETOS. [/inserted] and the petrol and then I would undo the cowlings and check the engine itself all over to see if anything was wrong.
All of what I have written is called a “Daily Inspection” and it had to be signed for every day. I also had to sign after my plane had flown each time to say that the petrol, oil and coolant tanks were full.
When the D.I. had been signed for the aircraft was put service-able to fly the following 24 hours when my signature expired [deleted] and [/deleted] another inspection [inserted] WAS [/inserted] carried out.
When the pilot came along to take off I had to put his parachute and rubber dinghy into the aircraft and then strap the pilot into the parachute harness and then into the aircraft harness, then close the cockpit door and turn the oxygen supply on before plugging in and pressing the starter button on the starter trolley. Then on the engine starting I would pull the trolley away and jump onto the wing and direct the pilot whilst taxying from the dispersal point to the end of the runway where I would jump off the wing and take off the [deleted] petrol [/deleted] [inserted] PITOT [/inserted] head cover. If this was forgotten, the pilot would not be able to tell his correct speed in the air and would most probably crash on landing through coming in at the wrong speed.
[inserted] I WOULD THEN CRAWL UNDER THE WING AND CARRY OUT A LAST CHECK OF THE AIRCRAFT TYRES. TAKING CARE TO KEEP CLEAR OF THE PROPELLER. IF ALL WAS WELL I WOULD [indecipherable word] AT THE WING TIP & GIVE THE PILOT THE THUMBS UP SIGN.
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I remember one day when I was not going to the runway with the aircraft that I was seeing off, I let it go out of the bay with the pitot head cover on, then I suddenly remembered it. You ought to have seen me running after the plane. All that you would have seen would have been a cloud of dust. I do not think that I have ever run faster in my life. I reached the plane just as it was swinging out onto the runway to take off. After attracting the pilot’s attention I whisked off the cover. I then had to sit down for the next 1/2 hour to enable me to regain my breath. Luckily for me I had a decent pilot or I would have been up before the C.O. the next morning.
When the aircraft returned and was circling the drome before landing, I would go down the runway and meet my aircraft put on the pitot head cover and guide it back into it’s bay whilst sitting on the wing. After unstrapping the pilot the aircraft had to be refuelled.
Of course there were lots of other things I had to do when the engine went wrong during inspections etc., but I will not bore you with details of oil, petrol and coolant leaks, plug changes after every 10 hours flying etc.
After every 20 hours flying the aircraft went into the Inspection flight where it received a minor overhaul. Spare time was spent on polishing and cleaning the aircraft to make it glisten in the sun.
During the morning of the 26th January, one of the A flight Aircraft landed short of the runway and went up on it’s nose. Luckily the pilot was unhurt but the plane was a write-off. That same afternoon I was waiting to see my plane in and watched it make a perfect landing. Then all of a sudden it seemed to skid off the runway and then it’s tail came up in the air and hovered there for a few seconds before it turned right over on it’s back. Once again I did the flying hare trick down the runway hoping all the time that the aircraft would not catch fire, but before I had gone halfway the crash tender sped past me and by the time I reached the crash the tender crew were on the job of smashing the perspect [sic] hood to get the pilot out who was still strapped into the cockpit upside down. The nose of the plane I noticed had burrowed itself into the ground. After lifting up one wing and the tail together the pilot was able to crawl out and the first thing that he said “what a so and so position to be in.” Luckily he was extra small and received no injuries whatsoever. Of course, the plane was another write-off. So ended the life of my first Spitfire, and the next day I had to work on another one.
Cont’d…../
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On the 3rd of February I started on a four day course on Field Training, consisting of firing on the range with a Sten gun and rifle, learning firing orders, Field signals and formation, unarmed combat tactics, hand grenade throwing etc. It made a change from the usual routine and really [inserted] IT WAS [/inserted] a good scrounge.
This will give you some idea of what it is like sitting on the tail of a Spitfire when it is being run-up. After every [inserted] ENGINE [/inserted] repair or plug change the aircraft had to be run up to its fullest revs, which was 3000 r.p.m. and while this is being done at least 4 men are needed on the tail to stop it coming up into the air and the nose and propeller from touching the ground.
Anyway one day I was lying across the tail, resting on my chest and I had my spectacles buttoned up in my battledress pocket. As the throttle was opened it felt as if a giant hand was clutching my clothing and pulling and pulling. It took all my strength to hang on, all of a sudden I saw a flash and realised that the slip stream had got under me and had opened my breast pocket and the suction had pulled my specs out and swept them away. After a big search by us all after the engine had stopped someone found my specs unharmed at least 30 yards away from the aircraft tail.
During the third week in February I was due to go on six days leave to a lumber camp up in the mountains and live in a big log hut and go wild bore [sic] shooting and do what I liked for those six days or go on leave to Beruit [sic] for 6 days. I chose the lumber camp, but as it turned out I went to neither.
On the 13th February all of the aircraft left Affisi and flew to Palestine. I spent the rest of that day and the next packing my kit and packing and loading the Squadron’s equipment onto lorries. I expect everyone remembers that round about this time there were all sorts of conflicting reports and a lot of mystery concerning Turkey. Then it was suddenly announced by the Government that the Allies had stopped sending supplies to the country. Well, here is the story behind that announcement. Turkey was trying to play a two way game by getting supplies from both the Germans and the Allies. She said that if we sent her enough equipment she would come into the war on our side which would have helped Britain immensely at that time. We had sent her substantial supplies when she said that the equipment that we were sending her was not modern enough. I know from a good source that the Army never sent their latest weapons as they guessed the game that Turkey might be playing.
Cont’d…../
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Our Wing 322 or the Invasion Wing as it was known was one of the 5 fighters wings that operated on the Italian Front and it was specially withdrawn out of the battle and sent to Syria. It stands to reason that a famous wing engaged against the enemy on the only front that we had against Germany at the time is not withdrawn for nothing.
Every day we saw big guns and army units passing the drome moving up towards the border
.When Turkey saw that we were sending out our best fighter and army equipment with the personnel to look after it, she got cold feet and backed out of the bargain. She thought she was going to get all the latest war weapons for herself at our expense. When it was definite that she would not participate in the war, minor supplies were stopped and our H.Q. that went into Turkey in civilian clothes was recalled and our movement order came through.
Now to continue. After watching a final football match between our Squadron and the R.A.F. Regiment we loaded our kit onto waggons and left camp at 6.30 p.m. on our journey to Aleppo Station. On nearing our objective we found ourselves amongst a congestion of hundreds of vehicles. The sing-song we all held during the two hour hold up until it was our turn to unload must have awoken the whole neighbourhood. When we did finally unload the waggon it took us quite a while to sort our own kit out. As soon as I had gathered all my belongings together I staggered onto the platform dropping bits of kit every few yards until I had reached the cattle truck that I was to travel in. After having a sandwich and a cup of tea which was being served to everyone on the platform we settled down to try and sleep.
We pulled out at midnight. At the time I was lying near the door and was still awake and I could not stretch my legs without getting them entangled with somebody else’s. I had a lumpy big pack, but what with the hard floor, the draughts and being trampled on by chaps trying to reach the door during the night I more or less got used to it [inserted] ON THIS RETURN TRIP [/inserted] as it did not bother me [deleted] on our return trip. [/deleted] [inserted] DURING THIS JOURNEY TO SYRIA. [/inserted]
By 10 a.m. the following morning we had reached Hormes, where we had breakfast. I managed to break my fast twice. I also bought 13 bananas cheap on the platform to eat during that day which I spent reading a book, playing cards, sleeping and watching the scenery. One consolation on doing the trip a second time was that we passed the scenery during the day [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [deleted] and also during the nighttime. [sic] [/deleted] At 6.0 p.m. that evening we reached Tripoli where we could see all the oil plant installations and the ending of the pipe lines that ran all the way from Iraq. It was here that we had to change trains back to the Egyptian State Railways and their hard narrow wooden seated carriages. Whilst the other fellows were crammed in the doorways of the carriages I dashed from the cattle truck and through the
[inserted] [symbol] WHICH WE HAD PREVIOUSLY PASSED DURING THE HOURS OF DARKNESS & VISA VERSA. [/inserted]
Cont’d…../
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window of a coach where I managed to grab a seat. After stowing my kit on the seat and under it, on the rack and in the gangway, I went back onto the platform for something to eat and then for a stroll along the dark road leading from the station. I walked about 200 yards and bought 2 1/2 lbs of oranges, 2 1/2 lbs of tangerines and 2 1/2 lbs of bananas, whilst walking that short distance I must have looked like a bag of fruit as I made my way back to the carriage as fruit stuck out from each of my pockets and everytime I picked up a tangerine that had fallen out of my battle-dress tunic, another one would slip through to the ground.
I once again made a valiant effort to sleep on those terrible seats but it was no good. I was awake at 1.0 a.m. when we drew into Beruit [sic] Station. The Squadron’s cooks who had gone on earlier in the first part of the train had tea ready waiting for us, so that started another rummage through the kit for our mugs and on putting them out of the window into the darkness they were immediately filled. I finally fell asleep that night on top of a pile of kit bags.
We had breakfast next morning at Haifa. Here I managed to be quick off the mark and I must have done the 100 yds sprint down the platform in 10 secs. I was sixth out of a thousand in the queue. I also managed to get a look in at a water tap and get a bit of a wash. We arrived at Gaza 3.30 p.m. where we had dinner and we crossed the Palestine/Egypt border at 5.30 p.m. with a sand storm beginning to blow up.
During out [sic] stops, if we felt hungry, we traded a packet of the famous “V” cigarettes for 10 oranges. By the end of the journey I think I must have looked like an orange. At 1.30 a.m. that night I did another fine sprint through the window for supper, the sandstorm was then at its height and I had to batter my way across to the barn where the meal was served. The sand would have cut my face if I had not put up my hand to protect it, as it was sweeping along with such force. Our supper consisted of a cup of tea and a little packet containing a sandwich, cake and a chocolate bar. After eating my packet I still felt so hungry, that I went out of the barn’s back door and back into the front one again and received another packet which I took back to the train. I expect you will think that I was very greedy but the fact remains that I was very hungry at the time. I also queued up in the sandstrom [sic] at an Arab stall which housed a money changer to change my last Syrian 2/6d into Egyptian pecetas. [sic].
By the time I arrived back inside the train everything was coated with sand and we were also breathing it. I distinctly remember that we moved for about 1/2 hour and then stopped for over an hour. It was impossible for me to get to sleep. All the carriage windows were shut tight, but still there was sand everywhere. It was beating on the windows and outside the wind howled for all it was worth. The next thing I remember was waking up in the morning and it was the reverse of the night before.
Cont’d…../
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Everything was deathly quiet and still as we travelled Southwards alongside the Suez Canel [sic] and for so far on either side were green fields of bamboo, and here and there was an Arab settlement or a water-well being worked by camels, mules, donkeys or an ox harnessed to a pole and by walking round and round in a circle they drew up the water from the ground which irrigated the surrounding land by running along in little channels dug in the ground. Often a big camel could be seen harnessed to a tiny mule and overhead on constant patrol were flights of storks which intermittently swooped down on unsuspecting insect victims, big hawks were doing the same, except that they swooped on and chose small birds as their prey.
At approx. 1.0 p.m. we drew into the suburbs of Cairo which consisted of the usual dirty, filthy habitations that must harbour all sorts of disease and their inhabitants were [underlined] all [/underlined] dressed in rags and looking as if they had last washed a year or so previously. As we reached the centre of the city the scene changed and became more like modern England. Masses of railway lines ran in all directions, new well designed buildings surrounded us and even the railway stations were more up to date than many English one’s. We stopped at one of these stations about 4 miles from the heart of the city and transferred our kit from the train onto lorries lined up and waiting on the platform. We were taken through the famous town of Heliopolis where Cleopatra’s needle, now standing on the Embankment in London originally came from [deleted] hundreds of years ago. [/deleted] But the Heliopolis of today is one mass of modern blocks of flats and impressive buildings, shops and cinemas etc., it is a film stars holiday resort these days.
A great attraction is the lovely race course situated on the edge of the town, also it’s swimming pool which is the biggest one in the Middle East. We passed the town’s large airport during our journey on the lorry to 22 P.T.C. (Personnel Transit Camp), Almaza which was a mile further along the road. Here we were housed in tents, needless to say they were erected on sand and when we arrived at the camp a minor sand storm was blowing but it soon abated. We spent the rest of that day making ourselves as comfortable as we could.
Next day (Feb. 18th) was a Red Letter day in our family history, as I knew that my brother Cyril was stationed somewhere in Cairo and I was very anxious to get out and try to find him. I finally succeeded by dinner-time in obtaining a pass that lasted until 1.15 a.m. on the following morning. I thumbed a lift from the camp gates on a lorry that was going into Heliopolis where I caught one of the fastest trams in the world. One could not call the wooden seats exactly comfortable to sit on, in each coach there is a separate compartment for women to travel in. Instead of using a bell as a starting signal, the conductor wearing their fez hat with a tassle attached blew a little horn which gave out a very peculiar sound. Tram fares were about the cheapest thing that there was in Cairo. The journey used to cost me 7/10ths of a peceta [sic] (1 3/4d) in return for the money I received a ticket covered in Arabic writing.
Cont’d…../
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For a time we travelled through the streets halting at regular stops until we reached the swimming pool, and the tram then went on to one of the railway tracks and gradually increased speed until we were travelling along as fast as a London Underground train, through the poor district and not stopping until we came to Cairo’s main station, the museum and then a little farther on we started to travel along the road once more, pass the famous Eastern night clubs and on into the centre of the city where the line comes to an end and where I descended from the tram.
Here is a brief description of one of the clubs at which I had a look at. It was named “Sweet Melody” the entrance of which was brilliantly lit with coloured electric light bulbs. I think I had to pay one and sixpence admission fee. On passing the pay desk I went along a corridor into the main hall which was approximately as big as a normal size cinema. The centre of the floor was used for dancing with any of the many hostesses that inhabited the hall and were seated with partners at tables set out around the edge of the floor. High up on a stage at the front of the hall an oriental band consisting of Arabs playing all sorts of queer looking musical instruments that certainly emitted peculiar sounds. The hall also contained two balconies that run in a half circle up above and were each divided into small cubicles with a small table at each. If you were a “sucker” (as the Americans would say) as soon as you stepped into the hall you would be grabbed by one of the girls that could not be truthfully called a beauty queen and taken to one of the cubicles or on to the floor to dance. At the end of the dance you would sit down at one of the tables and order a glass of beer for yourself and a glass of wine for the girl which incidentally would be coloured sweet water and both would cost you 6/6d. The girl has the drink and a commission on all that she makes you spend in the club. So as long as you like to throw your money away they will stay with you but immediately you stop they find some else [sic] who is silly enough to be taken in again. At 10.0 p.m. the caberet [sic] commenced and the artists comprised of girls clad in next to nothing doing the native [inserted] SEDUCTIVE [/inserted] dances to the tune of Arabic music. Well so much for night clubs. I will now get back to my story.
On descending the tram at its terminal I found that I might easily have been in the West End of London except for the native dress, Arabic writing and native boys pestering my life to have the privilege of giving me a shoe shine and the Arab wanting to act as my guide on a trip out to the Pyramids. Once I had shaken the latter two away I had time to look at my surroundings. I did not linger long as I only had one object in view that afternoon and that was to find my brother, so I immediately set about the task. At times during that afternoon I had to act something like a spy to acquire information. Just then I caught sight of two red capped army military policemen in the distance so I ran after them and I think that was the first and only time during my service that I ran [underlined] after [/underlined] the police, it was generally the other way round. When I caught up with them I asked if they would direct me to the Army Post Office as I thought that would be the best place to get information from. I followed their directions which led past the English Cathedral and
Cont’d…../
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on to a large building that faces the River Nile. I arrived at the back entrance and went in and showed the first person I saw [deleted] with [/deleted] [inserted] IN THE [/inserted] A.P.C, Cyril’s address and asked him if he “could tell me where it was to be located” to which he replied “we are not allowed to divulge the location of any unit during war time” I tried all sorts of arguments, but all he would say was that he was very sorry that he was unable to help me. I was not giving it up as easily as that so I nipped around quickly to the front entrance and went in but I received the same replies to my question as I did at the rear entrance. I came out of the building feeling very disappointed and not knowing where to try next. At that same moment an oldish Egyptian came out and said to me that he had heard my question and wondered if he could help me as he worked for the A.P.C. as a messenger so I showed him Cyril’s address. He then told me that he did not know exactly where it was but directed me to the area where he thought it might be, so I thanked him and set off once more feeling in better spirits. I managed to find the Polish Army H.Q. and many other H.Q’s, but not the British G.H.Q. After unsuccessfully exploring twenty or more roads, streets and avenues, I asked a British soldier coming along the road if he knew where G.H.Q. was and I was very pleased when he replied “I am just going there myself” so I fell into step with him until we reached a huge building surrounded with barbed wire entaglements. [sic]
I then went into the Enquiry Office and asked the receptionist where Weapons Technical Staff Department was to be found and the reply was “go down the road opposite the Enquiry Office and it is number 34 building left or right of that road, so off I went only to find the numbers jumped from 31 to 35. Both of these were Government Buildings and on enquiring at each none had ever heard of a No. 34 Building. I noticed quite a number of chaps coming along the road who served in the R.A.S.C. the same as Cyril, so I stopped at least twenty fellows and asked them if they knew where W.T.S. was getting a reply of “Sorry I do not” each time. I then trooped back to the Enquiry Office and told them that there was no number 34 in the road. The fellow checked up his file once more and said I should have [underlined] turned] [/underlined] left or right at the railway at the bottom of the road opposite. I then went back along the road and turned right at the railway line as directed. The corner building was No. 78 and the one next to it 77, so I went on in high spirits only to have my hopes dashed to the ground as No. 34 turned out to be a dirty tumbled down house in an Arab quarter. I then came to the conclusion that G.H.Q. were deliberately giving me wrong information, not wanting to disclose whereabouts similar to the A.P.O.
By then darkness was falling so feeling very dejected I retread my steps lost in thought and when I came out of my kind of trance I found myself to the left turn part of the road and outside another building No. 60 so I quickened by steps and finally breathlessly arrived at No. 34 and sure enough over the doorway hung a big board with Weapons Technical Staff painted on it. Up the entrance steps I went three at a time and saw in front of me a notice and read Staff/Sgt Major C.C. Barrett and an arrow.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[two newspaper cartoons regarding the Cairo campaign]
[page break]
[underlined] CYRIL’S OFFICE CAIRO FEB 1944. [/underlined]
[photograph of R. Barrett’s brother Cyril sitting behind his desk]
[photograph of a Musky Bazaar in Cairo]
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I walked or rather ran in the direction that it pointed and found myself in my brother’s office and on that spot we held our first meeting for more than 3 years.
Cyril finished work straight away and after showing me the Department’s museum of captured enemy weapons we went out into the town and had a celebration dinner in a select restaurant. After talking over old times for an hour or so Cyril showed me around the main part of the town and we looked around the shops along Soliman Pasha the famous main street of Cairo.
The many roundabouts that I saw were called Midan’s in Egypt, and many beautiful cars and horse and carriages could be seen on the road every day. At 10.0 p.m. that evening Cyril saw me off at the tram terminal where I caught a tram back to Helleopolis, [sic] where if lucky, I would generally catch a taxi-cab to take me back to the camp gates. The more chaps that piled in the taxi, cheaper became the fare. So you can guess it was not always a comfortable ride but it was definitely better than having to walk 2 1/2 miles.
I only went to breakfast twice during my whole month’s stay at Almaza and on both occasions I was on guard the previous evening. We had a continuous guard over the Squadrons motor transport of 50 vehicles, most of which were loaded with equipment and one could not sleep very well in a cab with a steering wheel sticking in your back.
I used to arise at 8.45 a.m. and only then because we had to be on parade at 9.0 a.m. and a further reason for not going to breakfast was that the cookhouse was well over a mile away from our tent and it was hard going plodding through soft sand just for a bit of bacon and fried bread etc.
Situated midway between the cookhouse and our tent was the stone Y.M.C.A. building which was very comfy with its tea, recreation and writing rooms and at almost any time of the day one could obtain tea and cakes there. The Wing’s transport vehicles numbering at least 350 were lined up all around the building. There were lorries, trailers, jeeps, staff cars, cranes, motor cycles, power trailers, mobile cokkhouses [sci] etc.
On another day I met Cyril by arrangement outside Isavitches where we used to obtain lovely ice cream and rice puddings, which the shop was famous for. From there we caught a tram and had a sight-seeing tour around the town. We passed the King of Egypt’s Palace, and the lovely Opera House and visited the English Cathedral. Whilst we were there the choir made up of Service men and women were practising and their singing sounded very beautiful.
I also toured the famous and ancient Blue Mosque and the Kings Mosque which still shows the marks on its walls where cannon balls had hit when the building was stormed centuries ago. I also paid a visit with Cyril to the old Muskee [deleted] Bagmars [/deleted] [inserted] BAZAARS [/inserted] (the Petticoat Lane of the East) touring down narrow streets of
cont'd…../
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[underlined] PLAN DRAWN BY CYRIL SHOWING US WHERE TO MEET HIM FOR SECOND TIME IN CAIRO [/underlined]
[sketch drawing of street map]
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tiny shops and stalls. There were some good bargains to be had, if you have the knack of knocking down the shopkeepers price. They generally quoted a price three times the article’s real value to start off with. During this tour I saw many articles of fine workmanship. We also paid many visits to the Alemain Club, which was presented to the British Forces by the Egyptian people in remembrance of saving them from invasion by the Germans.
We saw many a good football match on the club’s football ground. The club is situated on an island in the centre of the Nile. Incidentally, it was on this island that Cyril used to live. Next door to the club was the large Cairo Gizra Horse Racing track. Nearby was the bridge where the King’s Boat House was to be seen moored to the bank of the Nile. This bridge (see page 448) connected the island with the mainland at Kasranil Barracks. There were also many other lovely house boats belonging to wealthy people to be seen along the banks of the Nile, a vast contrast to the ancient sailing boats and barges owned by the poor.
We also paid another visit to the zoo, which is another lovely spot in Cairo. It is built on the style of the London Zoo and is a bit larger and it is better set out also very much more modern. On yet another occasion I visited the Wax Works Museum, but this was nowhere near the standard of the ones to be seen in England. Of course, there were many other places we went to on various days which are hardly worth mentioning, such as roller skating rinks, painting exhibitions, cinemas etc. All of the cinemas in the city are modern and one or two are up to Leicester Sq., standard. Most of them possess a sliding roof so they can be converted into open air during the hot dry tropical summer nights. There were many service clubs in the city. I mostly used the Victory Club which was slightly select for meals, and then there was the Tipperary Club, Wesley House (Toc.H.) Y.M.C.A. and the Empire Services Club and I occasionally visited a private hotel or café.
Whilst in Cairo, Cyril and myself made a record together to commemorate our meetings and to send home to our family.
I decided one day that sand was not the best company in bed and I was tired of sleeping on it so I bought myself a folding bed. I arrived back at camp with it about 10.0 p.m. and woke everyone up in the tent when messing about in the dark putting it up. I had been in it for no more than 5 minutes when the deathly silence was broken by a terrible crack and I suddenly went a couple of inches downwards. After carrying out a search by the aid of matches I found that one of the legs of my bed had split in half. This was repaired or partly repaired by binding string around the crack. The whole operation was carried out amid giggles coming from the other chaps. I saw saw [sic] funny side of it later, but not at the time.
Cont’d…../
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My brother and I spent another afternoon out at the Pyramids. We caught a tram from the bottom of Soliman Pasha which conveyed us over a bridge across the Nile River and along the straight and wide road leading to Gazera where we descended and walked up the hill leading up to the Great Pyramid. To our right stood “Mena House Hotel” where the Great Cairo Conference was held between Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt. We walked from the Great Pyramid to the second one and then down the slope leading to the Sphinx. We also explored many other tombs that were underground. One could spend a full day exploring and still not see everything. There must be much left, still to be unearthed in the vicinity. Who know’s [sic] what buried treasure lies there, at the time of our visit excavations had ceased owing to the war.
On Monday the 20th of March we had to parade at 7.45 a.m. dressed in full marching order. It was the usual R.A.F. procedure (parading 2 hours before necessary). The Wing Transport had left the day previously and the convoy stretched for miles along the road leading to Alexandria. At 9.45 a.m. lorries rolled up and took us to the same railway station as we arrived at when coming to Cairo. The train drew out of the station at 10.30 a.m. and we stopped at Ismailia for a short while roundabout 5.0 p.m. By that time we were all feeling a little hungry after not having had anything to eat since early that morning, so we welcomed the cry of “eggs and boiled eggs” by Arabs coming along the platform. I had hoped that we would be going to Alexandria, as I should have liked to have seen the city before leaving Egypt, but alas, it was not to be. Everyone had just about fallen off to sleep when we pulled in to Port Said roundabout midnight. By the help of the harbour arc lights we transferred from the train onto the awaiting “Z” craft and were taken across the Suez and along various waterways until we reached the same Transit Camp that we stayed in before.
I was too tired to wander around to find a place in a tent but after getting something to eat I put my blankets down on the sand and went to sleep. It was then 2.0 a.m. in the morning and we were on the go again at 7.0 a.m. the following morning and after breakfast we boarded the “Z” craft again and were taken into the Suez and up to one of the many big ships lying at anchor. The one which we went aboard was called the “Circasia” a boat of some 10,000 tons. Whilst walking around the deck that evening I bumped into my friend who I had last seen in Algiers and who was in the same billet and room as myself when I was at Morecambe.
Everyone’s worst fear was of going to the Far East and the boat was anchored facing across the canal so we had no indication of which way we would be going. I shall never forget the look of anxiousness of everyone’s faces when we weighed anchor at 4.0 p.m. on the 23rd of March and looks of relief when the nose of the ship turned towards the Med.
Cont’d…../
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On reaching the open sea the convoy of 7 more big troopships and 6 escort destroyers formed up. I have no need to describe life aboard ship again as this trip was very much the same as my previous ones. The only thing of interest on the second day was when one of the ship’s barrage balloons broke loose. It gave the gunners a chance of target practice and with their fourth shot they scored a direct hit at a height of approximately 5,000 ft. The sea was very rough during the day following and the ship had a roll of 200 or more. I think at least 75% of the passengers were ill, I was not feeling so good myself. I know that I found a nice quiet spot on deck and laid there until darkness came.
Next day (Palm Sunday) was worse as we ran into a gale. Up on deck wind howled away and it was teaming with rain and the boat creaked as it rolled. I roused myself in the evening long enough to listen to Mr. Churchill’s speech. Next morning all was quiet when I went up on deck. At 7.30 a.m. and I found that we were in Augusta Bay (Sicily). I could see the top of Mount Etna rising above the morning’s misty haze. There were at least 50 merchant ships anchored in the bay around us. Later on when the sun broke through, Mount Etna stood out in its full glory towering up into the clouds. We stayed at anchor all that day. There were many rumours going around, the best one was that a fast trooper was coming in from Malta to take us to Algiers where we were going to be transferred to a boat going to England and that we would take part in the invasion of the Continent. Sure enough just before dark we could see smoke on the horizon which gradually grew into a big ship, By the time it arrived darkness had fallen and at 11.0 p.m. it was announced on the ship’s loudspeakers that we were going to change boats.
We were transferred from one to the other by an old Italian ferry boat and by the time I had got myself settled in a hammock it was 2.0 a.m. When daylight came I discovered I was back on the ss [sic] “Ville de Oran” for a second time. That afternoon came the usual boat drill and we sailed at 4.0 p.m. on the 28th of March. It was certainly an Allied Convoy. Englishmen on a French liner escorted by a Greek and [inserted] A [/inserted] Polish destroyer. Alas all next day instead of steaming South towards Algiers we steamed Northwards at a very fast speed. We passed through the Straits of Messina during the night-time and steamed Northwards off the Eastern coast of Sardinia, all next day and towards the evening we were sailing in enemy waters. That night we passed through the Straits separating Sardinia and Corsica and then continued to steam northwards off the Western coast of Corsica.
On going on deck the next morning a very beautiful scene met my eyes, we were going into Ajjeccio [sic] harbour in South Western Corsica. The quaint old town stood on the waterline surrounded by lovely green hills and above and behind the hills I could see the snow capped mountains that laid inland.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 48A [/inserted]
AJECCIO – CORSICA
[underlined] 30-3-1944 [/underlined]
[photograph of the island taken from the sea]
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We disembarked at 1.0 p.m. onto the small quayside where many little trawlers were moored and from there we were driven Southward, for 8 miles along one series of hairpin bends on American lorries and dumped in the middle of an empty field. We were then told that we would be stopping there for a few days and that we would have to make the best use of a bad job until the Squadron waggons arrived with the tents in a couple of days.
The next two hours were spent collecting wood and branches from the surrounding area so that the cooks could get a fire and a meal started. Then we made our beds down out in the open, we propped our mosquito nets with four sticks, one at each corner. When we got under them and into bed we all prayed that it would not rain during the night. If it had, we would have all been drenched as there was no shelter whatsoever for miles around. I had just fallen asleep when I was awoken by the Squadron Warrant Officer who told me I was one of the unlucky ones who had to go back down to the docks and help unload rations off the ship. We had a hair-raising ride back, as we bunted a waggon that had broken down all the way around those hairpin bends into the town, which has hardly changed since the day [deleted] of [/deleted] [inserted] when [/inserted] Napoleon [deleted] who [/deleted] was born there. It was 1 a.m. when we arrived back at camp with the lorry load of tinned food.
Next morning (April Fool’s day) I had a bath and did some washing in a small stream that ran through a nearby field, at least, I did my washing until I dropped my soap and was not quick enough to catch it before the swift running current swept it away. That afternoon I went for a walk, it was one of the prettiest I have ever been on. What a contrast after the sand of Egypt and the wilderness of Syria. The scenery was beautiful, it was a treat just to see green fields once more dotted with daisies and buttercups. I walked along by streams whose banks grew violets, forget-me-nots and wild miniature daffodils etc., through vineyards dotted with Cherry trees with their glorious pink blossom in full bloom. I used to like to lie down on a nice grassy bank and close my eyes and listen to the singing of the birds and the tinkle of the tiny bells hung around the sheeps necks as they grazed in the grass under the watchful eyes of an old sheep dog. Four days later the ship carrying the Squadrons vehicles arrived at the island and from 12.0 p.m. until 3.0 a.m. I was up directing traffic along the road to the camp. What a job we had next morning sorting out the equipment, as all the different Squadrons tents etc., had all been mixed up. Anyway we had a tent to live in.
Up until 5th of April we amused ourselves as we liked for most of the time. Some of the very energetic fellows climbed a 2,000 ft. nearby mountain, others played cricket, cards, or went for long walks.
Cont’d…../
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- 50 –
Of an evening we used to light a big fire and hold an impromptu concert. I was on the advance party which set out in convoy early morning on April 5th. We travelled across Central Corsica and over the mountains. At one stop we made tea with the aid of boiled snow which we had to use as water. As I was travelling in the ration waggon I did not go hungry during the ride, cheese, herrings, sausages, tinned fruit, jam and biscuits disappeared at various times and all the fellows received was a tin of bully beef for dinner.
The scene during the journey that sticks out most in my memory was when we were travelling through a large pine forest high up in the mountains. The trees and ground were covered with snow and the sun was shining brightly over the whole scene, at that moment we were passing houses and cabins made from pine logs. What a wonderful painting it would have made.
As we approached the North Eastern coast we came to the first signs of warfare. This was the edge of the line which the Germans held whilst they withdrew the main part of their troops from the Island. Every type of bridge had been blown up and nearly every house had been turned into a fortress and stood in a shamble of ruins caused by shell-fire. Here and there would be over-turned and burnt out vehicles, cars, guns or armoured cars and a few small tanks and a few mounds of earth beside them with just a plain wooden cross sticking up. After taking a wrong road for about 10 miles we found out that we were going south once more on the other side of the Island. We about turned and eventually arrived at the small field which was to be our new camp at 6.0 p.m.
We did not take long to erect our tent and I was soon in the big stream that lay at the bottom a bank that sloped away from the field. The water was ice cold and came winding rushing down from the mountains above.
The village situated just up the road was name Foleli and consisted of half a dozen cottages and a couple [inserted] 2 [/inserted] of wine bars. The airfield, which had only just been made was called “Auto Airport”. The Squadrons aircraft all brand new Spitfires MK IX’s had already arrived when we arrived there. We were only at Auto Airport for 14 days until a new drome a bit further down the coast was finished. Beside’s [sic] our wing, American Thunderbolt aircraft operated from Auto. Regularly like clockwork twelve of them bombed up took off every hour. On Friday the 7th one came back with, [inserted] ONE OF [/inserted] the bombs still aboard, which dropped off and exploded a few seconds after the aircraft had touched down. At that moment I instinctively dropped to the ground and after the explosions a large hole appeared on the runway. The plane got away in time and was undamaged.
Cont’d…../
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I was bombed for a second time that week, when a few days after the first time the same thing happened. It was a bit too close for my liking that second time, as the aircraft I was standing by was damaged by shrapnel along with two other of our Spitfires. We only did one operation from “Auto” and that was to escort bombers on a raid over N. Italy and after the raid fires could be seen burning 15 miles from the target area. The only entertainment we had whilst at that camp was a film show every few days given by the Yanks in an old bombed Italian factory.
On the 19th April I saw my Spifire [sic] off along with 11 others from our Squadron on escorting 36 Boston bombers on a raid over N. Italy. On returning they all landed at our new drome (Poretta Airport). As soon as all the aircraft were airborne we packed up all our equipment and were moved by lorry to our new camp site at Cassermoza. Incidentally, when the C.O. landed he taxied into a steam roller. During the following few months I must have seen at least 50 Spitfires crash and yet not a single pilot was killed in any of them and only one caught fire, which goes to show how well the safety precautions are designed on the British aircraft. Many of the aircraft overturned through a burst tyre whilst either landing or taking off. Others landed with their wheels up or their engines failed during take-off and others taxied into each other and the rest were caused by various other reasons. The worse crash I saw was when one of our pilots burst a tyre when landing and the aircraft ran off the runway and overturned on its nose and then on its wing tip. The under-carriage was snapped off and both wings broke away from the body of the plane which broke its back. Yet out of the remains we extracted the pilot who had only received minor injuries.
Our camp site was approx. 2 1/2 miles away from the drome and although it was a bind going back and forth 3 or 4 and sometimes 5 times a day, it paid us to do it in the long run as you will see later on. The field next to our camp was full of grape vines, peach and cherry trees, so we had plenty of fruit to eat during our stay. Nearly always when travelling down to the drome we would pass broken down cars (or which were called cars once upon a time long, long ago). It was amazing the amount of goods and the number of people that travelled in each vehicle. Heads seemed to stick out from everywhere and there would be two or three others tinkering with the engines or messing about trying to mend a puncture.
Whilst at Poretta I was given my second Spitfire so I then had Q & R to look after. I was certainly busy when both went up together, which they nearly always did. The next two and half weeks were spent mostly on escorting Boston and Maurader bombers coming up from Sardinia on bombing raids on railway stations, viaducts, bridges, factories, supply dumps and other vital targets in Leghorn, Florence and others at Northern Italy. Very, very seldom was fighter opposition met, but flak (anti-aircraft fire) was pretty heavy. The lack of enemy fighters over the area was very surprising as we were operating in a line which was [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] still at Cassino in Italy and our airfield was very near in a straight line level with Florence. It was a very nice sight when zero hour arrived for a raid. As soon as the bombers were sighted the fighters took off two at a time and circled round
[inserted] [underlined] ADD [/underlined] OVER 300 MILES BEHIND THE FRONT FIGHTING LINE WHICH WAS, [/INSERTED]
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- 52 –
and round gaining height all the time. By the time all of them were airborne the bombers were overhead steadily flying along on their course. The fighters would then take up their positions above, below and around them gradually disappearing from sight, then there would only remain the throb of the engines, followed by silence broken only by the song of the birds.
The method of American bombing was as follows:-
When approaching the target the bombers pack in as close to each other as possible and when No. 1 (the master bomber) give’s the word they all drop their bombs and so saturate the area, but if No. 1 misses – they all miss the target.
About that time nearly everyday was a glorious one. I used to work dressed only in my shorts, shoes and socks, except when I sat on the wing to guide the aircraft to and from the runway, as the propeller was apt to pick up little stones and throw them back and if they hit your bare-skin you certainly knew it.
As I have said before, two aircraft kept me busy with a daily inspection to do on each, refuel and refill with oil and coolant and rectify minor engine snags and see them out and back in again. Take for instance April the 28th, my diary reads Q up on escort at dawn, saw R & Q off on escort work later on in morning. Q and R up at 5.0 p.m. escorting Bombers and Photographic reconnaisance [sic] aircraft on a low bombing attack at 200 ft on a bridge north of Rome. For this last mission the petrol overload tanks on my aircraft had to be changed from 90 gall. to 30 gall. ones.
That same night I was on guard at the aerodrome and between 4 a.m. and 5.30 a.m. I had run-up 7 aircraft ready for dawn patrol. Every so often we had an occasional change by way of fighter sweeps reconnaisance [sic] and straffing missions but we got plenty of those missions after the 15th of May.
On the 2nd of May, after 2 1/2 hours of intensive questioning by the Engineering Officer, I was given my A.C.1. Next day [inserted] [indecipherable word] [/inserted] was one of the Red Letter days of my overseas tour. That evening, R & Q along with 4 other aircraft went up on a straffing mission [inserted] TO SOUTH OF FRANCE [/inserted] during which they ran into 10 Focker Wolfs 190’s. After many dog-fights over the Florence Area the Germans made for home, but not before the Wing Commander had shot one down. Our C.O. [deleted] after a head on burst of fire from his guns got one, making his total 13 1/2. His [/deleted] plane received a cannon shell which burst in one of his machine gun bays. That necessitated a wing change, but that was the only damage sustained to our aircraft.
[inserted] AUSTRALIAN NELSON MYERS [deleted] [four indecipherable words] [/deleted] LATER LOST RETURNING FROM STRAFFING TRIP F/SGT [indecipherable name] SOUTH OF FRANCE
BLONDIE MILLER (SOUTH AFRICAN) S HARDY A FW 190, AUSTRALIA [indecipherable words] ANOTHER [/inserted]
Cont’d…../
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- 53 –
[inserted] BEST OF ALL WAS [/inserted] [inserted] BLONDIE MILLER [/inserted]
When I saw R in and the pilot told me all about the scrap I learned that he had [deleted] also shot one down [/deleted] [inserted] [indecipherable word] FW 190 [/inserted] and two more of the enemy were also damaged. It then made me think it was worthwhile working all the hours that I had done on the engine.
On Wednesday the 10th, it was “A” Flt. that had the luck when they ran into two M.E. 109’s and shot them both down that afternoon. R & Q were up at the time, but they were sweeping another part of Italy and did not see anything.
The Yanks had another cinema near to me but I did not go to a show there very often, as the show was held in the open-air and did not start until it became dark and when we arrived back to camp it was nearly always midnight and often we found that there was an early call-[deleted] off [/deleted] [inserted] IN. [/inserted] for us at 3.30 or 4.0 a.m.
The nearest big town to us was Bastia, 12 miles to our North and once again it was the Yanks that made it worthwhile going there. Sometimes they had a show on in one of the towns two cinemas and there was the American Red Cross Restaurant where one could obtain coffee, cakes and ice cream. Apart from what I have mentioned there were no more than six shops open and they were either barbers shops or wine bars. But it must be remembered that for just on 5 years no ship had arrived at the island carrying civilian supplies and as a result there was a black market for anything in the town. It was a very dreary place with everything being closed down and empty shop windows everywhere. In the small harbour were a few sunken or scuttled ships.
On the shore was a wreck on an Italian sea-plane that had been shot down and had crashed into the harbour. The railway station area had been badly damaged by bombing attacks, no doubt it would be a much brighter town in peace-time. The Germans had used the cemetery as an ammunition storage dump, so it had to be bombed by the Allies. When I saw it, the place looked terrible with its overturned and uprooted tombstones.
To pass the time away we formed an inter-section league of cricket, football, and soft ball. We marked the pitches out between the aircraft bays and we played whilst our aircraft were up flying, until it was time for them to return. Nearby to my disposal bay was what used to be a big old farm house and was then empty. Often when my birds were up I would sit in one of the old low ceiling and stone floor rooms. It was lovely and cool and I was able to write my letters there when I did not get much time up at the camp. Just outside the farmhouse was an old fashioned pump and trough and over and on it grew big bunches of grapes. When I was on late flying we had only half an hour up at camp for dinner (no time for a dip in the stream) so after seeing the aircraft off on its last trip I used to fill up the stone trough with water, get stripped and then have a bath sitting in it, out in the open air getting a sun bath at the same time.
Cont’d…../
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- 54 –
The dust thrown up from the runway and taxing track was terrible and one got covered in dust and blinded in a fog of it everytime we saw an aircraft in or out, therefore, it was essential we had at least one bath every day.
- - - - - - -
[page break]
[inserted] 55 [/inserted]
[underlined] MY OVERSEAS SERVICE PART 3 [/underlined]
The only large flat piece of country in Corsica that I know of is just South of Bastia and runs for approx. 12 to 15 miles around the bay. At the time we were there it was virtually an aircraft carrier. The whole of the flat was covered with a network of airfields on which were housed every conceivable type of British and American aircraft. All farm-houses etc., in the area found themselves in the midst of an airfield.
On Friday night of the 11th May, the C.O. called us all together and gave us a lecture on a big hillside. He told us that for the few weeks following we would be very busy working from dawn to dusk. As at 5.0 a.m. the next morning the big Italian push was to commence. He explained to us that the bombing raids and bombers that we had escorted during the previous few weeks has disrupted the enemy’s rail and supply lines, causing him to draw from his large supply dumps that he had built up all over Italy. Our job was to cover the whole of Northern Italy, way behind the front lines and stop any further supplies from passing down southwards and so make him continue to draw on his dumps until he was forced to withdraw to enable him to shorten his supply lines.
We were also told the exact location of every British, American, Polish, Indian and other allied divisions and how many tanks and guns etc., they had against the estimated German strength in men and arms. It was estimated that we outnumbered the enemy 10 to 1 in guns. We were also told the objectives of each division and it was explained to us how the Indian division had to swing around Cassino hill and what our forces in the Anzio beach-head were to do if the Indian attack was successful, also what they would do if it was not.
The final objective was to reach a line around the Florence area and then just be content in holding same and keeping German troops in Italy who were badly needed on the Western and Russian fronts and also they would have to feed the population in Northern [deleted] Ireland [/deleted] [inserted] ITALY [/inserted] instead of us. As you all know, this is what happened, everything as it was planned except for our part in the push for the first few days.
The whole of the time that we were in Corsica we were under American Command. Next morning we were up long before dawn and as the first rays of light, R & Q and others were up on a dawn patrol and sweep, R came back with an oil cooler leak that made it u.s. (unserviceable for the rest of the day but Q did two more sweeps before darkness and did not see anything during the trips. That evening, just after I had got into bed a few big burtss [sic] of gunfire rang out and when I looked out of the tent it was like daylight outside. The whole sky was lit up by strings of flares that were slowly floating earthwards and the red, white and green balls of fire that rose up from the guns trying to shoot the flares from out of the sky. The heavy guns were concentrating on the bombers which we could hear quite clearly circling overhead and then a few moments later came the sound of bombs bursting. The raid lasted for just on half-an-hour. A further raid was carried out on the airfield next to ours at 4.0 a.m. Jerry certainly chose a good time for the raid (when we needed every available aircraft up flying).
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 55 (A) [/inserted]
[underlined] PORETTA AIRFIELD
MAY 1944. [/underlined]
[photograph of a Spitfire with R. Barrett stood next to it]
[underlined] “Q” FOR QUEENIE.
MY SPITFIRE AND MYSELF TAIL BLOWN OFF IN GERMAN AIR RAID WHILST IN SAME SPOT
REPLACED A FEW DAYS LATER [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 56 [/inserted]
- 2 –
Next morning we were all up early and arrived at the ‘drome just as dawn was breaking. We were unable to move about at all until it was fully light because of the many unexploded bombs that were scattered around us. It was a pitiful sight that met my eyes when I toured our aircraft bays. Every aircraft that I came to was absolutley [sic] riddled with shrapnel which had pierced the oil, fuel and coolant tanks, the contents of which were spilled all over the ground. Some had their air bottles hit and on exploding they had blew away great chunks of the aircraft. Wings, bodies and tail units were riddled with holes. One aircraft I came to had burned itself out and a bomb must have landed directly on the tail of Q as the whole tail unit had been blown off. Both R and Q looked like nut-meg graters. Even my oil jug and my tool box that I kept at the side of the bay were full of holes and the boxes of cannon shells at 303 machine gun ammo lying near ready for re-arming the Spits’ guns had exploded.
When it was decided that not one of our flights aircraft were repairable we marked off all the unexploded bombs that we could find by ringing them with stones. There were three in my bay and there were many others along the taxing track which was covered with minute pieces of shrapnel. One bomb had gone off to approximately every 2 sq yards, everyone had to be very careful for a long time afterwards when walking through the long grass.
“A” Flight came off [deleted] better [/deleted] a little better than us, they had one aircraft left un-damaged which incidentally was the Squadron’s bogey, as it was always having trouble of some sort, they also had two others that were repairable.
Out of the 84 aircraft in our wing only 17 of them were able to take the air that day. I do not think the other wing fared any better than us. The American drome that received the 4.0 am. raid had many of their Thunderbolts destroyed and we learned later that 36 Mitchel bombers were also destroyed on another drome in Southern Corsica that same evening.
One of our Squadron’s petrol bowsers was also hit by shrapnel, luckily it was not the storage tank of the vehicle.
The only casualty on our Squadron was one of the guards and he was hit by shrapnel in the leg. You would not believe what the guard tent looked like after the raid unless you saw it. It if had one hole in it, it had ten thousand, even the mosquito nets and blankets of the guards were riddled. Luckily the flight was only a few yards away and we had dug a big trench nearby under a large fallen tree trunk. It most certainly saved their lives. The other Wing who had their camp site on the drome were not so lucky and the Australian Squadron suffered many [deleted] face [/deleted] [inserted] FATEL [sic] [/inserted] casualities. [sic] So you see it paid us to make these hundreds of trips between our camp site and the drome.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 56 A [/inserted]
[picture of the Italian coast line with Corsica and Sardinia]
[underlined] AREAS PATROLLED BY OUR SPITFIRES. [/underlined]
[symbol] LANDING SPOT
[symbol] LOCATION OF OUR AIRFIELDS.
[page break]
[underlined] DESTRUCTION OF MONTI – CASSINO [/underlined]
[aerial photograph of the Abbey at Monti Cassino]
[underlined] MONESTARY [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 57 [/inserted]
- 3 –
On the whole the enemy could not achieve better results if he had walked around and had thrown the bombs into the bays. During the following few days the bomb disposal squad were busy letting unexploded bombs off every so often. Between the guard tent and our flight tent approx. 25 to 30 yards they dug out 17 unexploded 20 lb bombs. Most of the bombs used in the raid were fragmentation, they were a little larger than a hand grenade and they had a tail fin on them. They are dropped from the aircraft enclosed in a big container shaped like an ordinary big bomb which were about 5 ft long and held approx. 200 fragmentation bombs in each. One container that we picked up near to our stores tent was 14 ft long and must have held at least 500. A short while after the container leaves the aircraft it is electrically split in two with a result the small bombs are showered over a large area and explode on impact.
It was estimated that 50 planes took part in the raids and I think three were shot down. The aircraft were specially brought from Northern France to the South for the raid. One of our night fighters tagged onto the bombers and followed them back and discovered where they set out from and next day our bombers went out and gave them a hell of a pasting with fragmentation bombs just as they were about to fly back North. The rest of the following day the raid we spent working on, one of the repairable aircraft and made it serviceable after changing the propeller and riveting 50 odd patches onto it. For the following 3 days we worked from dawn until dusk salvaging another aircraft which was repairable. We had to take a wing off the aircraft (a hell of a job) and then take another wing off another Spitfire that was left with only one good wing and swap them over. Airalions, wing-tips had to be changed along with the prop and the radiators and oil cooler. It was really a job for Maintenance Unit and usually a Squadron was never allowed to touch such a big job. We also had to rivet on over a hundred patches of all shapes and sizes. When the job had been completed the aircraft looked as if it had a touch of the measles but it flew and that was all that mattered. Instrument men helped the riggers and the electricians helped the fitters in fact, everyone in all trades mucked in and did their bit to help someone else.
One morning the Group Captain landed and burst a tyre and as he thought a piece of shrapnel had caused the prang he had the whole personnel in the wing picking up shrapnel on the runway which was a mile and a quarter long and 200 yards wide during the afternoon. By this time replacements were arriving fast and on the 18th of May I was given a new Q and on its first day with me it carried out two sweeps. On May 20th our Flight Commander was shot down by flak in enemy terrority [sic] just North of Leghorn whilst on a 300 mile reconnaissance trip. We learned later that he had got out safely and had been taken prisoner of war. On Thursday the 25th whilst out on patrol the Squadron’s aircraft ran into some F.W. 190’s and an “A” Flight pilot managed to bag one and our Flight got three. Our new Flight Commander Flight Sergeant Skinner shot down one after a dog fight at the completion of which he found himself over an enemy airodrome [sic] and on going down lower to take a look at it he was able to destroy another German aircraft by straffing it as it took its run along the runway to take off.
Cont’d…../[page break]
[inserted] 57 A [/inserted]
[hand made poster for a Concert Party to be held on 8th June]
P.T.O.
[page break]
[programme of events for the Concert Party]
[page break]
[inserted] 58 [/inserted]
- 4 –
He then found that he had gone too far South during the chase and that he would not have enough petrol to get back, so he made for the Anjio beach ahead and just reached our lines as the petrol gave out and he managed to crash land in a field on friendly soil. He was back flying with the Squadron two days later. I saw the film of his combat which he managed to salvage from the plane’s camera gun, it was all very clear and interesting.
On the 28th we lost another aircraft through lack of fuel, only this time the pilot was not so lucky: he discovered he was short of petrol just after leaving the enemy coast line, he then panicked and turned back and crash landed in enemy terrority [sic] and was taken prisoner.
On Saturday the 3rd of June “A” Flight lost another good pilot when F/O Haggerty crashed into the sea in flames and three days later one of our “B” Flight pilots had to bale out when his engine over-heated and caught fire, but he got out and into his dinghy O.K. and was picked up by the Air Sea Rescue Service a few hours later and was back with us on the following day.
Saturday the 10th was a successful day when our aircraft straffed trucks, lorries and armoured vehicles badly needed by the Germans at the front, but once again they cut it fine and two of our aircraft had to make for our lines South and finally crash landed through lack of petrol and flying one of the Spitfires was Flt/Sgt Skinner who had previously done the same thing. One aircraft arrived back with not enough petrol left in its tank to enable the pilot to do the customary circuit before landing, he had to ask for an emergency landing and came straight in. When the pilot stepped out he only had 5 galls left. A new overload tank was immediately fitted when the engine was switched off and the tanks were filled and tested, oil was checked and the aircraft was up on another trip inside 1/2 hour.
The overload tanks were either 30, 45 or 90 galls and were fitted to the belly of the aircraft and they use the petrol from the overload tank first and then if the pilot ran into enemy or heavy gun-fire etc., they were able to drop the tank which enabled them to travel at extra speed and their main tanks were still full. It was hard work when the pilots dropped their tanks three times during one day as they often did.
On the 10th of June, we held our Squadron Concert, which was a 3 hour show and included 10 acts of sketches, tunes etc., it went off very well considering the little time we had to ourselves for rehersals. [sic] We built our own stage and rigged up curtains etc. I was in 3 of the sketches and in one of them along with 3 other chaps I did a sand-dance. I was dressed in satin brassiere and pretty flowered silk knickers, silk stockings held up with fancy coloured garters and on my head I wore a coloured turban and the lower part of my face was hidden by a yash-mak. The C.O. bought and brought all the clothes, make-up etc., in Cario [sic] and flew them into the Island for us. Two fellows painted some marvellous scenery on the backs of lorry covers. During the following weeks we staged the show at nearby units and at the local field hospital.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 59 [/inserted]
- 5 –
During the whole of the time that I had with the new Q, my pilot was F/O Robertson and on my birthday I was very pleased when he received his second bar which made him Ft/Lt. he was vastly different from the other officer pilots. I liked him best out of the lot. The other Flt/Lt’s. P/O and F/O’s expected their crews to do all the cleaning but my pilot when he was not flying would often come and help me clean and polish up our aircraft and make it look spick and span. He also appreciated all the work that I did on the aircraft. I used to be proud of it when it took off and how it glistened and shone in the sun. I could pick it out from all the others a mile off when it was on the runway. The life of a Spitfire was 240 flying hours and during the whole of Q’s life I only knew my pilot once to fly in another aircraft and that was when Q was in on a inspection, he also would not let any other pilot fly in Q. Often he did two trips on the same day. In just over 100 days Q had finished it’s life of 240 operational hours and had done well over 125 trips, so you can see how busy I was. When any other aircraft went U/S at the last moment, it was always Q that took its place. During its whole life I think the worst trouble that I had with it was a couple of coolant leaks.
Flt/Lt Robertson had just finished his flying hours and he told me that he would finish flying when the old Q came to the end of its life and he did to [sic] except for one trip and that was when the Squadron flew its last trip before breaking up and on that occasion he paid me a tribute by flying in my new Q.
Now for more extracts from my diary. On June 11th lorries straffed during two of the trips carried out that day.
On June 12th Flt/Lt Robertson straffed lorries during his first trip of the day.
June the 13th (my 20th birthday) Q up on sweep. Bomber escort and straffing trips. On guard at night and warmed up aircraft ready for dawn patrol. That day we lost another aircraft (letter Z). It was last seen straffing a convoy of lorries near Florence. The pilot came back to us two months later, he had managed to escape capture and work his way down Southwards through the enemy’s lines and back into our own.
The following days were very much the same. Evenings spent attending concert rehersals, [sic] doing washing in stream or walks to the nearest village for a drink at the wine bar.
On Saturday the 17th of June I had Q away at 4.0 a.m. It was pitch dark when it became airborne to cover the landings during the invasion of Elba. Monte Christos Pianosa Islands. Elba was only 15 miles away from us and was the island Napoleom [sic] was exiled to. All three islands were in a parallel line along the coast of Corsica and they looked very picturesque when the sun set behind them.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 60 [/inserted]
- 6 –
Our Wing carried out a constant patrol of the island of Elba during the following few days until the whole of the island had been propped up. During one of these patrols one of our “A” Flt pilots shot down 2 ME. 109’s in less than 40 secs and then in the excitement he fired another short burst at another aircraft that came into his sight during the following few seconds and he did not know until the aircraft peeled over to go to its doom and he saw the white star on its side that it was an American aircraft. The mistake was quite understandable as the Arncobra and the NE. 109 were very similar. The same pilot had previosuly [sic] shot down 3 enemy aircraft in one day during the siege of Malta. He had been shot down by an American aircraft when he was in North Africa but he managed to bale out. Later he was awarded the D.F.M. and a commission.
The invasion of Elba was postponed twice through leakage of information and in the subsequent fighting the French received heavier casualties than was expected, 90% of the invading troops were Frenchmen or men from the French colonies. I remember during the nights the ambulances driving past our camp carrying the wounded to a nearby field hospital after they had been brought back from Elba and landed at Bastia. The island had no real airfield but it possessed a small flat strip from which an occasional German aircraft carried out reconnaisance [sic] work over our airfields in Corsica. I was on guard one night a couple of evenings after the big raid when one of the aircraft came over to see what damage had been done. When the telephone rang and we were told that enemy aircraft were approaching (I was in bed at the time) I soon got dressed and ran to the slit trench under the big fallen tree trunk and put on my steel helmet. A few moments later we could hear the drome of an aircraft which began to circle our airfield. I thought that we were in for anothe [sic] big raid and the Jerry was after our replacements, then all of a sudden the aircraft dropped a magnisium [sic] flare and it became daylight for a couple of seconds. After about ten of these flashes the aircraft made off and I breathed a sigh of relief. I bet they got some good pictures of the pile of aircraft that they had destroyed during the raid
On the 20th of June Q went up on its own to do reconnaisance [sic] over Leghorn Harbour but it did not see anything of interest and there was no shipping in it so it was not worthwhile sending a bomber force over there. Although they did not know, I expect many of the people living on the harbour edge owe their lives to that aircraft of mine, as that trip saved them from a big bombing that had been planned. During the following days it was straffing sweeps and bomber escorts once again and my evenings were spent playing cricket or cards, reading a book or going to the cinema.
[underlined] June 24th – A Rest Leave in Corsia [sic] [/underlined]
After coming off guard on Saturday morning I packed the necessary kit that I would use during the week following and then I helped to load the rations onto the lorry that was to take us to the rest camp. There were six of us in all, one fellow from each flight or section of the Squadron.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
60A
[photograph of shoreline with boat in front]
[symbol] RIVER GOING OUT INTO SEA [symbol]
[underlined] SITE OF REST CAMP [/underlined]
[photograph of road going through mountains]
[underlined] ROAD TO REST CAMP [/underlined]
[page break]
[symbol] AT SUNSET MOUNTAINS TOOK ON A PURPLE HUE
[photograph of Hotel du Pont in Porto]
[underlined] 1/2 MILE FROM REST CAMP [/underlined]
[photograph of the road lined with trees]
ROAD TO HOTEL [symbol]
[symbol] ROAD TO VILLAGE
[symbol] REST BUNGALOW
[symbol] RIVER.
[page break]
[inserted] 61 [/inserted]
- 7 –
Our instructions from the C.O. before setting off were that there were no restrictions whatsoever and that we could do just what we liked as long as we enjoyed ourselves and did not get shot or drowned.
We finally set off at 8.30 a.m. on our 4 hour journey across Corsica. There were very few main roads on the Island and what there were could no means be called good ones. All of them wound back and forth, up down and around the mountainside, except for the first part of our journey which was across flat country. After about 1/2 hour after setting off we passed the camp housing the Germans that the French troops had taken prisoner on Elba. They did not look very much like the supermen of the super-race that they thought they were. In fact, they looked a sorrowful crowd standing behind high barbed wire fences with machine guns trained upon them at every corner of the compound.
Most of the villages that we passed by or through were built high upon a hillside miles from anywhere and away from the malaria danger areas on the flat land at the foot of the hillsides. We stopped at a wine bar in one of the villages where we had a drink along with sandwiches that we had all brought with us, then we continued our ride and passed through a pine forest in which many lumber camps were situated. On the other side of the road at various times we could see trees that already had been cut and rolled down to the roadside where they had been piled up ready to be transported away to the saw mills. Then in places we could see the trees that were marked denoting to the lumber jacks that they were next to be felled and the trees unmarked were to be left alone. In some areas in the forest all the trees had been felled and only a mass of tree trunks sticking out from the ground remained to be seen. The lumber-jacks lived in log cabins that were built near to the road.
During the whole 4 hour journey we passed through no more than seven or eight villages and when we were approximately half-way to our destination the road became a stone track and at the time we were over 5,000 ft above sea-level and were feeling a little cold. A little higher up the mountain was snow and ice formations which we could see clearly when we were not driving through a cloud which seemed to envelope us like a fog each time we entered one. At times we were able to look downward into ravines and valleys and see the road that we had passed along 1/2 an hour previously. At the bottom of each ravine one would be certain of seeing a stream of some sort and sometimes a river rolling peacefully along and looking like a piece of silver ribbon a long way below us. These streams were formed by rain-water and water from the mountain springs which had found there [sic] way down to the base of the mountain. At various points I saw the water cascading from the rocks directly into a stream hundreds of feet below. The scenery was truly wonderful and no words of any person on this earth can fully describe its beauty. One grim reminder to make one drive carefully were the many wrecks that we saw of vehicles that had gone over the road edge into the depths below. On reaching our destination which was a village named Porto, we found that the bungalow at which we were to stay during our leave was situated on the waters edge on the opposite side of the river to the village.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
61A
[underlined] ROAD TO NEXT VILLAGE [/underlined]
[scenic photograph of mountain road]
[underlined] CALACASS DE PIANA [/underlined]
[scenic photograph of mountain road]
[page break]
[photograph of mountain road]
[underlined] ROAD TO NEXT VILLAGE. [/underlined]
[photograph of local Corsicans with goats and mule]
[page break]
[inserted] 62 [/inserted]
- 8 –
We left the lorry on the road and carried the rations and our kit down to the waters edge. By this time one of the fellows whose leave ended that day had arrived at our side of the river on a raft made of split tree trunks lashed together resting on four 50 gallon empty petrol drums. We loaded the raft until it was only a few inches above the water line and then one of the fellows took the raft back to the other side of the river where it was unloaded and then he brought back the raft and fetched us. The raft was guided by the fellows on it pulling on a wire that stretched from one side of the river to the other. We had to be very careful that the raft did not stray too far from the wire whilst on board.
On reaching the other side we carried our kit up to the bungalow a few yards away. Two of the rooms had been rented by our C.O. Four of us settled in one room and the other three in the next one to us. Number 7 in the party was the permanent cook who stayed at the bungalow until recalled back to the Squadron. In the rest of the building was a wine bar and a Corsican and his wife and their 8 year old daughter who lived there.
Here is a description of the scenery that I looked out upon as I sat at a small table with a glass of wine before me, surrounded by other tables and wicker chairs placed on the big veranda in front of the bungalow. Overhead was a trellis work of caculiptus [sic] leafy branches.
All would be silent and still except for the singing of the birds and the rustling of the leaves above, waving in a gentle breeze and the sound of the waves breaking on the seashore and the rippling of the nearby stream. Also a crow would occasionally break this peaceful quietness caused by one or more of the many cockerells [sic] that were around me or a dog would bark somewhere over in the village. In front of me as I sat there a small stream ran past to join the river on my right, behind the stream ran the pebbly beach for 30 yards where it joined the strip of golden sand that swept down for a further 20 yards where it joined the deep blue sea of the Meditteranian [sic] which, in turn, on the horizon met the light blue sky showing up the vast contrast in the two colours. The sky would be cloudless and empty except for the massive red and golden ball of the sun that radiated its heat over the whole scene helping to make it a glorious day.
To my rear stood a wood of Eauculiptus [sic] trees intermingled among them on the ground grew masses of ferns which were inhabited by brown and green lizards and a few snakes of which were approximately 4 ft long and around the many stagnant pools in the wood were millions of mosquitoes. A tamed wild boar was tied up to one of the trees with a piece of rope at the other end which was tied to one of the boar’s rear legs. It was being fattened up ready to be eaten by the French family. Every time I passed by it gave a grunt either as a greeting or a sign of recognition.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[deleted] 63 [/deleted]
[inserted] 62A [/inserted]
[photograph of rock formation]
ON ROAD TO NEXT [underlined] VILLAGE. [/underlined]
[coloured photograph of rock formation]
[underlined] A FEW MILES FROM REST CAMP [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 63 [/inserted]
- 9 –
To my left was the continuation of the wood, river and beach until it reached the rocks which gradually sloped upwards forming themselves into the mountain-side that encircled the bay. The mountain-side was not barren at all but was covered with one mass of variety of green trees, shrubs, bramble, ferns and here and there were dots of various colours where wild flowers grew. On the other side of the mountain was a valley, then came the second range of mountains which rose above the first, their barren rugged rocks towered up into the sky. Lastly, on my right across a 60 ft wide river and at the top of which stood the quaint little village of Porto which comprised of a few stone-built cottages and houses. The most recent addition to the village at that time was the hotel which was quite a modern one. In front of the village facing the sea on a large rock formation stood what I presume was used as a Watch Tower in Napolion’s [sic] day. The brick built building was approximately 30 ft x 30 ft x 60 ft high. The only entrance was through a hole in one of the walls near to the top of the structure, so, in olden days they must have used a ladder of some kind to get inside it. I was unable to explore the interior myself as there was no means of getting up to that hole and it was impossible to climb up the wall without risking breaking my neck, and as I had no wish to die I never attempted to get in. The walls were over 6 ft in thickness but they were all badly cracked caused by the heat and their age. It looked as though the whole tower would come crumbling to the ground if a very strong gale blew up. To the rear of the village rose more pink and yellow rock formations mostly covered with green shrubs and which also formed themselves into a mountain-side.
At the moment that I am thinking of as I sat at that little table sipping my wine the stillness was broken by the woman who owned the bungalow starting up her gramaphone [sic] which would persist in sticking and therefore was continually playing the same few notes over and over again.
I will now describe the main events of my weeks leave, some of which I found quite amusing and I hope that you do to.
On the Saturday that I arrived in the afternoon the village dance was held on our large vernada [sic] in front of our rooms. People attended from all the neighbouring villages. The music was supplied by an old boy with one leg who played an ancient italian accordian. [sic] the only thing wrong was that he only knew two tunes, so after he had played them over and over again about five times straight off we were all fed up with hearing them and we knew them note after note. As far as I could see the Corsican way of dancing consisted of not much more than shuffling around. All the children enjoyed themselves immensely, to go to a dance was quite an occasion and a day off from school and a day’s outing for them. Some of the older girls invaded our bedrooms to see what they could cadge off of us and their parents would buy anything that we had to sell. Of course, we had all been forewarned and brought things along with us. The only food the villagers saw was what they grew themselves, therefore, we had no difficulty in trading our rations of Bully Beef and other things that we did not like, for eggs.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
63A
[symbol] [underlined] WE WALKED ALONG TOP [/underlined] AFTER LEAVING WINE BAR LATE AT NIGHT.
[photograph of Hotel du Pont and bridge]
[symbol] ROAD FROM REST CAMP & VILLAGE
[photograph of Hotel du Pont]
[page break]
[photograph of Hotel du Pont taken from under the bridge]
[underlined] UNDER BRIDGE LEADING FROM HOTEL TO VILLAGE. [/underlined]
[photograph of road and road sign]
[page break]
[inserted] 64 [/inserted]
- 10 –
Bully-beef was a luxury to them and eggs were the same to us. When the dance had ended and the families had set out to walk to their various villages we went across the river on our raft and walked through the village and along the road bordered by huge trees until we reached the hotel where we stayed drinking wine until 11.30 p.m. Lovely big plums and cherries were offered free with our drinks. Whilst we were in the hotel we made friends with some American airmen who were staying at a rest-camp run by their Squadron. Those fellows were the best set of Yanks that I ever met, we got on fine together. Our friendship started by myself offering to buy them a drink and then they returned the compliment after which we joined the two parties together. We had a jolly evening and a sing-song and agreed to meet again on the following evening. When we arrived back to the riverside it was pitch dark and we took a quarter of an hour scrmabling [sic] and stumbling over rocks in finding our mooring stage. Admitted, we were all quite merry at the time. With seven of us aboard, the raft was nearly below water. I should not have been surprised if it had sunk at any moment during the crossing. We eventually arrived at the other-side just as it struck midnight quite safely. I jumped ashore first and after a big splash I found myself knee deep in water. The tide had come in during the evening and so the mooring post was then out in the river. I thought as soon as we grounded on the raft that we had reached dry land but I found out my error to my cost, so as I was already wet I carried the rest of the chaps on my back from the raft to the dry land.
Sunday morning we were awakened by a nanny-goat hawing outside our window, someone threw a boot at it and it was quiet for a time but it soon started up again and caused us all to get up early. The fellow who threw the boot was sorry he did it when a little later he found out that the goat had chewed a lump out of his boot whilst it had been quiet. Of course, it was late to what time we were used to getting up. After breakfast we made a landing stage with big rocks to make sure we would not land in the water again at night. We had just completed the job and I was standing on the raft when suddenly I started to lose my balance, after about a minute of waving my arms about like a windmill trying to right myself when I finally fell backwards into the river which created a good laugh among the other fellows.
Besides the raft we possessed a small boat or rather I called it a floating coffin as it was shaped and it was the same size as one.
That afternoon another dance was held with the same two tunes for music. I went for a walk along the beach to get out of the way of those master-pieces of music.
In the evening as the raft and boat were at the wrong side of the river we had to go another way round to get to the hotel. Our route took us through the wood and before we could get onto a small road leading one way to the hotel bridge and the other to the village of Piana, we had to climb up a 150 ft cliff of sheer rock. If we had been ordered to do that climb we would have moaned like anything but as it was we tackled it in good spirits.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 65 [/inserted]
- 11 –
When we reached the top we had walked along the road for a little way we found a path leading up the cliff that we could have come up. That evening there was seventeen of us in the party. We came back to the river the village way and when we arrived at the waters edge there was no raft and no boat, so we had to steal or rather borrow one of the villager’s boats and take ourselves across in it and then one of the fellows undresses and rowed the boat back in the nude and then he swam back to the bungalow side. The water must have been icy cold as it was then well past midnight.
On Monday morning we were again woken up earlier than we wanted to. This time it was by the woman of the house jabbering away about a petit boat, we eventually discovered that she was trying to tell us that the small boat and the raft had drifted away during the night. We found the raft 150 yards away down stream in a waterway leading off from the river but the small boat was nowhere to be seen. It had drifted down the river and out into the open sea in the Bay of Porto.
After salvaging the raft and returning it to the mooring post, we had breakfast which the cook had just finished preparing for us, then we all went up to the old Watch Tower high above the sea. From here, whilst I was looking at the wonderful view of the whole bay I caught sight of our boat which had been washed ashore two miles or more around the bay, so that meant more salvage work for some of the boys that afternoon. I contented myself sitting in a chair reading a book when the stillness of the afternoon was suddenly broken by a series of piercing sqeals, [sic] snorts and grunts issuing forth from somewhere at the rear of the bungalow. On rushing found we found that six wild boars had ventured out from the wood and were attacking the one tied up. We drove them off by throwing stones, the dog went after them until one turned round and bit him in the back.
As it was the Yanks last day at the Rest Camp we held a farewell party in the hotel that evening. We put all the tables together in a line and sat around them, everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In the middle of our sing-song we held quite a good cabaret. In our party we had a singer and a tap dancer and a professional comedian. The Yanks had two good singers and there were nineteen of us in the party that evening. Later an old man came in, if it had been a hundred years previously, he was just as you would have expected a Corsican bandit to look like. We made him join in the fun, you should have seen him with the huge cigar which one of the Yanks had presented to him, even the old French landlord did his bit of entertaining, he gave us imitations of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, he had us holding our sides with laughter. The landlady used to like us to hold our parties as we had a jolly good time. All the previous parties held there the people started fighting etc. She used to look after us very well keeping us suppled with fruit to eat etc.
After saying goodbye to each other we made for the bungalow and arrived this time without anything eventful happening.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
65A
[symbol] [underlined] VILLAGE. BUNGALOW ON OTHER SIDE OF THE HIL [sic] [/underlined]
[photograph of village of Porto]
[underlined] GOLFE DE PORTO [/underlined]
[photograph of Hotel du Pont de Porto in the valley of the mountains and woods]
[page break]
[inserted] 66 [/inserted]
- 12 –
On Tuesday morning I was woken up at 6.0 a.m.by a nanny-goat coming into the bedroom, I shoo’d him out but not before he had left traces of his visit on the floor. During the morning I managed my first few strokes of swimming with the aid of a Mae West life-saving waist-coat. After that I took my rifle onto the beach and did a bit of target shooting at bottles at a range of 150 yards but every time that I fired, the report sounded like a land mine going off as it echoed and re-echoed throughout the mountains. It was so loud that I finally gave it up because I was frightening nearby cattle. I then tried my hand at fishing but I did not meet with any success and when one of the old boys from the village came along and caught a 10” fish within 5 minutes I gave it up. In the evning [sic] we all decided to go for a nice walk which finally amounted to stopping and having a rest and a drink at every wine bar that we came to.
Wednesday morning we were all up early as we were going for a hike around the mountain-side, I had the job of cutting the sandwiches, by the time we had finished them they looked like doorsteps. Two other Yanks whom we had made friends with and who were spending their last days leave at Porto, came along with us. We walked round and round, up and up, passing by a mixture of rocky ground and green shubbery [sic] and in places it was cultivating grape vineyards, orchards of pears, apples, peaches and plums so we did not go short of fruit during our walk.
At noon, after passing roadside family shrines, we entered a village called “Ota” I think we must have been some of the first Englishmen to pay a visit to the village since the war had begun as nearly all the inhabitants turned out to have a look at us and we were followed all the time by a flock of children, and when the Yanks started to give them lumps of milk chocolate and handfuls of boiled sweets etc., the flock grew to a multitude. We stopped at the village wine bar whilst we ate our sandwiches and refreshed ourselves at the village fountain spring before retracing our steps back to Porto. It was a little easier going back as it was a downhill all the way. We were all so tired on arrival at the bungalow that we all went to sleep, after we had partaken a meal. In the evening we held another farewell party at the hotel. Just outside the hotel was a spring from which emmitted [sic] lovely cool drinking water (see photo). During the famous songs of the R.A.F. were sung by us and in return the Yanks sang their Air Force songs and all sorts of wine was flowing – Cap Corsa, O’de Ve, Muscat, Veno, Cognac etc., They all went down with cheese and biscuits that we had brought along with us.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
66A
[photograph of a village in the hillside]
[underlined] VILLAGE THAT WE WALKED UP TO [/underlined]
[photograph of mountains]
[underlined] CALANQUES DE PIANA [/underlined]
[page break]
[photograph of man on donkey beside a spring]
[underlined] SPRING OUTSIDE HOTEL [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 67 [/inserted]
- 13 –
One amusing incident was as follows: To summarise the landlady to order another round of drinks we used to clap our hands together, but during that evening we clapped after someone had sung a song, therefore, our glasses were filled up again and someone had to fork up 200 francs. We found it amusing after a few rounds and we were clapping approx. every five or six minutes and the party lasted for over 3 1/2 hours. When the party finally ended the Yanks had said a farewell speech, it was 1.30 a.m. We parted after doing a ring-a-ring-a-roses whilst singing Auld Lang Syne in the middle of the village. We did a lot in strengthening Anglo/U.S relations during the week even if it was not physically. I do not think that such a good time has ever been had at a party representing two countries. Everyone seemed to have one leg shorter than the other during the walk home, except for one and we had to carry him half the way. It took six of us to lift him as he was a tubbish fellow. I had a good laugh when we were getting the chaps across the river on the raft, what a time it was and when we arrived at the bungalow, one of the fellows went to lean against the door which was not closed and he went clean through the opening. We kept finding different bits out of his watch on the veranda all the next day, we also found one of the fellows wallet floating in the river next morning and someone’s handkerchief on the other side of the river but everyone enjoyed themselves and it was the first leave since coming overseas for all of us.
I spent a quiet day on Thursday going for a walk in the woods and a swim in the river during the morning and wrote letters and read a book during the rest of that day. The only event of interest was when the small boat capsized and sank, three of the fellows were in it at the time, two dived overboard but the captain went down with his ship, luckily the water was not too deep where it went down. In the evening we tried our luck in fishing again only in the dark this time, four of us went out, split in two parties, we went up-stream and the others down-stream. I did not have any success and after 1/2 an hour the other fellow knocked my bait of wet bread and flour off of the rock and into the river so we had to pack up. The other party did not fare any better, once we heard a lot of shouting and splashing coming from down-stream but we learned later that one of the fellows in the other party had over-balanced when throwing out his line and followed it into the river. Once they did get a bite but the fish had bitten the line into two so they lost their hook and had to give fishing up as a bad job. Some of the younger villagers when they wanted fish threw a hand grenade into the river, the force of the explosion stunned all the fish and they came floating to the surface.
Next day we arose at 9.0 a.m. and I began to tackle a big pile of washing (after I had had breakfast) and if there was one thing I hated doing it was washing clothes – but as soon as I had commenced the 8 year old girl from the bungalow came out and gave me a hand or rather she did most of it for me. She managed to get the clothes far whiter than I could just by rubbing it together. At that time we were without bread to eat as half of what we had brought along with us had gone mouldy and we had to throw it all away on the Wednesday. Also, someone had accidentally mixed the sugar with the salt.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 68 [/inserted]
- 14 –
That afternoon I think the villagers must have thought an invasion had started when we built ourselves a 75 yard range and five of us firec [sic] over 300 rounds of rifle and sten gun ammunition in less than 1/2 an hour. My rifle was red hot after firing 60 rounds. When we all did a bit of rapid firing together the noise was terrific. Our net bag for the afternoon was a dozen tin cans with big holes blasted in them. By this time none of us had any cash left and as we wanted to hold a farewell party for ourselves, we took all the rations that we had left and what we did not want along with us to the hotel that evening and traded with them for wine.
Next morning we did not get up until 10 a.m. as we were unable to have a meal as we had no milk, sugar or bread left, so we set to and cleaned up the rooms and packed our kit and then we sat down to wait for the following week’s rest leave party from the Squadron to arrive. When they did we gratefully helped them to carry their rations across the river and then we helped ourselves to a couple of their loaves of bread and made some tea for them and ourselves with their milk and sugar.
We started our homeward journey at 3.30 p.m. and the villagers gave us a royal send off. We stopped in one village for a sandwich and cup of coffee. One village that we passed through must have been expecting a very important visitor as every inhabitant were lining the roadsides and were dressed in their Sunday best and all the children held a big bunch of wild flowers in their hands. The village bell was ringing for all it was worth and Free French flags flew from every house and cottage. If we had been travelling the other way, I bet we would have got bunches of flowers thrown at us, but alas, as the old saying goes “all good things must come to an end” as did my week’s rest leave, when our lorry rolled into camp at 8.15 p.m. [underlined] that same evening. [/underlined]
It was back to the old routine next day (2nd July) when I saw Q off after fitting a bigger overload tank to it. It went on a bomber escort trip to near the French Italian border. The target for the bombers were fuel dumps which received many hits with bombs. When the aircraft left the target it was burning well and smoked reached to a height of 5,000 ft. Five days later a similar raid was carried out on ammunition, bomb and fuel dumps near Turin when 36 fighters from our wing escorted 108 Mitchells. Smoke from the fires started reaching a height of 11,000 ft. Next day our Spitfires did an extremely long trip to a spot near to Venice. The trip was a 3 hour one, we had to fit a 90 gallon overload tank which gave each aircraft a total load of petrol of 175 gallons and the consumption rate was just under a gallon a minute, so you can see almost every gallon of fuel that it could carry for the trip. That night the pilots were due to start practicing night flying but just after I had warmed up the first aircraft ready for take-off, the flight was cancelled so I did not lose a night’s sleep after all. It was lovely running up during the night when all was pitch black except for the illuminous dials and instruments in the cockpit and the lovely blue flames coming from the exhaust stacks.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
[inserted] 69 [/inserted]
- 15 –
On Tuesday (11th July) I was up early and helped to take down our tent and load it onto a lorry along with our kits. We then climbed on top of both and then we set out in convoy for a 70 mile ride, once more along narrow twisting roads and up steep climbs and down declines through many quaint and picturesque villages and countryside. We arrived on the N.W. side of the island at noon and proceeded a couple of miles inland to a village named Callenzana. Much to our delight we found out that our new camp site was right outside the village, sitauted [sic] in a few fields dotted with nice shady trees. The village itself was at the base of a mountain that rose up into the sky behind it and the streets which were no more than alley-ways except for the main one which was comparable with an English lane. Chickens, goats etc., roamed freely along the alley-ways. The village was bulit [sic] on a big slope and rose up in layers. All the houses were built of stone and were very old and quaint. Our arrival was greeted by a village turn-out and smiles from pretty girls and the waving hands of children.
After erecting our tent we went to our new strip about 3 miles away and we arrived there just in time to see our Squadron aircraft arrive and land at their new base. We immediately re-fuelled and did a Daily Inspection on each of the 21 aircraft that landed. It must have been very hard for the pilots coming from a wide runway 1 1/4 miles long to a very narrow one only 700 yards long. Our strip was the smallest of the three in the area. One of the Squadrons on our strip had to taxi their aircraft across the main road on their way to and from the runway.
The road to the drome from the camp was one of the worst in Europe, we nearly got shook to pieces every time we did the ride as it was so rough and uneven.
Next morning at our new camp we had 12 aircraft flying on a bomber escort trip to a sopt [sic] 80 miles North of Spazia. That same evening we explored the village and discovered many wine bars, fruit and barbers shops. To climb from the bottom of the village to the top was quite a breath-taking task, but the scene that met one’s eyes on reaching the end of those cobblestoned streets made it well worthwhile. Two of my pals and I made friends with one of the families in the village, an old woman and her grand-daughter and we were always at their house for an evening when we had no-where else to go. Of course, the language question was a little difficult but between us all we managed to keep the conversation going all the time. The girl named Andre was 16 years old and was a cripple. The woman in peace-time used to import many things from France to sell in the village. She bought quite a number of things for us to resell. Of course, when war broke out her business was no more, as no goods whatsoever came into the island during the whole 6 years of war. The prices that we could get for second-hand clothing etc., was terrific but so was anything one wanted to buy, our service pay did not go very far. It was a good job we received money from other sources.
Cont’d…../[page break]
[inserted] 70 [/inserted]
- 16 –
We had many crashes on the strip through aircraft running off of the narrow run-way after getting a burst tyre when landing on the very stony ground and through over-shooting because of its shortness. One good thing for us was that all the aircraft were parked in bays very near to each other, so we did not have to walk 1/4 of a mile or more each time we went out to our aircraft from the flight tent.
I soon found on exploring the camp’s surroundings on my first day off a nice little pool about 50 ft in diameter and it was reached after a little climb and walk about half a mile from camp. The stream which ran into the pool came directly down from the mountain high above. Once the pool reached a certain level the water ran out at a certain point forming itself into a stream once more continuing its journey down the mountain-side. The water was as clear as a crystal, was lovely and ice cold, I think that I used to enjoy my bathe there after finishing work each night more than anything else at that time. I used to get so oily and even if it was 10.0 clock at night when I finished work I would get my torch and go for a daily climb and dip in the pool. It was lovely there on a moonlight night when all was quiet except for the sound of splashing water as it rushed over the rocks. I used to love to go there on my day off and have a bathe and then do some washing whilst standing in the pool on one of the big smooth rocks that encircled me. Then I used to sun-bathe in the nude for a while and read a book at the same time. After an hour or so of this I would get dressed and do a bit of climbing and work my way back to camp in time for dinner.
Things went on as usual but flying eased off a little, every so often of an afternoon half the flight managed to get a trip down to the sandy beach at Calvi, a few miles away for a dip in the sea.
After we had been at our camp for a few days the Germans began to get interested in us as at dusk two or three evenings running a reconnaisance [sic] aircraft approached the Island, but the warning was given in time on each occasion and it was driven away. As we were the only Squadron on the Wing with high altitude Spitfires it fell to us to have two aircraft in immediate readiness. That amounted to having two aircraft being ready to take off at a moments notice. The aircraft was parked near the end of the run-way with a starter battery plugged in and the pilot sitting strapped into the cockpit. Throughout the day different pilots, aircraft and crews took two hour shifts at being on readiness. The signal to take off used to be a yellow vary pistol cartridge which was fired from the control tower as soon as they received the word from the radio location unit that enemy aircraft were approaching. On top of this job through having the high altitude, Spits we had to maintain a constant patrol of two aircraft over a convoy that was forming off Cape Corse (The Northern tip of Corsica). Whilst we were on these jobs the personnel on the other Squadrons had one long holiday.
We took every piece of armour plating and the four machine guns out of the aircraft that we used for readiness, leaving them with an armourment [sic] of just two 20 mm cannons. This was to be able to make them be able to climb at a much faster rate.
Cont’d…../
[page break]
70A
[underlined] AUGUST 1944 [/underlined]
[photograph of men on the beach]
[symbol] ME.
[underlined] SOME OF OUR PATROL ON THE BEACH AT CALVI [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 71 [/inserted]
- 17 –
We took every piece of armour plating and the four machine guns out of the aircraft that we used for readiness, leaving them with an armourment [sic] of just two 20 mm cannons. This was to be able to make them be able to climb at a much faster rate.
With regard to the patrols, two aircraft would take off before dawn 40 minutes later two more would take off and when they met up with the other two they took over and the first two came back to base and so it went on throughout the day and if they went U/S we had to work hard and get them serviceable in time for when they were due to take off on their next trip.
You can guess what Tuesday the 22nd of July was like Q alone did four trips and after each I had to refill it with petrol, oil etc., and do my daily inspection between one of them. That day our Squadron did twenty operations. At 6.0 p.m. I went on readiness with Q. Dusk was gradually turning into darkness when the stillness of the evening was broken by the sound of a report from a pistol and a yellow ball of flame went soaring up into the sky in an arc over the runway and burnt itself out on the other side. I never had time to see it land, the pilot was busy priming the engine whilst I ran round and took off the pitot-head cover and then I pressed the battery button. Luckily the engine fired and picked up first time. Before the propeller had turned a dozen times I had the starter plug out of the engine and had given the thumbs up sign to the pilot, within half a minute the pilot had taxied out and was opening his throttle to take off but unluckily by the time the two aircraft had reached the altitude the enemy had turned tail and made for [deleted] its [/deleted] [inserted] THEIR [/inserted] base. It must have heard our aircraft were coming up after him over his wireless. Whilst on readiness we never had let the engines get below a certain temperature otherwise the pilot would have to wait until the engine had warmed up before he could take off.
Another thing that happened, if we let the starter batteries go flat then the engine would not start and we would have to run to another dispersal sometimes 200 yds away and drag another very heavy battery trolley to our aircraft and plug it in. By that time all the other Squadron’s aircraft perhaps had taken off and another Squadron’s aircraft would be landing so that your pilot would have to wait all the longer before getting off. This only happened to me once and that was enough. By the time I had fetched another battery I was sweating and snorting like a pig.
We lost one aircraft during this patrol work. What happened is still a mystrey. [sic] The loss was put down to the pilot switching on his oxygen supply for 10,000 ft and not altering it when he climbed to a height of 15,000 ft as a result he must have blacked out and crashed into the sea.
Cont’d…../
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On the 30th of July I saw Q off when the bombers appeared overhead from Southern bases in Sardinia and escorted them over Southern France where they dropped leaflets.
On the 1st of August work was started on new dispersals far away from the runway and up in the hills, we did not want a repeat performance of the Poretta raid. I was up at 3.45 a.m. that morning and I was driven along with two of our pilots to another aerodrome and saw them off in two of our Squadron’s aircraft that had landed there U/S a few days previously.
Later on in the day I saw Q off on its last trip from our drome and by the time we had finished dispersing our aircraft that night it was 10.45 p.m. and although I was feeling very tired I went to my pool for my nightly bath as soon as I got back to camp.
Next day we put our concert on at an American camp and it went off without a hitch and was a big success. On the following day Q went off to North-Africa for a major inspection. I was very sorry indeed to see my old faithful go. She was still as good as when I first received her when new. I certainly think she did her bit in th- [sic] war and was worth every penny that she cost to make. It was a pity that she never shot any enemy aircraft down but then many Spitfires have crashed on their first trip. My Q was the first aircraft to finish its full life and whilst I was on the Squadron, all the rest were lost before they had flown 240 hrs.
On the 6th of August I fetched my new aircraft from the inspection flight after it had received an Acceptance check and saw it off on its test flight. My new pilot was Flt/Sgt Connor who was a Scotsman. The aircraft was a brand new one but it had a very rough finish on it and no matter how hard I tried I could not get it to glisten like the old Q. Its maiden trip was helping to escort 200 bombers on a raid on Milan, it came back with an oil leak from one of its engine pumps and I spent the rest of the day taking off the propeller, mending the leak and replacing the propeller once more.
The next day “A” Flt who were the advanced party on our [deleted] recent [/deleted] [inserted] NEXT MOVE [/inserted] move off to the staging assembly point near Calvi and the following day was one of the most hectic days of my life. Now that “A” Flt had leftm [sic] six of us Flight Mechanics remained to look after the Squadron’s 21 aircraft. The flight was split into two parties, and we went to meals at different times so ensurring [sic] that someone was always on the drome to look after the aircraft. This applied the same to the other trades.
I was up at 3.45 a.m. that morning as I was on the early party, so three of us F.M’s saw the first two aircraft off at dawn patrol and also the next two 40 minutes later. During the 40 minutes interval we directed other aircraft down from the dispersal bays in the hills. After the second two had taken off I just had enough time to walk from one end of the runway back to the flight tent (mid-way up the run-way) when it was time for the first patrol to land and that meant walking to the far end to guide them back to their dispersal points.
Cont’d…../
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By the time I had refuelled and checked the oil and coolants, airframe etc., two more aircraft had to be seen out – then it meant walking to the other end of the runway and see the 2nd patrol in and so it went on. I was certainly glad when the second party arrived at 8.0 a.m. to take over and relieve us for breakfast. After which we immediately went back to the drome and things went smoothly until a strong wind came up and put our runway U/S for landing. To keep up the patrols it was decided that the aircraft would take off from our drome and land on a near by [inserted] ONE [/inserted] which possessed a much wider runway. By that time the late party were due to go up to camp for early dinner so that meant splitting half the flt in half. Two F.M’s stayed to see the patrols off and went to the other drome along with one each of the other trades and we took with us a few tools, oil cans, oil, coolant, spare wheels etc. When we arrived one patrol had already landed there and I had to check and refuel them immediately. As the hours went by we gradually received more and more of our aircraft landing on the new drome. I was just about feeling fed up when Q landed with another oil leak which took me half an hour to rectify. At 4.0 p.m. the wind dropped and our strip was serviceable, therefore, we had to reverse the procedure and let the aircraft take off from St Catherines and land on our own strip. By dusk we had gathered all of our flock together at base. Was I glad when I saw the last patrol of the day land, dispersed and checked. I never want to spend another day like that, I was so tired that as soon as I got back from my [deleted] pad [/deleted] [inserted] POOL [/inserted] and my head had touched my pillow I was fast asleep.
On the 12th of August we sent ten of our aircraft to Straff a Radar Station at Nice. First of all they dropped their overload tank on reaching the target so interfering with the enemy’s wireless for range finding etc. also to create panic by making the Germans think that they were dropping bombs. 45 gallon tanks were shaped very similar to a 1000 lb bomb and being full of petrol and air some would explode and burst into flames on hitting the ground after being dropped from a great height. On return from the raid we had to fit the aircraft with new 45 gallon tanks then fill and test them – this took us until 11.0 p.m. that night. At midnight the order came through to change them again and replace with 90 gallon overload tanks. As a result we were draining the 45’s long before dawn on the following morning. At 10.0 a.m. twelve aircraft from each Squadron of the wing took off to Straff the Radar Station near Marseilles. Q was to be last to go in and over the target out of all the aircraft taking part in the raid. My pilot took a dim view of his position for straffing as by the time he went on all the guns would be trained on him. Our Intelligence must have been very good as all the pilots were informed of the exact location in the surrounding hills of every one of the twelve anti aircraft gun sites that defended the area. Once again tanks were dropped during the raid but they did not create much confusion in the enemy camp as the gunners shot down four aircraft taking part in the raid. Our Squadron lost two of the four, both were shot down into the sea by ack-ack fire. The pilot of one [inserted] MR STRUTT [/inserted] was last seen [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] IN HIS DINGHY [/inserted] floating towards the Spanish coast but the pilot of the other aircraft never got out of it.
Cont’d…../
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When I met Q on its return I found that it had been hit by flak and a piece of the leading edge of the wing had been shot away. I saw the film of the raid and of others which were very clear indeed. The raid earned a mention on the B.B.C’s 9-o-clock news that evening.
As soon as we had refitted new tanks the aircraft took off to raid the same target once again, of course, Q was not amongst them as the riggers were working all out to get her serviceable as soon as possible.
I do not know whether one of the pilots was telling the truth or not but when he landed he claimed to have flown beneath the radar masts.
Next day there was no flying so after fitting new overload tanks I helped my pilot to polish up our aircraft.
The following day Tuesday the 15th of August I was up at 3.30 a.m. Soon afterwards the sky was filled with red and green lights and the roar of engines as wave after wave of bombers passed overhead travelling in a North Westerly direction.
The night before the wing Intelligence Officer gave us a lecture and told us that at 4.0 a.m. the following morning British Commandos would land from the sea on two small islands just off the coast of Southern France opposite St Raphael and then at 6.0 a.m. 150 Transport aircraft towing gliders would drop 3,000 airborne troops by parachute and cast off the gliders carrying a further 1,000 troops and supplies over two large hills situated either side of the main road running down the Rhone Valley to the coast at a point approximately 12 miles inland and 6 miles North of Freyus. The object of these troops was to fight their way to the main road and hold it along with the hills on either side and to stop enemy reinforcements coming South to help their brothers along the coast to stop enemy troops in the coastal area from retreating Northwards up the Rhone Valley. Also if all these tasks were successfully accomplished, units were to advance along the main road and try to link up with the main landing party. We were also told that on the dot of 8.0 a.m. the first wave of assault boats would hit the coast of Southern France at points between St Raphael and Cannes to the East and their job was to create a bridge-head and drive inland and link up with the airborne troops. Then he went on to say that our aircraft patrols had been covering and protecting the enemy from seeing the 2,000 ships that had been massed off the coast of Northern Corsica ready for the invasion. Also the R.A.F. were the only British ground forces taking part in the bridge-head invasion. The rest of the invading troops were made up with two Divisions of the Free French Army and General Patch’s 7th American Army. It was also estimated from Intelligence reports that the Germans had no more than 25 aircraft in the whole of the South of France. Ten were fighters and 15 bombers.
Cont’d…../
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As dawn broke we could see the grey silhouettes of the hundreds of bombers. Two continuous streams passed overhead, one travelling towards France and the other which was made up of bombers returning to their bases after having dropped their bombs on the invasion area. Long before 8.0 a.m. Q was up in the air on its way to patrol over the troops as they went ashore, but on its return the pilot had nothing to report. He told me the troops seemed to be landing without much opposition and not a single aircraft appeared over the beach-head to try and interfere with the landing operations.
You can only guess what a hectic time we had for the next seven days keeping the aircraft up on constant patrols over the front line. It was up at 3.0 a.m. in the morning and down to the drome where we had to direct the aircraft from their dispersal bays in the hills and along a narrow rough track onto the main drome in the dark. Then at night we had the job of dispersing them again after a busy day, but it was worthwhile working so hard and such long hours as each day we saw from the I.O. (Intelligence Officer’s) maps that the bridge-head was growing larger and larger. I thought of all the fellows in it who were working harder than myself and were being killed every minute.
As soon as the beach-head troops had linked up with the airborne forces the bulldozers were hard at work making a landing strip for us. This was completed within a few days and our advance party had arrived there.
On the 23rd of August after packing my kit, I fitted, filled and tested a 45 gallon overload tank to Q and saw it off on its journey to France where it was to land on our new strip and operate from it for future patrols. As soon as Q became airborne and had formed up in the air with the rest of the Squadron’s aircraft, we all started to pack up the flight equipment and load it on to a waggon. The drome looked very deserted as we left to go up to the camp for the last time to take down our tents and pick up our kits. The villagers turned out and waved to us as the Squadron’s convoy of waggons rumbed [sic] through the cobbled High Street. So we said goodbye to [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] CALENZANA [/inserted] and were driven to the transit staging area nr Calvi. I spent the following day resting, reading and swimming in the sea and we also changed our money from Algerian francs into specifically printed invasion bank notes. We were told “to be ready at a moments notice that evening and not to stray far away as the moments notice would come through as soon as a boat arrived in Calvi harbour for us”.
Dusk arrived and still no word so I found a flat piece of ground and put my ground sheet and blankets down on it, then I spent the next half hour erecting my mosquito net successfully after which I undressed and got in between the blankets to keep the ants company. I had just about got settled comfortably in a dip in the ground when we were told to get on our respective lorries and be ready to move off. There was certainly some bad language around as the boys crawled out from under their nets as
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they started to gather their kit together once more and to pack their bed roll, then everyone was staggering around trying to find the lorry that they were to travel in. All this was finally accomplished by approximagely 11.0 p.m. when the waggons that had been dispersed all over the camp area formed up in convoy order, [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] AND WAS MOVED OFF. WE HAD TRAVELLED [/inserted] no farther than a 1/4 of a mile we halted once more. All the other Squadrons transport was lined up in convoy order nearby to 242 Squadron. The information then came through that we would be the 3rd one to embark and that our boat had not yet arrived in the harbour, but we were told that we were not to make our beds down again as we might be ordered to move to the dock area at any moment. There were 14 of us in our covered waggon along with all of our kits, so we did not have a very comfortable seat, what with the rifles, tin hats etc., sticking in one’s back and we had no room at all in which to move about. Everytime I dozed off to sleep sitting there I woke up a few minutes later with cramp in my legs. At 1.0 a.m. I got out of the waggon and climbed on top of it and tried to go to sleep on the tarpaulin covering but the hoop bars were not very comfortable to my back, I stuck it until 2.30 a.m. when it began to get cold and I begun to shiver. There were still no signs of having to move off so we all got our bed rolls out once more and laid them down around the lorry. I was woken up at 7.0 a.m. and told that the cooks were making some tea, so I made up my bed for the second time that night before having a mug of tea and a big hunk of bread and jam, both of which were very welcome as we were all feeling famished.
We finally moved off at 8.0 a.m. and we all arrived at the docks safely except for the C.O’s house which was a hut built on a big trailer. The driver of the truck that was towing the trailer during the journey drove under a low branch of a big tree that overhung the roadway and which was [deleted] on [/deleted] [inserted] LOWER THAN THE [/inserted] top of the hut with the result that the hut was swept to the ground and the lorry was left just towing the bare trailer. The boys certainly had a good laugh about it when we heard the news, we all saw the funny side of it except for the C.O.
At the dockside lay four L.C.T. (landing craft, tanks) and they just about filled the place to its capacity. Our lorry backed up the [deleted] road [/deleted] [inserted] RAMP [/inserted] (the front of the ship that is lowered down) so that it would face the correct way for disembarking quickly. Vehicles such as water and petrol bowsers and power trailers etc., had to be towed on board and then turned around inside the ship and there was just enough room [inserted] TO DO THIS [/inserted] with no more than a foot to spare. After turning them we had to attach each back to the lorry that was going to tow it off. During these turning operations we broke many of the ship’s overhead lights, many of our lorries were taken up on lifts and parked on the top deck. Each vehicle had to be lashed down with a chain from each wheel to the deck. This was to stop them pitching around and perhaps go over the ship’s side.
We sailed at noon and as the coast line and mountains receded into the distance I took my last glimpse of Corsica. The ship’s escort consisted of of [sic] a single corvette which sailed along in front of us during the whole of the trip.
Cont’d…../
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76A
RESTRICTED
A POCKET GUIDE
TO
FRANCE
[inserted] ISSUED TO US BEFORE LANDING ON FRENCH [underlined] SOIL [/underlined] [/inserted]
War and Navy Departments
Washington, D.C.
Reproduced by Morale Services Section
S.O.S. NATOUSA
[inserted] [underlined] AS WE WERE UNDER UNITED STATES COMMAND [/underlined] [/inserted]
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76A
[blank page]
[page break]
CONTENTS
Page
I. Why You’re Going to France . . . . . 1
II. The United States Soldier In France . . . 2
1. Meet the People . . . . . . . 2
2. Security and Health . . . . . . 2
3. You are a Guest of France . . . . 7
4. Mademoiselle . . . . . . . 8
III. A Few Pages Of French History . . . . 9
1. Occupation . . . . . . . . 9
2. Resistance . . . . . . . . 11
3. Necessary Surgery . . . . . . 11
4. A Quick Look Back . . . . . . 12
5. Churchgoers . . . . . . . 13
6. The Machinery . . . . . . . 14
IV. Observation Post . . . . . . . 15
1. The Provinces . . . . . . . 15
2. The Cafés . . . . . . . . 16
3. The Farms . . . . . . . . 17
4. The Regions . . . . . . . . 19
5. Work . . . . . . . . . 21
6. The Tourist . . . . . . . . 22
V. In Parting . . . . . . . . . 26
VI. Important Signs . . . . . . . . 27
[inserted] [underlined] AS WE WERE UNDER UNITED STATES COMMAND. [/underlined] [/inserted]
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At 7.0 p.m. we could see the coast of France in the distance and the destroyers which were patrolling the coastal waters and to our left I could see a big convoy which was making its way in the same direction as ourselves. At 8.30 p.m. the bottom of our ship scraped against the earth of France. The ramp was immediately lowered and a smoke screen was set up to cover our landing. We piled aboard our lorry and the vehicles were driven down the ramp one by one and then along the beach for 300 yards where they waited until the last lorry had disembarked and had formed up in line.
We landed on one of the original invasion beaches, at a spot 13 miles West of Toulon. To the left of our landing point lay a burnt out L.S.T which had been hit and had grounded itself on the beach in the first assault wave. We drove up from the beach and through a small wood that still showed the sign of the bitter fighting that had taken place. It was so deserted, quiet and desolate as we reached the main coastal road (what was left of it). At this point we turned westwards and drove along by the coast. To our right by the roadside ran the main coastal railway. The track was one mass of huge holes and the twisted rails stood uprooted high into the air at many points. Eevery [sic] so often built on the hillside over-looking the sea, we passed by big concrete gun positions and defence posts. Many of them were well camouflaged and those that were still in the process of being built showed up white against the background of green grass and the reddish brown soil. A great number of these posts had been hit by bombs as was every house that we passed by in this coastal sector, from the small dwelling houses up to the huge lovely Riviera mansions of the idle rich. All these coastal buildings had been commandeered by German troops as a defence measure since they had invaded the country.
The bombing that I have described was a tribute to the accuracy of the bombers that we had escorted on bombing raids. In a way it was a terrible sight to see such wanton destruction, but then war is war and the Germans occupied all of the targets.
It was just getting dark when we reached the town of St Raphael where the harbour was full of [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [deleted] ships [/deleted] [inserted] WARSHIPS, TROOP CARRIERS, MERCHANT SHIPS ETC [/inserted] etc. Each was flying a silver barrage balloon. The dock area was one mass of activity. The decks of the ships that were being unloaded were illuminated by big arc lamps and the dockside was ablaze with lights. At various points along the shore amphibious ducks were coming up from the sea onto the coastak [sic] road, their bases were glistening in the lights and dripping with water. They had all been loaded up from the big ships out in the bay and after joining us on the road they continued their journey up to the front line carrying supplies and food for the troops in the forward area. Also, in the procession were many large tanks along with lorries and jeeps, field guns and ambulances etc.
The town of St Raphael had suffered very badly from bombing and shelling but the dock area which once consisted of warehouses, works and repair shops, factories and railway systems etc., had been raised to the ground. We continued our journey along the same route that the invading troops had taken to link
Cont’d…../
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- 24 –
up with the airborne men. The next town we passed through was the main communication centre of Frejus, where the coastal road linked up with the main inland roads. One of these roads led to the well known town of Grasse, where most of France’s perfumery supplies are produced. We took the main road North which eventually reached the Rhone valley. Frejus also showed many scars left as a result of warfare, but the next small village named Ruget had had only a few bombs dropped upon. [inserted] IT. [/inserted] After passing through this village, the road was lined on either side and the nearby fields were dotted with tiny one man slit trenches, which the paratroopers had dug for themselves, with their little shovel which each man carried along with his equipment when he was dropped by parachute. It was fully dark when a little later we turned off from the main road so we could not see much.
After travelling up this branch road for approx. half-a-mile we came to a village named Roquebrune-sur-Argens and after covering another mile we reached our new camp site after a further short ride along a very bumpy and narrow lane which had been made up by a bulldozer into he surrounding countryside to where our camp was situated on the side of a small hill or a large slope (I did not know which to call it).
The first thing I did on arriving was to locate the cook-house and scrounged something to eat and drink. Next I unrolled my bed and slept beneath a waggon for the night. We pitched our tents first thing the next morning before going down to the new strip to take over our own aircraft once more. After giving [inserted] Q [/inserted] a check-over she went up on patrol work along the coast and over the troops driving towards “Marseilles”. Our new strip was situated on what had once been a huge vineyard. The bulldozers had to tear up tens of thousands of grape vines when making the runway and taxiing tracks and dispersal bays. So whilst waiting for Q to come back from a trip, I used to sit at the end of the runway and I could just reach out and pick large bunches of either lovely juicy green or black grapes. Whilst at the drome I must have averaged eating at least 7 lbs of them each day. I often used to think of you at home where at that time grapes cost £1. per pound to buy.
As a tribute to the American engineers, I would like to mention the fact that within a few days of us arriving they had built a pipe-line all the way from the coast to our strip and our petrol supply was pumped directly to us from the dock. For the first few days our petrol was flown in to us by Dakota transport aircraft. As soon as one had taken off another fully loaded one landed. In fact they arrived in a continuous stream throughout the day.
On the second day the Squadron only flew on one mission and that was an offensive patrol over Lyon. As a result we finished work early. After dinner, I had a bath in the river that ran alongside the strip. I often used to go in for a dip whilst Q was up flying. After my bath I continued my walk across the grape vineyards and on to the village of Ruget.
Cont’d…../
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78A
[coloured photograph of village]
ROAD TO CAMP. [symbol] [underlined] ROQUEBRUNE-SUR-ARGENS. [/underlined]
[aerial photograph of Roquebrune-sur-Argens]
[symbol] OUR AIRSTRIP SITUATED BETWEEN ROQUEBRUNE AND [underlined] RUGET [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] ROQUEBRUNE – VUE DU ROCHER [/underlined]
[photograph of hills through a bridge]
[symbol] [underlined] ONE OF FIRST OBJECTIVES OF THE AIRBORN DROP [/underlined]
[photograph of a bridge across the river]
[underlined] ROQUEBRUNE LE ROCHER ST LA PONT SUR L’ARGENS [/underlined]
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- 25 –
All the fields that I passed through were dotted with slit trenches dug amongst the grape vines. Remains of rations and containers which had been dropped to the airborne troops littered the surrounding area. In the centre of this scene stood what had been a big wine manufacturing factory. It then lay shattered, caused by shell-fire from our troops when they were capturing the building so as to be able to hold the place as a strong point, as it held a commanding view of the area for miles in each direction. On reaching Ruget I hitch-hiked to Frejus and toured the town before making my way back to camp.
I remember one night our aircraft were late coming back from patrol and had to land in the pitch dark except for a chance light at the beginning of the runway. I was at the other end waiting for Q. After three approaches [deleted] that [/deleted] the first aircraft touched down and went [inserted] PAST [/inserted] [deleted] passed [/deleted] me at quite a speed. With the aid of a torch we went after it and found it amongst some grape vines with its wheels up against the petrol pipeline which had brought the aircraft to a final stop and most probably saved it from a lot of damage. We turned it around and pushed it a few yards until it was back on the runway so that the pilot was able to taxie [sic] back to his dispersal. The next two aircraft, after many approaches, touched down one after the other and both started to run off the side of the runway but at the last moment managed to correct themselves. By this time the other two that were still waiting to come in were getting short of petrol. The next one touched down and at the last moment the pilot must have thought that he would not be able to pull up in time as he opened up his throttle and took off once more so as to be able to make [inserted] ANOTHER [/inserted] [deleted] the [/deleted] attempt at landing. The moment that his engines leaped to life as he opened up, the aircraft was heading straight for us fellows at the end of the runway. I did not know which way to run for the best and I thought my last moment had come as I threw myself flat on the ground as the plane passed over no more than 10 ft above me. Was I scared.
On the last day of August when I arose at 3.30 a.m. I found that I had missed the lorry so I had to walk down to the drome. Later on that morning our Flight Commander came up and asked me if I would like a trip out, to which I quickly replied that I most certainly would, so I clambered aboard the lorry and our journey took us back onto the main road where we turned northwards and travelled along the lovely super wide concrete road which runs through the Rhone Valley and it was banked at every bend. Alongside of us ran the railway track which was in a sorry looking mess and the telephone wires were either cut between each post or the pole itself had been cut down.
After travelling for approximately five miles along this road we came to a village name St Lucia or something like that, I cannot recall the exact name.
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79A
[underlined] ROQUEBRUNE VUE DES PORTIQUES ST LA PLACE [/underlined]
[photograph of street with buildings and men playing boules]
[underlined] ROQUEBRUNE UNE VUE DES PORTIQUES ST AORLORE [/underlined]
[photograph with church in background]
[page break]
[underlined] ROQUESBRUNE VUE GENERAL [/underlined]
[photograph of village]
[underlined] ROQUEBRUNE VUE DE L’EGLISE. [/underlined]
[photograph of a church]
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[inserted] 80 [/inserted]
Anyway we turned off the main road and onto a country one and after travelling along for a few minutes an awe-inspiring sight met our eyes. It was a scene that throughout my lifetime I shall always be able to recall in detail and picture before me.
Over the whole area which was then still and quiet lay hundreds of gliders. The small American type with their white star markings on. A few had their stars missing and only a round hole in the fabric remained. These had been cut out be the gliders occupants to keep as souvenirs of their landing. Then there were the bit British type gliders intermingled with the American ones. Some of the gliders had made perfect landings and were intact, others had landed in fields that were studded with anti landing posts sticking up all over them and consequently many had wings or wheels ripped off. Others had overturned and some had caught fire and burnt out. Only their framework remained. I remember seeing where one big British glider had crashed straight onto a clump of tall thick trees. As we drove amongst the gliders, shells, boxes of ammunition etc were scattered everywhere and occasionally a plain rough home made wooden cross marked the spot where someone had given his life in the struggle against Germany. Luckily I am glad to be able to say that I only saw a few in the whole area.
The spot that we were making for was a huge farm house which the German Army had taken over and had turned into a mechanical workshop. Many of the gliders had landed within a few yards of the building. On the whole the place was disappointing as we did not obtain as much useful equipment as we had hoped to. In the Germans Commanding Officer’s rooms we found a big picture of Hitler which we conveniently destroyed along with hundreds of propaganda leaflets. The troops had slept in the attic and their beds were just as they had left them. I think that the building was the very first spot in the South of France to be liberated as it was captured according to an inscription on one of the walls at 4am on D Day by British Paratroops. Around the outside of the building lay German stores of clothing etc. I picked up one or two useful little brushes. Permanent barracks were in the process of being built for the troops and the parts that had been completed looked quite nice. Also nearby to the building was a nice new wooden look out tower. I bet the lookout man had plenty to look at the morning that the gliders landed in his garden. We were very sorry when on discovering the wine cellar we found it empty. The paratroopers had been there before us. After thoroughly touring the farm house etc we loaded our loot on the lorry and continued our journey until we came upon another farm house which had its grounds surrounded with rings and rings of barbed wire. We were very careful as we walked through the entrance gap. The enemy here had left in even a greater hurry as they left their greatcoats, cups, plates, knives and forks etc beside their beds.
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We visited two more camps that belonged to the enemy and picked up a few more odds and ends before we drove back to our own camp, as it was time for us to eat.
That same night I was awoken by a commotion at 3 am and on getting out of bed to investigate its cause, I discovered that the order had just come through for the advance party to move to a new strip and that they had to pack, their tents were to be taken down and they were to be ready to move at 8 am on the following morning. After hearing that, I crawled back into my bed.
Next day the Squadron had flown five trips by 10 am when another Squadron took over from us and left us all with the rest of the day to ourselves. We were told that a few of us could go for a trip to Cannes if we wanted to after dinner. I was one of the lucky ones as my name was drawn from the hat.
So after a quick wash I dressed myself in my best clothes and then drew rations from the cookhouse before boarding the lorry. (We were on american [sic] rations at that time). So we set out for the millionaires playground. It was a lovely ride through the beautiful Riveria [sic] countryside and the sun shone for us throughout our journey. The only thing that spoilt it was when every so often we were reminded of the war when we passed by bombed barracks, buildings and one or two factories. For a few hundred yards inland all along the coastal area near the town had been mined and still was. Then came barbed wire defences etc so the Germans must have expected an invasion in the south at one time. What with the concrete pill boxes and gun emplacements etc but when the invasion came from the North in Normandy the enemy drew most of his troops from the South to meet the threat in Normany [sic] and they were consequently taken by surprise when a second invasion came in the South. As we neared the town which had only been captured a few days before we were stopped by American Military Police near to a small bridge that had been blown up and told that the town was out of bounds to all troops. Our spirits dropped at the thought of having to turn about and go back after getting so far.
Then one of the chaps suddenly piped up before anyone could say anything and told the police that we had to pick up our CO who we knew was staying in the town at the Victoria Hotel. So the police then phoned the hotel to check if our CO really was there. When it had been confirmed we were allowed to pass the barrier. Later on we learned that our second vehicle was stopped at the same spot and they told the police that they were in a hurry and had to catch up a convoy in Nice and at that moment one of the police remembered the markings on the lorry was the same as on ours. [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [deleted] [symbol] HE [/deleted] [inserted] ONE [/inserted] ASKED THEM IF ONE OF OUR LORRIES HAD ALREADY GONE THROUGH [/inserted] So the boys said yes we have got to catch them up, so that was how the second lorry got through the barrier.
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[two photographs of the harbour at Cannes]
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[photograph of Cannes taken from the hillside]
[photograph of Cannes beach]
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81A
[two photographs of Cannes beach]
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[two photographs of scenic views of Cannes]
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Once we arrived in the town we dispersed like ants and no one could have rounded us up together again if they had wanted to. The police kept stopping our chaps and told them to get out of town. Everyone just said alright and walked around the next corner and carried on with their tour of the town. When I was stopped, each time I told them that I was staying at the “Victoria Hotel” and they were satisfied with my statement. By evening they gave up trying to get us RAF chaps out of the town as a bad job.
In the shops one could buy almost anything and many things were obtainable there that had not been seen in England for years. Food was very scarse [sic] as it was in the whole of Southern France. As in this area they did not produce much food even in peace time as the land mostly comprised of grape vineyards and what little cattle that it had possessed had been taken away by the Germans in the early days of their occupation.
There were quite a number of English people living in the town that had not received any news of their relations in Britain for nearly four years. It was from an English managed shop that I bought the fountain pen that I have written most of this book with. The proprietors were an eldish couple and they told me that they had lived on vegetables alone for months and really felt hungry at times. So we decided to give them some of the rations that we had brought along with us. They wanted to pay us a terrific price for what we gave them which of course we refrained from accepting. We were also told that no bombs had been dropped on the town itself and that the place was garrisoned by SS men.
Very high prices were paid for goods on the black market. I was offered 15/- for a packet of 20 English cigarettes by a French civilian, but the high prices worked both ways. As myself and two friends were in the centre of the town when we came across an ice cream parlour and I decided to treat my pals to an ice cream each. Imagine my face when I asked the waitress how much the bill for the three came to and was told 6/-. I think that they thought that I was a visiting millionaire. In one shop I bought a supply of scent and powder as both were unobtainable in England at that time.
I expected the town of Cannes to be outstanding and possess a large wide beach but it was contrary to my expectations in both cases. The place was not better than a large select English seaside resort and the beach was very long but also very narrow. There was one thing that stood out and that was how some of the women mostly young ravishing blondes etc walked about with hardly anything on. The average English woman would [deleted] be [/deleted] [inserted] HAVE BEEN [/inserted] quite shocked at the sight.
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At approximately 8 pm we had mustered all the boys together and we set off on our long journey back to camp after spending a very enjoyable day. Luckily we were travelling in a covered waggon as it teemed with rain during most of our ride.
On the 5th September I saw Q on its journey to our new [deleted] drive [/deleted] [inserted] DROME [/inserted] to the north, after which we once again packed all the kit and equipment and loaded it on waggons. That same evening we held a flight party in the nearest village and boy oh boy what a party. I spent that night sleeping beneath one of the squadron’s lorries as we had already packed up our tents. I arose with a very heavy head on the following morning. At 8.30 am we moved off in convoy but by the time the end of the journey was reached one could hardly call it a convoy as the Squadron’s vehicles were strewn all over the Southern part of the Rhone Valley. One lorry had a crash and many others had either major or minor breakdowns. I travelled in a Big Diesel Bus that had been captured by the paratroop [sic] and in turn thay [sic] had presented it to the squadron. The bus had been made a few years before in Holland. The town that we were making for was named “Montelimar”. At the time our operational map showed that the town had only just been captured and that the Germans were still on the North, East and West sides of the town. No one knew the correct road that we had to take and I am convinced that it would have been easily possible for us to have driven into the enemy’s lines without knowing it. This actually happened to a few RAF fellows of another unit a few days later. We received a royal welcome at every village that we passed through during our journey northwards. Men, women, girls and children all had a wave of the hand and a welcome smile for us as we went by. Every so often along the road someone would be standing beside it with bottles of wine, melons etc signalling for us to stop and partake of the same. If we had done so we would have been blind drunk before we had gone far. At one village we stopped at after losing the rest of the convoy, as soon as the inhabitants found out that we were British and not American, hundreds of people gathered around our bus offering us wine etc and they even wanted us to stay in the village and have a meal with what little rations that they could scrape together. All along our route up the beautiful valley signs of war met our eyes. Many villages built on high ground overlooking the surrounding area in which the enemy had made into strong points where they made a strong attempt to stem the 7th Armies rapid advance, had by mass bombing been virtually wiped off of the map. Even the ground surrounding these villages was a mass of holes made by 500 lb bombs. Along the roadside stood overturned, burnt out vehicles, knocked out field guns, abandoned equipment etc and now and then I saw knocked out American and German tanks that stood silently out in nearby fields and on the railway lines stood burnt out cattle waggons and passenger coaches, engines, rolling stock which had been strafed and bombed. All factories, railway stations and other important targets lay in a mass of ruins.
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We lost the convoy once during the morning but picked it up again at the spot where it had stopped by the roadside whilst the boys had a meal. So when we drew in behind the line of vechicles [sic] we got a chance to stretch our legs. All went well until the early afternoon when we broke down and the rest of the squadron went on and left us. Luckily we stopped just outside of a big orchard and we were able to pick apples, peaches and bunches of the biggest grapes that I have ever seen to our hearts content. It was discovered a little later that the radiator cooling fan had come off and that we could not do anything without some tools. We questioned a French man that came along as to where nearby we would be able to get some. He told us to try at an American garage that was situated about 3 kilometres further up the road. So myself and two other fellows volunteered to walk there only to find on arrival that the unit had moved a few days previously, so we went on into the tiny village that stood beside a huge iron railway bridge that once spanned the wide river Rhone. Most of it there lay a mass of twisted girders which had collapsed into the water below as a result of being blown up by the Germans. Unfortunately the village did not possess anything resembling a garage. So we set off back towards our bus. A few minutes later a civilian car picked us up and took us most of the way. On arrival back at the bus we held a conference and decided to refill the radiator with cold water which we obtained from a well in a nearby cottage. We also filled a couple of empty petrol cans with water which we had in the bus and then we decided to carry on without the cooling fan until the water had boiled away and then stop and fill it up again. Our next stop came when we had to cross the road bridge spanning the river. Once upon a time it had been a large impressive looking suspension bridge but it now suspended no longer as the enemy had cut the holding cables causing the bridge to collapse in the centre. So we had to travel down and up a very steep shaped [symbol] The brakes on our bus were very poor and would hardly hold at all. All of us fellows quickly got out and then cleared the rest of the bridge of traffic until our old bus had come tearing down the slope and up the other side where we joined it once again.
Our route took us through the ancient town of Orange. I remember at its entrance stood a centuries old triumphal archway. We had to stop nearby to it to fill up the old radiator as clouds of steam accompanied by a loud hissing noise came from it. We also refilled our petrol cans with water from the towns water pump.
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Later on when it was dark and we were nearly all dozing off to sleep we were violently aroused. I found myself high up in the air. The reason for this was because the bus had gone over the edge of the built up track leading to our new airfield. It then stood at an acute angle and was in danger of overturning. Us chaps on the higher side sat fast whilst those on the lower side got out. Then we baled out as quickly as it was humanly possible and between us we somehow managed to get the bus righted and back on the track once more. Then we continued the last quarter of a mile of our journey into camp. At that time it was teeming with rain which continued throughout the night. After a scrappy meal which the cooks had ready for us, or rather it was nearly cold as the rest of the party had arrived long before us. We had been given up as lost for the night so we had to eat what had been left over. After consuming my share I picked my way through the mud back to the bus and spent the rest of that night inside it. I tried to sleep in a cramped up position like a sardine in a tin with a blanket over me. When lightness came I ventured out and found German camouflaged lorries, cars, waggons, vans and mobile cookhouses all around me. They gave me a shock for a moment but I found out later that they had all been picked up by the advance party from around the surrounding area and that they were all in working order.
My first step after breakfast was to find the waggon in which I had loaded my kit. When I finally located it I found it empty and nearby lay all of my kit soaked through as a result of being left out in the rain all night. Some kind person must have unloaded it the night before and left it lying in the mud. Many of the other chaps belongings were the same.
When it at last stopped raining, I rounded up the other fellows and we erected our own tent. After erecting our beds and storing our kit we all went out to explore the town which was quite fair size and possessed a large shopping centre in which there was plenty of goods on sale. The town’s only claim to fame was that in peace time it manufactured and was famed for its special French nougat. It also possessed a very nice park where often I would sit beside the lake of an evening listening to the song of the birds, or viewing the many types of trees and flowers that were planted there or watching the fishes in the lake swimming around the large ornamental water fountains which played the water high into the air. All around the park stood big wire cages where before the war lived many types of birds and animals. There were also some lovely walks near to the town that I used to take. My favourite one was to climb to the top of a big hill just outside the town on which stood an old castle. From this point no matter in what direction I looked I obtained a wonderful view of the Rhone Valley and its surrounding hills. Also I would look down on the peaceful green trees and fields in which horses, sheep and other cattle grazed and on the farmhouses hayricks, colourful gardens and the winding narrow lanes and the wide twisting river. Then I would often gaze on the town which looked quite old from where I stood and on to the airfield with its many machines that spelt death to the enemy parked upon it.
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In a corner of one of the fields behind the castle a trench had been dug about 100 yds long and 10 yds of it had been filled in and above this part stood a few plain wooden crosses. I would not mind betting that the two Germans that gave themselves up to our advance party finally found their way to that spot. We could do nothing with them so they were handed over to the FFI. The Montelimar population were not very friendly towards the Germans as it was one of the centres of the Free French Underground Movement who had supplies dropped to them at night on many occasions by British Aircraft. They had blown up trains and bridges that were of vital use to the enemy. One group of the resistance movement tried to capture the airdrome that we were on before the American advanced units had reached the town. The Germans with superior numbers repulsed the attack and captured 8 of the Free French whom they lined up in front of one of the hangers and shot them. They were buried where they fell. When we arrived the French were digging up the bodies to give them a decent burial.
The central square of the town was littered with knocked out vehicles and when we were talking to a family one evening they told us that on the very corner that we were standing four Germans had been shot dead by American infantry men whilst they were trying to make good their escape through the maze of narrow streets around them. On the railway track near our camp at that time stood a huge 18” naval gun on wheels and also hundreds of burnt out cattle trucks. Just outside the town was another scene that I cannot fully describe although I can picture it quite clearly. It had to be seen to be believed. It was where a convoy of hundreds of enemy vehicles of every description driven by Germans who were making their retreat in every conveyance that they could lay their hands on were trapped at both their front and rear by cross fire from American tanks. Whilst at the same time they were dive bombed and strafed from above by squadrons of American Thunderbolt aircraft.
Only a few of the vehicles escaped total descruction. [sic] To clear the road bulldozers had to be brought into use that pushed what was left of the convoy to either side of the road. Tin hats, burnt out ammunition, springs, nuts, bolts and other bits and pieces lay in heaps beside the machine gun riddled and burnt out buses, motor cycles, vans and lorries. Many houses on both sides of the road had been caught in this little portion of war and lay shattered after being hit by bombs. At a later date I saw an American newsreel in which I saw this scene once again. When we first arrived German prisoners were still burning dead horses that lay nearby and when we passed by I had to hold my nose to stop myself from being sick. I had never before and hope never will again smell anything so bad as those dead horses did.
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Most of the time that we were stationed at Montelimar airfield our spitfires were grounded in the mud and every available lorry on the squadron had to be put on fetching loads of petrol from the coast and taking it up to the front line. (A journey of over 200 miles in each direction). The advance was going so fast that the tanks and armoured vehicles etc had to slow down through lack of petrol. Many aircraft at one time were grounded as ours were, so that the personnel could get every lorry on fetching MT, petrol from the docks. Aircraft petrol was brought in by 4 engined aircraft landing loaded with drums of petrol and with full tanks. They were then unloaded and their tanks were drained just leaving enough in them to enable the aricraft [sic] to fly back to their bases.
During one of my walks at different points I saw something that I could not distinquish [sic] and the longer I looked, it looked all the more like the countryside. So I walked up to one of these points to satisfy my curiosity and even when I was only 20 yds away I still could not make out what was before me. Imagine my surprise when I found they were cunningly camouflaged aircraft dispersal bays. It was some of the most perfect camouflage possible. The Germans certainly did not want their aircraft to be hit during the many raids that the airfield had received. These bays were at least 1 1/2 miles away from the runway and a camouflaged concrete strip ran from the bays and across roads and onto the airfield near the end of the runway. The aircraft must have been towed to and from the runway along these strips as if they had taxied the engines would have overheated long before they had got halfway. But for all their craftiness and trouble the bays that I went to had been strafed at least once and if any aircraft had been in them they most certainly would have been hit.
On 12th September the Wing held a liberation dance in the town’s largest hall. I was lucky enough to draw a ticket that enabled me to attend. It was the first dance to be held in the town since the Germans occupied it and it was a huge success. The bar was stocked with crates of champagne.
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Near to the airfield another big suspension bridge that spanned the river Rhone had been blown up and the people from the villages on the other side of the river apart from getting across in a couple of small boats that were nearby had to make a detour of at least 50 miles if they wanted to get to Montelimar. We managed to climb a quarter of the way across on top of the wreckage of the bridge but the water current was too swift for us to attempt going further.
Many of our afternoons were spent by playing inter section football matches. Of course sometime during each day I had to stroll over to Q and give her a run up and check over. During the last few days of our stay in the town a funfair arrived and we spent quite a bit of time as well as money in it of an evening.
One day we were all called out on parade and our Flight Commander told us that we would soon be leaving the 7th Army and also France and that the Squadron and Wing were going to be disbanded. This was very bad news for us all. To know that all us fellows that had lived, worked and been friends together for so long would soon be split up and separated. Also our hopes of getting leave to England which came into being a month later were dashed to the ground. I have often wondered how my servicer overseas would have gone if more German aircraft had come up and challenged our spitfires for the mastery of the air. We would have stayed in France and gone into Germany and then Austria with the 7th Army and then perhaps home. But alas it was not to be for me. On Wednesday 20th September “A” Flt moved off on their journey South. That same evening all the occupants of our tent went to one of the wine bars in the town and celebrated the end of our part in what was called “The Champagne Campaign” so appropriately we drank nothing else than champagne.
We spent the following morning getting the aircraft out of the mud and onto the end of the runway where we lined them all up ready for take off that afternoon to another strip. It was a very impressive sight too that afternoon when one aircraft after the other belonging to our Wing took off until 85 were in the air forming themselves up into formations, the roar of engines was terrific. Then each squadron in turn did a mock shoot up of the airfield. Some of the spitfires came down so low that they made us duck down to the ground as they passed overhead.
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Next day we moved off to our new strip near Sulon and our 150 mile journey took us back through Orange and through the ancient town of Avignon where we saw hundreds of German prisoners marching through the streets on their way to help clear up the town’s bomb damage that had been heavy. The best bit of bombing I have seen was in one town that we passed through. The barracks occupied by the Germans was in the centre of it and they had been gutted by fire and shattered by bombs and yet the civilian houses all around the barracks were not even touched.
It was just outside Avignon where we had to take one of our many road diversions caused by bombing. This one took us across a very long railway bridge, as the road bridge had been blown up. After getting over this we had to go across a few fields before we could get back onto the main road. All the fields around the bridge were one mass of bomb holes and a huge lorry and trailer travelling in front of our convoy slipped off the rough track into one of the water filled holes so blocking our way to the main road as it was impossible because of more bomb holes to get around it and the track itself was very narrow in [deleted] stead [/deleted] [inserted] DEED. [/inserted] The lorry by the way was loaded with tons of glassware most of which got smashed as the lorry slid down at the one side. Traffic was coming on behind us so that we could not turn around. We had to go back to the road junction and stop anymore traffic coming down. What a job it was arguing with the French civilian drivers and trying to make them understand why we would not let them proceed. I can picture quite easily how they blocked the road and stopped our military traffic in the grim days of June 1940. Next we had to get the lorries behind us in the diversion to back out one by one until at last we came to our convoy and then the lorry that I was travelling on. After taking another diversion we finally reached the main road. This hold up caused us a full 2 hour delay and it was 7 pm before we reached Sulon and we just had enough time to erect our tent before dark. The exploring spirit in us came out that night and we could not resist going out to look at our surroundings. So we walked along the road running passed the [deleted] cap [/deleted] [inserted] CAMP [/inserted] site until we came to a very nice and comfortable wine and beer bar. Beer by the way was 4d a bottle. It was in here that I discovered that they sold delicious blackcurrant brandy which was my favourite drink from then on, second to champagne of course.
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Next morning we made a football pitch in a nearby field. Near also to this field was a few farmhouses which had been bombed by a liberator bomber, so we were told. Civilians lived in all but one of the houses and the Germans had taken over that one. I have aften [sic] wondered if it was just luck that the pilot chose those houses as his target or if it was once again a good piece of intelligence work. Our airfield was a new one and had been built in a matter of days by American Engineers and was called La Valone Airfield. That evening I paid a visit to the nearby village of “Istres”. The lorry on which I hitch-hiked back to camp was loaded with 500 lb bombs and there was I sitting on one which bounced and rolled at every bump in the road.
Nearly every lorry that passed along that road was loaded with big bombs etc bringing them up from the docks to a huge ammunition dump at Mirimas nearby. It was a huge peacetime dump with a railway system running through it. The big storage sheds made to look like houses were set well apart from each other. The war chiefs must have meant to use this place long before it was captured as the main line and the district round and the station had been devastated. Most evening my friends and myself went either into Istres or Mirimas for our nightly bottle of champagne and on our return we would raid the cookhouse for something to eat.
On the 26th September I drew rations and along with two of my friends (one was the other fellow from Slough) we went on one of the squadrons lorries into Marseilles for the day. Our journey took us through the town of Aix and also through some very pretty countryside and then we travelled around a huge lake which continued until we reached the outskirts of the city. My first glimpse of which was looking down on the huge bay and the harbour which was full of ships loaded with supplies for the troops. To my left lying in a picturesque valley was a very long viaduct showing up white in the morning sunlight. The further that we descended this hill overlooking the area, the more cityfied it became. The dock area which we passed by was mostly in ruins.
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Next we went around the most impressive looking Triumphal Arch and then along the road for another few hundred yards where we found ourselves in the centre of the city. One of the docks came right up to the bottom of the main street and at that time 4 LCTs were unloading big American tanks. We watched a few as they rolled out onto the dockside and immediately started off along the road beginning their long journey up to the front. We saw a big crowd of soldiers on the dockside and we went over to talk to them and found out that they were on the last stage of their journey to England. Most of them had been taken prisoner at Tobruk in 1940 four years previously and had been taken to a prison camp in Italy. When Italy gave in they managed to escape into neutral Switzerland. After chatting with these fellows we walked up the main street until we came to the American Red Cross Club which was the only place that troops could obtain anything to eat as all the city’s restaurants were out of bounds. All that one could obtain in the club was a cup of coffee, a sandwich and two cakes. We decided to stay at the club and eat some of the rations that we had brought along with us. There we sat eating American rations whilst the Yanks watched us with hungry eyes. After leaving the club we passed by the cathedral nearby and went up the Rue-De-Longchamp until we came to a huge impressive monument named La Palais-Longchamp. We climbed up one of the side sweeping stairways at the top of which we found ourselves in a neat and tidy park situated behind the monument. At the end of this small park we came to the zoo. Most of the cages in it were empty as there was not enough food around to feed the animals, most of which had gradually died off since the war began. There were quite a number of birds left though such as hawks etc. Then there was the giraffe which stretched its long neck over the wire fence to take a piece of biscuit out of my hand. He looked so hungry that I was scared stiff that he might decide to take my hand instead. Anyway I was ready with my other hand to punch him on the nose if he did try. Next came the little brown bear which when I approached its cage sat up and waved its paws at me and he had such a sorrowful look in his eyes which seemed to say please have you anything for me to eat as I feel so hungry. He managed to obtain most of my biscuits. then there was the pelican that was very good at catching bits of biscuit from a long distance away from us. I felt very sorry for the elephant who eagerly picked up bits of biscuit no bigger than a sixpenny piece with his trunk and tossed them into his mouth. It was like putting an eggcup full of water into a swimming pool. Then there was the mangy camel and the scraggy hyena and a few other animals. The most unconcerned occupants of the zoo were a couple of tortoise.
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We next decided to tour the shopping centre which was just like touring Oxford Street in London with its big departmental stores, ice cream shops and large modern cinemas etc. It was pleasnt [sic] for me to see trams and traffic once again after such a long time away from them. Everything in the shops was very expensive, but they were better stocked than what the London shops were during wartime.
In the evening just before it was time for our lorry to leave, we popped into one of the many nigh [sic] clubs and we soon popped out again after we found out that the dirnks [sic] cost 4/- and 6/- each.
[inserted] 27th [/inserted]
Next day we had to go to the airfield as our Squadron was flying its last trip. As I said before Mr Robertson paid the tribute to me of flying once again and choosing Q as his machine. The aircraft were flying to Sardinia where they were going into the pool. I saw Q to the end of the runway for the last time and as a few minutes later it dived and roared overhead saying goodbye to me I honestly admit that there were tears in my eyes.
My second pilot then W/O Connon received his commission and was posted to another spitfire wing in Italy. A year later I learned with much regret that he had been killed whilst flying. One grows very hard hearted and used to death during wartime. One minute you are speaking to a fellow and then a few moments later you learn that he has been killed and perhaps have had to stand by and watch him being burned to death not being able to do anything to help him.
On October 1st leave was being dished out, so one of my friends and myself put a pass in for to allow us to stay in Marseilles for a few days. The only condition before it was granted was that we had to put down the address. [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] THAT WE WOULD BE STAYING AT. SO TO GET OUR PASSES SIGNED WE INVENTED AN ADDRESS. [/inserted] Later on that morning saw us tramping out of camp loaded with rations drawn from the cookhouse. Then we stood by the roadside and started to thumb a lift. The first one halfway to the city by a roundabout route that we did not know. Dinner time saw us tramping along a tiny deserted coastal road. A quarter of an hour later a vehicle same [sic] trundling along and picked us up and took us along the road a further half mile where we had to start hiking once more. After we had covered a further mile and half we were getting fed up and had nearly decided to turn back when a waggon came along and pulled up beside us to enable us to climb aboard. He had only taken us a little distance further along the road when we discovered ourselves on the main road that we knew.
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[inserted] 93 [/inserted]
A little later on we got held up in a traffic jam and we asked the driver of a jeep in front of us if he was going into Marseille and he told us to pile in, we could go to Toulon with him if we wanted to but we decided against it. We finished the last part of our journey at an average speed of just on 50 miles an hour. Our first job on arrival in the city was to find somewhere to stay. We tried a dozen or more hotels only to be told that they were full up. At 2.30 pm we decided to go to the bull fight that was advertised and trust to luck in getting somewhere to sleep. We found out the direction to take for the stadium and clambered on to a tram as instructed which took us to the city outskirts by way of park lined boulevards. Our ride was not a long one but it took us passed La Fountaine Cantini.
On arrival at the arena we paid our 40 francs (4/-) at the cubby hole cut in the boarding in return for our ticket and passed through a small entrance in the boarding surrounding the arena and up a dozen steps and so into the stadium. Around the circular area of sand was a wooden barrier with four openings in it. Three of them just wide enough for a man to pass through and the fourth wide enough for the bull to pass into the arena. A few feet out from this first barrier was a second one, only this one had only one opening in it. A wide one opposite the biggest one in the first barrier. Radiating out from these circular boardings rose tier after tier of seats for the spectators. The whole arena was in the open air and it was not such a big place. When we arrived the band was playing the tune that heralds the entrance of the bull. We took our seats as the gate where the openings in both barriers are together opened and into the arena trotted a bull that possessed a nasty looking pair of long horns. Then amid a fanfare of trumpets the matadors and picadors marched into the arena dressed in their [inserted] WONDERFUL [/inserted] traditional Spanish costumes with their swords and pics. The matadors also carried a red velvet cape gaily embroidered on the reverse side.
After bowing to the audience, the picadors went between the two barriers whilst the three matadors took it in turns to play with the bull. It looked very easy the way that they held out their cape and just side stepped every time the bull charged but I would not like to try it at any time. On a few occasions the cape got caught on the bulls horns and torn from the matadors hands and it was then funny seeing the bull chase him either over the barrier or between one of the small openings in the barrier. When this happened the other two matadors waved their capes so as to draw the bull’s attention away from the other fellow whilst he retrieved his cape.
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[inserted] 94 [/inserted]
When the bull began to grow a bit tired and docile and would not charge, the matadors went behind the barrier and the picadors took their place in the area. then the first one stood with his hands stretched out at an angle above his head. In his right hand he held what is called a pic. It is about 18” long and at one end of the stick is a steel pointed fish hook and at the other are attached coloured streamers. When the bull charged he side stepped and at the same time like lightening stuck the point of the pic under the skin of the bull at its left shoulder blade and then got out of the arena as quickly as possible. The bull then ran around trying to shake off the pic whilst the streamers waved in the breeze but the movement of the bull only hurts him all the more as the pic, because of its fish hook type end woudl [sic] not drop out. When it calmed down once more this performance was again repeated by the second picador followed by the third. The bull then had three pics stuck in him all near to each other and amid another fanfare of trumpets one of the matadors entered the arena once more holding a sheathed sword with his cape draped over it.
I must point out here the fact that in peace time he has a proper sword and kills the bull but during wartime the bulls could not be replaced, so at the end of the sword was attached something like a small pic in rosette form.
As the matador advanced he unsheathed his sword and as the infuriated bull charged at him he side stepped and struck out at the vital spot between the pics with the point of the sword leaving the rosette showing the spot where the sword would have entered the bulls body if it had been peace time.
If the matador missed the bull on his first attempt to pin the rosette on it at the vital spot you should hear the crowd boo and shout. They even threw their hats, programmes and even oranges at him. For if he misses, it is a great loss of prestige to him and he is reduced nearly to tears whilst things are being thrown at him.
But when he scored first time the band struck up with the traditional bull killing tune and everyone clapped and cheered whilst the matador looking very happy with a broad smile on his face bowed to the audience.
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[page break]
[inserted] 95 [/inserted]
I also saw all I [inserted] HAVE [/inserted] described with the picadors and matadors being on horseback and the horses did not even receive a scratch. Then there were clowns who did all sorts of very clever and funny things with a bull.
I think that the sport is very cruel especially in peace time. Bull fighting is still illegal in France and on the day after the fight the promoters are brought up in court and fined but they take enough gate money to pay all of their expenses and the fine and still make a profit, so that everyone is happy and satisfied.
There were six fights on the programme that we went to see but after watching four of them we started to hunt for accommodation once more and after approximately ten attempts we struck lucky in obtaining a room in a small private hotel in a select side road very near to La Fountaine Cantini monument.
The landlady was very nice and homely and cooked us a meal from our rations and told us that we could come in at what time we wanted to so we set out once more with our tummies full feeling very much better.
As we walked along the boulivards [sic] the city looked very impressive with all its coloured lights illuminating up the monuments, fountains, parks, shops and bars etc.
We decided to pay a visit to one of the large modern cinemas and much to our surprise and enjoyment the picture showing was English talking with the French translation printed along the bottom of the screen.
At the end of the show we walked slowly back towards the hotel and just before we reached it we came across a bar in which a dance was in progress. So in we went. In this bar we met a Frenchman who had been in the Foreign Legion for over six years and who could speak the most perfect English. It was a treat to listen to his voice. He had studied for five years at an English University, so we had quite a good chat. It was 2 am in the morning when we finally got to bed.
We had a lie in next morning and when we came downstairs the landlady had a meal prepared for us. After breakfast we went out for a walk which happened to take us passed the Red Cross Club where standing outside we caught sight of one of our Squadron lorries. We both wondered what it was doing in the city so early and went over to investigate.
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[page break]
[inserted] 96 [/inserted]
On entering the club we found the driver and discovered that he had been sent out to fetch us back to camp the previous afternoon as the Squadron had received an order to move again on the following day. The driver had searched nearly all the roads in the city during the night trying to find the address that we had said we would be staying at and after visiting the Police Station and Information Office and being told at both places that they did not know of any such Rue (road) he drove to the club for a cup of coffee before going back to camp and reporting us as missing. So we stayed and had a cup of coffee with him and then drove to the hotel where we picked up our belongings before setting off on our ride back to camp where on arrival we found that the move had been cancelled for a day. We left our packing until the next day when we moved off to the staging area via Aix which was situated at a point 12 miles North of Marseille where we erected our tent once more. By this time I was quite an expert at it.
Next evening I again visited Marseille to go to another cinema show On the following day at 6 pm we had to be ready to move off.
I escaped having to take down the tent and load it as I was travelling on the lorry which had to proceed straight to the dock and be loaded with a weeks rations for the Squadron. Actually we got German prisoners to do the loading and heavy work whilst we had supper in the ration warehouse before picking up the rest of the convoy in a main square in the centre of the city. At 8 pm we tagged on to the end of a long stream of waggons, lorries etc which stretched nearly all the way round the block. We were then told that if we wanted to we could wander off as long as we were back at our vehicles by 10 pm. I went for a little walk during that time and along with half a dozen fellows we went into one of the many night clubs but not one of us bought a drink. We just stood and watched a girl do a speciality dance. At 10.30 pm we backed into the United States landing craft tanks No. 120. By the time that we had chained down the lorries and turned about all of the trailer vehicles and found somewhere to sleep it was 2 am but before goint [sic] to bed I went up on deck and stood at the front of the boat and looked up the main street and down upon the lighted city with its night life just beginning.
Next day at 3 pm we anchored out in the bay until 1 pm the following day when we weighed anchor and set sail. There were 9 LCTs in the convoy which were escorted by two corvettes. We travelled eastwards for approximately 50 miles hugging the coastline before turning south. That night we ran into a terrific storm and as it was impossible to go up on deck I had to stay below [deleted] ehre [/deleted] [inserted] WHERE [/inserted] it was close and stuffy. It took me all my time to stop myself from being sea sick which I managed somehow.
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[underlined] 96 B [/underlined]
[photograph of tank landing craft]
[underlined] PHOTOGRAPH OF TANK LANDING CRAFT [/underlined] TAKEN FROM ONE THAT I WAS IN DURING TRIP FROM MARSEILLE’S TO [underlined] LEGHORN [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 97 [/inserted]
The LCT was rolling so much it threw one chap out of his bunk and everytime it rolled from one side to the other, doors of cupboards opened and closed and their one time contents lay on the floor, first sliding one way and then the other. Up above us we could hear the creaking and clanking of chains that held the lorries to the deck. I expected to hear a big splash caused by one going overboard at any second.
Next morning found us still steaming southwards just off the coast of Western Corsica when we saw much familiar coastline. Late afternoon we slid through the Straits of Bonnifaccio which separates Corsica and Sardinia and at nightfall we were travelling northwards once more off the coast of Eastern Corsica.
Early next morning we arrived in Leghorn Bay (Italy). Actually we were some of the first boats to enter the harbour. The front lines in Italy was then near the famour [sic] town of Pisa, 15 miles to our North.
The squadrons that were not breaking up disembarked that afternoon and continued their journey by road to the airfield from where they were going to operate against the enemy in Italy once more.
We lay anchored in the bay all night with the ships silver balloon flying high above us.
We sailed next day at 8 am and went southwards once more alongside the coast of Italy and passed by the Island of Montichisto, Elba, Pianosa and many other, both large and very small, all of which looked picturesque in the sunlight. At times we steamed so close to the coast of the mainland that we were able to distinguish quite clearly almost every detail on the shore in the bays and of the towns and villages etc situated by the sea. At tea time that day we left the coast and run into another hellish storm that lasted all night.
I spent these past few days sleeping, reading and playing cards etc.
On the morning of October 11th we were joined by another convoy of 8 LCTs and one Corvette. We steamed passed many more islands early that day, one of which was the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples and just before noon we dropped anchor in the next small bay north of the town. Late afternoon we steamed up to the dockside [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] AND AT 7 PM WE DROVE OUT [deleted] [indecipherable words] [/deleted] [/inserted] of the LCT and on up along the road to the top of the hill overlooking the town of Naples where our lorry and the others were stopped and we were told that we would be staying there for the night. Looking down below us we could see thousands of twinkling lights of the town and harbour. It was like being in heaven and looking down upon fairy land.
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[page break]
[photograph of Naples]
[postcard giving details of the Vesuvius Railway and Funicular]
[page break]
[inserted] 98 [/inserted]
I made my bed down on the pavement beside the road and I was soon in it and fast asleep. Surprisingly I slept very well that night. I expect it was because it was my first night on firm land for a long while. When I awoke the cooks were preparing and cooking our breakfast beside the road. After the meal we piled on to our waggons and drove down hill and descended on the town of Naples from the North side and so along the sea shore we went passing by small parks etc until we reached the old naval fort where we turned into the Via Garibaldi Road which is situated in the town centre. On reaching the end of Garibaldi Road we found ourselves in the large Garibaldi Road we found ourselves in the large Garibaldi Square where the central station is or rather was and continuing on our way we made our exit from the town at its Southern end where we turned into Mossolinis [sic] famous Autostrada which runs from Naples to the ancient ruins at Pompei. The highway took us right around the Bay of Naples and midway along it to our left reared the well known as Mount Vesuvius and the few villages that lie at the foot on its sloping approaches and out in the bay on our right we could clearly see the Isle of Capri.
I had expected the Autostrada to be a wide and most impressive modern highway after reading so much about it. Instead it is no better than a good British road. It is banked on either side and many overhead foot road bridges span the road. Even these bridges are not even uniformal and are built at all angles. Our journey took us by the ruins of Pompei and into the new town. It was there at the entrance to the ancient ruins of the Roman Coliseum that we found out that we had taken a wrong turning. So we and the whole long convoy had to about turn and go back along the road half a mile where we came to a roundabout and turned on to our correct road and travelled along it a few miles until we reached a town name Gragnano where we proceeded to its small railway station and yard which we used during the following few weeks as our vehicle park.
There was such a congestion of traffic as the Wing moved into the cobbled main street that we stayed at the station for a tinned dinner before proceeding to our new living quarters which were situated a little further up the hillside. Our new billet turned out to be a one time macaroni factory, but from the outside it looked like an ordinary large house with its archway entrance and verandah [sic] at each of the upper room windows. I managed to get in a front room along with the other fellows who use to live in the same tent as myself. It was quite a change not having to erect a tent after a move and to have a roof over our heads once again.
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[inserted] 99 [/inserted]
All the room possessed [inserted] WAS A [/inserted] concrete floor which we had to sweep before moving in as they had laid in disuse for months and so they were covered with thick dust. Our room had a big windmill cum fan affair in the centre of it. Many of the other rooms also possessed one. I think that they were used for drying macaroni. After hitting my head on one of its blades a few times when it rotated in the breeze, we tied it up in a fixed position.
Of course we had no flying work to do as the Squadron had ceased to possess any aircraft. I spent a lot of my time when the weather was fine sitting out on our little balcony overlooking the narrow cobbles street leading down to the centre of town. To the left of our billet were two more houses and then the district prison and to our right were more houses. The town itself was situated snugly in the hills on the south side of the Bay of Naples and it was quite a small place possessing a few shops and wine bars.
For the first few mornings of our stay in the town we had to go down to the railway yard and sort out all the squadrons equipment and load it on lorries to be taken away to base stores.
On Saturday October 15th there was nothing to do so I decided to try and find my brother who had a little previously moved from Egypt to Italy. All I knew was that he was stationed at an ancient and historical town near Naples. As the only place I knew of that fitted this description was Pompei I decided to go there that same afternoon.
After searching practically every road and lane looking at every building in the new town for Weapons Technical Staff HQ in vain, I decided to pay a visit to the Provist [sic] Marshall where they informed me that there was no such department bearing that name in the town. After that I felt a little bit downhearted and miserable as it had been raining during most of the afternoon and I was very near wet through so I decided to have a cup of hot tea and a couple of cakes at the YMCA canteen which stood opposite the cathedral after which I set out to get a lift back to Gragnano and next day I wrote to Cyril and told him of my unsuccessful search.
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[inserted] 100 [/inserted]
I was quite at home in my new surroundings listening to the village clock chiming and sitting out in the sunshine reading a book either on the balcony or in the little roof garden with its very nice view. I used to enjoy the walk through the cobbled streets and the village square where all the towns people used to meet and gossip and to the newspaper shop where I went each morning to buy the English troops daily Italian newspaper “The Union Jack”.
I also used to enjoy the half an hours walk down the hills into the next town which was called Castlemar which was situated beside the sea in the Bay of Naples. Whilst in the town I used to either visit the naafi canteen where quite a nice Italian orchestra used to play in the restaurant. They used to get some very good singers there too, or sit by the sea after having a nice hot bath at the Military baths or go for a look around the many shops.
My evenings were spent mostly at the house next door to our billet where I used to visit along with three of my friends. I got to know the people living there by seeing them on the next balcony to me so often. The family consisted the mother father and two daughters and a son. They could not do enough for us all the time we were in the town. The mother used to do all of our washing, pressing and darning and would not take a penny from us for doing it. In fact she was just like a second mother to us boys. We were always welcome and they were always very welcome and they were always very disappointed at not seeing us on the evening that we did not pay them a visit.
Occasionally we went to the tiny cinema that showed English films twice a week or sit in a wine bar listening to the orchestra which nearly every one of them possessed. Also of an afternoon I went out with the Squadron football team when they played matches in the surrounding districts.
On Monday 16th October I went on one of our lorries that was going into Naples for the day. We arrived in the town after the 20 mile ride around the bay along the Autostrada and we drove past the impressive looking post office in which perhaps you will remember the Germans planted a big time bomb before they retreated from the town which killed a hundred people that were in it, when it went off a few days later. Then we came to the main road of the Oxford Street of the town the Via Romma. On reaching the end of it, we arrived outside the Kings Palace, opposite which we parked our lorry.
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[inserted] 101 [/inserted]
I then passed through the large gate and walked along the gravel pathway, on either side of which was a well set out small garden and then on under the arch canopiedentrance up a few steps and into the palace which had been taken over by Naafi. On either side of me rose a grand marble staircase up to the first floor [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] IN FRONT OF ME WERE MORE VERY WIDE MARBLE STEPS. [/inserted] that led down to the reception hall in which every part of its structure was of marble walls, floors, etc. It was also a massive hall.
I climbed the righthand stairway and on arrival at the top proceeded along the corridor with its grand windows overlooking an enclosed court of green lawn. This corridor ran in a square, at the two front corners were the stairways. On the inside were the windows and on the other the rooms etc led off.
As I was feeling hungry I proceeded to the lounge where the snack bar and ice cream counter was situated. The spacious rooms were furnished with big easy chairs and settees. It was a lovely day so I took my sandwiches, cream cakes and tea out on the little terrace where I sat at a little table. Hidden from view in the shrubbery and flower beds an orchestra played soft music. It was on this same spot that long ago Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton used to walk and talk and perhaps make love.
You have all heard of the old saying of see Naples and [deleted] live, [/deleted] [inserted] DIE [/inserted] well I think the view from this same terrace was best possible one that could be obtained. It takes in the whole bay and Mt Versuvius [sic] and Pompei in the distance.
After I had leisurely diminished the big pile of cakes to an empty plate I proceeded to the small but magnificent ballroom and seated myself in one of the many easy armchairs and sat back and listened to a light classical concert that was in progress and was being given by an orchestra of 12 players that were seated on the stage. The two girls singing with the orchestra were both operatics.
Two concerts were given in the Ballroom each day. The evening one was by another orchestra which was not quite so classical.
After the concert I went down to the ground floor where the barbers etc were situated and I had a hot shower bath. Then feeling very much refreshed I went up to the second floor where there were billiard & table tennis tables, dart boards also news and reading rooms, music, art and other games rooms. I had a game of billiards before exploring the Via Roma and the other parts of the town. There was plenty of things to buy in the shops but everything was so expensive as was everywhere else.
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[inserted] 102 [/inserted]
At 4 pm I went back to the Palace and into the very large restaurant where I sat at a little table which was covered with a spotless white cloth. The table was situated by a huge window overlooking the large square below where we had parked our lorry. I was waited upon throughout the meal by one of the many pretty Italian waitresses. Once more another orchestra played well known light classical music whilst I ate. The big dining rooms were just the same as when the King inhabited them with the huge gilt edged mirrors reaching from the top of the large ornamental fire places up the ceilings which were completely painted by famous artists with large scenes. The lighting was provided from marvellous crystal chandeliers and the walls were decorated with gilt ornamental work and gilt framed paintings.
After the meal I went into the wine room which was also furnished with easy chairs, waitresses etc. I then paid a visit to what was the King’s private cinema and again sat in a very comfortable plush seat and saw one of the latest films.
I think that I could have quite easily lived in the Palace without having to venture outside. After taking a little walk along the seashore on the completion of the cinema show to view the bay by night and which made me feel quite romantic standing there and seeing the whole bay bathed in moonlight and the dark shape of Mt Veservius [sic] in the background, I went back to where we had parked the waggon and then it was back to the billet after spending a most enjoyable day.
On the following Wednesday I was detailed for guard at the station looking after the equipment. I remember that night very well. The Corporal I/C and another fellow that was on guard had gone to the pictures and a third member of the guard had gone out to meet his girlfriend, so I was left to patrol on my own and whilst doing so I discovered a stock of cartridges of all sorts of mixed colours and a very pistol and I held quite a firework display to the delight of the children around the station until I was informed that the Squadron Warrant Officer was heading in my direction.
There was some second hand clothing that was not worth sending back to main stores lying around and which we were told to get rid of during the night and so when daylight arrived all of the guard were financially better off. I had just got back to the billet that morning when a despatch rider roared up to the entrance with a signal that had just come through from HQ which turned out to concern me. It had come from the Colonel I/C of Cyril’s Department and requested that the Squadron released me for the day and that I was to be at the main entrance to the ruins of Pompei at 10 am that morning to meet Cyril. By the time that I had washed, dressed made out a pass and got it signed and stamped and had hitch hiked to the town it was nearly 12 noon. I arrived in time to see Cyril in the distance walking away from my direction so I had to run and catch up with him before he caught sight of me. So there was the sequel to our last meeting whilst in the service when I met Cyril in Cairo earlier in the same year.
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[page break]
[underlined] 102A [/underlined]
[underlined] COPY OF ACTUAL SIGNAL [/underlined]
To: 242 Squadron,
82, Via Pasquale Nastro
The following message receive yesterday evening from Command Welfare Branch, MARF by telephone:-
“It is requested that 1863228 A.C.1 Barrett from 242 Squadron be allowed to proceed to Pompei to-day (19.10.44) and to wait outside the main entrance to the ruins from 10.00 hrs until 14.00 hrs. It is expected that his brother will arrive there to see him. This message was passed to Command Welfare Branch by Colonel Stetham, who is Commanding Officer of A.C.1’s Barrett’s brother’s Unit, and it is understood that these men have not seen each other for a number of years.”
[page break]
102B.
242 SQUADRON.
[underlined] R.A.F. [/underlined]
1863228. A.C.1. BARRETT. R.
The above mentioned airman has permission to be absent from his quarters from 09.00 hrs 21.10.44. until 22.00 hrs 21.10.44 and to proceed on pass to Naples.
Signed. [signature] I/C Flt.
“ [signature] W/O.
[photograph of R. Barrett and his brother Cyril]
[underlined] CYRIL AND MYSELF TAKEN NEAR KINGS PALACE NAPLES OCTOBER 1944 [/underlined]
242 SQUADRON
[underlined] R.A.F. [/underlined]
1863228. A.C.1. BARRETT. R.
The above mentioned airman has permission to be absent from his quarters from 09.00 hrs on 25.10.44 until 22.00 hrs 25.10.44 and to proceed on pass to Naples.
[Royal Air Force date stamp]
Signed ………………….. I/C Flt.
[signature] W/O I/C.
[page break]
[inserted] 104 [/inserted]
During the following few days all our old friends were posted in two’s and three’s to units all over Italy and Scicily. [sic] Everyone got a royal send off by those fellows that were left, although we all regretted the partings very much. On the last day of the month we had a terrific thunderstorm that lasted nearly all day and as we looked down into the cobbled street which had no drainage system whatsoever, it had turned into a river formed by the water coming down from the hills and roads above. It went swirling down past our billet and onto where three roads all met by a narrow bridge near the town square. The bridge helped to restrict the water and at this point it was at least 2 1/2 ft deep for a long time. The water went on over the bridge and right through the main street of the town and out the other end and down towards Castlelamar.
When the storm had subsided we decided to go to a show that was being held that evening in the little cinema. On arrival at the main road a most unusual sight met our eyes. The whole road was covered a foot or more in depth with mud and stone deposits left behind by the rushing water. Workmen were still digging up this mess that covered solid the cobbled road and taking it away on lorries five days later and they had then nowhere near completely cleared it all. Everywhere around us people were [deleted] taking [/deleted] [inserted] BALEING [/inserted] water out of their houses and at many points where the rooms were below the road level the furniture etc was just floating about. When we arrived at the cinema after picking our way through the mess we found that its approaches and the cinema itself was flooded out. I should think that if they got many storms like that one, the town would soon be buried like Pompei was.
The cinema was made in working order with the help of the RAF lads two day later when John Massey the celebrated BBc [sic] violinist gave a recital for us.
On the evening of November 4th we held a farewell party and the following morning I went to the next door family to say goodbye to them. I do not know why but I think the mother like me most of all and there were tears in her eyes as we parted.
I then loaded my kit on the waggon and it was my turn along with a few more fellows to get a royal send off as we started on our journey to our new units.
The lorry took us into Naples and on to one of the platforms of the Garibaldi station where a train was waiting. A coach was reserved for us into which I transferred my kit to one of its compartments.
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[inserted] 105 [/inserted]
As it was then only 4 pm and the train was not due to leave until 5.05 pm we went into the YMCA canteen situated on the station and as 5 pm drew near we made our way back to the train. In the civilian compartments and coaches the people were packed like sardines in a tin, some were even sitting on the buffers between the coaches. At 5.05 prompt we steamed out of the station and past the ruins of the big stadium, wrecked trains and coaches and nearby buildings.
The four of us in my compartment played cards by candlelight until we stopped at a station for a hot meal at 7 pm and which consisted of a mess tin full of stew and a warm cup of tea. At every station we pulled up at more civilians crammed themselves on to the train, how they managed it still remains a mystery to me.
It began to get chilly as we commenced to travel over the mountain range and I needed more than my greatcoat to keep me warm. I could not go to sleep in the sitting position but I kept dozing off and waking up feeling all the more colder. At 2.30 am the fellows on the train who had been posted to the Foggia area had to change trains. So there was panic for a little whilst chaps found out if they had to get off or not and if they had there were their kits to unload through the windows.
There were more sleepy goodbyes to many more of our old friends before the train continued on its way once more. The three other fellows that were travelling along with me descended at the stop so I then had the compartment to myself and laid down along the seat and fell off to sleep and the next thing I knew was the guard on the train waking me up and saying that we would be in Barri in another quarter of an hour. So I roused myself and took notice of my surroudnings [sic] once more. [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] IT WAS STILL VERY COLD AND MISTY MORNING. [/inserted] It was just beginning to get light when I first looked out of the carriage window. We had then reached the Eastern side of Italy and I could just dimly make out the Adriatic as we travelled southwards.
On arrival at Barri station we reported to the Railway Transport Officer and he phoned through to our new squadron and asked them to send transport down to pick us up. How I remember waiting 3 1/2 hours outside the station and watching the early workmen trains pull in and all the men and women pouring out of them and climbing aboard waiting military lorries which took them off to work and I wonder how many times I walked around the large monument situated just in front of the station trying to get some warmth into my body and the stiffness of travelling out of my legs.
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When a van finally pulled up before us it was past 10 am and when we told the driver that we had been waiting so long and had had nothing to eat, he drove us to the RAF Club where we were able to obtain a meal. We then proceeded along the coastal road northwards for 4 miles when we reached the 8th Army Rest Camp. Here we turned off into a lane which took us up to the airfield. On arrival at our new Squadron we reported at the Orderly Room and were given a chit to be signed by difference [sic] sections and then we were put once more into a tent as the Squadron billets were full.
We made it take us the rest of that day and all of the following one to get our chits fully signed. But the next day after that the 8th November we had to start work again.
267 Squadron I found out were a transport squadron and possessed and flew American Dakota aircraft (DCs to most people). The emblem on all of the aircraft, lorries etc was the flying horse. I am sure without doubt even if you do not remember it that sometime or other you have seen some of the squadrons aircraft either on the films or in a picture in the newspaper.
The squadron was formed in Cario [sic] before El Alermain [sic] and during the big push in in [sic] the desert, it flew in and supplied the 8th Army with petrol for tanks, precious supplies of water, food, guns, ammunition, jeeps and all other essential things that kept the army going. They also took many Ensa parties up to the front so that the boys in the forward areas could see a show and on many return trips they brought back casualties saving them from the long and uncomfortable ride back to base through hundreds of miles of desert. The squadron even moved complete personnel of fighter squadrons and landed them behind German lines. More than once they took the Germans and Italians completely by surprise when our fighters appeared from nowhere hundreds of miles behind their lines.
The squadron aircraft also evacutated [sic] wounded from Malta during its siege and from Sicily during the fighting on the island and also did glider towing and parachute dropping work over the Island and again did all of the above in the Invasion of Italy.
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One of the Squadron aircraft was the first allied plane to land at Rome airfield. At Barri half of our aircraft were on routine flights, such as trips to Cairo, Naples, Rome, Florence, Foggia, Ancona, Marseilles etc every day flying essential personages and wounded etc. The other half of our aircraft belonged to the Balkan Air Force. Every night our aircraft went out over Yugoslavia and dropped supplies to Marshal Tito’s resistance army by parachute. Often they landed on strips held by the partians [sic] and took in arms ammunition clothing and even mules to them and brought out men and women that had been injured in their guerrilla warfare.
Sometimes where there were no strips they landed in fields with German troops only a few miles away, if that. We also brought Marshal Tito himslef [sic] back to Italy on many occasions for conferences with the allied commanders. Our aircraft also landed on the Dodeconese Island of Kos and evacuated many of our troops from there when the Germans retook it.
Another special mission given to the squadron was disclosed on the wireless months after it had taken place. It was when one of our aircraft flew over enemy occupied territory for most of its trips to and from [deleted] Warsaw [/deleted] [inserted] WARSAW [/inserted] where it landed in a field held by resistance men and brought back to Italy the leaders of the Polish underground movement. Whilst the aircraft landed and took off again 27 members of the underground resistance helping to hold the field were killed by surrounding German troops. For this mission all of the aircrafts crew were awarded the Polish VC.
Of course during the following months I went into Barri many many times either of an evening or on my days off, but I will describe the town and everything else in just one visit. The town is quite modern and is one of the biggest in Southern Italy. Its harbour is I think the biggest on the Adriatic Coast. The government buildings, wireless station etc along the sea front are most impressive. The same goes for the promenade and the small well laid out gardens along the front.
There were many shops, and a few service clubs but the only place that we could obtain a good meal was in the RAF club. At the others they only sold tea and cakes. The YMCA club was situated in the pre war boat club, the Naafi in a big one time departmental store. At all of their clubs there were games and reading rooms etc and an orchestra in attendance.
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The Grand Opera House was taken over as a forces garrison theatre. I saw many good films and enjoyed a few stage shows in that building, but most of all I enjoyed the opera season when I saw and thoroughly enjoyed the colourful operas and hearing the famous Italian singers appearing in them. The operas I saw there included “The Barber of Seville”, “Lucia-Di-Lammermoor”, “Aida”, “Cavaliera Rusticanna” and others. I think I enjoyed “Aida” most of all.
There was also another cinema in the town which showed English films but that one was run by the Americans. Very conveniently for us the Yanks used to run a bus service between the drome and the town. We were allowed to travel on it and one bus left the control tower every hour.
During my first few days on the squadron I did not feel at all happy in my new surroundings, hardly knowing anyone except the chaps that came along with me etc and it was very cold at night sitting in the tent of an evening shivering as we had no heating whatsoever. But all that changed a few days later when there was room for us to move into the billets.
The station had been an airport before the war so it was well organized. The concrete built billets in which we moved had had the centre portion of the block taken right out of it during one our raids on the drome when it was held by the enemy. We were told by Italians living nearby that many Germans had been killed when the block was hit. The billet block was modern with a big winding staircase leading up to the two floors at one end of it. Along the front of the building on each floor an open verhanda [sic] from which the rooms led off and the roof of the building was flat. WE also had a very nice brick built dining hall which had large windows on either side of it. Attached to the dining hall were the hot shower baths which were very handy as on finishing work covered with grease and grime we could just pop in and have a nice hot shower. Next to the showers was our canteen in which a wine bar was installed and a library with a large selection of books.
I used to spend almost every Friday evening in the canteen when housy-housy was played. Troops used to come from miles around in vehicles to play. The last house was generally worth just on £20 but for all the time I played I never won that last house.
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In our room there was ten of us, one side of the room was rounded in whcih [sic] were a large set of windows many of which were boarded up after being blown out in the raid. The room was situated on the first floor at the far end. That accounts for the odd shape of our room as the billet block was rounded at each end. The other end being the spiral staircase. The floor of our room was covered with red tiles and the walls were tiled in white up to a height of 4 ft and above that the walls were covered mostly with pin-up girls cut out from various magazines. We were well off for lighting as we had two electricians living in the room and our home made petrol and oil stove gave out a terrific heat. In the centre of our room we had a large table surrounded by home made stools on which we could either sit and write out letters home or play cards etc.
The hangers and work shops were less than 50 yds from the billet block as we did not have far to go in getting to work and on the whole we were as comfortable as it was possible to be in our new home.
Just across the road from us was an American camp cinema where we could go whenever we wanted to see a film of an evening. I often used to go there and then after the show came back to our nice warm and cosy billet and fry spam or eggs bought from our canteen and toast bread and hot a cup of tea which I used to bring up from the dining hall at tea time, on our oil stove. I enjoyed these suppers more than I did any of my day time meals.
When there was not much work on we had plenty of time off and when on standby we could just pop back to the billet until the gang was called out to do a job on an aircraft. I worked in maintenance flight and we had to carry out inspections of various kinds on the engines everytime the aircraft had completed a period of 50 hours flying. There were six engine gangs and six of us in each gang, so it worked out the less flying that the squadron did, the less inspections came in and the more time we got off.
I did quite a lot of flying whilst [deleted] on [/deleted] [inserted] AT [/inserted] Barri and nearly all the time I spent in the air was on air tests after I had worked on aircraft helping change the engines, propellors, starters or generators etc. My trips took me over most of the surrounding country within a 100 mile radius and out over the Adriatic Sea.
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One good thing with a DC was that it could fly quite well on just one of its engines but it did not give one a nice feeling when looking out of the aircraft’s window on one side and seeing that the engine had stopped and that you are gliding down towards the earth on the remaining engine.
On Saturday November 18th, I was lying on my bed during the dinner hour when all of a sudden bombs started to burst nearby. Within a couple of seconds I was up on my feet and out on the veranda. From there I could see the American Liberator Bomber which had just returned shot up from a raid over enemy territory and which had crash landed on the runway with its full bomb load aboard as it could not release them in the sea. Within a few seconds the aircraft was a mass of flames and smoke from burning petrol and oil rose high into the air and then the petrol tanks started to explode and machine gun bullets were flying all over the place. Despite the gallant efforts of the crash tender crew three of the aircraft’s crew were trapped in the machine and burned to death.
On the 20th day of the month after our gang had finished a double engine change I went up on a test flight with it. We started our run from the North end of the runway and within half a minute after taking off we were passing over the town of Barri and over the harbour where I could see the mast heads of many of the 18 ships sticking out above the water that had been sunk during a German air raid the previous year. Bombs from the enemy aircraft hit an ammunication [sic] ship that was at anchor and within a few minutes it blew up and either sunk or caught the other 17 ships around it on fire. Just after we left Barri another ship loaded with bombs blew up whilst at the dockside. In the explosion 400 civilians that were working nearby were killed and over 1,700 were injured along with many military casualities. [sic]
After flying over the harbour we followed the coast line until we reached the town of Brindisi where we turned around in a half circle over the sea and headed north climbing all the time. As it was a clear day we could see far in land. The villages looked like little clusters of white toy buildings with the seemingly dead straight road linking one with the other, either side of which were the tiny square fields of olive groves.
We flew on until were just South of Foggia where the mountainous country commenced and the flat plains came to an end before we turned once more and headed back towards our base. On this trip we took some of the sailors and soldiers from the 8th Army Rest Camp, who used to visit the airport in chance of getting a flight. For some of them that we had up with us it was their first trip in an aircraft and you should have seen the expression on their faces when the pilot put the aircraft into a steep dive whilst over the sea, I think that most of them thought that we were going to crash.
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We flew homewards along the coast at a height of only 200 ft and we could see clearly the little bays, harbours and the contents of the main streets of the coastal villages as we passed by there. At one time whilst I was in the cockpit the altimeter read a height of 20 ft above sea level and as I looked out of one of the side windows I could see the people in the little fishing boats waving to us and we seemed to be skimming the water almost level with them.
I used to like an air test most of all when only one pilot took the aircraft up as I was then able to go up as second pilot and sometimes take over the controls myself for a while. The people in the Barri area were the most fascist minded than any other section of the country. That explained why the people in the town of Barri were not very friendly and did not have much to do with the troops. The further north that I travelled in Italy the more friendly were the people. But as the family at Gragnano explained to me that they did not like Mosso [sic] their dictator or the facists. It was a case of sticking up for the regime or having to starve through having their ration cards taken away. So they had no alternative but to submit to their rule. The father had fought alongside the British and had been wounded in the 1914 to 18 war. But the people in and around Barri and in many other towns were ardent supporters of the regime.
On the 26th of November I was on a day off and when asked if I would like to go out for the day with the football team I readily accepted the invitation. Four of us went along from our room, two of the fellows were playing in the team. As the Squadron’s first, [deleted] the unbeaten [/deleted] and 2nd team had played matches on the previous afternoon none of the players could get the time off to come along with us. So we boarded the football bus at 10 am with a 3rd XI scratch team. But no one worried as they were going to play what they thought was a small Polish army unit team in some little village called Altimura.
It was a beautiful day and our 50 mile journey took us through some of the best countryside that there is in Southern Italy and along some very good roads. It was worth going along for the ride alone.
It was 12.30 pm by the time we reached Altimura and waiting on the outskirts for us to direct us to their HQ was a Polish Warrant Officer. The HQ was a big impressive looking building in the centre of the town and was a modern one. The town was situated on a hill and looking down from the HQ one looked upon the old part of the town with its quaint old houses built up in layers and the narrow winding cobbled streets. I must give the town its due, it was the most cleanest and tidiest town that I saw in Southern Italy
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As we walked up the steps and passed into the HQ we were given a smashing salute by the sentry guarding the main doorway. We were then taken down a long corridor to the Warrant Officers Mess where we were waited upon throughout our four course dinner.
After dinner the team decided to go straight to the football pitch, but as us half a dozen supporters had a couple of hours to spare before the commencement of the game we decided to take a look around the town. Imagine the horror when we saw bills everywhere announcing the game and our team as the RAF Barri against the Polish Corps and that the entrance fee to see the game was 40 Lira – 2/- (10p) for civilians and 20 Lira for military personnel. As we walked through the streets everyone seemed interested in us and looked as if they had never seen the RAF blue uniform before. We got tired of being stared or smiled at from all the balconies fo [sic] the houses etc, so we entered a small wine bar that we came upon. During the whole of our stay in the town we only saw two other members of the British services. The Poles were very polite and those that came into the bar whilst we were there gave a salute to us before they entered.
About half an hour later we noticed crowds of civilians and Polish soldiers passing the doorway and we wondered what was on as we knew that it was Poland’s National Day. So we asked the barman where they were all going. What a shock we got when they told us that they were all going to see our team play. As we did not know the way to the ground we joined in with the crowd and followed the people in front of us. After walking for about five minutes we received a further shock when instead of a small town football field we arrived outside a big built modern stadium. People were queuing outside the box office. We decided that we had better join the end of it and thought how the boys would laugh when we told them that we had to pay to see them play. At that moment the Polish soldiers on the gate called us over and told us to go straight in. We went through the large gateway and found ourselves on a huge square balcony that looked upon the football ground. We went down one of the wide concrete staircases that led down from each side of the balcony and onto the ground below. The atmosphere was like that of a cup final instead of the small friendly village match that we had expected.
The lovely green grass pitch was already lined 3 & 4 deep all the way round it with spectators and still crowds were entering the stadium. We were taken to the dressing rooms that were situated under the concrete stairways. There we found our team looking very glum and getting ready for the game. On asking them why they looked so dejected we were informed that the Polish team had a couple of internationals playing. So after trying to cheer our scratch team up a little we went out and took our places at the touchline in readiness to watch the slaughter.
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It was six supporters against the other side’s 2,000 or more. The whole town must have turned out to see the game along with the complete Polish Corps.
When our team came onto the field in ones and twos and started kicking [inserted] IN [/inserted] people were still coming into the ground and both staircases and the flat part at the top overlooking the ground was also lined with spectators. The Polish team then came out of their dressing room altogether and in single file and run along to the corner of the field and then along the touch line up the halfway line where they did a right turn in turn and lined themselves up along the centre line near the spot where they came to a halt. Our captain then called our players up to the centre line where they formed up facing a member of the opposing team and each man shook hands with his opposite number and when the greetings were over the Polish captain presented the captain of our team with a bouquet of flowers which incidently [sic] I had to hold in arms throughout the game much I suspect to the amusement of the many girls that stood nearby.
I think that the less said about the game the better. Needless to say as was expected our team was beaten by 6 goals to 1 but I must say our team put up a gallant fight. Naturally the Poles were delighted with their win on their National Day.
I have often wondered what would have been the result of the game if we had taken our 1st XI along with us who were champions of the Barri area.
After the players had had a shower bath in the dressing room & had changed back into their clothes we drove back to the HQ once again and were given another salute as we went through the doorways on our way to the W/O’s mess for tea, after which it was free wine all round. Toasts and speeches were made by members of both teams through an interpreter. Then it developed into a sing song. One amusing incident I remember was when the fellow sitting on my right asked me to pass the lemon squash so I handed him the bottle that was on my left which had a lemon squash label on it. He poured himself out a glass full and took one big gulp and a couple of seconds later the poor fellow was spluttering and gasping and turning all colours. I thought for a minute that he was going to choke to death. It turned out that the contents of the bottle was “Vodka”, the famous Russian drink. It was the real stuff. I tasted a drop and I swear that it was four times as strong as raw whisky. One sip and your head nearly lifted from your shoulders.
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We dare not drink the wine too fast as as soon as we took a sip from our glass a Pole would come along and top it up once more. By nine o’clock the party was quite a merry one and we had drunk the mess dry. After everyone had been given a flower buttonhole from the bouquet and told to be back at the truck by 10 pm the party split up in ones, two, threes, etc and dispersed around the town. I went along with three of our pilots and a few Poles to their NAAFI out in the town where we had a further sing song.
At 10 pm quite a number of the chaps were missing and so some of the chaps who had recently seen them went to look for them and whilst they were away the chaps that they were looking for turned up so then the searchers were missing. It was nearly 11 pm when we finally rounded up our merry band and set off on our journey homewards, it was 1.30 am when we reached Barri and the end of an enjoyable day.
On the following Wednesday we held a squadron airmans dance in our dining hall which had been cleared for the occasion and decorated with flags penants of the United Nations and coloured lights. The squadron band supplied the music and partners were recruited, local military hospitals and A.T.S. Units, civilian girl friends etc.
As usual the bar and chicken sandwich counter worked overtime with a result a good time was had by all.
On the morning of December 2nd I worked on the G.C.S’s General Officer Commanding Mediterraean [sic] General Sir Maitland Wilson’s aircraft and in the afternoon I went to Barri Stadium to watch the International football match between the British Services XI which contained many English Internationals including Stan Cullis the England Captain. Bryan Jones of Wales, Spud Murphy and also one of our squadron players McGlen was in the Services XI that were playing against the Polish Army. The Services XI won after a thrilling match by 3 goals to 1 with our McGlen scoring two of the goals.
Round about this time there were a few mice that used to roam our billet after the lights went out. this started a trap making craze in the room. All sorts of weird and wonderful cages and traps were produced by the fellows. The most successful one was made the old fashioned well known way and which was made from bits of bent wire and an elastic band on the back of a domino pegging board. For four nights running just after we had put the lights out, snap would go the trap and sure enough on investigation each time we found a mouse in it.
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There was only one thing wrong with our billet and that was on a cold night when the wind was blowing the wrong way, we could not light the fire. If we did the wind blowing down the chimney blew the oily smoke into the room and choked us out, or it would blow the fire out. Many a chap had his eybrows [sic] singed off or received a burnt hand when going to light the stove after it had blown out. As all the time it is out petrol and oil runs into the stove until the supply tap is turned off. With a result as soon as a person struck a match near the stove the fumes ignited and a small explosion occurred which did one good thing and that was clear all the soot from the chimney. It was not until after Christmas that we designed a stove successfully that stood up to winds coming from [deleted] long [/deleted] [inserted] ANY [/inserted] direction and that was of a rather crude design. The chimney system ran for over 30 ft and when the wind blew the wrong way someone had to climb up on the roof and turn the top section round so that it would point in a different direction. This was not a very nice job on a freezing cold night
Besides going to Barri on my days off I often used to visit the surrounding town of San spirito, Palazi, Tallitzi, Bittonto, Jovinetya and others, but none of these places are worth describing.
Just before Christmas we were all very busy. As perhaps you will remember the trouble in Greece started. The ELAS to whom we had supplied with arms to fight the Germans had turned on their own countrymen and were trying to sieze [sic] control of the country by force and put their own Government in power.
Now many people attacked Mr Churchill’s policy and said why fight the people that liberated their own country but the truth is that they wanted power to turn it into their own advantage and they did not care how or by what means they managed it. They even fought and killed in most horrible ways their fellow citizens and even attacked and killed British subjects and soldiers. So everyone that did not support Mr Churchill’s policy should be ashamed of themselves. The ELA were no more than a huge band of thugs even if they did fight the Germans and help free their country.
At one time they laid siege the harbour area of Athens so that no supplies could be unloaded in the port area. Well that was where our squadron came in as every single article needed by our troops had to be flown into them. On most days we had every aircraft that we possessed up in the air carrying supplies from Italy into Athens and we worked all night on the aircraft that became due for inspection so that it was ready to fly the next day if it was humanly possible.
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The RAF H.Q just outside Athens was captured and I have met some of the chaps who were taken prisoner and all I can say is that I would like all the prople [sic[ at home who stuck up for the ELAS to hear what these chaps thought of them.
One thing that I would like to mention on the Greek situation and this is: One day I was sitting in the cockpit of one our aircraft that was in for inspection and that had just come in from operations over Greece and I happened to put my hand in one of the pilots map pocket and found an open envelope that must have been given to the pilot to deliver and he must have put it in the pocket and forgotten all about it when he landed. Inside the envelope was a document giving the exact number of men, officers, vehicles and how they were all split up into units that were in Greece and alongside this was a proposed number of men, officers, vehicles that should be sent out to reinforce each of those units that the British had there in the country. Then it gave the dates of sailing for the ships from Barri on which the troops could be sent and the dates of the ships arrival in Athens. So you can see how easily military documents are left around and what a huge value that once could have been to the ELAS. They would have know [sic] how many troops that we had in the country and how many vehicles each unit possessed and on what date it would have paid them to attack the dock area etc and what units were big and which were small and could be captured easily. No wonder the Germans learnt a lot of our plans during the war.
Now we came to Christmas Eve. I was working on an aircraft all day, but the fellows in our room that were on day off went into town and bought the wine for a billet party that evening. We had friends in from the other billets and what a party it was. At one time during the evening the squadron band marched into the room and played Christmas carols for us, behind the band in procession came chaps in fancy dress and one fellow was wheeled in on a barrow that they had managed to get up the stairway and another fellow was carrying a large Christmas tree that was later hoisted to the top of the station flag pole. A couple of other fellows staggered in dressed ready for a football match and saying that they were playing the poles at midnight.
[underlined] Note [/underlined] On Christmas Eve afternoon we had arranged a return game with our 1st XI against the Polish Corps. The match I had longed to see but owing to the Greek trouble arising everyone was working that afternoon and could not get off so the game had to be cancelled.
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What a mess the billet was in when the party came to an end. It looked as if a bomb had exploded in the centre of it. The catering officer woke me up on Christmas morning and brought myself and the others a cup of tea to us in bed and later on one of the fellows brought up my breakfast of eggs and bacon from the cookhouse so I did not have to get out of bed for it.
When I did get up the sun was shining and half a dozen of us decided to go for a little walk to get an appetite for our Christmas dinner. But before we went out we cleared up the room and removed the traces of our previous night’s party. Then we walked along the peaceful rocky valley situated behind the airfield. The valley was dotted with little stone eskimo shaped huts in which the cattle could shelter in the rain and a little stream ran along the bottom of it. We ended up at the far end of the run-way where the railway track from Barri ran nearby to our billet and onto the next village. At that moment a train had stopped as an aircraft was taking off at the end of the runway where the train crossed it. So we jumped on the train and rode on it until it had to slow down whilst travelling up a steep gradient just outside our billet where we jumped off.
We had a wonderful dinner and the officers true to tradition waited on us throughout the meal which consisted of roast turkey chicken, roast pork, green peas, roast potatoes, cauliflour [sic] and brown gravy followed by plum pudding and rich custard. I managed to make three helpings of pudding disappear. The King’s health was drunk with whisky and along with the meal we each had four bottles of beer and were given 50 cigarettes and a comforts parcel containing a handkerchief, toothbrush & paste and other useful articles. There were also plenty of oranges, nuts & raisins to be had if anyone wanted them.
After the meal and a rest we took another little walk and when I got back I found some of the chaps from the old squadron waiting for me much to my pleasure. We had a talk about old times whilst we had tea together, not that I felt like eating much after the big dinner I had, but I did manage a couple of mince pies, a sausage roll and a helping of jelly.
That evening it was an open night in the Sergeants Mess Bar and as I was invited there I went along with the other members or [sic] our working gang to attend a grand party. Some of the fellows on the squadron were not so fortunate as myself as they had to work throughout the holiday looking after and seeing off the aircraft that went to Greece each day. It certainly was no holiday for our troops there. On the morning of Boxing Day went up flying and had the afternoon off during which I made out and put in a pass for a weeks leave early in the New Year.
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On the 27th I was working away on a hundred hour period inspection when I happened to look up and saw one of our aircraft that had just taken off and had retracted its under carriage suddenly lose height touch the ground and slide along to a stop on its belly. In an instant the aircraft was a mass of flames and about 100 yds of the runway was also alight where petrol from the tanks had spread when the aircraft touched down and whilst it was sliding along. Everyone run [sic] towards the plane but luckily the crew had already jumped to safety. They certainly must have been quick off the mark. We soon retreated once more when one of the crew breathlessly informed us that the plane was loaded with mortar bombs and [deleted] our [/deleted] ammunition. Within a few minutes came the first brilliant flash followed by a terrific explosion. These flashes and bangs continued for well over an hour and by that time the aircraft had been blown to pieces which were scattered over a very wide area. We picked up large lumps of shrapnel over 500 yds away. Many other nearby aircraft belonging to the Yanks were damaged by bits of flying shrapnel. Later on that morning everyone on the squadron had to help clear the runway of bits of exploded bombs and of the plane. Only the tail unit remained and that was full of holes and the fabric work had burnt out. On the ground nearby lay burnt out riddled engines. We had only just left the runway when another explosion occurred and at periods throughout the afternoon the stillness was shattered with a bang and a flash. At one time an American aircraft arrived overhead and radioed for permission to land. He was told by the control tower to go onto Brindisi and land there. But the pilot of this aircraft was very persistent and said that he wanted to land at Barri. By then the fellow in the control tower must have been fed up as he replied OK you can land, runway is covered with shrapnel and exploding bombs. The aircraft immediately headed in a southern direction and disappeared from sight.
That same evening I saw the squadron pantomime “Wanfrella and the Golden Gum Boots” and it was a first rate production and full of laughs. During the following weeks operations continued to Greece, Yugoslavia, Bucharest and Budapest along with our routine runs once more.
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On the afternoon of the last day in the year I went into Barri with some of the chaps from our billet. We took along a 5 gallon German water container with us and had it filled up with £1.5s worth of wine ready for our New Years Eve party which started at 7 pm and went on half way through the night. Whilst the party was in full swing the C.O, Adj, SWO & the two flight commanders walked in and stayed for well over an hour and needless to say drank a large portion of the contents of our water can. By the time they left everyone was in merry mood and some of the chaps were telling the officers what they really thought of them. It was during the party that it started snowing for the first time that year in the Barri district. I remember how we all ran out on the veranda to see the drome covered with a blanket of white.
As it neared 12 o’clock we all adjourned to the Sergeants Mess where upon arrival, our glasses were immediately filled to the brim with whisky with whcih [sic] to drink the New Year in with and as the chimes of Big Ben struck midnight over the radio we all linked arms and sang Auld Lang Syne. I spent the following half hour devouring chicken sandwiches that I discovered in the Mess and then taking a chap to bed who could not stand the pace and wondering what 1946 held in store for me. (If I had only known) I spent Friday the 5th January collecting my leave pass and getting a pass to enable my friend and I to travel on our routine aircraft run to Naples on the following day. I then collected rations from the cookhouse and packed the minimum kit that I should need for the following week.
Next morning I received an early call at 5.30 am and after getting up and calling Les (the fellow who went on leave with me to Marseilles when I was with the old Squadron), we proceeded to make our way through the mud of the airfield until we reached the flight office where we found out the [deleted] number [/deleted] [inserted] INITIAL [/inserted] of the aircraft that had been put on the Naples run. It then begun to rain hard and the visibility became bad which made it doubtful if the aircraft would take off at all that day. When the captain of the crew arrived we showed him our flying pass and when he asked us if we had our names on the aircraft’s manifesto we looked at him with a blank expression on our faces. We had never even heard of the word. Evidently it was a list of the people or what cargo and the weight of every item that the aircraft was carrying on its trip. So when we told him that our names were not on the list he informed us that if he was due to carry a full load he would be unable to take us.
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A little later he decided that he would take the aircraft up as the weather seemed to be clearing up a bit and to avoid the mountains he also decided to travel around the coast line all the way to Naples and to send back by radio a weather report for the aircraft taking off after him. At that moment the manifest arrived along with the passengers and sacks of mail etc. Unfortunately the weight of all of it was full safety flying load, so the pilot would not take us along with him. We thought this was a good start for our leave. [deleted] We thought this was a good start for our leave. [/deleted] Our thoughts whilst trudging across the mud towards the main road as the aircraft took off over our heads were very black.
At the control tower we caught the station bus that was going into Barri just as it moved off. On reaching the main Barri Foggia coastal road we stopped the bus and descended onto the road. Here we started to thumb all vehicles travelling Northwards. After approximately 10 mins a lorry stopped and picked us up. This lift took us along our route for a further 10 miles to where the lorry came to the end of its journey. So it was back to thumbing a lift once more in the centre of the village called “Molfetta”. Here luck seemed to be against us again as we waited in the same spot for well over an hour without anyone stopping for us. We were fed up with the whole expedition and were thinking of going back to camp and spending our leave in camp when a jeep pulled up and the driver told us to hop in. So off we started once again. This time we travelled along a bit faster and averaged over 40 miles per hour. The driver was a very nice fellow, he was a Colonel in the American Army and told us that his unit was spread all over Southern Italy erecting communication systems on airfields etc, so that he was always travelling around visiting them.
Throughout this stage of our journey it rained heavily. The Colonel told us that he had to stop at a town 45 miles ahead and meet someone and have dinner there. He also said that he would drop us off in this town and we would be able to thumb another lift from there and if we were not successful in getting one he would pick up up [sic] again when he continued his journey a little later on. Well nothing stopped for us so the Colonel picked us up again a little over [deleted] half [/deleted] an hour later.
At one stop we had to make a detour for miles along a muddy track across fields etc as the floods had washed away the temporary bridge that spanned the main road. It was noon before the Colonel reached his destination and we found ourselves very much mud splattered in a very desolate spot. The whole surrounding area was flat and bare except for the snow capped mountains in the distant background and the outline of the town of Foggia miles away. At this spot luck was with us, alomost [sic] immediately on the horizon a truck appeared and drew to a stop when it reached us. Our luck did not last long though as after travelling a further two miles across fields and along muddy tracks we arrived back on the main road. Here we were held up for another 1/2 an hour because of a traffic jam caused by a lorry skiding [sic] and ending up in the roadside ditch.
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[page break][inserted] 121 [/inserted]
[underlined] MY OVERSEAS SERVICE PART 5 [/underlined] R. Barrett Esq.
It was 1 p.m. when we arrived in the town of Foggia or rather what was left of it, as most of the industrial center [sic] had been bombed to the ground. We trudged through the town’s muddy streets already feeling travel weary but, we decided that if we were to get to Naples that night we would not be able to stop in Foggia for dinner and a rest but would have to push on. On arriving at the beginning of the Naples Foggia road, we had another long wait. In fact we were lucky not to have been stranded for the rest of our leave in the town, as the road to Naples up until that day had been closed because of the very deep [deleted] mould [/deleted] [inserted] SNOW [/inserted] drifts in the mountains. Our next lift was in a 15 cwt R.A.F. van and we were delighted when we found out he was going all the way to Naples. So we settled ourselves down on the hard wooden wheel cover seats and proceeded too open some of our tinned rations. The further we travelled along the road inland that took us up into the mountains of central Italy the colder it became. This same road also twisted and turned all the way over the mountains. We felt very miserable as we sat there looking out of the back of the van at the pouring rain.
On nearing the peak of our accent the rain first turned in to sleet which the wind blew in back of the van and on to us both. My ears felt like lumps of ice even though I had my big coat collar turned up covering them. Then in turn the sleet turned into snow and almost became a blizzard at times as the wind blew so hard and then on those occasions we looked like snow men. We stopped in one snow bound village high up in the mountains to enable us to get out of the van for a few minutes to stretch our legs and try and get some warmth into our bodies. This same village looked so picturesque covered in its blanket of white that we very nearly decided to stop there for a couple of days [deleted] for care [/deleted] [inserted] OF OUR LEAVE. [/inserted]
During our stop of a few minutes I sold a few packets of cigarettes and tablets of soap which I had brought along with me and in return for these articles I received over three pounds which helped to pay some of my expenses incurred during the week. It was impossible to live in Italy on just our service pay as inflation in the country was very high with a result that the cost of living was terriffic. [sic] In fact it was the same in every country that I went to that had suffered enemy occupation and where the people were semmistarved [sic]. Money was a farce, cigarettes soap etc was worth much more to us than money. So the only way that we could buy things was to sell the Italians etc the goods that we could obtain in our canteen easily and very cheaply and that were scarce to them, at a high price. By doing this we were able to pay the enormous sum that the Italians etc [deleted] booked [/deleted] [inserted] ASKED [/inserted] for everything that they sold. I hope that my discription [sic] of our trading is clear to you. Of course it was all very unofficial and illegal but it was a case of looking after one self or going short of things as no one [inserted] ELSE [/inserted] would do it for you.
In the service it was every man for himself in most things and you can be sure L.A.C. Barrett was not slow off the mark at any time and did not let any chances of bettering myself go by easily. In other words I was never a mug, when it came to dealing bargaining and buying etc.
Now to continue with my story. As we decended [sic] the other side of the mountain range the snow turned into sleet and then into teaming rain once more. We stopped on one occasion during our decent [sic] and that was to pick up a couple of Canadian soldiers who were hitch hiking their way to Naples. I was certainly glad that the driver of our van stopped for them as they brought aboard a bottle of whisky which they shared with us both. The raw spirit certainly raised our spirit a little bit and also put a bit of warmth into our frozen bodies. Darkness had fallen when we arrived in the outskirts of Naples after having travelled over 200 miles by road that day. Here the vans journey came to an end so we had to get another lift. I stood in a doorway with our kit so as to keep it dry whilst Les stood out in the road and rain thumbing. After a few minutes and after many pairs of yellow headlights had swept past us in the dark, a lorry driven by an Italian stopped and we both piled in the cab beside the driver and put the kit on our knees. Really there was
cont ………..
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Page 2.
not enough room for all of us in the cab as we were jammed tight. I was on the outside and I could not shut the door. So every time that we did a right turn, I had to hang on like grim death to stop myself from being thrown out of the vehicle onto the glistening road which reflected the hundred lights ahead of us all the way but I preferred that discomfort to riding on the back of an open lorry and getting drenched to the skin. The driver dropped us off in Garribaldi Square and although I knew where we were I was lost for a minute or two in the darkness and did not know which of the many roads to take that lead off from the square but, after getting our bearings we set off down the road via Garribaldi and caught a tram that took us to the big tunnel that is situated just below the Kings Palace. Here we got off and walked along the coast road in the rain until we reached the R.A.F. Malcolm Club where we booked a bed and after having a wash we each consumed two big suppers and we still felt hungry.
Although we also felt very much refreshed we were ready for bed and I fell asleep the moment that my head touched the pillow. We did not get up very early on the following morning but after having breakfast in the club we took a little walk along the sea front. That afternoon we hitch hiked along the Autostrada and on the Castel-la-mar where Les visited some friends that lived there and I walked on up the hill to Gragnano where I called on the family that were so good to us when I was billeted next door to them. I picked Les up later that evening and we caught the last train back to Naples from Castle la-mar. It was a very nice rattling around the bay in the moonlight as there were no lights in the Italian trains at that time. On arrival at the club we booked the same bed once more for that night and the following one. Next morning we were up early and decided to take advantage of our day pass for Rome. When we set out from Naples it was raining once again. We also decided to travel along Route 6, we rode on four different types of vehicles before we had covered the 130 mile journey which was another very cold one. Our route took us through Anzio the scene of the famous Italian bridgehead 20 miles south of Rome. The Italians certainly [inserted] PAID [/inserted] for their folly in entering the war against us by teaming up with the Germans. Around this area, town and villages were completely raised to the ground and all that remained for us to see was heaps of rubble. It was the same in the spots which consisted of no mans land during the time of the Casino hold up. Even the last town south of untouched Rome had been badly damaged by bombs and shell fire.
It was late afternoon when we drove past the twisted girders that was all that remained of the hangers of Rome Airport and which stood beneath the shadows of the ruins of the old Roman viaduct that in the days of ancient Rome carried the city’s water supply down from the mountains. Of course very few of the one time thousands of archways remain. We then drove on along the main Colossiem [sic] road and into the centre of the city where we alighted from the lorry and found ourselves surrounded by many large and beautiful buildings. At that time we had no idea of where we were going to stay that night. Officially the city had been declared an open one so all troops were supposed to leave before the 11 o’clock curfew. But this problem was solved for us when within five minutes of our arrival whilst walking down one of the main roads we were approached by an Italian who asked us if we were looking for somewhere to sleep and that if we were he knew of a place. So after deciding that we had nothing to lose if we gave the place a look over, [inserted] SO [/inserted] we told the fellow to take us to it. We followed him to a house in a nearly [sic] turning and were shown into a nicely furnished [deleted] road [/deleted] [inserted] ROOM [/inserted] which was offered to us at a reasonable price. As it looked homely we immediately said that we would take it. Our next step was to find somewhere to eat, we were directed to the big Y.M.C.A. building where we obtained tea and cakes.
This lovely building contained every facility for a chap on leave. Whilst we were eating the Italian orchestra that was playing in the restaurant were broadcasting over the Rome Radio, before we left the building we booked up for to go on one of the many Y.M.C.A.’s tours of Rome on the following morning. We chose the Vatican tour the others included visits to the Appien Way, etc but the bookings for that tour was already completed or we would have gone on both.
After 10 p.m. we had to keep our eyes on the look out for Military Police. On a couple of occasions we had to run and dodge quickly around a corner to avoid running into them.
cont ……
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Next morning we were outside the Y.M. at 9.30 am where a little later we climbed on to waiting lorries and were driven through the city over the river Tiber and past the beautiful building of the Palace of Justice. At this point we could see the castle of St. Angelo in the distance. A little further along from there we came to the main entrance gate way into the Vatican City, the whole of which is completely surrounded by a high banked wall. The hallway in which we found ourselves on passing through the gate way was built completely with green marble. It was in this hall that the well known Swiss Guards in their ceremonial dress stood on sentry duty. We then travelled up a sloping spiral wide stairway all built with the same type of marble. On arriving at the top of the slope we arrived at the Vatican City’s modern Post Office. We all stopped in this spot for a few minutes whilst all those in the party that wished to send a picture postcard home did so. At the time that Post office was the only one in the world from which the mail when posted was not censored. After buying our entrance ticket we proceeded on the tour and saw many priceless and ancient gifts that had been presented to the various Popes by various nations at various times. Then we passed through the map room which contained many maps hundreds of years old. Then there were the rooms that had been completely painted by such famous painters as Michelangelo and Raffaello. [sic] These paintings were really marvellous and breath taking just to look at them and the hundreds of colours that made up the paintings. The same with the other rooms no words of mine can describe fully their splendour and magnificence. All I can say is that they are worth travelling hundreds of miles to see. Nowhere else in the world can there be such a great and valuable collection of Arts and treasures.
We also saw the main hall where each new Pope is chosen and elected and during the course of the tour I saw every scene that is shown in my postcard pictures of the Vatican City. On arrival back at the main entrance we walked around the outside of the permiiter [sic] wall of the city until we came to the court yard of the famous St. Peters. It was outside that same perimeter wall that up until Italy surrendered German and Italian troops patrolled in the hope of re-capturing escaped Allied prisoners.
As immediately anyone touched the wall of the Holy City the could not be retaken prisoner and so they were consequently inturned [sic] in the Vatican until our troops captured the City of Rome.
On arrival in the circular forecourt we walked around the collonade [sic] on the right side of court and up the right hand stairway before entering the Cathedral. At the top of those hundred or more steps we were shown into a large long room which was situated just off the main building and it was in this room that the Pope gave his daily audiences. When we went in many service personnel from many of the United Nations lined the roped corridor leading up to the Popes Throne. A few minutes later about fifty Swiss Guards marched in and stood at close intervals along the two red silken ropes. Then as the notes of noon boomed from a clock overhead all became silent when the doors at the end of the room opened and the Pope appeared being bourne on his chair along the roped passageway until he reached his Throne. The Pope spoke first in very good English and then in French followed by Italian. He then gave us all his Blessing and also blessed any article that anyone took up to Him before being bourn [sic] from the room. I had a seat upon a raised platform so I was able to see the whole scene quite clearly.
My one big regret was that we did not have time enough to go around St Peters itself but, that is a tour in itself. As it was 12.30 p.m. when we decended [sic] into the beautiful forecourt once more and we were felling half starved through not having anything to eat since the previous evening it was a case of necessity for us to get a meal before doing anything else that day. So we paid a visit to one of the R.A.F. clubs where we filled in a big hollow. By rights we should have left the city by that time as our passes for Rome had expired but as our S.W.O. had very conveniently stamped our written passes at both the top and the bottom of the paper and all of our writing was at the top it left the bottom half blank. So we cut the paper in half and on the bottom half Les wrote out a fresh pass
cont ……….
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for the following day and I forged the S.W.O’s signature. This last paragraph of mine may be a bit complicated to understand but if you look on the opposite page you will see what I mean.
That same afternoon we toured some of the ruins of ancient Rome including the “Amptheatre” [sic] where at one time Christians were thrown to the lions. We also saw Mousolinni’s [sic] big house and the balcony from which he used to shout and rave. At the time the building was being used to house an Italian Art Exhibition but we did not have time to pay it a visit. In the evening we saw a bit of the modern Rome when we toured many of the main streets all of which were well lit the same as all the well stocked shop windows. Then we went in one of the theatres and saw a variety revue, in which an Italian Film star sang. Most of the show was in Italian but bits of it was English. Anyway we could understand most of the [deleted] words [/deleted] [inserted] TURNS, [/inserted] until it came to a comic cross talk all and that was completely beyond us. We just had to sit there with straight faces whilst all the people around us roared with laughter. I bet we looked as funny as the comics.
From what we saw of the chorus, we could tell that the city of Rome did not possess a Lord Chamberlain. Next morning it was raining when we set out on our long journey back to Naples. For a long time, we stood on the pavement thumbing a lift beneath the shadow of the hundred upon hundreds of years old ruins of the Amptheatre, [sic] until an American van which was going all the way into Naples stopped to pick us up. We made very good time whilst travelling along the treacherous icebound roads. It snowed for most of the time during our trip and I could not keep warm at all. Although I had a blanket over my knees, I still could not feel my feet. The snow kept driving in sheets in through the back of the van. I do not know how the driver managed to see the road ahead. All the time as it was almost indistinguishable. We passed through the town of Santa Maria where I knew that Cyril was stationed but as the weather was so bad we decided to push on to Naples, as we might not have been able to get another lift later on that night. I intended to pay him a surprise visit the very next day. But as things turned out, I am forever sorry that I did not stop. Anyway when we arrived in Caserta we stopped for a short while and on getting out of the van I had to run and stamp up and down the road with tears in my eyes to try and get some circulation in my frozen feet.
I felt much better after the Americans had taken us both into their Red Cross Club as guests and had fed us up with doughnuts and hot coffee. It was nearly 2 p.m. when we said cheerio to them in the familiar Garribaldi Square of Naples.
After taking our time over a meal in the Kings Palace we went back to the R.A.F. Malcolm club to book our beds for that night. As soon as we gave our names to the reception desk on arriving at the Club, we were informed that a Sargent [sic] from the R.A.F. Special Investigation Branch had been asking for us continuously on the telephone and calling at the Club every so often to see if we were there for the past three days and that they had left a message saying that I was to call him up as soon as we came into the Club again. I immediately went to the phone and dialled the number given to me. On being put through to the Police Headquarters, I asked to speak to the Sargent, [sic] and was informed that he had not come in yet. I telephone on two further occasions during the following hour and a half only to receive the same reply. Finally, I asked them to ring me back as soon as he came in. I informed the desk that if a call came through for me they could locate me in the dining hall After sitting there for a restless and boring hour, I went upstairs to where [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] A [/inserted] dance was in progress in one of the big rooms, but I did not take much notice of the dancing or the music as in the back of mind visions had arisen of spending the night behind bars or under close arrest.
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In the dance we met two other chaps who were also on leave from our Squadron. They also told us that the police were looking for us but they could not get the information from the Sargent [sic] as to what he wanted us for. At the end of the dance, I was informed by the girl receptionist that the Sergent [sic] was waiting for me down in the dining hall. So down I went to find out the worst. He was quite a nice chap not at all like so many of the S.P’s. It turned out that [inserted] DURING [/inserted] the night of the day that we left for Rome thieves were caught stealing and on being chased they dropped an automatic agroscope and on the label attached to it was marked 267 Squadron and that Les and I were the only two fellows that had booked a bed in the club that night and who came from 267. But as we failed to sleep there and had not turned up during the two following days because there was no 267 lorry around after the theft, they thought that perhaps we had gone off in the lorry and had stolen. [inserted] IT. [/inserted]
However, matters were cleared up when I explained that we had both been up to Rome and had convinced him that we had no lorry, with us. I put forward the theory that perhaps the Squadrons weekly stores waggon van to Naples had called in athe [sic] and had started on its return trip to Barri not stopping in Naples for the night and that the Gyro must have been stolen off of the truck.
After finally telling the Sergent [sic] where [deleted] our visit was stationed [/deleted] [inserted] WE WERE STAYING [/inserted] he seemed satisfied. Anyway we heard no more about the incident. Next day it poured with rain incessantly so we were unable to get out to Santa Maria again to pay Cyril a visit. In the morning we went to a film show in the cinema of the Palace and then we had dinner there. Then we reposed in a nice easy chair and listened to an orchestral concert in the Ballroom before paying an afternoon visit to the Opera. The Grand San Carlo Opera House is situated next to the Palace. In peace time only the notibilities [sic] of the country were allowed to enter and witness the Operas etc performed there. Standing beneath the stone pillered [sic] canopy covering the pavement by the main entrance to the Opera House watching the cars, etc, drive up in the rain, the building did not look at all impressive. Its interior was just the reverse it was truly beautiful. The ceiling was painted with complete scenes of 101 colours. There are no balconies in the building the three sides of the theatre looking upon the stage is one mass of private boxes. Les and I had one of these boxes to ourselves and we felt like millionaires sitting there in a plush comfy seats and with all the gilt fittings around etc.
During our walk back to the club at the completion of the performance the rain turned into snow and on arrival at the club we looked more like a couple of snowmen than anything else. Next morning we set out to get back to Barri. We received first set back when we found out that the one and only road to Foggia across the mountains was blocked with snow drifts and it was not expected to be open to traffic until at least three days later. We than proceeded to the Garribaldi Railway Station and it was there that we received our second set back. The Railway Transport Officer informed us that the troops section of the train to Barri that night was completely booked up to its capacity.
On being told that there was not the slightest chance of getting on it when it left, we decided that as the weather was or looked too bad for flying, that Les should hitch hike up to the airport and get our passes signed there to say that we could not get back by air. [deleted] Here [/deleted] [inserted] THEN [/inserted] we would be in the clear if we arrived back at camp overdue. Whilst he went to the drome I sat on a seat on the square just outside the station and kept my eye on our kit. Les returned an hour later and informed me that if I had gone up to the drome with him we would have been on our way to Barri at that moment. It turned out that just as he arrived at the drome he ran into one of [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] OUR [/inserted] Squadron Pilots who was just about to take off for Barri in one of the Squadron aircraft. As I was back in Naples Les had to come back instead of just jumping into the aircraft. By that time it was definite that we would not get back to camp that night so we dumped our kit in the Palace and went to see a film show and then another show given by an R.A.F. Concert Party before going back to the club and spending an other night there.
cont …..
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[inserted] 125A. [/inserted]
[copy of the Army Welfare Newsletter]
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[map detailing the Welfare Facilities in Naples]
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Next morning we held another conference we were due back at Camp by midnight that same day so we had to work out some plan of action. We knew that travelling by road was impossible and that if we caught that days train from Naples we would not get back to camp until at the earliest, dinner time on the following day. So we decided to try the Airport together and hoped that one of our aircraft would land there and take off for home that same day. As we walked down the “Via Roma” it started to rain once again and after hitch hiking half of the way to Pamiglianno Airport a teriffic [sic] thunderstorm broke and the rain came down in torrents and just rushed down the streets and flooded them. As we stood in there in the doorway which we ran to for shelter from the rain our hopes diminished as it certainly was not flying weather. As soon as the rain eased a little we were out in the [inserted] ROADWAY [/inserted] thumbing another lift, this one took us along our route for another mile and a half. Then down came the rain once more and by the time we had reached shelter under an archway of a stone roadside farmhouse a little way up the road our clothes were soaked through. It was whilst we were standing beneath that archway that I discovered that our flying permits were dated for the previous day. But after a careful bit of forgery this little spot of trouble was eliminated.
As soon as it eased once more we pushed on and it was only drizzling with rain when we arrived at the airfields control tower,, [sic] where the loudspeakers were announcing the times and numbers etc of aircraft taking off for Algiers, Florence Marseiles [sic] etc.
As we made our through the passengers [inserted] ROOM [/inserted] where a bunch of people were waiting to be carried to many different corners of the globe we ran into another of our pilots and feeling as miserable as we did at the time we could have kissed him when he said that he had just come in from Cairo and was about to start for Barri as soon as the weather broke a bit and he had got [inserted] A [/inserted] further weather report from the control tower. The pilot then got our names and weight etc put on the manifest and we climbed on board the crew waggon and were driven out to the aircraft where they were still unloading crates of eggs.
We picked our way from the waggon and across the mud. I then took the locks off of the controls and the locking pins from the undercarriage before climbing aboard and closing the door of the aircraft. A few moments later, first one and then the other of the engins [sic] came to life and we taxied down to the runway, where after an engine check the pilot opened up the throttles and the engines roared still louder and the aircraft leaped forward gathering speed until up came the tail and in a few moments we found ourselves airborne and circling over Naples bidding the city goodbye.
As we looked out of one of the small side windows, we could see Mount Vesuvius to our right rearing up above the clouds. We had the aircraft to ourselves except for the crew and a few crates of eggs which were for our breakfasts during the following [deleted] four [/deleted] mornings. I did not like it at all when we circled round and round in between the mountains gaining height all the time so that we would be able to fly over the highest range. For quite a time we were flying blind through the clouds and mist and were unable to see anything outside the aircraft whatsoever. Then a little later on we occasionally caught a glimpse of the area beneath us. The mountainous countryside was covered with one complete blanket of snow and it all looked very desolate and bleak as well as peaceful.
I should have hated to have had to crash land on any of those valleys or into one of those mountains. Only a couple of weeks previously two M.P’s touring Italy disappeared whilst flying on that same route. I breathed a sigh of relief immediately we caught sight of the Adriatic coastline and were flying in perfectly clear weather once again. A few minutes later we were circling over familiar ground and we touched down on our home runway.
……..cont…..
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Forty five minutes after taking off. An hour previously we were worrying about being 18 hours overdue and there we were sitting in our cookhouse having dinner with 12 hours to go before our leave pass expired. I spent the following hour reading the mail that I found waiting for me on my bed when I walked into our room.
That same afternoon I saw our football team (the champions of the Southern Italy area) get beaten for the first time. So ended my weeks leave after travelling over 750 miles by bus tram, train, lorry, vans, car, air and even by horse and cart. On the following day it was [inserted] BACK [/inserted] to the usual routine once more. It was around about this time that a South African Dakota coming back from Yougoslavia [sic] one foggy night could not find our airfield although we could hear it circling overhead. Finally the sound of the engines receeded [sic] and the aircraft ran out of petrol and crashed into a field near the town of Altimura and all of the crew and all but one of the 24 passengers were killed. I could tell you a rather grisly story about this same incident but I will not as I do not want to make you feel sick. If you really want to hear about it just ask me to tell it to you.
On the 23rd of Jan it snowed so hard that after dinner all the ground crew on our Squadron had to help sweep the snow off the wings, and the tail units of the aircraft before they were able to take off on their mission of carrying Yugoslavians [inserted] TROOPS [/inserted] back to their own country to fight the [deleted] troops [/deleted] Germans, only this time they were well trained and equipped.
The 29th Jan was a very black day for us all. We were delivered a big bombshell when we were told that the Squadron had been posted to India and for the next few days everyone walked around looking very glum. That same evening the Corporal in charge of our gang held a farewell party to which I was invited. On the following day he started on his long journey back to England and his home in Reading, after completing 4 years overseas service.
During the following days the Squadron was in a turmoil. Those aircraft that only had a few hours flying to do before becoming due for Inspection were inspected. We were leaving all the fellows behind who had less than 3 months overseas service to do. Every day, lists kept coming in posting these chaps to different units all over Italy. In 3 days, three lists came in posting one chap to three different places, so you can see what a big muddle it all was. We spent the following Wednesday sorting out the technical equipment that we were going to take along with us [deleted] rough [/deleted] [inserted] WEIGH [/inserted]ing it. Then I had to pack my kit and hand one kit bag into stores as we were only allowed to take 100 lbs of kit each along with us on the aircraft. This weight also included our bed roll and small pack Then we had to weigh ourselves so that it could all go down on the manifest of the aircraft that we were to travel in. Also in the afternoon we had to change our money into Egyptian currency, after which we all had to go up to sick quarters and have a Yellow Fever and a Thyphus [sic] Booster Inoculation. Sick quarters also wanted to give me two others, in the same area but I finally convinced them that I did not feel like having them straight after the first two.
Next day, we spent marking and weighing more equipment and loading it on to different aircraft and I also helped to dismantle a crane that we were taking along with us. Incidentally during this operation two of us got hit on the heads when a section of the crane fell away. I was lucky only to receive a small bump on the head. That evening a big party was held in our canteen as there was large stocks of wine still left that had to be drunk or thrown away and you would not [deleted] ask [/deleted] [inserted] CATCH [/inserted] any 267 Squadron personnel [deleted] to [/deleted] throwing drink away. I went to bed early that night as I was thinking of the morrow so I missed most of the farewell party.
Next morning, the 2nd Feb we all received an early call at 4.20 am after getting the sleep out of our eyes we did our last minute packing before going down to breakfast. Then we bade farewell to the chaps in the room that we were leaving behind before carting all of the bags etc that made up our 100 lb of kit down the staircase at the bottom of which we loaded it all on to a waiting lorry. Then we loaded ourselves on and were driven down [deleted] on [/deleted] to the airfield. As we passed by the tail of each aircraft that were parked in a long line, we made out the number of it
cont ……
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[inserted] 128 [/inserted]
- 8 –
by the aid of a torchlight and shouted it out. If anyone on board was flying with that aircraft we stopped and dropped him and his kit off the lorry. On reaching Dakota FD920 “R” for Raymond I was dropped off and struggled with my kit ankle deep in the mud all the way to the aircrafts doorway. I was the first to arrive so I opened the door and placed the steps in position and climbed aboard and felt my way up the steps in the darkness until I bumped into the cockpit door. Then after a couple of unrepeatable words I opened the door and went into the cockpit and switched on all the lights inside the aircraft. Within a few more minutes more lorries went by in the darkness and more chaps came staggering across in the mud to 920. I helped them on with their kit and shouted out to the different lorries that it was 920. This went on until there were 15 of us along with three puppies in a basket. We spent the next half hour storing the kit and roping it down and fixing the [deleted] basket [/deleted] [inserted] BUCKET [/inserted] seats and making ourselves comfortable. We than [sic] ran up the engines to see what they were like as as [sic] they proved satisfactorily to us it put our minds at rest as our lives might have depended on them. Many of the chaps on board looked a bit bleary eyed which was a result of the party the night before and of having little sleep. A little later the crew arrived and after adjusting and fastening our safety belts we were all set and ready to begin our long trip to the Far East. We watched the first three fully loaded aircraft take off. They just managed to get airborne as they reached the end of the runway. Everyone looked at each other and then at the piles and piles of kit, but no one said a word although we all knew what every single person was thinking of whilst taxing [sic] to the runway when our turn to take off came.
After checking the engines the pilot swung the aircraft out into the centre of the runway and a few moments later the engines roared to life and we begun to gather speed and after what seemed an eternity up came the tail and on passing over the road at the end of the runway, we all breathed a sigh of relief and the atmosphere instead of remaining tense returned to normal once again and chaps began to talk once more as we carried on serenely banking to the left until we headed in a Southerly direction. It was then 7-10 a.m. Some of the fellows started to read books and four of them made up a card school to pass the time away whilst we were in the air. I contented myself by looking out of the side windows for the next hour seeing as much scenery of Southern Italy from the air as was possible. We flew over Taranto Harbour and on across the heel of Italy and said goodbye to Italy and its coastline at 8.15 a.m. and headed across the open sea. By that time we were all wearing Mae West Life Saving Jackets in case we had to land on the sea. As the only scenery below was acres of blank water, I started to read a book that I had bought along with me. It was 11.30 a.m. when we first sighted the coast line of Lybia and we crossed in a few minutes later at a point just west of Tobruk and we could see the town and harbour to the left of us. Apart from that there was nothing but sand, sand and more sand as far as the eye could see which from the height that we were flying must have been just on 50 miles or more [deleted] of [/deleted] it was a perfectly clear day and the sun was beating down upon the sand.
The only shade in this vast area of some 2500 sq miles of desert was made by the clouds as there were only a few small clouds about. Only a few small dark patched dulled the scorching sand beneath us. From the air we could clearly define the thousands of slit trenches and gun emplacements etc that at one time had been a part of Tobruk defence system whilst it had been besieged by the German and Italian armies.
First there was the outer ring of positions and then the inner defence ring. A little further out in the desert we could make out the positions held by the Germans throughout the battle for the Town. God knows how our troops stopped from going mad whilst living for months in that desolate and unchanging area.
cont …….
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[inserted] 129 [/inserted]
- 9 –
After flying inland for a few minutes we began to circle and lose height and we touched down on the sand runway of the El Adem airfield situated in the desert S.W of Tobruk at 11.50 a.m. After taxeing [sic] up alongside the two of the Squadrons aircraft which had landed before us the engines were switched off and we all stepped out on to the sand into the heat. Almost immediately crews of the staging post stationed on the airfield began to refuel our plane. Whilst the [inserted] PETROL [/inserted] bowsers were driving into position another [deleted] petrol [/deleted] vehicle drew up alongside of us which was the station bus.
After taking our seats we were driven to the control tower and waited whilst our pilot booked in and then on the very modern airways transit canteen. Here we were able to refresh ourselves by having a wash before entering a large well laid out carpeted dining hall. On seating ourselves at one of the tables, a four course meal was brought in to us in stages by Italian prisoner waiters. Then after having a couple of cups of tea we retired to the lounge for a short rest and a smoke before being taken back to the control tower so that our pilot could book out and then back to our aircraft.
As we climbed aboard the first of our aircraft was starting to taxi out and another three aircraft had arrived after us. As soon as we had taken out the control locks and undercarriage pins we closed the door and then the engines roared to life once more and off we went down to the commencement of the runway and then we soared up into the air like a bird and headed east on the next lap of our trip. Of course for the next three hours most of the scenery was nothing but blank sand. As we looked down we could see the shadow of our own aircraft winging its way across the sand thousands of feet below us. Then at intervals we could look out and see other of our aircraft [deleted] coming [/deleted] [inserted] CARRYING [/inserted] our friends, flying along to the side of us at the same height.
Once we flew into thick white clouds and then we climbed above them and when we looked below us it looked just like a big bed of white down and almost made me feel that I could step out of the aircraft on to it and walk on air. Whilst flying among light clouds, they looked like puffs of cotton wool floating past us. As I said before, their shadow created all sorts of patterns on the sand below. During the trip two of the puppies had to be fed with tinned milk by the aid of an improvised dummy. The other pup could lap it up for himself. It was just upon 5 p.m. when we looked upon the green belt surrounding Cairo. We had to circle for quite a while over the desert near by watching other aircraft land and take off and looking down upon the runways, hangers a dozen or more tented sites inter connected by Tarmac roads running from the Tarmac taxi track which in turn joined the system of runways. All this tarmac showed up vividly against the rest of the ground, which was completely compiled of golden sand. At least it looked golden from the air. We also circled a couple of times [deleted] of [/deleted] the Cairo and Alexandria road. Then it was our turn to land. First the undercarriage and then the flaps were lowered and as our speed slowed, we glided down and landed on the airport at Cairo (West).
From that moment, it was one big rush until darkness decended [sic] being driven to the South African living site, finding vacant space in a tent then being driven to the cookhouse for a meal and then back to the camp site once more. That same evening a few of my friends and myself walked to the canteen and spent a few hours drinking as much beer as we wanted eating many egg sandwiches and playing housey housey.
Next morning, I had to help with Minor Inspection on one of the aircraft that had become due for inspection which had to be completed before the aircraft was allowed to fly again. Other chaps had to carry out daily inspections on the other five aircraft. Then there was the re-fuelling party etc.
cont ……
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[inserted] 130 [/inserted]
- 10 –
After dinner I had a quick wash and then I hitch hiked the 12 miles into Cairo along the main Alex/Cairo road. I spent the rest of the day touring all the old haunts that I used to frequent when I was at Cairo previously. But I seemed to be a bit lonely that afternoon as I was not able to just pop round and call on Cyril as I had done so many times before. I had my two meals in the Victory Club and enjoyed once again the poached eggs and baked beans on toast, ice cream, salads, etc. The worse part of the day came when it was time for me to start back for camp and nothing would stop for me. After an hour of thumbing, I went to the airways bus station in the city and the attendant told me that I could travel on their bus that went up to the airport at 3 a.m. As that was not a bright outlook I tried hitch hiking once more only this seemed time I stood by the big bridge that [deleted] opens [/deleted] [inserted] SPANS [/inserted] the Nile river.
Almost immediately the driver of a Generals car pulled up for me. I sat back in the lovely comfortable car that just purred along and in no time we had arrived at the Mena House Hotel which was where I had to get out as the driver had to pick up the General as soon as he left me. I had another long wait in that spot beneath the shadow of the Great Pyramid before an Officer stopped and took me to the entrance of the airport. As the time was getting on, I decided that it would be quicker for me to cut across the sand to get to my tent. I knew that the camp was situated near a hanger with red danger light on top of it, a warning for low flying aircraft. I picked out one of the many red lights and set out towards it. But when I neared the hanger after walking for over twenty minutes, I discovered that it was the wrong one and there I was wandering around in the sand having completely lost my bearings.
I eventually found myself in the centre of the main of runways and then landed up in an Officer’s camp where they were able to put me on my correct course. So I set off once again across the sand and after I had arrived at our camp, and I had found my tent and had climbed between my blankets it was past 3 a.m. Was I thankful at being able to rest my feet and in no time I was sound asleep.
Next morning, we were driven to our aircraft which we ran up before being taken back to our tents once more. That same afternoon a party of us went into Cairo again only this time, it was on a lorry that we had borrowed from the S.A.A.F. On arrival in the city it was arranged that the driver should pick us up at 10.30 p.m. outside Groppies (the select Lyons of the East). I spent the afternoon touring the murky bazars in the Old Cairo and eating more good food. In the evening I went to one of the city’s most modern cinemas and saw a film show.
At 10.15 p.m. I made my way along the main road named Solomon [deleted] Pacha [/deleted] [inserted] PASHA [/inserted] towards Groppies. and on arrival there I found many of the other Squadron chaps but no lorry. 11.15 p.m arrived and still there was no sign of our lorry. By that time we were tired of walking up and down outside Lady Tedders Club and [inserted] SOME OF [/inserted] the fellows were getting a bit worried [deleted] some [/deleted] [inserted] AS HALF [/inserted] of them were due to take off at 1.30 a.m. less than 3 hours later. So, after a few more minutes of useless waiting we had to commandeer the airways bus to take us back to camp where we had supper in the dining hall before going to bed or rather only the chaps not taking off had the pleasure of going to bed. It turned out that our lorry had been waiting in the road on the opposite side of Groppies and had left at 10.30 p.m. with no more than a couple of chaps on board.
After breakfast next day we were taken out to R for Raymond once more and we stowed all of our kit and ourselves inside once more. This time we only had the two younger pups with us as we were unable to find the third one. It was hellish hot inside the fusalage [sic] whilst waiting to take off and the sweat poured from us whilst our soaked through clothes clung to us.
cont …….
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[inserted] 131 [/inserted]
- 11 –
We retracted our undercarriage at 8.10 a.m. and conditions soon changed, we were able to breath in nice clean fresh air once more and as we again, gained height it became cold once more and we had to put on our battle dress blouses as we passed over the Pyramids and the wide silver ribbon of the Nile, before we came to the end of the green belt and headed in a North Easterly direction across the Arabian Desert. After covering approximately 225 miles in a direct line we found ourselves over the Mediterranean coastline some where in Palestine and then we followed it for a little while before changing our course and heading inland once more travelling in another direct line which took us over the dead sea near Jerusalem on until we neared the border of South Eastern Syria. At that point we changed course once more and flew South Eastwards in another direct line. as 95% of this trip was over desert I did not spend much time looking out the windows behind me upon sand. I read a book for a short time and then fell off to sleep until someone in the aircraft shouted that he had caught sight of an airfield and sure enough we began to lose height and the wireless operator came in from the cockpit compartment and told us to take our seats and fasten our safety belts. It was 2.25 p.m. when we touched down and after a few small bumps finally ran along smoothly on the runway of Shieba Airport in Iraq. This was one of the hottest spots in the world at certain times of the year and we certainly felt the heat as soon as the aircraft came to a stop. The first thing we did was to book in at a small office where we were given a ticket that enabled us to obtain a free meal, at the airports transit canteen. Most of us were so hungry that we changed some of our money into fills, (Iraq currency) and bought a second meal for ourselves. Next we were taken by lorry to the domestic camp where we were directed to a brick built bungalow billet which was one of many built on the sand at that spot. After collecting blankets and having another meal in the cookhouse this time I had a wash and went straight to bed as we had to be up at 1. a.m.
Some of the chaps went to the camp cinema as there was a very good film on that evening. They certainly did not get much sleep as, no sooner had they got into bed, than it was time for them to get up. When we were called I got up with much reluctance as the bed on which I slept was the most comfortable one I had had since coming overseas.
It was dark and quite chilly when we were driven across the sand to our aircraft. As soon as we became airborne at 3.20 a.m. in the middle of the night, we untied our blanket rolls and put their contents on the floor turned out the aircraft lights and went to sleep. The next thing I knew was that we had landed and were taxying in the darkness towards a dispersal point. I never even felt the jolt as the wheels touched the ground.
After arousing myself I found out that it was 5.30 a.m. in the morning and that we were in Barrein Island in the Persian Gulf, just off the coast of Iran. We were driven straight to the cookhouse for breakfast and then back to our aircraft once more. During this intervening time it had become light and we discovered that we had caught up with the Squadron aircraft that had taken off 8 hours before us at Cairo West. We also retrieved our third puppy which had been lost and which had been brought along in one of the advanced aircraft.
I should think that one could easily have gone around the bend as we say, if they stayed on that Island for too long, what with the heat and flat outlook and apart from the airfield and a native village there was nothing else on that tropical desert island which almost becomes completely flooded over on certain occasions.
At 6.55 a.m. we were away again flying over the pale blue water of the Gulf and then on across Persia itself and its sereen [sic] desert countryside. As we looked down, thousands of feet below us we could clearly see the stone native villages mostly built beside a river which partly irrigated the nearby sandy soil so that a strip either side of the river became fertilized and and [sic] beyond these strips the earth became sand once again. We could also see [underlined] Manajantuque [/underlined] [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] MANY ANTIRUS [/inserted] hand made sailing craft on the waterways between the villages. Then a few hours later we arrived over the coastline of India and for a time we flew alongside it over the Indian ocean.
cont …….
[page break]
THE LAND
GEOGRAPHY
Burma is situated in Southeast Asia and is bordered on the north and northeast by China, on the east and southeast by Laos and Thailand, on the south by the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal and on the west by Bangladesh and India. The country covers an area of 678,580 square kilometres in the shape of a diamond, 920 kilometres from east to west and 2080 kilometres from north to south. It is a land of hills and valleys and is rimmed on the north, east and west by mountain ranges forming a giant horseshoe. Enclosed within this mountain barrier are the flatlands of Irrawaddy, Chindwin and Sittang River valleys where most of the country’s agricultural land population is concentrated.
CLIMATE
As the greater part of the country lies within the tropics, Burma has a tropical climate with three seasons: the rainy, the hot and the cold.
The rainy season is from mid-May to mid-October and the cold season from October to February when the temperature in the south may fall within the neighbourhood of 60oF (16oC). The hot season precedes the rains.
RACES
The people of Burma are of Mongoloid stock and are descended from three main branches: the Tibeto-Burman, the Mon-Khmer and the Thai-Chinese. The principal races are the Burmese, Shan, Kachin, Karen, Chin, Kayah, Mon and Rakhine. The population is 36.39 millions with an annual growth rate of 2 per cent.
RELIGION
Buddhism is the predominant religion and over 80 per cent of the population is Buddhist. Other religions are Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
THE CULTURE
Born of a land of plenty which is blessed with a favourable climate and inhabited by a happy and creative people, Burma’s culture on the whole is indigenous. It has preserved the traditions of close family ties, respect for elders, reverence for Buddhism and simple native dress. Buddhism and the natural wealth of the land have contributed much to the nature of Burmese culture.
This country’s charm springs from the ability of her people to be themselves, to enjoy to the fullest their traditional culture.
Festivals form the centre of Burmese social life and each month of the Burmese calendar has its own particular festive occasion. Thingyan or the water festival which falls around 13th April ushers in the Burmese New Year.
Kason of Buddha’s Day (in May) is a three-fold anniversary of the Buddha: the Day of his Birth, the Day of his Enlightenment and the Day of his Demise.
Full Moon Day of Waso (in July) commemorates Buddha’s first sermon and the beginning of Buddhist Lent.
Thadingyut or the Festival of lights marks the end of the Buddhist Lent (in October) when all the places are brilliantly illuminated.
Tazaungdaing also the Light Festival is held on the Full Moon Day of Tazaungmon (in November).
The Festival of the Phaung-Daw-Oo Pagoda in the Inle Lake is both pageantry and spectacular.
Taung Pyone Festival of Nats (Spirits) held near Mandalay in August is a joyous and light-hearted merry-making.
GATEWAY AND TOURIST CENTRES
Rangoon, the capital city, is the only gateway into Burma. Entry by overland route is not allowed. Tourists are advised to travel only to the main tourist centres of Pagan, Mandalay, Taunggyi and their vicinities as specified below and shown on the map.
Rangoon Area – Rangoon City proper and – Htaukkyant – Pegu – Syriam/Kyauktan (by steamer) – Twante (by steamer)
Pagan Area – Nyaung-Oo and Pagan proper as well as – Kyaukpadaung – Popa – Meiktila – Thazi
Mandalay Area – Mandalay City proper and – Sagaing – Amarupura – Ava – Mingung (by steamer) – Maymyo (Up to Pwekauk Waterfalls)
Taunggyi Area – Taunggyi City proper and – Nyaung Shwe – Inle Lake (Up to Phaungdaw Oo Pagoda) – Shwe Nyaung – Kalaw – Pindaya – Khaung-daing (Inle spa)
TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS
As there are some restricted areas in the country, it is advisable to consult the Information Counters of Tourist Burma before making arrangements to visit places outside the main tourist centres. Unless escorted by authorised Tour Guides, tourists who are found in places other than the areas stated above may be turned back to the nearest Tourist Centre by the local authorities concerned.
Tourists are also not allowed to travel overland by Coach and Taxis unless arrangements are made through Tourist Burma.
TRANSPORTATION
Tourists may travel to the main tourist centres either by plane or overland by train or car.
(i) Domestic Flights: The best way is to fly from Rangoon to the tourist centres of Pagan, Mandalay, and Taunggyi. BAC operates scheduled flights to the tourist centres and passengers are provided with free transfers between airports and hotels.
(ii) Rail Service: There are three regular Express Trains running daily between Rangoon and Mandalay which takes about 12 hours. For visitors to Pagan and Taunggyi there is a bus service at Thazi junction. Service Coupons for bus services are available at the Tourist Burma Counter at Thazi Station. Travelling time from Thazi to Pagan is about 4 hours and from Thazi to Taunggyi about 5 1/2 hours.
(iii) Bus Service: There are also regular bus services between Pagan and Mandalay; Pagan and Taunggyi; and Taunggyi and Mandalay. Service Coupons are available at all Tourist Burma Counters.
(iv) Registered Taxis: Registered taxis for tourists in the Rangoon area are available at Rangoon Airport, Hotels, YMCA and Tourist Burma Counters. Service Coupons are available at all Tourist Burma and Hotel Reception Counters. This includes all transfers from and to airports, as well as transportation arrangements between tourist centres.
(v) Steamer Service: There is a regular Steamer Service from Mandalay down the Irrawaddy River to Pagan/Nyaung-Oo. It is a 12-hour journey leaving Mandalay at 0530 hours and arriving at Nyaung-Oo/Pagan at 1700 hours the same day. This journey is not advisable during the dry season from March to May when the river gets shallow.
ACCOMMODATION
There are Hotels run by the Hotel and Tourist Corporation at all tourist centres. Tourists may stay either at these hotels or at Registered Guest Houses for which Service Coupons are available at Tourist Burma Counters.
GUIDE SERVICE
Apart from the guides employed by Tourist Burma, tourists may also arrange for the services of Registered Tour Guides. They are available, on request, at Tourist Burma and Hotel Reception Counters.
TOURS
The ideal period to visit Burma is from October through March when the weather is dry and cool. However, there is a likelihood of inconvenience and frustration in getting confirmed seats on flights and hotel rooms if you have made no pre-arrangements. We therefore advise you to make advance bookings for package tours either through your regular Travel Agent or directly to us.
SHOPPING
Export of antiques and archaeologically valuable items are prohitbited. [sic] As there is a customs restriction on export of souvenirs of a doubtful nature as well as in quantity, tourists are advised to purchase them only at the Diplomatic Stores and at the Souvenir Shops in each hotel. The vouchers obtained for such purchases on presentation to the Customs authorities at the Rangoon Airport will ensure that the articles will accompany you on your departure from Burma.
Only gems, jewelleries and silverware purchased at the Diplomatic Stores and Souvenir Shops at the Hotels are allowed to be taken out.
TOURIST INFORMATION
Tourist Burma, under the Hotel and Tourist Corporation, is the Sole Tour Operator responsible for all travel and tour arrangements. It handles both Package Tours and FITs through its head office in Rangoon as well as its branch offices in Pagan, Mandalay and Taunggyi. There are also Tourise Information Counters at the airports and railway stations at the main tourist centres.
Please contact any Tourist Burma Counter for any other information you may require. We want to be of assistance to you in order that your visit to our country will be a happy and memorable occasion.
CABLE: ENVOY [Tourist Burma crest] PHONE COUNTRY CODE (095) AREA CODE (01) 78376/75328/80321 [Tourist Burma address stamp]
[page break]
[deleted] X [/deleted] ROUTES FROM IMPHAL & AKYAB WHERE WE DROPPED SUPPLIES TO TROOPS
137 (A) SHOWS CHINGIT DROP ZONES & OPERATION AREAS.
X [symbol] 137 (B) SITES OF MY HOME AT AKYAB
144 A MAP OF INTEREST
[deleted] 154 (B) CLEARLY SHOW THE CHINGITS 4 OPERATIONAL [deleted] AREAS
154 (A) RETURN TO RANGOON
154 C HARBOUR BOMBED AREA.
- PRISON ROOFS SHOWING INMATES COMMENTS
154 D INTERESTING PHOTOS OF REOCCUPATION S55 RANGOON STATION OR WHAT WAS LEFT OF IT.
[symbol] 163.A. PHOTOS OF OUR RANGOON CAMP SITE.
164 (A) OUR FIRST AIRCRAFT TO RETURN TO AIRPORT
[symbol] 164 (B) MINGARLADON SURRENDER DETAILS
(C)
165 (A) ARIEL SCENES OF RANGOON AREA FROM MY DAKOTA (NOTE FEATHERED PROPELLA [sic])
166 (A) OUR CAMP CINEMA IN FLAMES
[symbol] 169 OUR DAKOTAS FLYING HORSE SQUNDERON [sic] PEGASUS.
169 B – MYSELF WORKING ON DAKOTA
170 B CHINATOWN RANGOON
[brackets] 171 A 172 B C 173 [/brackets] ALL GENERAL DIFFERENT VIEWS OF TOWN
174 A B GENERAL VIEWS OF SHEWEDAGON PAGODA
176 A. ME AGED 21
[symbol] 175 (B) MY PUPPY.
[page break]
177 (B) MORE ARIEL SNAPS OF RANGOON
[symbol] 177 (C) FESTIVAL OF WATER.
177(C) HISTORY OF OUR SQUADRON LAST 4 MONTHS BEFORE ARRIVAL AT RANGOON WE DROPPED 4.256 TONS OF SUPPIES [sic] TO OPERATIONAL AREAS
[brackets] 178 A 179 179 A [/brackets] JAPANESE OCCUPATION RUPEE NOTES
[symbol] 192 (A) VILLAGE NEXT TO OUR MINGALADON CAMP CHRISTMAS EVE 1945
[symbol] 194 (A) CHRISTMAS 1945 MENUS.
[symbol] 203 (A) INVITATION TO DANCE AT CIVIC HALL
[symbol] 203 (B) BALANCE SHEET FOR DANCE
[page break]
[map of Rangoon and surrounding area]
[map of Mingaladon base]
[page break]
[inserted] 131A.
[underlined] MY PAY BOOK SOUTH EAST ASIA AIR FORCES. [/underlined]
[copy of front page of paybook belonging to Raymond Barrett]
[underlined] NOTE. Seven shillings K DNY 35P [/underlined]
[underlined] ALSO LARGE PAY RISES. [/underlined] TO EIGHT SHILLINGS (i.e. 5P.) FOR GOOD CONDUCT
To - - 3 PENCE (i.e. APPROX 2P)
[underlined] FINALLY PAY [indecipherable word] AT END OF HOSTILITIES [/underlined] [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] [underlined] ONE [/underlined] SHILLING
[page break]
[inserted] 131A. [/inserted]
[underlined] MY PAYBOOK SOUTH EAST ASIA AIR FORCES [/underlined]
[copy of inside pages of Raymond Barrett’s paybook]
[duplicate notes from previous page]
[page break]
[inserted] 131 A [/inserted]
[underlined] MY PAYBOOK SOUTH EAST ASIA AIRFORCES [/underlined]
[copy of pages from Raymond Barrett’s paybook detailing his daily rates of pay and any deductions]
[duplicate notes from previous page]
[page break]
[copy of page from Raymond Barrett’s paybook detailing dates of cash payments received]
[duplicate of notes from previous pages]
[page break]
[copy of page from Raymond Barrett’s paybook]
[duplicate notes from previous pages]
[page break]
[duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] 131A [/inserted]
[copy of inside pages from Raymond Barrett’s paybook]
[duplicate notes from previous pages]
[page break]
[aerial photograph showing the Flying-Boat Base at Karachi]
[page break]
[inserted] 132 [/inserted]
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and then we headed eastwards and inland once again over country completely made up of sand hills. During this part of the trip, it became a bit bumpy as we kept dropping into air pockets. A little later we found ourselves circling over Muripur airport just outside Karachi and it was 2.40 p.m. when we touched down upon one of the wide concrete runways.
As soon as our pilot switched off the engines Indians natives entered the aircraft arrived with sprey [sic] guns and fumigated the place out with disinfectant. We decended [sic] half choking from the plane and were driven off to the customs office which we all went through in turn. First we had to give in our name which was ticked off against the manifest, then all photographs that we carried in our pockets were [deleted] covered. [inserted] CONSIDERED. [/inserted] Then our paybooks were checked to see if we had all received a Yellow Fever injection and then we were shown out through the rear of the building to where a lorry was waiting, loaded with all the kit from our aircraft. As soon as the first chap was through the customs he came around to the front of the building once more and took the two pups in the basket around to the back again and hid them beneath the kit on the lorry so that the customs could not take them away from us after bringing them along with us so far. The third pup went through smuggled beneath one of the chaps battle dress jackets. I often have wondered what would have happened if it had popped its head out just as the Officer asked Freddie if he had anything to declare and what the expression on the fellows face would have looked like. As soon as the last chap on our manifest came through we were counted into the lorry once again and were driven off to the nearest transit camp. Here we chose an E.P.I. tent (one between four fellows) and put our kit on the beds and went off to the cookhouse for something to eat. After the meal we hunted for and found the accounts section where we changed all of our money left over in various currencies of the different countries that we had landed in, into Indian Rupies. [sic] Next I hired one of the many natives that were hanging around offering their services and told him to make up my bed, erect my mosquito net and clean my shoes whilst I had a well needed shave and a lovely refreshing cold shower bath.
Six of us on getting dressed decided to pay the town a visit which was six miles away. On arrival at the main road by the entrance to the camp we found a number of taxies waiting. After finding out that the fare for the journey was quite reasonable we chose one and went speeding on our way passing by many camel trains and buffelo [sic] drawn carts all loaded to capicity. [sic] The outskirts of Karachi were very dirty, much the same as the suburbs of Cairo and even the centre of the town was not so very modern. Although my impression may be wrong, as darkness decended [sic] just after we arrived. During the evening we toured three of the main streets exploring the well stocked shops and roadside stalls etc. If we had the money [deleted] we [/deleted] [inserted] ONE [/inserted] would be bound to spend nearly all of it on [inserted] A [indecipherable word] [/inserted] the hundreds of lovely presents that were on sale. As we had very little cash between us we could not buy anything., and so we just had to be content with admiring the articles that we saw.
Before we had been in town very long the shops began to close so after we had eaten an egg and chips supper in the services canteen, we caught a taxi back to Muripur Airfield. Before getting into bed I discovered that I had just gone out to town in time as two of the fellows travelling on our aircraft got trapped into guarding and sleeping in the plane all night.
After breakfast next morning, we were taken out to the aircraft once more and ran [inserted] IT [/inserted] up and checked the engines before the aircrew turned up. A little later we were told that our take-off had been delayed for an hour. We passed this extra time away playing with the pups and throwing stones at the big hawks that kept hovering and gliding overhead and perching on nearby telephone poles and wires.
cont ……..
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INDIA
When you land in India, you will find almost everything – customs, character, dress, language and colour different. The very philosophy is different.
If your stay is to be both profitable and enjoyable, you will be very wise to spend some time in reading up on the country. There are certainly helpful books aboard the ship.
Practically the whole of the Peninsula is in the Empire. A few places remain in the hands of the Portuguese and the French. The peninsula is roughly 1,600,000 square miles in area, and the population about 340,000,000. Area and population correspond fairly closely to that of Europe, omitting Russia.
There is an even greater variety of climate and country. There are torrid, waterless deserts, such as that of Sind; flat moist tracts in Bengal, rolling wheatfields in the Punjab and United Provinces. The lower slopes of the mountain ranges are temperate and densely wooded, the peaks are in the eternal snows.
The constitution of India is intricate. The Indian States take up about one-third of the peninsula and a quarter of the population.
These states vary in size. Hyderabad and Kashmir are roughly
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equal in size to Great Britain. There are others which cover only a few square miles, but, whether big or little, internal affairs are their own, right being reserved to exercise such control over legislation as may be necessitated by Imperial interests.
The rulers of the States make their own laws and have their own officers, judges and troops, and may levy taxes.
The rulers are loyal to the Empire, and have given repeated demonstrations of their loyalty. Their personal generosity in the provision of means for prosecuting the war has been lavish.
Study of the map of India will make it evident that her coast line demands protection. The Royal Navy must still undertake the major part of this protection, but the ports are strongly defended from the land.
The chief avenues of approach by sea are by way of the Suez Canal or the Straits of Malacca.
Recent events in the progress of the war have brought these names into great prominence. The significance of the Canal and the Straits is now more fully appreciated; although there is an entrance to the Indian Ocean by way of the Straits of Ormuz from the Persian Gulf – the only other practical route from Britain to India is round the Cape.
From the land, access might be had through Siam and Burma, from China through Tiber, from Russia through Afghanistan, or by way of Persia (Iran).
The longest, and naturally the strongest, land frontier is the mountainous region stretching from Afghanistan to Burma, known as the Himalayas.
Roads across the main Himalayan range are little more than tracks, with passes at heights of between 12,000 and 19,000 feet, and for roughly 200 miles there is a desolate stretch which offers little support for the population.
The North-West Frontier runs roughly from Afghanistan down to Karachi. Not so strong naturally as the Himalayas, ‘The Frontier’ has been the gateway for the hordes of more than thirty invaders. The hills are not comparable in size to the Himalayas, nor do they
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run consistently, but are crossed by valleys, through which most of the invasions took place. Famous names are there, places whose fame has been hardly won: the Khyber and the Kurrum, leading to Kabul; the Tochi and the Gomal, leading to the Kabul-Kandahar road. The Khyber, best known, is the main trade route from Afghanistan to India.
The Bolan-Khojak route is the main gateway from Kandahar.
The history of India is long and fascinating. Great rulers have arisen, great causes have been won and lost; but it is impossible event to hint at an outline of that history in this booklet.
Alexander the Great invaded India in 327 B.C. and succeeded in reaching the sea by way of the Punjab and Sind. When he had withdrawn, the foundations of a great Empire were laid by Chandragupta Maurya, extended by his son and his famous grandson, Asoka, who made Buddhism a world religion. After Asoka died, the Empire crumbled, and Northern India was subjected to a number of invasions during the next 400 years.
Muhammedanism reached India in the eighth century A.D. during the wars of conquest, and Muhammedan rule lasted for some hundreds of years.
Vasco da Gama introduced Portuguese influence at the beginning of the sixteenth century; but the Portuguese failed to hold their position against Dutch and English opposition.
The English East India Company (1600 A.D.), was commercial in conception and intention; but from trade acquired political and military power, successfully defeating French competition. British rule can be said to have commenced with Clive’s arrival in 1765 as the Governor of Bengal.
That influence in India has not been retained without cost.
The price in blood has been high; the price in development has been great.
The Mutiny broke in 1857, and only after hard fighting was it suppressed, to be followed by an Act of Parliament which took all rights of administration from the East India Company, and vested them in the crown.
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Since then projects for the ‘Better Government of India’ (as the Act was called) have been many. It is to be anticipated that others will follow; but, until you have grasped all the implications in the political life of India it is unlikely that chance discussion will be very profitable.
There are eleven autonomous provinces and a Central Government in British India. The administrative control of the Central Government is vested in the Governor-General in Council.
The Government is responsible to the Secretary of State and to Parliament. In the legislative sphere, however, the central authority is the Indian legislature, which consists of two Chambers: the Legislative Assembly and the Council of State.
There are eleven major provinces and six Chief Commissioners’ Provinces. Some of the provinces have legislatures consisting of two chambers, others have a single chamber.
Chief Commissioners’ Provinces are under the administration of the Chief Commissioners, directly responsible to the Central Government. Provinces are divided into Divisions and subdivided into Districts.
As you know, there is a strong political movement which seeks a reorientation of the administration of the affairs of India. Signs of it will be evident; but you would be ill advised to take sides, or even to discuss the potentialities. The whole subject is receiving, and has for long received, the most careful and genuine consideration, and what, if any, changes are to be made will be determined by those fully competent to deal with the situation.
However, as to personal contact with the people of India, a great deal can be done by a considerate approach. It must be realised that they are in practically every respect different people.
Their social system is unlike ours. Caste and religious observance will present some pitfalls, which courtesy will largely overcome.
Religious observances should be treated with the greatest respect. For example, as the bull and the cow are sacred to all Hindus and Sikhs, the sight of their dressed flesh is offensive. To offer beef to them is a major affront.
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In many cases your kindness in offering certain things to the people of India may result in a polite refusal. This should not be taken as an offence; it is most frequently obedience to some tenet of their religion.
In the fighting forces you will find a strict observance of religion.
With the Brahmans, the highest caste of the Hindu, the observance is so strict that should the shadow, even, of a man not of his own caste fall across his food, that food must be thrown away.
Obviously, there is not space enough in this introduction to deal with all the details of religion, caste and distinction; but there will be ample advice on the spot, and the maintenance of good relations is one of the first essentials of efficient service.
There is a very large number of Muhammedans in India. There are approaching 100,000,000 of the faith, as precise and emphatic as any, an important body in the country that must be considered. In the section on Egypt and the Middle East will be found notes of guidance.
In the caste system, the priestly caste takes first place, the second is the soldier’s. He rightly considers himself to be worthy of respect.
Mutual respect – and the Indian will give respect where it is merited, particularly the fighting man – will add to the value of both British and Indian effort.
Indians are reserved, almost shy. At the same time they are persistent in the acquisition of knowledge. Knowing that they have an ancient and precise civilisation, yet aware of Western influence, the better educated realise that the growing change is not yet fundamental. Modification is accepted. You will find that a characteristic of the higher ranks of the Indians in military service. They are at once good guides to conduct and buffers against repercussions of unintended errors.
India is part of the Empire, and as such is playing a growing part in the war. The development of hostilities, subsequent to Japan’s participation on behalf of the Axis, has brought the sphere of active operations nearer to the Indian shores. There is therefore a greater threat. India herself, however, has a large army, and the Indian
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soldiers will most certainly give an excellent account of themselves,
The country has been generous in material gifts, in addition to which Indian troops have fought hard in many war zones. They have done brilliant work in the Middle East. They are active in the Far East also. Young men of good family have entered the R.A.F. both as pilots and to render service on the ground. Their contribution is an earnest of good-will.
It should be understood from the beginning, with real kindness and sympathy, that Indian personnel are quick to feel any lack of courtesy or good manners, either in their own people or in us.
They are proud of their culture and ceremonial politeness is a cherished institution. Stress is laid on the fine points of etiquette. Sensitive in the extreme, they react instantly to the attitude and behaviour of other people. They feel about their country as we feel about ours, their history is long, and dignity is almost a passion with them.
Offence, when it does come, generally arises from a faulty appreciation of this characteristic.
Much that is strange to us in their habits and customs is founded in long-standing ritual and strict ceremonial. It would be a pity were these cherished habits the cause of offence because we did not understand, or trouble to think. It is imperative that all service personnel dealing with a sensitive, loyal people should remember that the Indian Empire is great not only in size, but in importance.
If the opportunity comes to indulge in sport, such as shooting and fishing, try to get the advice of an older and more experienced sportsman. There are many things to learn. The ‘forbidden’ list for shooting is long. Respect taboos. Respect property, do not trample crops or cause other damage.
When on any shooting expedition be careful to follow out the regulations of the permit to the letter. There are many compulsory requirements, both service and civil.
The climate varies, as is to be expected in a country of such an area and differing altitudes; but the seasons roughly divide into three: the ‘cold weather,’ the ‘hot weather’ and the ‘rains’ or monsoons.
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The temperature begins to rise quickly in April. May is hot, and although greater heat may seem impossible, the temperature continues to rise. This is the time when those who can get away to the hills do so.
The monsoon breaks the heat, spreading over the country from about the middle of June, and has ceased by the middle of September. The damp period is followed by another spell of hot weather, but not so hot as the weather of May and June. Such variations in climate in a country with many diseases unknown in Great Britain, impose much greater burdens on the individual in the care of health and hygiene. The M.O. will probably give you advice. Follow it closely. It is because of the care and knowledge of the medical officers that the service mortality rate in India is so low, less than one in a thousand over the home rate.
The incidence of disease, however, should be considered. There are roughly 48 cases of malaria per 1,000 men per annum. Malaria can be prevented. The medical officers will tell you how. Follow the rules laid down, and keep on following them.
Be careful of all minor cuts and abrasions. Germs abound. Report these abrasions and cuts and have them treated. Treat boils with the greatest respect.
As regards venereal diseases, by all means talk to the Medical Officer, but remember that the best safeguard is a strict moral code. Intestinal disorders (such as diarrhoea, dysentery, enteric, etc.) are common. They are best avoided by scrupulous cleanliness. Don’t dodge inoculation, it is not clever; on the contrary, it is thoroughly foolish. Smallpox is a scourge in the country. Be vaccinated.
Hydrophobia is widespread. A dog-bit must on no account be ignored, whether by a domestic or by a pariah dog. Remember that it is almost as dangerous to be licked by an animal suffering from rabies as to be bitten. Wash all wounds thoroughly and go to the hospital for treatment.
Sunstroke and heat-stroke present dangers. The best preventives are: stay indoors during the heat of the day, and even on the shortest journeys wear a helmet. Avoid alcohol until after sundown, and keep the bowels open.
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Inoculation reduces the danger from typhoid, cholera and dysentery, but maintain a close watch on what you drink and eat.
Indian officers are well educated, and usually good sportsmen. They are eager to learn, and have acquisitive minds. They are persistent. Because of that persistence, they may tend to take up a little more time than can always conveniently be given. Such time, however, will be well spent. It will be an asset on the balance sheet of Empire. Any Indian who receives courtesy and consideration is likely to become a staunch ally to the individual and an advocate of our cause in his own circles.
Regarding servants, some points should be noted. The servant tries to give a pleasing, rather than an accurate answer. There is an ingrained habit of giving and taking bribes. A servant caught in some misdemeanour is almost certain to work on the sentiment of the accuser. Knowing that it is a serious offence for service personnel to offer violence to a native, he will try to rouse his accuser to anger in the hope that blows will follow.
It is an error to become familiar with servants, and a far greater error to allow them to become familiar in their manner with you. There is no need, however, to go to the other extreme and resort to bullying. Quiet dignity and scrupulous fairness will always win.
Be careful of firearms and ammunition, not only in their use, but in watchful safe custody. There are thieves around, and any firearm or ammunition is handsome plunder. Watch all your possessions.
Health is your greatest possession, and should be watched most closely. Be sure that whatever you drink is reliable. The fact that mineral waters or other drinks are bottled is not a guarantee of purity or suitability; many cases of enteric have been caused by them.
Contamination is easy, and everyone, especially newcomers, should be careful to avoid contact with sources of infection. In quarters it is easier to avoid contagion then when travelling ‘on your own.’ On leave, when journeys are being taken, it is essential to exercise the greatest care. The most general cause of illness is impure water, and no spring can be judged on sight. Water should always be boiled. So should milk.
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We were frightened that one might swoop down and carry one of the pups away as I have seen a hawk in the Middle East dive down on a chicken and carry it away in its beak. At 9.30 a.m. the aircrew arrived with a small luncheon hamper for each of us to eat during the next stage of our trip. It was 9.50 a.m. when we raced down the runway and took off and for the next six hours we flew in almost a direct line Eastwards across India. Soon after take off the semmi [sic] desert land soon changed into green paddy fields and dotted all over the place were lakes surrounded by nice green trees which formed themselves into tiny woods and in almost every one of these woods was situated [deleted] alternative fillage [/deleted] [inserted] A NATIVE VILLAGE [/inserted] and from the air we could pick out the rough track running across the paddy fields from one village to the next. It is very hard for me to be able to give you a good description of the scenery during this trip but, I can still picture almost every moment of it very clearly in the back of my mind.
As soon as we began to feel a bit peckish we issued out the cardboard hampers which contained sandwitches, [sic] cheese, cakes, sweets, and a banana and an orange. At 3.15 p.m. by our time I caught sight of an airstrip in the distance, the two runways formed themselves into a cross with circles at the four ends i.e. [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] as we circled around above them I could see the first of our aircraft to land parked in front of the control tower and the second one had just touched down and was taxing [sic] down the run way on its way to join the first. Then our turn came and the earth gradually seemed to come up to meet us and then a little later we found ourselves being directed alongside the other two aircraft in the parking area. The first thing that struck us was the teriffic [sic] heat and within a few moments of stepping out of the aircraft and down on to the grass we were sweating like pigs yet a few moments previously when we were high up in the sky, we all felt quite cold.
The airfield was a new one and was still being constructed when we arrived and within five minutes of us landing almost every native man woman and children that was helping to build the drome had gathered around us in their hundreds and stared open mouthed at our aircraft which were the first ones that had landed on their field at Bilaspur in the Central Provinces.
During the later days natives used to come from villages for miles around just to be able to get a nearby glimpse at the big flying bird. The first thing that we did after that six hours [inserted] OF [/inserted] flying was to put our watches forward to the correct time in the central Provinces, as the further that we travelled east the more time we lost. Incidentally on landing at Bilaspur we had completed 27 1/4 hours in the air since leaving Italy and had covered some 4,100 miles.
As we were being driven to the Domestic site a mile and a half away two more of our aircraft appeared overhead and began to circle in readiness for landing. The domestic site turned out to be quite a big village of oblong [deleted] back [/deleted] [inserted] BRICK [/inserted] bungalows with thatched roofs that formed canopy porchways at the front of the buildings. I should imagine that in post war years that Bilaspur will be a big military airfield as camp buildings etc were being built to a plan over a very large area.
Fourteen other chaps also chose the same building as myself for their home. One of the first things that we did on entering was to take off our battle dress and change into light Khaki clothing as it was so hot. It seemed funny that only a week previously, we were freezing in Italy and there we were a week later walking around wearing hardly any clothing and getting our skin burnt by the sun in a temperature of well over 100f.
cont ……..
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The puppies seemed to adjust themselves to the climate after a while. In one of the buildings, a chap had a pet monkey that he had brought with him all the way from Cairo. Everyone that travelled in the same aircraft as the monkey complained of bites and made uncomplimentary remarks about it. It appeared that during level flight, the monkey was quite happy, and calm but, as soon as the aircraft lost height the pressure in his ears caused him to go a little mad and he began to bite people.
During the next few days we were busy working on the aircraft as most of them had become due for some kind of inspection during our last trip. We had quite a trying time what with the heat and as we had no ladders to work with and only the few tools that we had brought along with us all the way from Italy. To enable us to be able to work on the tops of the engines we rigged up platforms with what empty barrels and bits of wood that we could find.
I spent half of my time off either resting on my bed or beneath the cool shower bath. Most evening we spent in the small canteen which was run by the Indians for their Government we used to be able to obtain some good suppers there [deleted] at intervals [/deleted] between the crack of dawn until late night, [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] AT INTERVALS BETWEEN [/inserted] the char and wad and fruit wallers would be around our billets so if we wanted it we could have tea in bed and even breakfast if we liked to buy it, as we often did as a couple of egg sandwitches [sic] etc saved us from getting up so early and having to walk to and from the cookhouse.
At mealtimes hundreds of big hawks used hover over the cookhouse and if we walked out of the building with any food on our plates, and did not keep our hands over it, all the time, the hawks would swoop down and take it off the plate before you could stop them.
As there was no electric lighting installed in our living buildings our only illumination that we had at night time was from the dozens of little coloured candles which we all used to buy from the canteen. We had to sleep beneath Mosquito nets as during the night all sorts of insects used to drop down from the thatched roof.
The reason given to us for our stay at Bilaspur was that we were there to get aclimatised. [sic] One day we were each issued out with wide brimmed bush hats, large flowing monsoon capes, light mosquito boots and heavy rubber mosquito boots also we were issued out with sheets which were considered quite a luxury in the R.A.F. The station was built in a very picturesque setting indeed, besides the station buildings there were also two native villagers [sic] made up of bamboo and mud huts in the area. Both were situated beside a large lake and anytime during the day when we walked by the lake we would see the native women either doing their dhobi (washing) at the water edge or bathing themselves in the lake while nearby children swam and the men would also be scrubbing their water buffalo in the same water. Then there would be teams of oxen drawing ancient type carts on which we attached 50 gallon tin barrels. At the lake side natives filled the barrels with water taken from the lake by buckets and as each team of oxen had their load completed they would be driven away by their driver and amble up the road at their own steady pace until they reached the airdrome buildings or billets etc that were still in the process of being built. There the native builders would use the water to mix with their cement. It generally took two oxen to draw one cart loaded with one 50 gallon barrel. The carts used to have massive thick wooden wheels attached to them and the whole affair used to creak as it went along.
Cont…….
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The Lakes were overshadowed by tall green trees that were inhabited with many glorious coloured birds as well as crows. On one part of the airfield, natives were levelling a large area of ground so as to make a parking ground that would accommodate a hundred or more large aircraft. The men just used to level the ground with spades that are vastly different to the British type the bases were right angles to the handles, so they were used like a pick. Then they used to put the excess soil into little wicker baskets and then the women and girls dressed in their coloured saries [sic] had to do all the work of carrying the full baskets on their heads to a point over a hundred yards away.
Out in the Far East, the women are no more than slaves to their husbands and are treated as such. They have to do everything that they are told without a word of complaint and yet, the men can hardly do anything wrong in the eyes of their fellow countrymen. Often one would see the native wife sitting crossed legged in the back of those crude carts whilst the husband sat at the front directing the oxen.
Now to back to the lakes, there was also a third one which was a small one and on its own away from the other two. At the end of it stood an ancient Indian Temple with marble steps leading down to the waters edge. As I stood looking upon that scene, for the first time, I felt that I was in another world and that the scene was a page or a picture from a story book.
On February 17th we were given a lecture by our C.O. who told us that the authorities had found out that we had done operations in the Mediterranean area and decided that we did not need acclimatising (little did they know the weather in Italy) and that we could start operations straight away in the Far Eastern theatre of war. Then he went on to say that our next move was to Imphal in the State of Manipur. I do not expect many civilians will remember the great siege of Imphal when the Japs cut off all of the escape routes of the main bulk of our armies in the Far East, and held them in a state of siege for a long while in the Imphal valley. The Japs were situated in the hills overlooking the valley and held the only road out of the valley.
At one time the Japs advanced within 3000 yards of the state capital town of Imphal and they also nearly captured the airfield that we were going to. All the reinforcements, food etc for our besieged armies had to be flown into them or dropped to them. The Imphal battle in my opinion was the greatest of the war. If those troops of ours had given in, the Japs would have had possession of the Eastern Gateway [inserted] IN [/inserted] to India and there would have been very few troops left to stop the Japs decending [sic] from Imphal down into the plains of central India. But our turning point of the Far Eastern War, broke through the ring held by the Japs and drove them back over the southern mountain range of the valley into Burma and kept them on the run southwards over the Chindwin river. These events were overshadowed by the war in Europe and the people in England were more interested in what was happening nearer their homes. So now that both wars were over, I hope that you will spare the time to read how hard these men of England fought in the Far East and the conditions that they had to live in and the hard task that they achieved at the time when 99% of Englands war material was being kept in Europe.
cont……
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So now is the time to read the two South East Asia Command Souvenier [sic] papers if they are attached as they will explain the whole of the war in South East Asia.
On Thursday 22nd February, we took off from Bilaspur on our journey to Imphal. We were so fully loaded that we only became airborne as we reached the last few yards of the runway. During our trip we flew across the state of Bengal but, as we flew along at such a great height, I was unable to distinguish any signs of animal life below.
As we approached the Imphal Valley, we were flying at a height of 10,000 feet, so as to enable the aircraft to pass over the 6,000 ft mountain range that formed the last natural barrier into Eastern India. The Rocky peaks looked treacherous as we passed over them and they only seemed to be a few feet beneath the aircraft and everytime that we fell into an air pocket my heart came up into my mouth. I am sure that we would have been lost forever if we had crashed in any of these jungle covered valleys or in any of the mountain sides.
Then suddenly 8,000 feet below our aircraft was the 20 mile wide flat valley in the centre of which was situated the two and a half mile long runway 2,000 feet above sea level. We had to do many circuits before we came down to a height of a few hundred feet and the runway grew larger all the time. Then we were able to see clearly the wrecks of burnt out and crashed air craft beside the runway. This did not cheer us up any and it was 1.30 p.m. when we finally touched down.
Here is a description of the scene that met my eyes when I stepped out of the aircraft. My surroundings were semmi [sic] tropical and the area was completely flat except for one fair size hill. [deleted] For [/deleted] miles approximately to my right reared the 6,000 ft mountains that we had just flown over and which the Japs planned to cross and invade India and ten miles approximately to my [deleted] right [/deleted] [inserted] LEFT [/inserted] reared another range of mountain that the Japs had stormed across like rats after their advance across the Chindwin River.
We were driven by lorry to our billets which were a mile and a half from the strip. Our homes this time were in what was called a “Basha”. It was a long hut and each housed about twenty fellows. The main skelington [sic] structure of each “Basha” was built from small tree trunks. The walls, window flaps, and doors were made of plaited cane, on bamboo frames and the roof was of thatch. We were each supplied with two long and two short bamboo poles and a piece of sacking and were told that we had to make our beds out of the material supplied. I made a frame up that was to my satisfaction after two hours of experimenting, sawing, sweating and cursing. The first few times that I made it up, it collapsed as soon as I lifted the contraption. After success at last I had to go out and search for some tin cans [inserted] ON WHICH [/inserted] to stand the frame. That search proved to be a long one before I found one old battered rusty round tin and one square one. I put one at each corner of the foot of the frame and I evened up the tins different sizes with the aid of a couple of bricks or rather a couple of broken bricks. Then came the problem of how to support the other two corners from the floor. I overcame this by turning the two ends of the long poles to the main structure of the “Basha” wall. My efforts on the whole were successful, but on a few occasions either the tins caved in during the night or the two short poles came out of position causing my bed to collapse and me to find myself in a tangle of bed clothes on the floor. Of course it caused much amusement among the other chaps. But I had the laugh when their turn came and their own beds gave way.
Cont…..
[page break][inserted] 137 [/inserted]
- 17 –
Our only real amusement at Imphals [sic] was the open air cinema possessed by [inserted] THE [/inserted] nearby Canadian D.C. Squadron. Illumination in our “Basha” was provided by paraffin burning hurricane lamps. One of the greatest dangers that we had to guard against was fire. A complete [deleted] book [/deleted] [inserted] BASHA [/inserted] only took 3-4 minutes to burn to the ground.
I remember one night whilst I was sitting up in a tree watching a film show, a fire broke out. First came the red glow and then leapt the flames, the glare of which lit up the trees around us and made their shadows dance across the ground. It made us watchers [deleted] on [/deleted] smile when the projectioned [sic] stop the film show for a moment and stood up and said “Will the person whose “Basha” is on fire please leave immediately” when a full minute later one chap sitting on a box beneath the tree that I was up in suddenly realised that he lived in the “Basha” [deleted] was [/deleted] burning and went rushing off to try and save his belongings. But it was hopeless to try and save anything from the blazing inferno as a “Basha” goes up quicker than a hayrick. As the bamboo caught alight, it cracked like rifle fire and it seemed that if the Basha was full of small arms ammunition.
On the following evening, our Squadron Sargents [sic] celebrated the opening of their new Mess on which they had [inserted] SPENT [/inserted] pounds and pounds brightening it up and making it look homely. It looked a bit too bright for all the Sargents [sic] when at 10. p.m. their “Basha” went up in flames. All that remained of it half an hour later was smouldering and charred remains. Then a few days later, another “Basha” caught alight in the Canadian camp and as there was a strong wind blowing at the time, it carried bits of burning straw on to the roof tops of other surrounding “Bashas” and in no time six of them were blazing and being ravished by fire along with a number of tents and two sets of field lavatories. Many more “Bashas” would have gone up in smoke if the chaps living in the other remaining huts had not climbed onto the roofs and promptly extinguished the burning straws as they settled on their roofs. Chaps everywhere were dragging kit bags, bedding etc, out into the nearby paddy fields. Some of the chaps who were at work at this time lost every item of kit every article that they possessed as a result of this fire caused perhaps by someone carelessly throwing away a lighted cigarette end, approximately 150 chaps found themselves temporarily homeless.
At nightime [sic] the red glare of fires could be [deleted] sun [/deleted] [inserted] SEEN [/inserted] dotted all over the mountain sides to either side of us denoting where many of the “Naga” native tribe villages were situated. One evening a few of us decided to have a look at the town so we hitch hiked the six miles into Imphal the capital town in the State of Manipur. We asked the driver of the vehicle that picked us up to stop and drop us off in the centre of the town. After a quarter of an hours driving we passed over a little brick bridge and a few moments later our conveyance stopped and the driver said “this is it”. We got out and looked around us seeing only a few wooden houses and huts. So I turned to the driver and asked him where the town was and he replied “You are in it”. This remark gave us quite a shock as we had been told that Imphal was a very nice place and being the state capital we expected to see something more than was around us.
The few wooden buildings consisted of the Police Station the Indian Government House, two very small ramshackle cinemas, an Officer’s shop, and a services club and a few other houses and shops. Of course surrounding this centre of the town, where the native population live in tin huts, “Basha” buildings etc, and from the air these huts etc, at a quick glance seemed to cover an area of several square miles.
The road between our camp and the town was made of long strips of bitumen coated hemp cloth. In 1941 there were very few even small roads in Northern Burmah [sic] or in this valley.
cont ………
[page break]
[inserted] 137A [/inserted]
[three maps of Burma]
THESE MAPS TELL THE STORY of the task in Burma. Above: From the limits of our withdrawal Wingate’s thrust of 1943 is probing Jap-held ground.
IN 1944 THE JAP [underlined] invaded India. [/underlined] Wingate’s airborne expedition and Stilwell’s push down the Ledo Road are also shown; our plans began to unfold.
[inserted] [symbol] OUR SUPPY [sic] ROUTES. [/inserted]
BY JANUARY of this year we were flooding back. The build-up was going ahead. We were ashore at Akyab; across the river above Mandalay
[page break]
[inserted] 137B. [/inserted]
DAKOTAS
“Oh, where are you going to, all you Dakotas,
With Lord Louis airlifts, above the green trees?”
“We are going to fetch you your biscuits and bully,
Your sardines and curry, rice, atta and cheese.”
“And where will you fetch it from, all you Dakotas,
I’ll ‘likh’ you a ‘chhitti’ while you are away”
“We fetch it from Chitters, Comilla and Dum-Dum –
Address us at Akyab, Rangoon or Magwe.”
“But if anything happened to all you Dakotas.
And suppose you were ‘pranged’ in the jungle afar?”
“then you’d have no soyas or slingers for khana.’
And you’d have no wads to eat with your ‘char’”
“Then I’ll pray for the fine weather for all you Dakotas.
For no monsoon rain. and head winds so high.”
“Oh monsoon and winds don’t bother Dakotas,
We’ve less hours on the ground than we have in the sky.”
“Then I’ll build a new airstrip for all you Dakotas,
With plenty of ‘homers’ to bring in your crew.”
“Oh, the air and the ground’s full of R/T already,
With Air from Sigs types bawling: ‘Speak up – you’re through.’”
“For the ‘rot’ you eat, and the hard tack you nibble,
The fags that you puff, and replacement of men,
They are brought to you hourly by all us Dakotas
And if anyone hinders our coming – Amen!”
E.C. DANIELS
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] 137B [/underlined] [/inserted]
[underlined] BURMA MARCH 1944 [/underlined]
[map detailing Japanese attacks]
[page break]
[inserted] 138 [/inserted]
- 18 –
The armies had to make their own roads as they advanced. The nearest railway to Imphal was on the other side of that 6000 ft high mountain range which is the Assam Bengal line. The Burmah [sic] railway system only ran Northwards as far as Mandalay, so that between Mandulay [sic] and Imphal was nothing but jungle, swamps, mountains and rivers.
Occasionally, of an evening we went into the town for a meal at the club then on to one of the cinemas as there was simply no where else to go. Half way to the town by the roadside was situated a small native bazaar and most of the things that the natives had displayed for sale on their stalls were hardly worth looking at. But it was pleasant walking between the lines of hundreds of lighted candles and lamps and through the open air vegetable markets etc, which consisted of native women sitting cross legged on the ground behind their little round wicker baskets containing their [inserted] WARES [/inserted] ranging from anything between potatoes like [deleted] wares [/deleted] marbles and dried up bananas and pineapples.
Now at that time the front line in South East Asia theatre of operations against the enemy was along the Irriwaddi river well north of Mandalay in Burmah [sic] where the Japs were on the defensive. As I said before, up until a couple of years previously there was not even a road in that part of the country and what rough tracks that they were they were washed away during the Monsoon seasons. As a result of this and as we did not hold any port in the country supplies would not get to the fighting man either by sea, road, or rail. That was where 267 and other aircraft Squadrons came in. Every day starting on the 1st of March, we supplied 15 aircraft, each carried out three sorties each day carrying 3 tons of supplies on each of the missions. Sometimes the aircraft landed on strips just behind the front line and which were still under shell fire and from Jap guns. Most of the strips were no more than clearings in the jungle. No aircraft were left on them at night as often Jap night patrols, would infiltrate back to the strips and do what sabotage that they could.
Fighter Squadrons patrolled over the front and straffed [sic] the Jap troops and well as as [sic] looking after our unarmed cargo carrying aircraft as they neared the front with their precious loads. Often our aircraft when circling to land had to fly over ground occupied by the enemy. Other of our aircraft dropped their 3 ton loads by parrachute [sic] to the forward patrols in areas where there were no landing strips. As well as food we flew in Jeeps, ammunition, light mobile guns etc. Often after our aircraft off, they would be diverted by wireless to a different destination because either the Japs had just retaken the strip that they were supposed to land at or because our troops had captured an enemy strip nearer to the front line or because news had just came through that the Japs had cut off and surrounded some of our troops in a certain area and to enable them to hold out until they were relieved they had to have supplies of arms and food dropped to them and if we had anything to do with it we saw that they got what they asked for as soon as possible.
It was a case of marvelous [sic] co-operation and liaison between the Army and the R.A.F. The army brought the supplies by lorry to the airfield & Indians and West African troops loaded the supplies into the aircraft as soon as they landed from their previous flight. So the scene at base from dawn until late night was as follows. The 15 aircraft were loaded during the night and just before dawn one after one of our aircraft would take off along with many aircraft from other Squadrons. The drome was never silent throughout the day time there was always the roar of engines to be heard either overhead or on the ground. The chaps working on the flights had to get up and see the aircraft off. They used to wake us up every morning as just after each one became airborne they passed over the camp. When we went down to work, we would see lined up in front of our disporsal, [sic] a strip which was a small runway leading off at a rightangle from the main one, a long string of lorries each loaded with 3 ton of supplies.
cont …..
[page break]
[inserted] 139 [/inserted]
- 19 –
Then a little later whilst we were working the aircraft that were due for inspection engine changes, etc, one by one the aircraft would appear like a spot in the air and fly towards the strip and begin to circle in readiness for landing. On reaching their destination the aircraft landed and were unloaded and took off as quickly as possible so that Jap fighters could have little chance of catching and straffing [sic] them whilst they were on the ground. On returning to Base all the Squadrons aircraft were mixed up and first one of one Squadron would land and then one from another and so on. As soon as one of our aircraft taxied into our dispersal and the pilot switched off his engines our fellows would jump up on the wings and the petrol bowser would draw up so that the chaps could refuel the aircraft. Another gang would rectify an [sic] minor snag and if anything serious was wrong that aircraft would be grounded another servicable [sic] one laid on for flying. Whilst all that was going on the crew would be having a cup of tea also as soon as the pilot shut off his engines the first lorry in that long line would draw away and drive up and back up to the doorway of the aircraft. [underlined] Note [/underlined] Whilst on operations we took the doors off the aircraft so that the supplies could be pushed out of the plane quite easily.
As soon as the troops had loaded each aircraft, and tied and roped the supplies down the fellows [deleted] of [/deleted] [inserted] IN [/inserted] the loading party reported to the crew and they in turn reported to the opps [sic] tent where they were told the destination for their load. Then off they went again and so it went on throughout the day until the 15th aircraft had returned from its third trip and the crews would be driven back to camp in the dark knowing that they had to go through the same proceedure [sic] two days later.
As soon as we could give the army the number of 15 servicable [sic] aircraft after flying for that day had finished they began to load up during the night ready for the next set of crews next morning. So that every day our Squadron lifted on an average of 135 tons. Our part of the job was to see that the engines of 15 aircraft were servicable [sic] every day. At that time we had just on thirty aircraft and at the rate they flew, every one of the thirty had to receive some type of inspection. On top of that, there were snags to work on and also engine changes. [inserted] ETC. [inserted]
[inserted] OTHER THAN AIRCREW [/inserted] Two men had to fly in each of the aircraft that went on supply dropping. As they neared their objective, they lined the supplies in the doorway. The aircraft would then circle and lose height over the dropping area and then fly across it at a height of approx. 50 feet. Whilst flying across, the pilot switched on the light that came on by the doorway. The moment that the light came on, the two chaps had to start pushing the supplies out as quickly as they possibly could and then as soon as the light went out they had to stop. So it went on and the pilot kept flying over the dropping area until he had an empty aircraft once again then he headed back for base and another load. Immediately he left the area the next aircraft would begin to discharge his cargo by parachute. So it was as that as much as possible went out whilst the red light was on. It was certainly hard work during those few secondds [sic] and a breath-taking job.
Officially, we were not allowed anytime off. But one out of our gang used to stay away from work every day so we got a day off each week. From what I have told you, you can see that the whole of our Burmah [sic] Army depended on the supplies brought in through the roof of the jungle. They even relied on us to take in their monthly beer ration. Without the Dakotas the army would not have been able to carry on but I can say quite truthfully that we never let them down on a single occasion. The Canadian and American Dakotas Squadrons each supplied different sectors of the front. It was whilst I was at Imphal that I received the most thrilling and fearful experience of my life. Many people have wondered what it must feel like when you think you are going to be killed. Well I have gone through that fearful experience so I know what it is like. It happened one day when I went up in an air test in an aircraft in which we had just carried out an engine change along with the CPL I/C of our gang and the Sargeant [sic] [deleted] s half [/deleted] [inserted] I/C [/inserted] of the ground crew. The crew of the aircraft were all Canadian fellows. We took off and cruised peacefully up and down the valley for just [inserted] ON [/inserted] an hour.
cont ….
[page break]
[inserted] 139A [/inserted]
[photograph of Burmese soldiers]
[page break]
[inserted] 140 [/inserted]
- 20 –
All three of us were sitting in the back of the aircraft looking out of the space where the doors had been taken off so that the supplies could be pushed out easily when suddenly without warning the aircraft (as we learned later) turned into an 85o bank and then went into a very steep dive. I could feel the pressure of the force of gravity pressing me down into the floor as we gathered speed. It was a good job that neither of us were standing by the doorway at that moment or we might have been flung out into space. As a D.C. 3 was never meant or built to do such steep banks and certainly not power dives,, we were momentarily thrown off our balance and we thought either a wing had dropped off or that the aircraft had gone out of control. The Corporal looked at me with such a scared expression on his white face which I shall never forget at the same time he threw himself flat on the floor of the aircraft with his hands braced behind his head ready for the crash. I must have looked just as bad as I certainly felt like it. We all knew what each other was thinking and that was that we were going to crash but no one uttered a word. I started to crawl along the floor towards the rear end of the aircraft as I knew that would be the safest spot to be in when a D.C. crashed. All I could see when I looked out of any of the windows was sky on both sides. The Sargeant [sic] stayed where he was not knowing what to do. Of course all this happened in a matter of a few seconds, but during those seconds, the whole of my previous life seemed to flash past in my mind. Then suddenly the pressure in my body relaxed as we pulled out of the dive and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we were once again flying along on even keel.
A few seconds later, the crews cabin door opened and the navigator grinning face appeared and we asked him what the hell had happened, to which he replied that the Pilot wanted to give us a thrill. At that moment we felt like murdering him but we all had a good laugh about it, when we were on terrafimma [sic] one more, but it certainly was not funny at the time. It was too much of a thrill for my liking.
By mid March we were dropping supplies over the outskirts of Mandalay whilst the Japs still held most of the shattered town. One day whilst we were in Imphal we were given a lecture by an Intelligence Officer and he told us that the 14th Army planned to take Rangoon before the Monsoon season commenced. Our most forward troops were then still well over 300 miles away from the city and still had miles and miles of dense [deleted] smoke [/deleted] [inserted] SNAKE [/inserted] infested jungle and swamps (some of the worlds worse country) to fight their way through inch by inch before reaching any clear and flat country whatsoever and on top of all this the Japs were fanatical fighters. The word surrender was unknown to them they either fought to death or committed suicide by hirri-kerri. [sic] More Japs were killed in the South east Asia area then [sic] on any other fighting front in the world. During the Burmah [sic] fighting, over 120,000 Japs were killed but prisoners only totalled a few hundred.
Once the port of Rangoon had been captured it meant that our troops fighting south of the city towards Siam could be supplied by road and would not have to rely solely on the transport aircraft for every single article that they required. The Supreme Allied Command South East Asia Command later told us that during the great advance on the port the D.C. Squadron carried twice the tonnage that they had planned for us to lift and that he had to risk tiring out the air and ground crews in making them work in all conditions night and day so the that troops would get their supplies to enable them to capture the golden prize of Rangoon. Another point why the city’s capture was so important to us was that as soon as it had been taken bigger tanks and guns more troops and supplies etc could pour into the port to enable us to built up a bigger and better fighting army during the monsoon period in readiness for a big advance into the Southern countries of Siam, French Indo China and the Malay States and it was impossible to build this force on such a big scale by air supply only.
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 140A[/inserted]
[newspaper clipping regarding the final phase of the war in the Far East.]
[page break]
[newspaper clipping showing photograph of a Dakota]
[close up photograph of a Dakota fuselage]
[photograph of airmen taking a wounded man from a Dakota]
[page break]
[inserted] 141 [/inserted]
- 21 –
On Friday the 22nd March I was told to pack my kit as I was to fly next day along with some of the Squadrons Technical Stores and take charge of it on landing at our new camp. I loaded my kit on three different aircraft before I decided finally which aircraft was to be loaded with the stores. As I was due to take off at dawn, I decided to sleep in the aircraft throughout the night. I arrived on the airfield at 6.30 p.m. just as it was getting dark. I have never known an evening to drag so, I spent most of the time up until 10 p.m. watching the Indians load the other aircraft with supplies that were take them or drop them in the forward area next morning.
At 10 p.m. I returned to my own aircraft the front of which was loaded up with 5 gallon tins of dope and on either side of the fuselage were tied spare wheels, rudders, airlocks and lots of the stores leaving me only a tiny corridor at the rear of the aircraft near the open doorway in which to put down my blankets. After undressing, I got between them and tried to sleep but every time I began to doze, a big mosquito started to circle above my head and kept zooming near my ear as I lay on my side. This of course kept me awake and every now and then, I would sleepily but viciously strike out at them. I do not think I even caught a single one and I bet that they laughed at me as they dodged away each time. I put up with them for a couple of hours but by that time they had nearly driven me mad and I felt exhausted through lack of sleep. I could stand their buzzing no longer so I got up and unpacked my kit in the dark until I found my supply of anti mosquito cream and covered myself with it. I then got my head down once more and to my delight I found that the mosquitos would not venture near me. I laughed at them before I fell off to sleep. So all went well for a little while and then it had to start raining. The raindrops hitting the metal body work of the aircraft magnified the sound of the storm a hundred fold and so keep me awake. Then to crown it all, a teriffic [sic] wind came up and drove the sheets of rain through the doorway onto my blankets. I got up and drew my blankets as far up the aircraft as it was possible in that narrow corridor between the stores. After a while, I fell off to sleep again after getting used to the sound of the falling rain only to wake later to find that my feet and kit were wet through and the rain was still driving in for all it was worth. I felt so fed up that I resigned myself to my fate as I could not move anywhere else and when I woke up next I found that it was dawn and the aircraft loaded with supplies were taking off but there was still no sign of the crew for my aircraft.
8. a.m. arrived and the other chaps on the Squadron began to turn up for work. It was 10. a.m. before I found out from the Operations tent that we were waiting for our new C.O. Wing Commander Hillary D.F.C. & D.F.M. to turn up as he was taking the aircraft up for his first trip with our Squadron. At 11.30 a.m. the navigator, wireless operator and his second pilot turned up followed a little later by the C.O. and it was 11.45 a.m. before we left the ground and the Imphal Valley behind us and began to wing our way over some of the dense mountainous jungle of Burmah [sic] between the Chindwin and Irriwaddi rivers. I was then able to see for myself the type of country that the 14th Army had to put up with and exist in. I admired their guts in [deleted] what [/deleted] [inserted] THE TASK [/inserted] they were carrying out. I must confess that I felt so tired as a result of my previous wakeful night that I slept throughout most of the trip. I knew it was jolly cold and bumpy as we flew over the mist covered mountains. On reaching our objective I found myself fully awake as we lost height in preparation for landing. I felt it get warmer as we circled around. I looked beneath us upon Akyab Island just off the coast of Southern Burmah, [sic] actually during the wet season it was an island and in the dry one the place was a part of the main land.
cont…. …
[page break]
[inserted] 141A [/inserted]
[newspaper clippings with aerial photograph of the Port of Akyab]
[newspaper clipping of the capture of the Port of Akyab]
[newspaper clipping with photograph of landing craft at Akyab]
[page break]
[photograph of hangar]
[underlined] OUR HANGER AT AKYAB [/underlined]
[photograph of man on beach]
[underlined] AKYAB BEACH [/underlined]
[photograph of cocount trees on beach]
[underlined] COCONUT GROVE AKYAB [/underlined]
CO’S TENT
SITE OF OUR TENT.
[symbol] ROAD BEHIND CAMP AT COCONUT TREE GROVE]
[photograph of palm trees and road]
WHICH [indecipherable word] USED TO RUN ACROSS.
[page break]
[inserted] 142 [/inserted]
- 22 –
It was 2 p.m. when we touched down and taxied off the runway. As soon as the pilot switched off the engines, a lorry drew up to the doorway of the aircraft and whilst the stores were being loaded onto it. I checked the aircraft over for the crew so that it would be ready for their return trip to Imphal that same afternoon. I then clambered aboard the lorry along with crew and we were taken along a very bumpy road to the next [inserted] DOOR [/inserted] runway which was to ours as soon as the natives had completed flattening out the paddy fields and the small bumps that separated each of them. On arrival at this flat piece of dry hard ground stretching for approximately 1 1/2 miles by a quarter of a mile width. In one little spot in this wilderness, I caught sight of half a dozen tents in the far distance. On drawing to a stop alongside them I jumped from the lorry and took off my kit. It was here that I joined the Squadrons advance party which was made up of four officers and sixteen men. The first thing that I did was to find the temporary rigged up cookhouse and get some thing to eat as I had had nothing since 4 p.m. the previous afternoon, and I was feeling famished. I then proceeded to search around the small motor transport section for a couple of 50 gall barrels on which to erect my bed on. Up until then the advance party had only received 6 small tents from Imphal but you could not move for tent poles they had sent hundreds of them down. I bought at least 50 along with me. As a result of this tent shortage, I had to sleep out in the open air. Next morning I was awoken by dew drops dripping through my mosquito net and on to my nose. For the next few days we lived like Lords as we had tons of rations and because the Officers had to work, eat and live among us.
After breakfast on the first day, we split up into parties. Some worked on digging trenches and latrines, others on digging 20 ft deep water wells so that we could get hold of water to wash ourselves with. I spent the morning getting the stores in some semblance of order. In the afternoon a party of us volunteered to fetch the cooks some firewood. So armed with picks, axes and choppers, we set out in a lorry and our excursion took us into what was left of the town of Akyab which consisted of just a few oriental houses and a few small gold topped pagodas. We procured our load of fire wood from the remains of the hundreds of bombed buildings. IN peace time before the Japs arrived, Akyab was quite thickly populated and was the holiday resort of Burmah. [sic] But at the time, we were there, most of the population had still not ventured from out of the hills into which they had fled from the Japs. Akyab island was retaken by our forces invading it from the sea on their second attempt when they met with little Jap opposition but on their first attempt they received heavy casualties and had to withdraw. Whilst we were at Akyab there were still hundreds of Japs in the surrounding country. Our troops never bothered with them so long as they did not cause trouble, they just left them out in the jungle to starve if they did not want to give theirselves [sic] up.
Most of the roads on the island, or rather it is an insult to call them roads except those in the town were hardly more than cart tracks full of pot holes. Everytime I went anywhere on a waggon, I risked my neck as any moment the vehicle was liable to turn over and that is not exaggerating. I used to dread travelling and on top of that it was most uncomfortable, as being so tall I could not stand up straight in a covered lorry and everytime we hit a bumpy part of the road or a hole, I used to hit my head on the iron cross bars.
As the roads were full of bumps and holes you can guess how I felt after a long journey. Then during the dry season, the sandy dust from the ground used to fill the covered vehicles as we went along and nearly suffocated the passengers at times. The best piece of road on the island was a double track line of paving stones which ran for about a mile across the paddy fields halfway between the town and our air strip. Alongside this track were quite a few wreckages of Japanese aircraft. On my second night at Akyab we were each issued out with a months beer ration which one of our officers had managed to wangle for the sixteen of us. A party was just getting nicely under way beneath the light from many hurricane lamps and we were in the middle of a sing song when we heard the sound of a motor cycle racing across the wide area of flat open ground.
con…..
[page break]
[inserted] 142A [/inserted]
[photograph of boats on the sea heading towards the harbour at Akyab]
[aerial photograph of the Port of Akyab]
[photograph of Wing Commander J.B.G. Bradly being greeted by the natives of Akyab]
[page break]
[inserted] 143 [/inserted]
23
which was to be our run-way. A few moments later a despatch rider came dashing up to us and informed us that an alert was on. We extinguished the lamps and sat drinking our [deleted] best [/deleted] beer, out in the moonlight straining our ears at the same time. About 15 minutes later we used the trenches that the chaps had been digging that morning when we heard Jap aircraft circling quite low above the Island. One came very near to our strip and we were relieved when we heard it hhead [sic] away in another direction away from the drome. I am sure that if it had flown overhead, we would have been able to have seen it quite clearly as it was quite light.
Everything around us was bathed in a misty silvery moonlight. The moonlight and the sunset were two of the very few beautiful things in Burmah, [sic] both at times were quite a breathtaking spectical. [sic] A few moments later we heard the sound of bombs exploding in the dock area. Almost immediately the guns on the sea shore and those of the ships anchored out in the harbour opened up and we saw quite a firework display during the next 45 minutes. Then suddenly all became quiet once more and one could have heard a pin drop during the next few minutes.
Then a little later we ventured from our holes like rabbits and resumed our party once more.
On the following day we learned that, on the previous nights raid the Japs had hit the hospital camp and the ration store for the island killing two persons. Most of the bombs fell amongst trees and bushy ground or in the harbour causing very little damage. That morning we spent unloading more stores from our aircraft as they landed in the other strip and saw them off once more. Also that same morning, our own strip was christened when an american [sic] lightening aircraft landed on it whilst the natives were still working levelling out bumps at one end of it. The Pilots excuse for landing was that he had just come back from taking reconissance [sic] photographs over Bancock [sic] and as he could not get down on the nextdoor [sic] strip and as he was also short of petrol, he landed on ours. His excuse was a very bad one as when I looked in the petrol tanks, I found that there was plenty of fuel left in them. However, I said nothing and after topping up his tanks I watched him make a bumpy take off and then circle and land on the serviceble [sic] strip.
As none of our aircraft was expected to arrive during the afternoon of that day, we decided to go swimming. Our journey to the beach was one of the most hair raising rides that I have ever been on. It took us across rough fields, up down and over slopes, hills banks and dips. As we neared the North end of the Island, the sea, the ground became more and more sandy until our lorry got bogged in it up to its axles. We walked the rest of the way to the seashore and after undressing most of us went into the water in the nude and had a good time. On coming out we sat for a while in the sun on the same sandy beach that only a short while before had been stormed by our troops in the invasion of the island. Twice more we became bogged in the sand during our return journey back to the strip. We all had to get off and push as the wheels spun round trying to get a grip they sent up clouds of dust that smothered us. We arrived back at camp far more dirtier than we were when we set out.
Sometimes on my day off I used to go in the sea by the town and although the beach there was quite nice, the place was spoilt by the sea having a very strong under current which used to carry everyone hundreds of yards away from the spot where they started swimming and there was a great risk of being dashed against the nearby rocks. For all that, I would not go on that hectic journey to the north of the again. [sic]
cont……
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[inserted] 144 [/inserted]
- 24 –
Near to our strip was a native village made up completely of Basha’s also nearby were many pools in which we often saw Water Buffalos bathing. Then there was a river in which some of the chaps used to swim.
For the following few days we were all kept busy erecting the tents that began to arrive at our aircraft so that all would be ready for the rest of the Squadron personnel when they arrived. On most evenings we had a jeep to take us to a film show at the American camp on the other strip and to bring us back again when the show was over. All these good times ended on the 28th of the month when our strip was finally completed and put servicable [sic] and the main party of the Squadron chaps began to arrive. It was then back to the old rations, queueing for meals and an [underlined] old [/underlined] lorry to take us to the cinema etc. On the 29th my other three pals and the pup arrived and we all shared and lived in the same tent. Our only illumination was from a couple of hurricane lamps, when we could get the necessary paraffin for them. We built a little table in the centre of the tent on which we played cards of an evening when there was nothing else to do. We used to play bridge so much that I began to dream that I was playing it in my sleep, so I had to give the game up for a while. I used to get some wonderful hands in my sleep and rotten ones when I was playing.
About twice a week on average, I paid a visit to the nearby [inserted] OPEN AIR [/inserted] cinema but when I went it usually rained or the projector broke down or the sound or lighting failed. By that time the area had become quite a colony of hundreds of tents of all sizes a bit different to when I first arrived there. Our one blessing was that we could just go out of the tent and walk a few yards and we were at work. Our meals were not so good when the clouds of dust kicked up by the slip stream of aircraft taking off or running up blew into our dining hall which was three large marqueus [sic] joined together and on to our food. As I said before our domestic site was situated right beside the runway, as it was, there was a continuous haze over the area all day long caused by the dust and at times we used to breathe in dust and air. A pipeline ran to the strip from the sea and alongside the run way and all night and day and every day in fact every minute of the 24 hours sea water was pumped through this line and then through hoses attached to it at intervals along the strip. Indian soldiers used to work in shifts continuously on holding the hoses and directing the spray from them over the whole of the runway. But for this a certain amount of dust and a good amount too used to be kicked up. The heat used to get teriffic [sic] during the day. This spraying had to be done to keep the drome servicable [sic] and if it had been stopped for 24 hours after one aircraft had taken off it would have taken the following 1/4 hour for the dust to clear enough for the next pilot so [sic] see clearly enought [sic] to take off.
As time was vital and aircraft were going off and landing every minute of the day. So long as I was able to get my bath each evening after finishing work I did not mind the dust covering me or how greasy or oily I got during the day. The four of us in our tent dug our own well just outside the tent. As a result of this we had our own supply of water. If the chaps used the other wells too much they used to dry up so we never had the worry of going short ourselves. My bath consisted of a 50 gall drum cut in half.
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[inserted] 144A [/inserted]
[map of Burma showing the 14th Army’s progress in the taking of Rangoon]
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[photograph showing Japanese soldiers in the water being bombed by aircraft]
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[inserted] 146 [/inserted]
[underlined] MY OVERSEAS SERVICE PART 6 [/underlined] R. BARRETT
As at this time we possessed well over 30 aircraft and were doing so much flying and were also short of ground crew, the aircraft came in for inspection very much quicker. As we could not afford to let the work pile up in anyway and for weeks we were working in temperatures of well over 100o each day. Often we had to all through the night as well to enable one more aircraft to carry a further 9 ton of supplies to the Army during the following day.
On many occasions I [deleted] have [/deleted] worked continuously for 36 hours only stopping for meals. After finishing I found it almost impossible to sleep during the day as it was so hot. I just used to lie on my bed and perspire.
During the first few weeks at the strip our troops had captured Mandalay and had advanced southwards to capture [deleted] Meihteila [/deleted] [inserted] [deleted] MTITKTTWA [/deleted] MEIKTILA. [/inserted] and it was there that the 14th Army began to build up a big base ready for their 250 mile advance down to Rangoon. Consequently 95 out of every 100 aircraft that took off from our strip each day were on the [underlined] Meitkeila [/underlined] trip. This job went on for so long [inserted] WE THOUGHT [/inserted] that the attack would never begin, and if it did we thought that the capture of Rangoon before the Monsoons hit Burma would be nothing short of a miracle.
It was around about this time that the [inserted] OTHER AIRMAN FROM [/inserted] Slough [deleted] chap [/deleted] on the Squadron met his [deleted] other [/deleted] Father who was an officer in the R.A.F. He was stationed only a few miles from us and on one occasion told his son that a big attack was due to commence against the Japs at any moment. A few days later, a large map of Burma appeared in our dining Marquee with the front line marked on it. That same night a Squadron impromtue [sic] concert and sing song was held in the camp in the open air. During this concert our Intelligence Officer told us that the long awaited push had started and so that we would know what was going on he said that he would bring the front line up to date each day on our map and also state how many sorties that our Squadron had carried out and the weight of supplies flown to the front by the Squadron aircraft.
They proved to be quite a success but then anything was a success that passed an evening away quickly. Incidentally, those concerts that I spoke of turned out to be a weekly affair. The airmen sargents [sic] and Officers gave one an alternate Wednesday nights. We had a marquee on the camp which acted as our recreation room and it contained of all things a weight lifting outfit. Anyone that had energy to spare during those days was a [deleted] morel [/deleted] [inserted] MARVEL [/inserted] but there were some crazy chaps who used to enjoy lifting 150 or more lbs of weights on a bar above their heads half a dozen or more times.
The nights seemed to drag so that often I would go to bed as there was nothing else to do, and because I was fed up. When I used to have to work late, no matter what time I finished, I always had my bath. Even it was 3 a.m. you could see me throwing my bucket into the well and on drawing it pour it into my home made bath. It was lovely and refreshing to sit in the cool water and in the nude beneath the brilliant moonlight before getting between my white sheets. I would feel so utterly exhausted and dog tired after such a long day I would fall off to sleep immediately.
During the daytime it was so warm that I never used to wear anything more than a pair of shorts (for modesty) and plimsoles (to save my feet from getting burned on the hot soil) and a hat (to save myself from getting sunstroke). Even these three items were too much for my liking.
cont….
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[inserted] 147 [/inserted]
- 2 –
The Squadron’s consumption of lemon squash and lime juice cordial was teriffic [sic] in those days. At one time it was so hot during the afternoons that the regular working hours were changed to 6 a.m. – 1.30 p.m. from 4-p.m. until 6.30 p.m. but we still had to work nearly every afternoon so as to finish an aircraft off. This change of hours was only another way of getting more work out of us.
I never used to go to the w.c. during the day because if I had I would have blistered my bottom every day. Our toilets were dug out in the fields and the seats of these merely consisted of sunken 50 gall petrol tins with a square hole cut in the top of them. The tin used to get red hot after the sun had been up for a couple of hours.
Now to go back to the big attack which gradually gained momentom [sic] day by day. From the very first day that it opened up and as soon as our troops began to advance southwards our Squadrons job was to drop supplies to the forward fighting units which began to push down the Mandalay-Rangoon road and railway. These, units consisted mostly of the British 2nd Division. If you look at the map of the campaign, you will see the route that the 2nd Division took.
The Japs were taken by complete surprise, at times our aircraft on arrival at dawn over a clearing where our forwards troops were reported to be the night before, found nothing there. They had to follow the road or railway track south until they found our troops beneath them and were given the arranged dropping signal.
You people at home received delayed news in case our troops received any setbacks etc. When the news on the wireless gave out that our advanced units were 180 miles from Rangoon, the army were actually only 75 miles from the city, and when the wireless said 100 miles, it was really 30 and so it differed day by day both figures getting smaller and smaller.
Life began to get very monotonous for us chaps. It was just work, sweat and very little sleep for everyone during those weeks. But I still bet we were far better off than those chaps down in the front line and we all used to think they rely completely on us so the job we were doing was well worth while and that in a way their advance was partly ours.
One of the 14th Army jobs was to capture the home of the deadliest snake and that was King cobras mountain. Actually our troops encircled it and left the Japs who wanted to stay inside the circle to be bitten to death. I was told that they feared the snakes far more than they did our advancing forces.
During the month of April each day one of the gang took an unofficial day off once more as that was the only way that we could get time in which to wash our clothes etc. During some of my days off, I had a busy time keeping out of sight and dodging the Sargent [sic] in charge of our section.
On a few occasions the Squadrons football team managed to get a couple of hours off in which to play a match but it generally turned out that I had to work at the time that the matches were being played. One match did fall on one of my unofficial days off so I was able to go and watch it, but as usual, something happened when I went out somewhere. This time the lorry on which I was travelling conked out just as we were going across the end of the runway and whilst we got off to start pushing it an aircraft came in to land and passed over us.
cont…..
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[inserted] 147 [/inserted]
[underlined] Britain’s Day of Rejoicing – 7th May 1945 VE-Day [/underlined]
That day was most memorable as far as my own recollections are concerned. It found me at the age of 20 years a veteran campaigner serving my country as a flight mechanic in the RAF with 267 Dakota Squadron, after previously serving in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. At the time we were operating against the Japanese from Akyab Island off the coast of Mid West Burma.
My wartime diaries for the two days that span the 7th May in England read as follows:
At 6 pm a few hours before victory in Europe was announced over the wireless a huge red V appeared in the sky over Akyab and took 2 hours to gradually fade away. On VE-Day as you called it, I was up at 6.30 am and went straight out of my tent to work. I worked until 6 pm at night and stopped [inserted] ONLY [/inserted] for a meal. At 6.30 pm our time just before noon your time, I was in the middle of having a bath in my tin-barrel when Mr. Churchill made an official announcement that the war in Europe was at an end. As I stood by the tent with just a towel wrapped around my soapy body listening to the announcement, my mind wandered back to that Sunday morning at 11 am nearly 6 years previously when at 15 years of age, I listened to Mr. Chamberlayne [sic] declare war on Germany and little did I then think that I would be in Burma when that war finished. After completion of my bath, I had to go back to work on the aircraft that our gang was working on, so that we could complete by morning. This meant that an extra aircraft would be ready for carrying supplies to the Front Line next day.
When I arrived at the aircraft I found the electricians rigging up an electric lighting system for us. After they had done this, they could not get the motor to start. 10 pm arrived, they were still working on the motor and had it in pieces. The members of our gang sat waiting in either the aircraft in the dark, or sat like me against one of the wheels. I think they all felt the same as I did, hellish tired.
My thoughts during that time were for those Spitfire Pilots who with my previous Squadron I had sheppered [sic] for take off at the end of various runways in Europe and waited in vain for them to return. There was no celebrations for them.
My head kept dropping on my chest. I was not comfortable enough to fall asleep and even if I had been the mosquitoes that kept buzzing around my ears would have kept me awake.
At 10.30 pm I strolled over to the cookhouse tent and drank a mug of tea and took one back for the rest of the gang. By that time the electricians gave up their lighting system as a bad job and told us we would not have any electric light that night.
So we started to work with the aid of torch lights and we each took it in turn to sit for a while in the cockpit and shine the lamp upon one of the engines. The light of the lamp which was a miniture [sic] searchlight attracted hundreds of flies and insects as if by a magnet. You cannot imagine how we felt with these insects flying around our heads continuously and also a sickly sound as they tried to smash themselves to death against us and the lamps. Although it was night, the atmosphere was very close and made us perspire excessively, and on top of this in the distance on the wireless we heard the bells of Englands Cathedrals and descriptions of the victory celebrations and the scenes in Picadilly, outside Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament etc.
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Also descriptions of scenes in many other big towns in England.
Yet us chaps could not even get hold of a drink of water that night as ever the water bowser was empty. The only bright time for us was whem [sic] some of the chaps kept firing coloured cartridges up into the air.
Midnight arrived and I was feeling so fed up, miserable and sleepy, nearly driven to death by flies and insects, that I packed my hand in and went to bed. At 4.45 am on the following morning or rather the same morning I was called out of bed and told that our job had to be finished that morning, which was also a national holiday for everybody in England. Although I was lucky enough to get the afternoon off, I was called out again late in the afternoon and worked all that evening on a generator change.
That night to round off the victory celebrations that I did not get, I had to go and fall into an old Japanese slit trench in the dark and sprained my knee cap. When my friend helped me out and back to my tent, I was trying to laugh and cry at the same time. A perfect ending to my rejoicing? At least I still had the hope of seeing dear old England once again at some future unknown date.
[underlined] EXLAC Barrett 1863228 [/underlined]
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[inserted] 147A [/inserted]
[photograph of Burmese police recruits training with firearms]
[photograph of Burmese natives driving carts drawn by bullocks]
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[inserted] 148 [/inserted]
147A
If we had not all run and fallen flat on our faces, the wheels of the aircraft would have touched some of us. As it was, I watched it miss the top of the truck by inches; for a few moments my heart was in my mouth. During the latter part of April, the 14th Army captured a number of airfields in the Toungoo area, so our aircraft was able to land their supplies once again. It was also around about this time when one of the divisions captured the oil fields in Central Burma also cutting off a large number of Japs at the same time.
Very soon after that, the town of Pegu fell to advanced units racing southwards. The Japs tried to make a stand in this area and the town was almost completely destroyed during the fighting but they did not stem the advance for long. A few days later the 2nd division broke through the enemies lines and headed south once more on the last lap of their long and hard trek towards the objective that they had toiled for two years to reach.
Pegu was the last big town in Burma North of Rangoon. It was May 2nd when advanced elements entered the outskirts of the city. That night many aircraft took off from the next door strip loaded up with airborn troops which they dropped over the Rangoon area just before dawn. The same morning came the sea borne invasion of the port. These forces just pipped the 14th Army in reaching the city’s centre.
On the same day some of our aircraft were the first to drop supplies to our troops in the Rangoon area. The first aircraft of ours over the city dropped supplies and the flags of the big four allied Nations inside the state prison where the Japs held and left many of their prisoners of war. The flags stood for the symbol of their liberation then close at hand.
The army beat the monsoons by a matter of just a few days. I often wonder how many of the people at home fully realised how much the capture of Rangoon meant to us out in the Jungle. I am afraid that this great achievement was overshadowed in the papers by Victory Day in Europe that came a few days later.
I also wonder how many thought of us in our unhappy surroundings whilst they were merry making and enjoying the two days national holiday. It was no holiday for us, our job still had to go on, the capture of Rangoon by no means ended our task against the Japs.
[inserted] 8-5-45 [/inserted]
At 6 pm a few hours before victory in Europe was announced over the wireless, a huge Red V appeared in the sky over Akyab took two hours to gradually fade away.
In fact it was around about that time that I spent some of my most miserable days of my overseas tour. On V.E day as you called it I was up at 6.30 am and went straight out of my tent to work. I worked until 6 pm at night when I stopped for a meal. At 6.40 pm our time and 1 pm your time, I was in the middle of having a bath in my tin barrel when Mr Churchill made the official announcement that the war in Europe was at an end. As I stood by the tent with just a towel wrapped around my soapy body listening to the announcement my mind wandered back to that Sunday morning at 11 am nearly 6 years previously when at 15 years of age I stood in the bar downstairs and listened to Mr Chamberlain declare war on Germany. Little did I then think that I would be out in Burma when that war finished.
After the completion of my bath, I had to go back to work on the aircraft that our gang was carrying out an inspection on so that we could complete it by morning so that an extra aircraft would be ready for carrying supplies to the front next day. When I arrived at the aircraft I found the electricians rigging up an electric lighting system for us. After they had done this they could not get the motor to start. 10 pm arrived and they were still working on the motor and had it in bits. The members of our gang either sat in the aircraft in the dark or sat like me against one of the wheels. I think that all the other chaps felt the same as I did, hellish tired.
Cont……
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[inserted] 147B [/inserted]
[inserted] AKYAB BURMA MY [underlined] V.E. NIGHT [/underlined] 8-5-1945 [/inserted]
My head kept dropping on my chest, I was not comfortable enough to fall asleep and even if I had been, the mosquitos that kept buzzing around my ears would have kept me partly awake.
At 1.30 pm I stolled [sic] over to the cookhouse tent and drank a mug of tea and took one back to the rest of the gang. By that time the electricians gave up their lighting system as a bad job and told us that we would not have any electric light that night.
So we started to work with the aid of torch light and we each took it in turns to sit for a while in the cockpit and shine the aldis lamp upon one of the engines. The light of the lamp which was a minature [sic] searchlight attracted hundreds of flying insects as if by a magnet. You can imagine how we felt with these insects swarming around our heads continuously and hearing that sickly sound as they tried to smash themselves to death against us and the lamps. Although it was night, the atmosphere was very close and made us perspire profusely, and on top of this in the distance we could hear on the wireless the bells of England’s Cathedrals and the description of the Victory Celebrations and the scenes in Piccadilly, outside Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. Also descriptions of the scenes in many other big towns in England. A little way from us a party was being held in the Sargeants [sic] and Officers Mess. Yet us chaps could not even get hold of a drink of water that night, as the water bowser was empty and the canteen was also out of cordial. The only bright time of the evening was when some of the chaps kept firing coloured cartridges up into the air.
Midnight arrived and I was feeling so fed up, miserable after 17 1/2 hour working day and nearly driven to death by flying insects that I packed my hand in and went to bed. At 4.45 am on the following morning or rather the same morning, I was called out of bed and told that our job had to be finished that morning, which was also a National holiday for everyone in England. I was lucky enough to get the afternoon off and I spent it laying on my bed. I was called out again later in the afternoon and worked all that evening on a generator change. On the following day to round off the Victory celebrations that [underlined] we did not get [/underlined] I had to go and fall into an old Japanese slit trench in the dark and sprain my knee cap. I had just returned to camp from seeing a boxing show in the American camp. It was pitch dark and pouring with rain when I got off the wagon and began to make my way towards my tent. I stepped over one of the ridges that separate each paddy field and my left foot landed on thin air and I pitched into the trench. My left leg just touched the bottom of the trench and so took most of the weight off my right leg which stayed up above the ground and twisted itself. If the trench had been a few inches deeper I would have most probably broken my leg.
When my friend helped me out and back to my tent, I was trying to laugh and cry at the same time. As a result of my sprain, our M.O put me on 7 days light duty after he had strapped my knee in sticking plaster and said that I had better have an office job during that time or do no work at all. So for the following week I worked in the Engineering Officers tent. It certainly made a change being able to sit down all day and to keep clean for once instead of getting covered from head to foot in grime and dust every day. The worst part came when it was time for the plaster to be taken off and all the hairs on my leg were pulled out by the roots at the same time.
On Sunday 13th May the all weather metal airfield a few miles away from us was completed and ready to house all of the aircraft that were to be kept on the island during the Monsoon season. If we had stayed on our Maunubyn field a few more days our aircraft would not have been able to take off again until months later.
During the proceeding [sic] two weeks, before we made our departure from our old paddy field strip, winds began to blow up throughout the day and created dust storms similar to as if a thousand aircraft were running up at the same time on the strip. At the first sign of the winds we had to tie full 50 gallon barrels of water to the tail and main planes of each aircraft and turn their nose into the wind, so that they would not be in danger of being lifted up and turned over.
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[inserted] 148 [/inserted]
- 5 –
Then we would retire to our tents and hang on to the poles and tied all the flaps down etc. When the wind hit us the whole tent was in danger of being lifted up and swept away and in the bargain dust entered and filled the tent so that we were almost unable to breathe.
Then a few days before we left, we began to receive heavy showers of rain during the day and nightime. [sic] Only after a few of these heavy showers the strip became one big mass of mud and parts of it water logged.
We were all up early in the morning of the 13th and pulled our tent down and for a while sat on our kit out in the open air among the lines of packed tents and listened to a wireless that one of the nearby tents possessed. It was on that wireless that I heard the war news whenever I possibly could as that was our only touch with what was hapenning [sic] in the outside world.
After an hour of sitting around one of the fellows drove up on a tractor which had a trailor [sic] attached to the rear of it. We loaded our kit and tent on to this trailor [sic] and it was driven out to the runway where an aircraft was waiting to take us to our new drome. The aircraft was also stationed nearby our technical tents and so [inserted] TO [/inserted] make up a full load we loaded our tool boxes etc on board.
We had travelled so far by air since leaving Italy that the puppy knew that he was going on another flight as soon as we loaded our kit he climbed up the steps and went on board himself. The other two dogs ended their lives on the Island as they caught different skin deseases [sic] and so had to be shot. But Chicco seemed to stand up to the heat very well and often he would go to work with us and sit under the main plane until it was time for dinner or to finish for the day. At first we had a job to keep him out of the oil but later on he used to visit the different gangs working on the different aircraft. As soon as one gang finished making a fuss of him, he went on to the next. He was a lovely little dog and very understanding and was known by everyone on the Squadron. Every night he went on guard and spent his time trotting around with them on patrol and he went to sleep on one of the beds in our tent when the guard finished. It was very amusing to watch him play with the giant frogs or with one of the monkeys. The monkey colony on the Squadron had by this time risen to half a dozen. One of the babys had a very large head and a very small body which made it look a horrible little thing.
Any way it was about dinner time when we taxied to the end of the run-way. On arrival there one of the chaps in the aircraft discovered that he had left his shirt behind which contained his money wallet so he jumped out and told us he would hitch hike over to the new drome.
The dog sat in the doorway as we took off and within a minute of becoming air borne we found ourselves circling over the new drome which was situated near to the sea. The drome possessed two long metal section built run-ways with a taxying strip running parallel with the outside of each. Even the aircraft dispersal areas were covered with metal sections. Whoever thought of this way for building new airdromes had brains. First the bulldozers levelled the ground then the ground was covered with strips of bitumen covered hemp and in turn that was covered with holed metal sheets approx 18” x 8’. Each sheet fitted in to its next door neighbour so making a complete surface.
As soon as an aircraft touched down on this surface it gave out a teriffic [sic] rattling and clanking sound which continued until the aircraft came to a stand still. This sound seemed to be ten times as loud when aircraft came in after dark and when all was silent.
cont……
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[inserted] 149 [/inserted]
- 6 –
When we made a half circle over the sea and landed, we never thought we were going to stop taxeing. [sic] We went down the length of the run way and then the length of the taxeing [sic] strip which together was well over a distance of 2 1/2 miles. before we reached the Squadron dispersal point.
On stepping out from our aircraft we found the fellow waiting nearby who we had left at the end of our old strip. He had travelled by road and had still beaten us to our new drome which was called Akyab (main).
A few minutes later a lorry drew up to the aircraft and after being loaded took us and our kit along one of the worst roads in the world to our new domestic site which was situated in a coconut tree grove approx 2 1/2 miles from our dispersal which was at one end of the runway the domestic site was just past the other end.
Our first job was to find a space between the coconut trees in the small camp area on which to pitch our tent. After finding a suitable spot we staked our claim and left one chap behind to look after the kit and to see that no one else tried to erect their tent on that same spot. The rest of us went back to the airfield and loaded up a lorry with empty 5 gall cans and returned to the site with them. Next we laid out the cans in a square a little bit larger than our tent and then after covering the whole lot with earth & four blankets we erected our tent on top of the whole lot. After putting our kit inside, still sweating we dug a large trench all the way around the tent so that we would not get flooded out when the monsoon arrived in full force. Next day air operations were resumed as normal and we seemed to work more hours than ever but perhaps it was all the better as when we first arrived at Akyab main we had no entertainment whatsoever. So we did not know what to do with ourselves of an evening and many a time we [deleted] have [/deleted] sat on our beds just looking at each other.
As soon as the war ended no one was allowed to stay on the island for more than 8 months as if they did they were liable to go mad. I quite believe it is possible too. We were there only for 6 months and some of us were not far from being around the bend as we say in the service.
As time went on entertainment improved, the night of the month looked forward to the most by all the chaps was when the beer ration came in. On that night we either stayed in our own tent and invited our friends from other tents in to a party and sing song or we paid a visit to someone else’s tent. That was about the only time we enjoyed ourselves and were happy whilst on the island. One of the fellows who we used to invite to the parties was a cook this proved very useful as he used to bring along eggs and tins of bacon from the cookhouse with him. Then at about midnight one could see us frying our supper and sitting out in the air around the petrol fire over which was someone’s mess tin containing the eats. We each took it in turn to raid the cookhouse for bread for the sandwitches. [sic]
Occasionally, I went to the Naval Station situated on the sea shore near to what was left of the town to see a picture in the camp cinema there but I never used to like that terrible bumpy and tiring journey there and back to go often. I only went when I was feeling fed up and miserable. There was absolutely no where to go in the evening except for a walk in the jungle or to the [inserted] TOC ‘H’ [/inserted] canteen 3 miles away and it was not worth the walk there and back just to obtain a cake and a cup of tea which a few minutes after one had drink, you could see stream out of your body in the form of sweat and the reward for our trip would be one soaking sweaty wet shirt and similar slacks.
cont….
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The more that I saw of the island the more I was convinced that no white man was ever meant to live there. Whenever I see posters or read about romantic tropical islands, I think of how romantic Akyab was. During the whole of those six months I saw no more native women than half a dozen and only a few white women. The only thing that was nice there was the sun set and that was glorious and breathtaking spectical. [sic] The tall brown trunks and the big green waving branches and leaves of the coconut trees gently being swayed by a trade wind, stood out very clearly against the red mauve purple yellow and orange sky.
Bananas and wild pinapples [sic] grew on the Island also wild Orchids and many other colourful tropical flowers grew in abundance during the wet season. When we wanted coconut milk to drink, we used to get the natives to climb up the trees pick and throw coconuts down to us. They used to ascent [sic] those tall trees like lightening and decend [sic] still faster if on reaching the top they found that the tree was infested with ants and on reaching the ground once again they would be covered with them. We could not leave anything eatable around the tents as if we did within a few minutes, it would be swarming with ants. I remember that at one time they got into a big tin of sweets that had been sent out all the way from England to me. Was I wild when I opened the lid and found thousands of ants eating my nice sweets.
One night they even came to bed with me and I spent hours finding and killing them in the dark, they nearly drove me mad that night. The worst part that I could only locate them after they had bitten me. On the following morning when I arose I found the ants climbing up one of the drums that formed the legs of my bed and walking along the Bamboo framework and down another tin to the floor again and the trail then led out of the tent up a tree trunk along our clothes line to the next tree and down to the ground once more. After putting paraffin on my bed and on the floor of the tent it stopped their capers for a while. But it was impossible to cope with them fully as they were everywhere in millions. They used to nest in the seams of our tents and on one occasion I found that some had hibernated inside [deleted] of [/deleted] [inserted] ONE [/inserted] the bamboo poles that formed one side of my bed and they were gradually chewing the bamboo into saw dust.
Often when we were stripped and having a bath a big horse fly would come along and bite us on the bottom and when they bit they certainly made you yell with pain. Its stinger feels as big as a match stick when he digs it in. A bite from one of them is far worse than having an inoculation and it also leaves a bigger bump.
During our dinner hour each day we used to lie on our beds being pestered by the flies. As soon as I knocked one off two more would settle they were so crafty that the flies alone nearly drove us mad. It was the same at work it was too hot to be under our mosquito nets during the daytime. It always became dark round about 7. p.m. and at that time the flies would go to bed and the mosquitos would venture out and into our tents along with moths, flying beetles which used to get tangled up in our hair and all sorts of weird and wonderful insects which either used to fly round [inserted] & AROUND [/inserted] the hurricane lamps or sleep on the ceiling of the tent. When late evening came and we were all in bed the fire flies would come in and light up the tent with the green illumination that they radiate and then just as we were dozing off to sleep either a pack of Hyenas or Jackalls [sic] would start howling nearby and one after another, another pack in the surrounding district would take up the cry. It was a terrible sound that used to send shivers down our spines. Also of a nightime [sic] after it had been raining an army of thousands of bull frogs would start croaking in the surrounding jungle. It was marvelous [sic] how every few minutes they would start up and then stop croaking all at the same time. When they were croaking in full force it sounded like a team of horses galloping along a cobbled street. In fact that was the scene that one pictured up in ones mind when one heard them.
cont……..
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Then occasionally if all was silent, all of a sudden a frog on one side would open up with a croak at least as loud as the moo of a cow and he would be answered by another frog on the other side of the tent. Then they would carry out a conversation with each other by alternate croaks. These bull frogs were no bigger than your thumb and make enough noise for a thing a hundred times their size. Also a very large variety of snakes were killed on the camp whilst we were there. One 6 ft viper was found coiled up inside an old empty fruit tin. The snake used to come up out of the jungle at night and across the road and into our camp. Often whilst walking along the road at night I would hear a snake scoot across in front of me and disappear into the grass, we certainly used to tread very carefully when walking through grass. So you can see some of the things that we had to put up with and the reason why we all felt fed up with life. I think the only thing that kept us alive was thought of the day when we would be going home and what we had to go home to. It did not pay to be melancoly [sic] and we certainly had to keep a grip on ourselves.
Here is one amusing incident that happened one night although it was not very funny for the fellow that it happened to. He woke up during the night and felt something moving about in his bed and on putting his hand down between the blankets he felt the smooth skin of a snake. He leapt out from beneath his mosquito [inserted] NET [/inserted] and out of his bed with a yell that woke everyone else up in the tent and told them that there was a snake somewhere in the tent. Then one of the other occupants of the tent rushed out and cut his foot on a piece of glass. He thought that the snake had bitten him in the dark, so he went and woke up the sick quarters’ staff and got them out of bed. He was in a panic until they convinced him that he had only stepped on a piece of glass.
Anyway they all took their blankets into the dining hall which was a large long Basha and slept (or rather tried to) the rest of the night on the tables. In spite of an extensive search on the following morning which consisted of moving their whole kit no snake was found in the tent.
I think that all of these things played on some of the chaps minds, as one night just after we had blew the lights out one of the chaps in my tent swore that someone had touched him in the dark and on investigating we could find nothing on his net or anything near him. Then during another night one of the chaps had a nightmare in which he was being strangled and he was just able to gasp out in a whisper ”Ken, Ken” [inserted] AND KEN [/inserted] who was half asleep thought for a while that it was a spirit calling out to him.
We appreciated very much the few girls that took part in the very few ensa shows that came out to us braving and putting up with the wartime conditions in the Far East. We thought more of them than the big artists who [deleted] stuck [/deleted] [inserted] STAYED [/inserted] in the West End earning or rather getting big money and who refused to go out East for a short while to entertain the troops. One who did come out and who I saw whilst in Akyab was the opera and B.B.C. singer Tessa Deane who sang almost continuously to us for two hours all types of songs from opera to swing. For that performance she would have received a very large amount of money [deleted] from the B.B.C. [/deleted]
As I said before, we saw very few women on the island, most had either fled into the hills or had been taken away by the Japanese.
Some days it go [sic] so hot that the dog used to dig a hold [sic] then put his nose in it and cool it on the earth at the bottom of the hole which had not been exposed to the sun.
One night whilst listening to the wireless it seemed funny when the news announcer gave out that you were having the hottest day of the year in England 88o in the sun. At that time it was dark at Akyab and the temperature was then 98o.
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Another wild dog that roamed the camp made friends with one of the monkeys and they became devoted to each other. It was very amusing to watch them play together and playfully bite each other. They were both very artful and got up to some funny antics that used to make us all laugh.
At one time we had two other pets in our tent besides the dog. There were one large and one small lizard. Both used to come to the tent every evening and much to our approval would feed themselves upon the mosquitos and other insects. They used to advance bit by bit on either side of their intended victim. Then they used to move and strike like lightening. It was very interesting to sit on our beds and watch them.
Now for the monsoons which were late arriving that year in Akyab. They should have broke during late May but at that time we only got those heavy showers every so often. Then when the Monsoons did finally arrive in mid June they made up for lost time. Just before they arrived I needed a 15 ft rope (long) attached to my bucket when I drew my washing water from the well and a few weeks later the water level was only a few feet below the ground. So that will give you some idea of how much rain we had. Although it is very hard to realise what monsoon rain is like unless you have witnessed it, often during one day we had as much rain as we get in England during two months of the rainy season.
During the hot season we saw too much sunshine for our liking and during the monsoon season we saw far too much rain and longed for the dry weather once more. One advantage is that it became a bit cooler when it poured with rain although not [deleted] merely [/deleted] [inserted] NEARLY [/inserted] cold [inserted] HOWEVER [/inserted] by any means. As soon as each monsoon finished during the daytime the sun would break down and scorch down and the humidity would become very bad. So that we breathed in 50% of water and 50% of air.
One moment the sun would be shining and the sky would be cloudless then suddenly a dirty black cloud would appear on the horizon and be drawn across the sky like a blanket. Then came the wind followed by the shortly afterwards sweeping rain. Sometimes the monsoon would last for half an hour and the sun would beat down and the sky would become clear once more. Perhaps we would get anything up to a dozen or more monsoons during a day. Then again sometimes the monsoon lasted continuously for a day or days and it really did pour down all the time and never drizzled like it does in England. At times it rained so hard that the visibility decreased to less than 20 yards. We could see the monsoons coming as they got nearer so the visibility got less and the darker it became. One minute we would see far past the other end of the run-way and the next we could not see the aircraft parked next to the other one that we were working.
Often to get an aircraft servicable [sic] we had to work out in the pouring rain and go to and from the domestic site of an open lorry in it all, getting soaked through. If we changed our clothes at dinner time the fresh set became just as wet long before the day was out. We had nowhere to dry our clothes and just had to hang them up in the tent and so it went on until we had no more fresh clothes to put on and we had to be content with damp ones. It was the same with washing our clothes, it was still impossible to get them even nearly dry. At one time we had so much sunshine for our liking but nothing in my mind is worse than being soaked through and having to work out in the rain which you know will not stop for hours.
cont……
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Around about this time we had to do an engine change as quick as we possibly could on an aircraft. We worked in shifts of two chaps each shift doing 12 hours and the shifts carried on continuously throughout the night and day through the heavy rains. It was just my luck to be on the shift that had to work all night and the other chap working along with me as the Corporal of the gang. By the time that we had ridden up to domestic site at 10.30 and queued up in the rain for a hot supper and then driven back to the drome once more, we were already fed up and longing for dawn to arrive. In spite of all this we finished that engine change in record time we were allowed a maximum of 48 hours and we had the aircraft ready for airtest 42 hours after we had started work on in. We had to take the old engine and strip it down. Get the new engine out of its crate and then build it up and instal [sic] it into the [inserted] AIR [/inserted] frame and put the propellor on and do another hundred and one jobs before we ran it up. Then we had to rectify all the snags before we were able to cowl the engine up.
Whilst working on inspections every time it started to rain or we saw a monsoon coming across the drome we had to cover up the engine and work as best we could under the cover until it stopped raining once again. Then we had to take the cover off. One got a bit fed up with this if we had to do this a dozen times a day or night.
Often when working all night in our sleeplessness we knock our battery [inserted] 15 [/inserted] volt lighting bulbs off the engine on to the metal strip and smash them one by one until sometimes none were left and as it was pitch dark we would hate to pack up for the night. But by 3 a.m. it began to get a bit lonely working there when all was silent except for the sound of the sheets of rain beating on or being swept in sheets onto the metal body and wings of the aircraft.
Then just before dawn one after another engine would roar into life and then one by one the aircraft would taxi out in a continuous line to the end of the run-way and then take off. All that we would see in the dark was the long line of red and green wing tip lights. The ground crew had begun to arrive by that time and another day had commenced. As the rest of the gang climbed from the lorry to take over from us, we sleepily climbed on to it to be driven up to camp and glorious bed. Even on the nights that we did not have to work we were woken up each morning as the aircraft took off for their first trip of the day and roared over our tents at the end of the run-way. At this time we were thoroughly fed up with life which was hardly more than just work and existing. All we had to look forward to was to going home (if lucky) sometime in the future.
Whatever the weather [deleted] was [/deleted] those 15 aircraft and some times many more [inserted] DID [/inserted] three of four supply carrying trips each day. This was the time that the aircrew did really earn their pay as they flew in weather that pilots in England would be horrified at even the thought of having to take off in [deleted] it. [/deleted] No words of mine can praise those aircrews enough for what they went through during those days when they flew continually from dawn up until dusk and for most of the time as visibility was so bad they could not see where they were flying and had to rely entirely on their instruments. Although these crews could have refused to fly when they could not even see far enough down the run-way for a safe take off, they never would or did let the Army down.
Also in this weather, the pilots had a hell of a job in finding the run-way and sometimes even the airfield when they returned to the Island. It was pitiful to watch or rather hear the aircraft circle round and round trying to find the end of the run-way and making attempt after attempt to land. If possible the crews flew over or around the monsoons but sometimes they were so big and so high that it was impossible to do either of these things so they just had to chance to luck and fly through the thick of it. Even the red direction beacons on the drome for guiding in the aircraft were useless. Besides these beacons one fellow used to stand on the end of the run-way and if an aircraft was on somewhere near on the correct approach he fired [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] very white pistol cartridges up into the air and if the aircraft was well out in its approach he would fire up a red and it would then go round again and make another attempt.
con……
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Every so often during its circuit we would get a glimpse of the plane when it flew through a small clear patch in the mist and rain. One morning one of our aircraft came down a bit too low when the pilot was trying to find out where he was and its wing tip touched the sea in Akyab harbour near the end of the run-way. The force of the impact overturned the aircraft and it sank before any of the crew had a chance to get out.
This was the only aircraft that our Squadron lost during the Monsoons but other Squadrons were not [inserted] SO [/inserted] lucky and lost quite a number that flew into mountain sides etc.
Whilst on an operation one of our aircraft was flying along on a height of 10,000 ft and flew into a big black cloud. Suddenly all the instruments went hay-wire and the aircraft was turned over on its back and it looped and rolled and did everything that a Dakota was not built to do before the pilot who had to fight with the controls got it under control once more. At the end of it all the aircraft had dropped from 10,000 feet [inserted] TO 1,000 ft [/inserted] and we had to overhaul it when it returned to Base.
On another occasion, another of our aircraft turned over three times in one of these blackish brown clouds. The pilot managed to fight and beat nature by righting the aircraft each time. At the time it was loaded with 20 – 50 galls barrels of petrol or in other words 1,000 galls plus another 700 which was in his petrol tanks. So if the aircraft had crashed it most certainly would have burst into flames and the crew would not have stood a chance of getting out of it alive. Also the army would have had to go short of the petrol. For this feat the pilot who kept the aircraft under control was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. He certainly earned it. I saw him just after he had loaded and he looked a nervous wreck.
Us ground crew were certainly pleased when new aircraft with new engines arrived from England to replace some of our old worn out ones that had been flying continuously since we left Italy. As the engines were old, they were getting worn out and what with oil leaks etc, they caused us no end of trouble that kept us busy all the while. So it was a treat to be able to work on brand new engines once again which did not have many minor things keep going wrong with them.
Our gang carried out an acceptance check on one of these aircraft that had only two weeks previously been in dear old England. On completion of our engine check, I decided to go up in the airtest with the plane. I stood just behind the pilots’ shoulder and watched the engine instruments as we tore down the run way and just after we had left the ground there was a blinding flash and a noise like an explosion. For a moment I thought that the plane was breaking up until I realised that the emergency escape hatch just above my head had blown off. It could not have been fastened properly and the suction of air caused by us taking off must have drawn it off. It certainly frightened me for a moment when the light came streaming in and the cockpit from above me, and the explosion noise was caused by the air being drawn out of the aircraft also.
It was lucky that we had a daredevil pilot with us who was unmoved by the incident or we might have gone out of control and crashed. For the next few moments after it had happened I spent looking out of the astrodome situated on the roof of the aircraft to see that the hatch in its flight had not hit our rudder or tail unit.
I shall always remember the lovely 21st Birthday that I spent at Akyab when it rained almost continually and I worked from 7.15 a.m. up until 1 a.m. on the following morning.
On many occasions whilst we were at Akyab the Island stock of areo engine oil ran out completely and before we would finish an inspection and put an aircraft serviceable we had to send an aircraft either down to Ramree Island or back into India to fetch 500 or 750 galls.
cont……
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[inserted] 154A [/inserted]
[newspaper clipping with photograph of burning oil dumps in Rangoon]
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[newspaper clipping and photograph describing the 14th Army’s assault on Rangoon with photograph of a British motor launch sailing into Rangoon harbour]
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[inserted] 154B [/inserted]
[newspaper clipping describing Rangoon]
[page break]
[newspaper clipping and photograph of the fall of Rangoon]
[page break]
[inserted] 154C [/inserted]
[aerial photograph of Rangoon prison with writing on the roofs]
[page break]
[photograph of the landings of May 1st 1945 in Rangoon]
[page break]
[inserted] 154D [/inserted]
[photograph showing dropping of airborne supplies from RAF Dakotas to the troops on the ground]
[photograph of crowds lining the waterfront at Rangoon]
[photograph of the damage at Rangoon Central Railway Station with soldier in the forefront]
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Many of the chaps or rather the majority of chaps on our Squadron suffered from all sorts of tropical deceases such as dysentery, malaria, jungle sores, heat and sweat rash, tienya which is another form of rash which comes out in the most awkward places. Then there was foot rot which was very unpleasant. I have suffered from the latter two complaints and also from a slight touch of dysentery on two occasions. A slight touch left me for a few days feeling very weak and helpless so I pity those chaps who get an accute [sic] attack. They must feel three parts dead and want to die. It is certainly far from funny when I had to run as fast as I possibly could every ten minutes or so.
At one time half the camp had a slight touch all around about the same time and on running to the lav in the middle of the night I found all the seats occupied and a waiting queue formed also, on quite a few occasions. It was just too bad if you could not wait. I think that most of the cases were caused by the dust and the millions [inserted] OF FLIES [/inserted] that used to settle on our food and other places.
I must say that the yellow quinnine [sic] (mepercreme) tablet that we used to swallow each day certainly saved hundreds of chaps from getting malaria. Actually very few on our Squadron went down with that decease. [sic] At one time 90% of the troops in Burma caught it with a result of all these cases, the fighting force was considerably depleted and they were a liability to the army instead of an asset. At one time during the war malaria casualties outnumbered the fighting ones. So who-ever invented those little yellow perils as we used to call them did a great deal in winning the war in the Far East.
Although Rangoon had fallen there were still a great number of Japs still fighting around the Toungoo area who were cut off from their main Southern forces. Also another Japanese force were attacking across the Sittang river which had swollen in the monsoons, to try and link up with the trapped force and hold a corridor through which they could escape across the Sittang and over the Shan Hills back into Siam. Perhaps you will remember this great battle of the Sittang bend. If you do you will know that this second force was also trapped by our troops. For the Japs it became either a matter of starvation, fighting a battle to death in the flooded paddy field and jungle or risking death by our guns cross shelling whilst trying to escape across the river.
And during this Jap escape bid which covered some weeks we were flying, supplies to our troops in the Toungo area, evacuating wounded and other hospital cases etc, also flying fit men who had just come out of hospital, back to their units at the front. Our troops beside the Japs had to do most of their fighting, knee deep in water and being soaked to the [deleted] sun [/deleted] [inserted] SKIN [/inserted] all day and every day through being out in the monsoon rains. In this battle of the Sittang band over 11,000 Japs were killed, excluding those that starved in the Jungle or committed Harri karri or who were drowned whilst attempting to cross that swollen river on small rafts in the middle of the night. Our casualties during this battle numbered 75 men.
Another job that our Squadron did was to fly full loads of rolls of bitumen covered hemp matting down to Rangoon where it was used for building a new run-way. The dog in our tent used to love to go out in the rain and get himself covered with mud but somehow he managed to lick himself clean everytime as he would turn up later (when he had dried himself out) with his coat of natural colour of snow white with brown patches. I only wish that I had a photograph to show you of myself taken in my monsoon clothing. I must have looked a sinster [sic] character something like Guy Fawkes when wearing my wide brimmed bush hat pulled down almost over my eye and with my long flowing wide cape and my mosquito gum boots. Beneath all this I just used to wear my shorts and evenr [sic] when it was pouring with rain it never became cold.
cont…
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During the night of 23rd May, we had the biggest storm of the lot. I think that every one of us did not mind admitting that we were scared whilst it was on. I know that I do not. I would much rather go through an air raid than another storm like that one. The thunder claps were much louder than the sound of a bomb exploding close by. Each and every one made the ground tremble. The flashes of lighting lit up the whole sky and the interior of our tent as if it was daytime.
In fact it was so bright that I had to hide my eyes beneath my blankets as I lay there in bed. Whilst the storm was right overhead, we could hear the lightening crack and the sizzling sound as it hit the nearby coconut trees that were around out [sic] tent and as it ran along wires etc.
Quite often I was awoken during the night by rain drops dripping through on to me as I lay there in bed. It [deleted] ran [/deleted] [inserted] RAINED [/inserted] so hard that it soaked through the canvas of the tent and on to my mosquito net. Often on these occasions I have stepped into a large puddle that had formed beside my bed when I have got out to put my ground sheet over my mosquito net so that all the rain would drip down beside me instead of on me. At times I got up feeling as if I had wet it during the night. Everything in our tent had become damp and had acquired that mildew smell by this time and some of my clothing packed inside my kit bag had even started to go mouldy.
Whilst we were at Akyab main, our khaki battle dress was taken from us and we were issued out with a much lighter material battle dress which was jungle green in colour. We also had to change our white towels and underclothes for green ones. As I said before, as time went on the entertainment conditions became very much better. Also a large number of fellows had been posted to the Squadron which made our work a lot more easier. Eventually working after 6 p.m. became almost extinct and we began to get regular days off, but by this time all the worst was over, although as the old saying goes with regards to this, better late than never. Most of the chaps had come straight out from England and I looked quite like a native when my sun browned body was working beside their lily white ones.
Then the natives built a long big Basha which we used as a Recreation hut. From various funds we got a togal [sic] of near on £300 to spend on making the place look something like home. We furnished it out with little card tables, coloured wooden and canvas chairs and we put coloured cloth of various patterns over the windows and walls. Our C.O. sent an aircraft specially to Calcutta to fetch the things that I have mentioned among many others.
We covered the floor of the “Basha” with strips of the Bitumen sheeting which was used for so many things such as road and run-way surfaces tent flooring etc. Then we put up white supply dropping parrachutes [sic] to act as a ceiling and to stop the sawdust coming down on our heads as the ants ate into the bamboo poles that supported the roof.
At one end of the canteen stood a soft drink bar and at the other end were two dart board pitches also the Squadron library. The Basha was always well stocked with English daily papers and magazines (at least 3 months old) which the fellow used to receive from home. Then there were many games including draughts, cards, chess, monopoly and the horse racing game Totepolly. The canteen also possessed a gramaphone [sic] and a hundred different records of the latest tunes of the time. Of the two wirelesses one was a battery set for use in the daytime when the electric power plant was not running and the other was a press button electric set that we used of an evening. As English time was 6 1/2 hours behind us the best programmes usually came on the air just as it was time for us to go to bed.
I used to spend most of my spare time in this canteen. I passed by many many [sic] evenings and days off writing up this Autobiography. Generally, I was writing at least four months behind the times so I had to recall and relieve in my memory each day once again.
We also had our other canteen from which we could purchase, biscuits, cigarettes, soap, razor blades, hair cream, combs and many many [sic] other of the necessities of life in the jungle. Nearly every night for supper in our tent we bought Post Tosties (cornflakes)
cont……
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- 14 –
and tinned rich cream milk. At one time we got in a stock of tinned Christmas Pudding, in the tent, with milk they made a change from Cornflakes. At one time a party of us had a craze for playing Toteopolly for a few rupies [sic] a game. We played during the dinner hour, before and after tea, in fact so much until we began to dream about the game. Then we turned to bridge once more and everyone began to play that game.
Next came the nap craze followed by brag. The few of us seemed to set the fashion for the rest of the Squadron. Finally, I got really fed up with games of any sort and went back to writing my book.
Whilst writing, I also enjoyed listening to the very nice music that often came over the wireless during my afternoons off. Mostly it would be music from the operas and that would bring back memories of my evenings at the Opera in Italy and make me feel very sentimental and wish that I could get out of that [inserted] PRESENT [/inserted] uncivilised part of the world. One amusing incident happened one night when around about midnight two of the chaps in my tent started arguing about the words of one of the songs on a record that had been playing in the canteen that evening. After a while they still could not agree and had got to the stage of betting each other 7/6p that they were right. As I was trying to get to sleep, I soon got fed up with the argument and finally as I would not commit myself by entering into it, I got out of bed along with the others and we all trooped over to the canteen, and there we were in the still of the night searching by torchlight for the certain record. On finding it I played it on the gramaphone [sic] and acted as referee unti [sic] the argument was settled then we all retired to bed in peace.
After building the canteen “Basha” the natives set up a laundry on the camp, which helped us a lot as they heated the clothes and ironed them out. So we were able to put dry clothes on our bodies every so often once again. The worst part was that we did not get our laundry back until ten days after we handed it as it took days for the natives to get it dry. They were in the same position as us for not being able to put clothes out in the open. The amount of laundry handed in each day by members of Squadron overwhelmed the capicity [sic] of the Basha which housed the laundry.
A native barber also set up a business on the camp. Anyway he called himself a barber, but as there was no one else to cut my hair and at one time my hair had grown so long that it looked like a girls, with my thick curly waves which formed into a roll on my forehead. I was forced to go and get it cut by him and when he had finished with it my hair was in a worse state than before and I had to get one of the chaps in our tent to repair it a little. After that we had an attempt at cutting each others hair, and during these occasions we certainly had some laughs at the different ways that the chaps carried out the job.
Towards the latter part of our stay in Akyab, we had our own [deleted] camers [/deleted] [inserted] CINEMA. [/inserted] I should say at the time, it was the best theatre for at least a hundreds [inserted] OF [/inserted] miles around. The building was a long half round corrugated tin Nisson hut and we got the natives to shift the tons and tons of earch [sic] which was needed to make the 5 ft sloping floor. Most of the fellows on their day off gave some help with the building of the theatre. The stage when it was finished was first rate and as good in fact was better than most of the small English theatres possess. The Squadron carpenters built most of it and the electricians installed an elaborate lighting system. To use all the available space possible for seats the projection box was sunk into the ground so that the chaps sitting directly behind it could see the screen quite clearly. The seats consisted of small round 5 gallon oil drums, so when we went to watch a film we always took along a blanket with us so as to make our seats a bit softer.
cont…..
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The whole interior of the building was painted in two colours and designs we painted along the side walls. We managed to get a welfare fund to supply us with money with which to buy the [deleted] goods [/deleted] [inserted] THINGS [/inserted] and yards of coloured material needed for stage curtains of various types.
Parachutes were put up once more to create a ceiling effect and to keep the sound down, which incidentally was almost perfect.
At Ensa concerts 600 fellows managed to seat themselves in the building. The two film projectors and sound equipment etc was brand new and had to come out straight from America. Whilst waiting for a film show to commence music was provided by a gramaphone [sic] connected up with loud speakers. So you can see it was a first rate cinema. There was just one fault with it and that was that it contained no air cooling system whatsoever. If fellows began to smoke during a performance it got hellish hot and sweaty. We would have installed electric fans if we had stayed on the island a little longer.
Around about the time of the General Election we started to hold political meetings in our recreation room so as to pass a few evenings away, but as they got a bit heated we dropped them after the first two.
Every Monday evening a whist drive [deleted] was [/deleted] [inserted] WHICH [/inserted] proved quite popular was held and another two evenings of each week the game of Housy Housy was [deleted] playing [/deleted] [inserted] HELD [/inserted] in our dining hall “Basha”.
I remember during one night in July I was woken up about 3 a.m. when one of the fellows came back to the tent and told me to get up. On getting out of my nice warm bed he pulled out a big bottle of gin from his pocket and insisted that we drank it before we got into bed again.
On Bank Holiday Monday the 6th August our new C.O. W/Cdr Chalmers held a Squadron parade in our cinema and gave us a talk during which he told us that before long we would all be moving down to Rangoon and that within the following six weeks our forces would invade and re-capture Singapore Island. Then he went on to say that immediately the island fortress had surrendered we would by flying to the island over 1,370 miles of enemy held territory. Then on reaching there safely [inserted] ? [/inserted] we were going to operate aircraft from the Island up to Saigon in French Indo China to Hong Kong island just off the mainland of China.
As you all know, it turned out that Singapore island did not have to be taken by force after all and so much to our relief there was no need for us to have to fly unarmed all those miles over Jap held land and sea. I remember also that on that same evening I listened to the wireless to the holiday peace time sports that were being held in England. Cricket at Lords, running records being broke at the White City. Horse Racing etc. It all seemed so much like the peace time England that I remembered, but I could not help thinking of the chaps out at the front in the swamp still being killed at that moment and of those wounded that were being brought back in our aircraft. [deleted] It [/deleted] [inserted] THERE [/inserted] was not much in the peace that [underlined] they [/underlined] could celebrate about.
It was also about this time that the two Atom bombs were dropped upon Japan and we listened for hours to the news bulletins to hear how the Japs would react to them. We soon began to get tired of hearing about messages going from Japan to Spain, Spain to America, America to Britain, Britain to Russia and vica-versa [sic] after a few days of it.
cont……
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In my opinion I think that in one way were quite justified in using this terrible weapon against the Japs as the result of those two bombs definitely shortened the war in the Far East. Also through not having to invade by force Japan itself, Singapore and many others occupied countries tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of British and American lives were saved.
It was whilst at Akyab that I was awarded my medal ribbons of the 1939/45 Operational Star, Burma Star. Italian Star and the French and German Star. I could have also claimed the defence medal but I did not bother about it.
Early in August a third of the Squadron [deleted] of the Squadron [/deleted] went on detachment to Karachi two thousand miles away. They took twelve of our oldest aircraft with them and from Karachi [deleted] and from Karachi [/deleted] they operated an airline service to all parts of India.
Two of the fellows in my tent went on this detachment and had a damm [sic] good time. The remaining two of us in the tent were unlucky and had to stay with the Base aircraft.
The Squadron advance party to Rangoon flew down during the first week in August and on Tuesday the 14th August the second party left Akyab by air but on arrival at the airfield near Rangoon they found that no arrangements had been made for their arrival. There was no transport to convey them and their kit up to the new domestic site. No rations were to be had any where and on top of this they were surrounded by a sea of mud and it was also raining. After hanging around the aircraft for hours they began to get fed up and feel hungry as there was still no signs of them being able to get up to the domestic site the pilots decided to fly back to Akyab. So the fellows on this second party unloaded the equipment that they had taken down with them and left it in the mud near to where they were, for the advance party to look after. Soon after they had taken off on the return trip they ran into one of the worst monsoons that we [deleted] over [/deleted] [inserted] HAD IN [/inserted] Burma during the whole season,. Many of the aircraft were forced to land and stop for the night on Ramree island and on other strips all over Southern Burma.
I was on the drome when the solitary aircraft that got back to Akyab that night arrived overhead just as it was getting dark. Sometime during the same afternoon both of our run-ways were put unservicable [sic] to land upon or take off from because they had become water-logged but, as it was late and visibility almost nil and because he was running short of petrol there was nothing left for the pilot to do except to try and land on one of our run-ways. It was with luck on his sixth attempt to come in that he found that he was in line with approaching the run-way. As soon as the aircraft touched down half way along the strip the water covering parts of the metal run-way swept up in waves over the wings of the aircraft as it went along. The height at the leading edge of the wings on a D.C. is over 10 ft. The water helped to pull the aircraft up before it had reached the other end of the strip. Most of the chaps on board the aircraft on stepping out told us that they had been airsick and that they never wanted to fly again.
Although the pilot never told them they knew that it was touch and go to find our drome and land safely before the petrol supply ran out. They all looked miserable and hungry when I saw them and I bet that they were more so after the bumpy drive with their kit back to coconut grove in the pouring rain. I was certainly glad that I was not on that second party. In a way those chaps were lucky as on the following evening we had to stand there helpless and listen to another aircraft circle round and round. Every so often we caught a glimpse of his wing-tip lights through the wind and rain. Sometimes [deleted] were [/deleted] [inserted] HE [/inserted] circled nowhere near the run-way and at others he made a correct approach to land over the run-way and yet he did not know it.
cont…..
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It made us feel as if we wanted to shout at him every time that he was over the strip although it was useless. It must have been terrible being up there and not being able to see anything. After an hour and a half the sound of the engines grew fainter as the aircraft went further away from us. Then suddenly all was still except for the sound of the rain hitting the canvas of the tents and the trees. Next morning we learned that he had finally run out of petrol and had crashed in the sea and that the aircraft was an American Commando.The Deputy Prime Ministers (Mr. Edens) son was a member of the crew of a D.C. belonging to a fellow Squadron which was lost in a monsoon and never seen again whilst carrying supplies to Sittang bend.
It rained solidly throughout the three consecutive days after that [inserted] TIME [/inserted] Rangoon aircraft returned with some of the second advance party. Even more of the run-ways became covered with water and we were unable to stop the rain penetrating into our tent. Each morning as soon as we got up, we had to bale out the puddles at our bedsides with tins and light the two hurricane lamps to try and dry the place out a bit. We just used to venture to the workhouse “Basha” beneath a monsoon cape and back to the tent again, where we stayed and tried to read a book or make conversation between the two of us.
The official rain fall figures for the three days was as follows:-
19, 21, and 23 inches. In other words 5 ft 3 inches of rain. It came down so hard at times that the trench around our tent was unable to cope with the water and it just overflowed and went into the tent lower down the line. The roads became flooded so no one even ventured to try and get down to the strip, the two football pitches that were situated beside the road to the strip were well under water for nearly two months. The latter of these three days Mr. Atlee made the great announcement over the wireless that Japan had surrendered unconditionally and the war was over.
[inserted] V.J.D [symbol] [/inserted] Once again, whilst you at home were celebrating, us chaps were stuck in our tents [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] spending some of the most miserable times possible. On V.J. morning I stayed in bed until I could stand it no longer and we both got up and got rid of our nights quota of water that covered the floor. In the afternoon I played cards with Freddie (the other chap left with me in our tent) but we soon got bored with doing this and stopped playing and just sat in our beds and looked at one another until it was time to eat once more. In the evening it was worse than ever. We were unable to go into our lovely canteen and pass the time away there because all that remained of it was an absolutely empty “Basha”. All the contents of it had been packed up and taken down to Rangoon with the second party. So we did not have any games etc with which to play with and as the dining hall lighting set had also gone down to Rangoon along with both of the wireless sets. We never even had a radio by which to hear the Victory news and celebration descriptions at home on. To get the news we had to go to one of the nearby Squadron Camps and hear it on one of their radios. We did not know what to do with ourselves that night, we could not even get a bridge four up as most of our bridge playing friends had gone off with the Squadron detachment to Karachi.
Around about 7 p.m. we were joined in our tent by another fellow who had been left living in a tent on his own as his three friends had also gone off to India. Besides joining us for company he came in also because his tent was just about collapsing on top of him. Some of the chaps in the other tent must have thought we were mad when the three of us after getting tired of talking to each other set out from our tent out into the rain and in single file each with a lighted hurricane lamp in our right hand we wandered around the camp in and out the coconut trees and in one end of a tent and straight out the other end again whilst trying to find a fourth member to make up a card school. Needless to say we were unsuccessful.
cont……
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During the next few days it was also a hellish job passing the time away. I was fed up with the sight of cards and reading and writing.
On two of the evenings we played Housey Housey in the dining hall by the light of the hurricane lamp. During both of these evenings we were each issued out with a ration of Naval Rum. On one occasion I managed to get two [deleted] by [/deleted] [inserted] BIG [/inserted] helpings. I think that the reason for giving it out was to keep our spirits up a bit. Anyway it certainly [underlined] was [/underlined] a strong spirit as I could feel it warm up my inside as I drank it. On the first evening I was lucky enough to [inserted] WIN [/inserted] the last house which was worth over 100 Rupies [sic] ([deleted] 10/- [/deleted] [inserted] £7-10-0 [/inserted]). I was very glad when Wednesday the 23rd August arrived and we had to go down to the strip and load all of the equipment belonging to the Technical sections on to the aircraft. These loaded aircraft took off for Rangoon along with the second party once more, early on the following morning where upon arrival they were unloaded by the advance party before taking off once more on their return trip to Akyab.
We were going to pack up most of our stuff that day as most probably we would be going on the following day but when the first aircraft arrived back at base at 1 p.m someone decided that they were to do a second trip to Rangoon that same day and that our party which included my complete working gang. We were then told to get our kit and ourselves down to the drome and on to our allocated aircraft by 2-15 p.m. as that was the time scheduled for our take-off.
To do all this called for a bit of feverish packing and the taking down of the complicated bamboo bed etc. I did not feel like rushing as I had a hell of a nasty cold coming on which I must have caught through our damp tent.
At about 1.30 p.m. another big monsoon arrived and as I carted my kit, bed, washing bowls and lamps etc out to the waiting lorry I sweated like a pig and got wet from the rain at the same time. Then before we let the lorry move off, we had to hunt around the camp until we located and captured the dog.
And so happily we said goodbye to our stinking mouldy tent. We were leaving it just in time too, as it would have just about collapsed after a few more monsoon winds. Also one by one the ropes holding it up had already started to snap through rotness.
When our aircraft revved up at the end of the run-way prior to take-off we were still in the midst of the monsoon and could not see any further than half way down the strip. None of us were looking forward to the air trip. We all had horrible thoughts and visions about turning over etc, but on becoming airborne I do not think anyone was sorry to take their last look at the Island. In that moment I felt as if I had been lifted out of a dead country back into civilisation once more. As I caught a glimpse of the island through the mist, [deleted] in [/deleted] the area below me looked like just one mass of big lakes connected to each other by wide streams with bits of land between them.
The highest part of the whole island was no more than six foot above sea level and these parts were around the airfield, our camp and the town. The small strip of land between our camp site and the sea was just a mass of jungle swamp. At night as we lay in our bed, we could hear the waves breaking on the sandy beach.
If ever a tidal wave hit or hits the island in the future, the whole of it will be covered with water. Now to get back to my story. It was 2.30 p.m. when we left the ground beneath us. On board our aircraft were 15 fellows, the crew of 4 and the dog and all of our kit. Soon after take off we were able to climb above the monsoon which turned out to be a low one. Then after a while when I looked out of a window sometimes I would see absolutely nothing but mist and cloud.
cont…
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[inserted] 162 [/inserted]
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At others I could see the country side below quite clearly.
For a long time the scene below as we flew along just off the coast of Burma was very [deleted] much [/deleted] similar to Akyab. It was a flooded area comprising of hundreds of both small and large islands of all shapes and sizes. Each separated by either swollen streams rivers, the sea or by just plain rain water flood. Then as we fly a bit further southwards and slightly inland, the scene changed to one of [deleted] the [/deleted] dense jungle covered hills and valleys which from the air seemed [deleted] irrepressible [/deleted] [inserted] IMPASSABLE. [/inserted] Then finally came the plains or rather hundreds of square miles of flat paddy fields.
It was at this point that we first caught sight of the Irriwaddiye River on which I could clearly see the many native sailing boats and from the air the occupants of these small craft looked just like mere dots. The river had been greatly swollen by the monsoon rains and many of the native villages built on its banks had been caught in the floods. I could just see the roofs of the huts made of either bamboo or corrugated iron sheeting, sticking out of the water along with a couple of the tops of pagodas etc. Then we flew over and followed southwards a big pipe line until we reached the single track railway that runs between Manderlay [sic] and Rangoon. It was down the same track that the 14th Army had fought, so I had a chance to see for myself the countryside that they had to fight to live in. It looked grim from up above so it must have looked and been like hell on the ground itself.
At times during the trip we had to climb up to a height of over 10,000 feet to get over a storm. During these moments I was sorry for the dog as he found it hard to breathe. He just lay on the floor of the aircraft panting away for all he was worth and looking very ill indeed. I also felt sorry for myself as with my cold, I found it quite a job to breathe and many times I came very near to gasping. At that height it was quite chilly, and at the time I wished that I had worn more than just my shirt and slacks on the trip. I thought that our journey was going to be a nasty one as a result of the weather. It was at first when we were in the monsoon. The aircraft swayed from side to side and up and down at the same time. There four movements gave me a very nasty sensation in my tummy. I was just beginning to feel a little air sick when we arrived above the monsoon and in the clear sky once more. After that we only [deleted] had [/deleted] hit a few big air pockets when we climbed to get above the other storms and cloud formations etc.
As we were nearing the end of our journey much to our surprise the sun came out and we found ourselves flying in an almost clearless sky. I could then see the paddy fields and flat land stretching for a distance of very near fifty miles where it disappeared into a ground mist. Then next we caught sight of the Sittang river as well as the Irriwaddi both winding their way towards the point where each joined the Rangoon river at Elephant Point. The Sittang river was very similar to the Irriwaddi with regards to being swollen and the little sailing boats, flooded villages on its banks, etc and from both rivers ran hundreds of small tributories [sic] into the surrounding country side.
Two hours after leaving Akyab we found ourselves circling the airdrome of [deleted] Minealdon [/deleted] [inserted] MINGALADON [/inserted] situated between the two rivers 10 miles north of Rangoon alongside the Pegu/Rangoon road.
As we lost height the dog as well as the rest of us felt the air pressure in our ears dimminish [sic] and the moment our wheels touched the run-way he knew that we were on the ground once more as he immediately livened up and jumped around on the seats trying to kiss everyone
cont…….
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[inserted] 163 [/inserted]
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We then taxied back down the run-way to our dispersal passing by Squadrons of Spitfire. Mosquito, Dakota, Lysander aircraft also two large bombed hangers.
Our new aircraft dispersal area was a part of the old original Rangoon airfield run-way which had been made unservicable [sic] through bombing raids. It was one mass of filled in bomb craters which were liable to sink after a few heavy rainstorms.
When we stepped out from our aircraft the sun was shining brightly and within a few moments a lorry arrived on to which we loaded our kits and ourselves. We were then driven from the airfield out onto the main Pegu road where we turned into a northerly direction and travelled along one of the best roads that I had seen since leaving Italy. After riding along it a thousand or more times my first impression of it changed and I thought it was a deadly one and I used to dread riding to Rangoon and back along it. The road on an average claimed one death per week and six accidents per day. It was full of bends and, as very little traffic went along the road before the war it was not very widely built. So that it was very dangerous to overtake a vehicle unless the road ahead was absolutely clear.
For a little way on either side of this road, every so often just after leaving the airfield stood cunningly concealed grass banked blast wall bays in which the Japs used to hide their aircraft when they were not flying. During the ride we passed by many English type brick built barrack blocks and houses. Most of the blocks had been taken over by an R.A.F. hospital unit and the houses by other small units of both R.A.F. and the army. Also quite a number of these buildings had been hit during the bombing raids. Anyway it was a treat for us just to be able to look once more at English type buildings. Next to the hospital buildings on our left we passed by the modern C of E church and then on our right just near the open air swimming pool was the very much older building of the R.C. Church. Wild colourful flowers grew in many places alongside the road and after travelling for two miles we turned off the main Rangoon road into the estate of peace time barrack blocks and other various smaller buildings. The area was well set out with roads running between the buildings.
We drove up to one of these blocks occupied by the advance party and there we unloaded the waggon and carried our kit into the buildings. On finding a room that was to our liking we began to make ourselves comfortable in our new home. It took me a full two hours in which to rig up my bed once more and find some bricks on which to erect it.
We were all very pleased to be living in a building instead of an old leaky tent. The other Squadrons that moved down from Akyab were not so lucky and had to stick to their canvas homes.
During that first night that I spent in this new camp, I thought that I was going to kick the bucket as we used to say in the R.A.F. My cold had become very much worse and I could not get any sleep as both my nostrils were blocked up and I found it impossible to breathe through my nose. Also I had developed a very sore throat which hurt me every time that I breathed through my mouth and as a result of all this I just had to lay in bed gasping, coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose all night. I went sick on the following morning and the sick quarters personnel soon had me feeling very much better after they had painted my throat and put various ointments and drops up my nostrils.
cont….
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[inserted] 163A [/inserted]
[deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted]
[photograph of cookhouse and dining hall] [symbol] COOKHOUSE AND DINING HALL [symbol] OUR BILLET BLOCK.
[photograph of a pagoda] [symbol] PAGODA ON HILL TO LEFT OF CAMP.
[photograph of hospital building] BUILDING TAKEN OVER FOR HOSPITAL ON ROAD INTO RANGOON.
[photograph of burning building at night] [underlined] THE NIGHT THE CINEMA BURNT DOWN [/underlined]
[photograph of billet block] [underlined] REAR OF OUR BILLET BLOCK [/underlined]
[photograph of interior of cinema] GARRISON CINEMA. NOTE SAND BAG SEATS.
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The view from the window of our billet was as follows or rather perhaps I had better give you a full description of our surroundings. As it was if I stood just outside our building. Immediately in front of the building was the road which ran out to join the main road 250 yards away. After more barrack blocks just beyond the road came a large piece of flat land which sloped upwards and the whole of this sloap [sic] was covered with hundreds of parked vehicles of all types that had been put there by the army. I think that most of these cars, lorries ambulances water bowsers, jeeps, vans, water ducks etc needed repairs of some sort. Then on the top of this slope which formed itself into a hill was a small wood and on the peak of this hill was a large gold topped Pagoda.
One thing that I liked about the camp was that there were no signs of palm or coconut trees etc, in the area. Most of the trees in the wood and in the camp were evergreens of various kinds and many of the trees lining the roads in the camp in Spring (April/May) burst into one mass of brilliant red, pink, mauve or yellow blossom. To the right of our billet were more buildings and also about 50 yards away stood the large Garrison Theatre where three different films were shown each week to the troops stationed in the area. It was certainly a change for us just to be able to walk a few yards to see a film show and to watch all the other troops arriving after a lorry journey instead of having a long ride to and from the cinema ourselves. The only thing wrong with the canvas walled building was the sand bag seats which became a bit hard on the bottom after sitting on them for a couple of hours.
Then to the rear of our building was another large hill on the top of which was a large water tower. This hillside was also covered with parked vehicles of every description. Finally to the left of our building and just below us was situated a football pitch which was very nice except that it had very little grass covering it. At least one match was played at the pitch everyday so that watching the games provided a large amount of entertainment for us on our afternoons off. I must have spent at least 150 hours of my life watching football being played on that pitch.
Beyond the football ground were the officers lines of tents which was their living quarters and beyond their tents was a large anti tank ditch then a strip of flat swampy land then a small hill dotted with bushes and various shrubs. On the other side of the hill was a small stream then more bushy land and small woods which contained small native villages. The land was similar to this as far as the eye could see except that on the horizon a few tall trees stood [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] OUT [missing words] THESE TREES MUST HAVE BEEN AT LEAST [/inserted] 15 miles away and near to where the Irriwaddi river was situated then I expect the land was the similar, flat and shrubby for the next hundred miles or so.
The camp was a perfect defence point and I think that it was around this area that the Japs fought their last battle and made their last stand before retreating to Rangoon. The reason I have for thinking this is because all these buildings that made up the station of Mingaladon were the last before Rangoon and the first before Pegu 60 miles or more to the North. In between Pegu and our station and Rangoon was just more of this wild country similar to that I have already described.
Inside our camp amongst the buildings were many gun pits and dozens of zig zag slit trenches, then as I have said before beyond the football pitch ran in a half semi circle the large anti tank trench. Then on the hill beyond the flat swampy stretch which none could have crossed during the daytime if the area was under fire were the remains of two tanks which were full of shrapenal [sic] holes. Around the tanks were dozens more slit trenches and defence positions all well set out and dotted all over this area were the remains of fins of small bombs and mortars. Also traces were to be seen where the tanks crossed the small stream.
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 164B [/inserted]
[photograph of two men photographing Spitfires flying through the air]
THE STORY ENDS
TWO TOPSY PLANES. PAINTED SILVER WITH GREEN CROSS MARKINGS. BRING JAP BURMA PEACE PARTY. SIX SPITFIRES ONE L-5, ESCORT THEM.
[page break]
[inserted] 164A [/inserted]
[photograph of two airmen at Mingaladon laying out markings on the airfield with a Mosquito in the background]
MARKINGS AT MINGALADON AIRFIELD ARE LAID OUT BY W/C DRAKE & LAC MAY. MOSQUITO, FIRST AIRCRAFT INTO RANGOON. IN BACKGROUND.
[page break]
[inserted] 164D [/inserted]
[newspaper cutting regarding peace envoy in Rangoon]
[two photographs of servicemen waiting at Mingaladon airfield for the Japanese envoy]
[page break]
[photograph of the Japanese surrender envoy arriving at Mingaladon airfield]
LEAFLETS DROPPED TO JAPS WHO CONTINUED FIGHTING AFTER THEIR COUNTRY HAD SURRENDERED AND TO THOSE ENEMY UNITS THAT HAD NO DIRECT CONTACT WITH THEIR H.Q. SO AS TO TELL THEM THAT JAPAN HAD REALLY [underlined] GIVEN IN [/underlined]
[photograph of Japanese and British servicemen arriving at Mingaladon airfield]
SEE AT BACK OF PICTURE FOR WRITING.
[underlined] LEAFLETS DROPPED BY SPITFIRES OF No. 8 R.I.A.F. SQUADRON [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 164C [/inserted]
[newspaper cutting from the Rangoon Liberator describing the Japanese arriving in Rangoon to sign surrender notice]
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All around the airfield it was the same flat bushy jungle and land on three sides and flat open swampy land stretching as far as the eye could see on the fourth. IN the immediate vicinity of the airfield were dozens more concealed gun positions and defence trench systems which one did not realise were there until almost on top of them.
I almost forgot to tell you that we also had a swimming pool on the camp but for some reason or other it always remained empty and was never used.
When we arrived at our new billet the electricians with the advance party had already installed three electric light bulbs in our room and had connected them up with the motor. In the room which was oblong and contained a door on three sides and two windows in the other, there were 15 of us. Whoever had occupied it before us had been a very good artist as the walls were covered with life size coloured drawings of film stars, Boxers, Dancing girls etc, Another good thing was that we did not even have to go out of the building for meals, although the monsoon season was just about finished. Our dining room was the similar room to ours at the other end of the Billet block. Then at the rear of each billet block were shower baths. We were living in luxury compared with conditions at Akyab. Often on waking up in the morning and hearing the wireless going in the dining hall, I had thought that I was at home in England.
[inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [underlined] Sunday the 26th August [/underlined] was quite a historical day. Just after I had arrived at [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] the drome for work that day, a cluster of specks appeared in the sky on the horizon and a few moments later we could distinguish quite clearly two twin engine transport aircraft surrounded by the escort of a dozen Spitfires and following up at the rear was a Lysander aircraft in which a film unit man was flying and taking photographs from.
I was at the end of the runway when the two transport aircraft made their last circuit in preparation for landing. Down came the undercarriage of each as it made its approach. The first one in made a very bad landing and the second a perfect one. After watching them taxy off the run-way I clambered on the bonnet of a nearby jeep which took [inserted] ME [/inserted] down to the point where the aircraft were finally parked.
All the time the Spitfires were roaring overhead flying in formation. The whole of the camoflauged [sic] wings and body of both aircraft had been painted over in white and instead of the usual red circle Jap markings they had big green crosses on both bodies and wings which were for recognition purposes when the Escort of Spitfires met them whilst on their flight from Saigon in Indo China. Both aircraft were of a similar design to our D.C’s but were a little smaller in size. I had a good look at the engines a little later on when the cowings were taken off and I did not think much of them. I most certainly would not like to have to trust my life on Jap engine maintenance.
As soon as the engines stopped the doors of the aircraft were opened and the steps put out and then a moment later from each stepped one of the Japanese Surrender Envoys who had arrived to sign the peace terms which would finally end the war for us in South East Asia. Both envoys were dressed in chocolate coloured uniforms with a yellow cord coming over their right shoulder to the breast pocket. Both were [sic] about five rows of medal ribbons and a large sword. They were both also about 4’ 10” in height and one wore specticals. [sic] On stepping to the ground they were immediately surrounded by armed Army & R.A.F. police and an interpreter and marched quickly away to a nearby tent where they were searched for poison etc. The crews of the aircraft who were dressed in white & were all wearing swords were lined up and marched into another tent where they were also searched. A couple of minutes later the two Enveys [sic] emerged from the tent and walked over to where the General Commanding our forces in Burma stood waiting along with many other high ranking Allied Officers of the three services.
cont…..
[page break]
[inserted] 165A [/inserted]
[underlined] ARIAL VIEWS AREA NORTH OF RANGOON [/underlined]
[five aerial photographs over Rangoon]
PHOTO’S TAKEN DURING ONE OF MY TEST FLIGHTS AFTER ENGINE [underlined] CHANGES TO THIS DAKOTA [/underlined]
[page break]
[duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] 166 [/inserted]
- 23 –
After speaking a few words to each other via the interpreter they all walked over to where a long line of staff car waggons stood waiting. The two envoys entered the first vehicle accompanied by two armed guards and our officers entered the following vehicles. The procession then moved off headed by a jeep full of Military Police and two motor cyclists who swept clear the road ahead during their trip to the Government House in Rangoon where the peace treaty was to be signed.
After watching this scene I made my way back to the aircraft where official cameramen were taking pictures of all the different parts of them R.A.F. chaps were checking over the engines and body etc looking for time bombs expolsives [sic] etc. The envoys took off from our airfield on the morning of August 28th after a stay in Rangoon of two days. They were again escorted by Spitfires until they had crossed the border separating Burma and Indo China.
Whilst on my way back from a visit into Rangoon a couple of days later I saw another white Jap aircraft escorted by Spitfires circling to land on our airfield. Then on the following morning another one turned up and more surrendered at a later date.
The very next day after the Japs had signed the surrender paper our aircraft were loaded up with medical supplies, food etc, which they flew into Siam and dropped over the prisoner of war camps [missing word] that country. After carrying out the dropping work the aircraft flew to Bankock [sic] airfield where they landed. The place was still held by the Japs but our aircrews were able to walk about freely whilst 23 Allied prisoners of war were loaded on each aircraft before it took off once more to bring them back to friendly territory and on the first stage of their journey home.
As soon as each aircraft came to a stop on our dispersal, ambulances that were waiting drew up to the doorway so that the freed prisoners could be unloaded as quickly as possible. Every one of them were driven to the nearby hospital where after a few days of rest and care most of the fit men were taken to the docks at Rangoon where ships bound for England were waiting for them. But those who were in a bad way had to stay in the hospital and nursed back to health before they were pronounced fit enough to travel home by sea.
I talked to quite a number of fellows a few seconds after they had stepped out on friendly soil. They were so happy to be back amongst their own countrymen after so long that I do not think that most of them fully realized what was happening. A few hours before they had been in a Jap prison camp then an hour later they were flying in an aircraft which was of an entirely new design to the old aircraft they had last seen and as they were lifted out of all their horrors they looked down upon the Bankok [sic] railway which they had been forced to build as a main supply line into Burma for the Japs under terrible conditions. It was estimated that one prisoner died for every two sleepers that were laid down whilst making the miles and miles of track. The hundreds of Indian prisoners looked as if they had been treated the worst, most of them were just a bag of bones.
Some of the English prisoners were looking very bad and all of them were half naked when they stepped out of the aircraft. Most of them that we spoke to had horrible stories to tell about how they lived and were treated and about their friends who were not so lucky and could not stand the conditions and died or who were killed.
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 166A [/inserted]
[underlined] MINGALADON [/underlined]
[two photographs of the cinema at Mingaladon burning]
[underlined] NIGHT OUR CAMP CINEMA WENT UP IN FLAMES [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 167 [/inserted]
- 24 –
When the people at home saw them on arrival in England they perhaps looked a bit pale and then in their new clothing, so that many people could not credit the stories they told.
I only wish that those doubtful people could have been in my shoes to see and hear the chaps as they landed. If they had been I think that everyone of them would agree with me that the Atom bombs being dropped on Japan was justified.
One chap that I spoke to had been a prisoner for 3 1/2 years and had been captured in the fall of Singapore. He said that they never stood an earthly chance against the Invading Japs, but during the short time that our troops put up a fight they inflicted casualties on the Japs in a ratio of 5 every one of ours although they were hopelessly outnumbered. The only aircraft on the island were absolutely out of date and the pilots took off knowing that once a Jap got on his tail, he would be shot down and never return to base. Also he told me that not a single ship attempted to take them off the island they just had to fight until the island surrendered to the Japs. He said that he had not been treated too badly as he was under Siamese guards, but it was a different story for those in Japs camps. 95% of his food during these 3 1/2 years had been rice.
Most of the prisoners would have liked to have been able to have got back into the jungle and have another go at the Japs only with the equipment available in 1945 behind them. They said the result would be far different than the last time. When they saw the fighters and the other different aircraft that were on our airfield they marvelled at them and said again that they only wished that they had them supporting them in 1942.
All of the prisoners were eager for news and to know what had happened in the outside world during the time that they had spent in captivity. The aircrew on our Squadron bought up our canteens supply of cigarettes etc and collected all the newspapers magazines from around the billets to take to the chaps that had to wait behind with the Japs for a few more days before it was their turn to be flown out.
One of our aircraft on a certain morning had to carry out a special mission. Before the aircraft could land in a field somewhere in Siam, messages had to be dropped to ask the Japs if the ground was hard enough for them to make a safe landing. The Japs then put out the white sheet which was the O.K. signal and as soon as the aircraft came to a stop and the engines were switched off the prisoners in the camp rushed out and fell down on their knees and kissed parts of the aircraft which spelt liberation for them. Other flung their arms around the necks of the aircrew when they stepped out into the ground. Many were so happy that they cried like children.
The aircrew overloaded the aircraft for the return trip. They piled in 30 men besides themselves but before they were able to take off the prisoners that had to be left behind made our aircrew promise that they would come back again on the following day to fetch more of them. From what I have told you, you ought to be able to guess how those fellows must have felt. We did not mind it all when at this period we went on half rations so that they could have as much to eat as they wanted.
cont…..
[page break]
[inserted] 168 [/inserted]
- 25 –
It was a bit noisy at night in the billet, as immediately the lights went out and all became quiet the frogs in the nearby swamp would start up again like a team of galloping horses on a cobbled road. Then the lizzards [sic] would start chirping and squeaking at each other. Dozens of them used to inhabit the ceilings and chase one another over the walls, but for all this they used to catch and eat many of the baby elephant mosquitos that sucked so much blood from us of an evening. Often we would get three or four bats in the room at the same time, sweeping over our heads and circling around missing everything by a matter of inches. Then occasionally in the dark we would hear a sound like a bomber zooming around and the smack of it kept hitting the wall. On investigation it would turn out to be a great big black giant ugly flying beetle at least 3” long. After killing one and looking at it more closely one could see that its body was infested with small white lice and that it had claws like a crab.
When the hot season arrived and the swamps dried up the sound of the frogs ceased which was a small consolation but to counteract that, on waking up in the middle of the night I would often hear a chap talk in his sleep and another chap on the other side of the room asleep also would answer him quite clearly. Another fellow used to grate his teeth when asleep. Then a rat would be heard in amongst someones kit. On the whole it was like a menagery [sic] in our room at night.
During the day in the warm season all kinds of birds would enter and fly around the room or sit somewhere and either chirp or sing. For all those noises we had some really good times in our new home. Cards were played nearly every evening in our room and at one time most of the occupants were real gamblers. During a shoot card school one evening one chap stood to win £120. on one card and another chap to loose £60 on it. Needless to say, I seldom took part in these proceedings. On that occasion we all looked on with bated breath whilst the card was being turned over. Three fellows in the school that evening lost £25. and others finished up with losses and gains of similar amounts.
One of the many jokes we used to have amongst ourselves was when one evening it was the 10th anniversary of the marriage of the fellow who slept next to me at one time. We took the laces from his boots and shoes and hid them, we put paper in between the batteries of his torch so that it would not light and we hid his plates under his pillow. We then covered his sheets and mosquito net with some beautifully smelling powder that someone dug out from his kit bag. I should think that he had a nice dream that night.
Often when there was a [deleted] deceant [/deleted] [inserted] [indecipherable word] [/inserted] scare on, someone when the lights were out would creep out of bed and the room and poke a stick through the shuttered windows on to the net of the nearest bed until the fellow in it woke up suddenly scared stiff and wondering what was touching his net. On many occasions fellows came back from Rangoon late at night and on getting into bed found their sheets sewn up or after being in bed a while their bed would collapse quite suddenly or be drawn out in the middle of the room where no one was near.
One evening someone started spraying water from his water bottle at someone else and it ended up by them pouring buckets of water over each others mosquito net and bed. The best part of it was that I started the fun off by playing around with a jar of cold cream in the dark and a few minutes later I crept into bed and [inserted] DID [/inserted] not even get a spot of water on myself or my bed.
Soon after we arrived at Rangoon, our working hours were changed to 8 am until 5 pm with an hour and a half for dinner. Even then most of us used to roll in around about 8.30 and disappear suddenly round about 4.30 p.m. so that we could get up at camp in time for the afternoons football match. What a difference it was to the hours that we were working a few months previously.
cont……
[page break]
[inserted] 168A [/inserted]
[newspaper cutting with a story about Burmese Dacoits]
[page break]
[newspaper cutting continuing the story of the Burmese Dacoits with drawing of gang of robbers attacking a serviceman]
[page break]
[newspaper cutting continuing the story of the Burmese Dacoits]
[page break]
[newspaper cutting continuing the story of the Burmese Dacoits with drawing of gang of robbers attacking a man with a gun]
[page break]
[photograph of two Burmese soldiers with a suspected gangster as their prisoner]
DACOITS, OR BANDITS, RESPONSIBLE FOR MURDER RAIDS ON ISOLATED VILLAGES, ARE NOW BEING ROUNDED UP IN LiBERATED BURMA. This prisoner, charged as a suspected gangster, will be brought to trial for armed robbery and murder
[page break]
[inserted] 169 [/inserted]
- 26 –
As soon as all the prisoners were cleared from Siam and Indo China our aircraft went on air-line service work of carrying important persons between Rangoon which was our base at Bankok [sic] in Siam, Saigon in French Indo China, Hong Kong, in China, Penang and Kula Lumpar [sic] in Malaya, Singapore & Calcutta in India and also on various other routes all over the Far East.
One day whilst walking to my billet just as it was dark, on return from a visit to Rangoon suddenly tracer and incendary [sic] bullets started to fly overhead in all directions and volley after volley of rifle fire cracked out. At the same time a match was in progress on the football field and the players had to fall flat on the ground and then crawl off the pitch on their tummys and hide behind a nearby bank to avoid being shot. Bullets were flying over the football pitch and were landing in amongst the officers tents. Then an army fellow came running into our room and told us that his tent and three others situated on the top of the hill nearby with the water tower and vehicle park on it were being attacked. He was so certain that it was [deleted] a [/deleted] Jap rifles firing at him that we thought that it was Dacoits (Burmese Bandits) being led by Japs who were fighting on and ignoring the surrender agreement, as were a number of Jap units in Central Burma. It was quite a frequent occurrence for these bandits to carry out raids on camps etc and steal what ever they could get their hands on. Once they attacked the station ration store and quite a number of bandits were killed whilst raiding nearby villages to our camp at different intervals.
Within ten minutes from the commencement of the firing, our armoury in the same building as myself was doing a roaring trade. Our room was full of fellows loading rifles and sten guns ready to carry out a siege of the billet or go out and attack. It was dark by this time and the Army went out on an armed reconissance [sic] and they found out that two Indian units consisting of some 400 men were carrying out a private war of their own.
It appeared that it was an Indian (religious festival day) and one unit was of a different religion to the other and the war started through a couple of members of one unit shooting two cows and as the cow is a sacret [sic] animal to the other unit, they became annoyed and annoyance grew into hate and they opened fire on the other unit to get revenge for the cows.
That evening one Indian gave himself up in our officers mess and at that time he had only nine bullets left out of the forty that he should have carried. The last that we heard of the affair was that during the battle nine men had been killed and that 150 others had deserted with their arms and ammunition into the surrounding area.
All the cows around the camp were allowed to roam freely whenever they pleased, unconcerned about the crows and other birds that rested or had a ride on their heads and backs.
I was on day off on September 10th but at 9. a.m. I was woken up and told that our gang had to go into work to do a special job, which was to fit overload fuel tanks inside the fusalage [sic] of the aircraft.
What a job it was too, nothing would fit properly or go right for us. We had to finish the job that same day as next morning, the Group Captain was taking the aircraft to Penang just off the coast of Malaya and from there he was going on to Singapore as soon as the Japs on the Island surrendered, as most probably he would not be able to refuel anywhere on the trip he would have to fly the 2,500 miles there and back to Rangoon on just the petrol that he left Rangoon with.
cont…..
[page break]
[inserted] 169A [/inserted]
[five photographs of Dakotas at Mingaladon airfield near Rangoon]
[underlined] 267 SQUADRON AIRCRAFT AT MINGALADON AIRFIELD [/underlined]
[page break]
[photograph of aircraft]
[photograph of Raymond Barrett seated next to a Dakota]
MYSELF TAKING A SHORT WORK REST AT MINGALADON AIRFIELD
[page break]
[inserted] 169B [/inserted]
[underlined] MINGALADON [/underlined]
[photograph of Raymond Barrett at work on Dakota aircraft]
MYSELF WORKING ON DAKOTA’S OF [underlined] 267 SQUADRON [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 170 [/inserted]
- 27 –
So that is why we had to put the extra tanks in.
After sawing chissling, [sic] drilling and hammering bits out of the aircraft and fitting masses of pipelines and the frames to hold the tanks, we finally completed the job at 10 p.m. that evening. Air Ministry would had had a fit if they had seen all the things that we did to make everything fit. After filling the tanks we tested the workings of them by running up the engines. After everything had been completed, we had to load the G.C’s jeep into the aircraft before going back to the billet.
Now for a short description of Rangoon itself during my whole [deleted] story [/deleted] [inserted] STAY [/inserted] at Mingaladon. I must have visited the town about a hundred or more times. Not because there was much to see or do there but because there was absolutely nowhere else to go to.
Generally I used to set out just after dinner and start thumbing a lift on the main road just by our billets. The 12 mile ride into town was quite pleasant on the first few occasions or on a nice cool sunny day on others it was rather boring especially if travelling on an open lorry when it started to rain. At many points alongside the road just past the airfield were big holes made by 250 lb bombs that had been dropped during our air raids on a very large Jap ammunition dump that was situated amongst trees for a mile and a half beside the road. This dump had been left in tact by the Japs when they had fled before the 14th armies advance. Then a few miles further along the road after passing by a small native village of Bashas came the edge of the Royal Victoria Lake where one would see natives bathing and also many sailing boats gliding along across the water on the other side of this end of the lake on a hillside that swept down to the waters edge were one or two large impressive houses belonging to rich Europeans. The scene just there I think was one of the nicest in the Rangoon area as it reminded me of a bit of England similar to the Thames at Runnymeade. After this scene came [deleted] a [/deleted] large British type houses on either side of the road at intervals between small native villages. One large set of buildings which used to be the Rangoon University were then taken over and used as the 12th Army H.Q. then came the first round about before Rangoon from which two main roads led off into the city.
These roads must have been quite good before the war but they had not been repaired in the past six years and were not built to take all the wartime traffic that had used them consequently it was a bit bumpy travelling over the spots that were well worn.
Then between the first and second roundabout one passed by what remained of the Rangoon Engineering College which the Japs at one time used as their H.Q. I must say that the R.A.F. when they bombed it certainly made a good job of it. The area was one mass of twisted iron girders and heaps of bricks, in fact it looked as if an atom bomb had been dropped there as every building except one had been raised to the ground and of the remaining one only a single centre room was left standing.
From this second roundabout two more main roads ran off into Rangoon. The one to the left which ran past the big Pagoda was the best set out with its little islands on which were planted flowers and small trees, which separated the traffic coming from and going into the city. But to use this road, one got shook to pieces as it was full of big holes. The second road which was the main Prome one was just a clear highway which except for the native stalls and village at the third roundabout was boarded by big modern houses every one of which was detached and had a large garden all the way until one came to where the Main Rangoon prison was situated. It was in this prison with its huge 20 ft high surrounding walls that the Japs kept our prisoners taken by them in Burma.
cont……..
[page break]
[inserted] 170A [/inserted]
[photograph of men and women issuing biscuits to Burmese children]
“BISCUIT MORNING” IS A POPULAR WEEKLY GATHERING FOR THE REFUGEE BURMESE CHILDREN: These free delicacies, dispensed by the Civil Affairs Authorities, are greatly enjoyed after three years of Japanese occupation on a starvation ration of rice – and rice alone. Over 1,200 homeless refugees, mainly Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Burmese families, are being housed in the C.A.S. camp at Maymyo, run by the Civil Affairs officer for the district.
[photograph of Rangoon Market Place]
IN A RANGOON MARKET-PLACE: The fruit spread out on the pavement includes exotic Oriental varieties, such as the mango and the luscious custard apple
[photograph of three Burmese girls]
THE BURMESE GIRLS NOW ENJOY GOOD PAY: These three have just received their wages. They are employed as cooks at one of the feeding centres established by Civil Affairs.
[page break]
[photograph of Burmese shopkeeper with row of ducks hung up on display]
TO-DAY IN RANGOON, THE BURMESE SHOPS SELL MANY OF THE DELICACIES WHICH WERE FORMERLY REQUISITIONED BY THE JAPS. Roast ducks, for instance, are cheap and plentiful. Here is a whole row of them displayed in a shop window and ready for hungry customers
[page break]
[inserted] 170B [/inserted]
[underlined] CHINESE PROCESSION [/underlined]
[two photographs of a procession]
[underlined] CHINATOWN RANGOON [/underlined]
[two photographs of the Chinatown district in Rangoon]
[page break]
[inserted] 171 [/inserted]
- 28 –
Then after passing by many more large buildings that had been taken over for hospital use, came Rangoon Cathedral which was used by the Japs during their occupation as a brewery. Just past the Cathedral was the remains of the large Scot Market which had been heavily bombed but in spite of this quite a number of stalls were in operation. Then another two hundred yards further along Montgomery Road one turned into the Sule Pagoda Road at a point near the Rangoon railway station and the railway bridge. Very little remained of the station except the railway lines and the skeleton of a couple of sheds.
At the end of road one arrived at the large gold topped Sule Pagoda which marks the centre of the city. Even this Pagoda had been slightly damaged by bombs. I think that the best way to describe the town is to say that it is split up into four sections. Firstly centred around Dalhousie Park which is situated in front of the Sule Pagoda is the European section which contains many first class buildings, but I am sorry to say that many of these were also destroyed or partly so by bombing as they were situated so very near [deleted] from [/deleted] [inserted] TO [/inserted] the dockside.
I should think that this part of the town stood out most from the air and I expect most of these impressive buildings were inhabited by the Japanese during their occupation so it was natural that they were bombed. Whilst I was there most of the remaining undamaged large buildings were being used by our own military, naval R.A.F. H.Q’s etc.
There were quite a large number of English churches in various parts of the town also English run convents and schools. At least they were in operation before the war and I expect that, by now they will be again.
Most of the buildings in this European section of the city were used for business only before the war as they had their houses and living bungalows situated beside one of the main roads a few miles out from the city. The nicest building in the city, in my opinion was the one time civic hall, a part of which was taken over by the Y.M.C.A. for forces canteen and rest room etc, but even this lovely building had been partly destroyed and large cracks appeared in many of the walls. The front balcony overlooks Dalhousie Park.
The Toc H people and also the Salvation army had set up other forces canteens in the city. We were only able to obtain tea and cakes in them and when we first arrived it was impossible to get a meal anywhere. But as time went on and things got back to normal, Chinese and Burmese Restaurants opened up in which we could buy fancy cream cakes, tea, coffee, fried eggs, chicken, ice cream, and iced drinks etc etc.
It was the same with the city itself, when we first arrived in the area the place was dead and the streets were littered with filth, rubble and bomb damage and horrible smells etc, but as the months went by the city became more and more clean and tidy.
Rangoons theatre and cinema land was all bunched together beside the railway station so you can guess what a mess it was in. Only one cinema remained in tact [inserted] & [/inserted] for some months, it was run by the army as a forces cinema until it was taken over by civilians once again. The rest of the theatres were either destroyed by fire [inserted] OR BOMBS [/inserted] to the ground.
Beside the European quarter is the Indian section of the city. Here you get the same horrible smells as one wanders through the streets in which most of the houses that have not been bombed are falling down with decay. Then there is the Burmese part of the city of which a large part is built of Basha. The remaining part is similar to the Indian quarter.
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 171A [/inserted]
[underlined] Y.M.C.A. CLUB [/underlined]
[photograph of Y.M.C.A. Club in Rangoon]
[underlined] CIVIC HALL [/underlined]
[photograph of Civic Hall in Rangoon]
SCENE FROM BALCONY OF Y.M.C.A. CLUB
[photograph of street in Rangoon] [symbol] CORNER OF DALHOUSIE PARK
RANGOONS ONE REMAINING [underlined] CINEMA [/underlined]
[photograph of the cinema in Rangoon]
[page break]
DALHOUSIE PARK AND DOCKS [symbol]
Y.M.C.A. & CIVIC HALL [symbol]
[symbol] CHINATOWN
[photograph of pagoda and trees in Rangoon]
[underlined] SULE PAGODA RANGOON [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 172 [/inserted]
- 29 –
Then lastly comes Chinatown situated East of the Sule Pagoda. This part of the city is, as you can guess mostly inhabited by Chinese. The roads and narrow streets like in most oriental towns were full of litter and garbage and horrible smells especially in the large vegetable [inserted] & [/inserted] poultry market. You should have seen the skinny chickens that they used to sell there.
Most of the houses in this sector were no more than tumble down shacks. Most of the girls used to wear sweet smelling colourful flowers in their jet black hair which made them look quite pretty. On the opposite side of the Rangoon river in Chinatown were more natives villages and although a ferry ran regularly from side to side, I never did get to the south bank to explore that area.
The section of Chinatown built alongside the docks was also devestated [sic] in places. There are quite a number of impressive looking Chinese and Indian Temples in the vicinity. The carvings and exterior decorations were of all sorts of colours so were the hanging lanterns. I used to like to wander around the bazzaars, [sic] but the stalls contained very little that any European would want to buy. They were piled high with lots of odds and ends that really amounted to nothing in particular.
I ded see some pretty blue patterned silk on a stall once but the price of it was 25 Rupies [sic] or £1.17.6. a yard and I could not bargain with the Chinese stall proprietor to lower his price by even one penny. Four months or more later when ships began to bring things from India the shops in the European quarter began to be well stocked with more sensible things at more sensible prices.
In Chinatown and the Indian and Burmese quarters it was nothing to see goats, geese, chickens etc running around the streets and I have even seen goats enter into some of the houses and the natives living in them have made no attempt to drive them out into the streets again.
Most of the natives both men and women wash and bathe themselves out in the streets beside broken water mains, taps etc.
The streets of the city are usually inhabited with hundreds of rickshaws and their owners. One hot afternoon, I paid one fellow 7/6p to give me a ride around the city. I bet he was tired of pulling my weight around and was glad when two hours later I told him to put me down so that I could walk on my own legs again.
In and around the town were all sorts of ancient vehicles, buses etc. It was marvelous [sic] how they went along without falling to pieces. As most of the vehicles were at least 15 years old and had been battered about something terrible. Also twice as many people rode on and in them than they were ever built to carry. I am sure that some of them were tied together with bits of wire because of the teriffic [sic] rattling sound that they made as they went along.
It was comical to stand near the main bus terminal beside the vegetable markets and see all the buses with their passengers start off for Pegu, Prome, Insien etc. Of an early morning we would see these vehicles passing by the camp every few minutes on their way to Rangoon. Some would be loaded with passengers which were packed together inside with extra sitting on the roof on top of luggage etc or standing on a board attached to the rear of the bus. Then there were the vehicles loaded to capacity with vegetables and fruit bound for the market in Rangoon, these used to [deleted] have [/deleted] [inserted] [indecipherable word] [/inserted] some most horrible smells in their wake and it was terrible if you happened to be travelling just behind one of these vehicles.
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 172A [/inserted]
[underlined] THE N.A.A.F.I. BOAT CLUB. NEAR RANGOON [/underlined]
[photograph of Victoria Lake]
[underlined] VICTORIA LAKE [/underlined]
[three photographs of the Boat Club near Rangoon]
[page break]
[inserted] 172D [/inserted]
[photograph of Chinatown bazaar in Rangoon]
CHINATOWN – BAZAAR.
[photograph of a funeral procession]
BURMESE FUNERAL
[photograph of men working on a street in Rangoon]
[underlined] VIEWS OF RANGOON [/underlined]
[page break]
[photograph of man with rickshaw]
[symbol] RANGOON FIRE [underlined] STATION [/underlined] [photograph of Rangoon Fire Station]
[photograph of man behind a table with goods on display]
[photograph of women carrying a baby on her back and some children in the background]
[underlined] GENERAL VIEWS OF RANGOON [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 172C [/inserted]
[photograph of beggar sitting on the street]
[photograph of alleyway]
[photograph of girl walking, carrying umbrella] [symbol] BURMESE GIRL SEPT 1945.
[photograph of two Burmese girls under an umbrella]
[underlined] RANGOON GENERAL VIEWS [/underlined]
[page break]
[photograph of four Burmese children in the street]
[photograph of a group of Burmese women]
[photograph of Rangoon docks]
[underlined] RANGOON DOCKS [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 173 [/inserted]
- 30 -
On more than one occasion I have seen one going along with hot water spurting out in a steady stream from a leak in the radiator and a native would be sitting on one of the mudguards with a jug in one hand and a bucket of water beside him filling up the radiator as they went along.
The bus owners used to employ someone for 1/- a day to sit or stand at the rear of the vehicles and act as a conductor and everytime a vehicle started to pass by, he used to blow a blast on a whistle and as soon as the road behind the bus was clear once more the conductor informed the driver by blowing two blasts on his whistle.
I must say that the Burmese are good mechanics as when their vehicle has broken down on the road, I have seen them very nearly pull the engine to pieces and put it together again and drive off after two or three hours.
When many of the vehicles stop whilst climbing a hill, the conductor usually has to jump off quickly and find a stone or brick and put it behind one of the wheels to act as a chock and so stop the bus from running backwards down the hill. Then there were dozens of bullock drawn carts to be seen on the roads with their native drivers.
The NAAFI ran the best canteen in the area. They took over the peace time boat club which was situated beside one section of the Victoria Lake. Here, one could sit on the large Verandah [sic] in an easy chair and munch sandwitches [sic] whilst listening to nice soft music and looking out upon the lake at the sailing boats and swimmers. Every Sunday night during the summer a dance was held on this Verandah. [sic] I only went to one of these dances but it was pretty to watch the couples dancing, in the open air beneath the many coloured lights the reflection of which twinkled in the water.
Rangoon city also possessed a large well planned out Zoo but at the end of the war very few animals were left in it. I took a walk through it one morning whilst on my way to the boat club for a snack and I only saw a few different types of birds.
The war certainly did a lot of harm to the city and I came to the conclusion that, although many of the modern parts remain undamaged that if it were possible the best thing that could be done was to evacuate all the people and then drop a couple of Atom Bombs onto the city and then let the population start from scratch and build a new Rangoon worthy of its place in the 21st century.
But in spite of all the smells, smashed and sunken paving stones and the hundreds of big water filled holes in the roads and the unrepaired filled in bomb holes which had turned into a muddy area, I used to like to walk down Chinatown of a nightime. [sic] The thousands of lighted candles, parrafin [sic] and pressure lamps on the stalls and roadside cafes seemed to fasinate [sic] me in some ways. As one walked along through the thronged main street bustling against the Chinese & Burmese, Indians and other mixtures of races, you would see the Chinese eating all sorts of concoctions with chop sticks whilst sitting at the pavement tables or in the dingy shady restaurants. from which issued forth Chinese oriental music. Then as night wore on you would have to avoid stepping on to the natives that were sleeping on bits of sacking or matting beside their stalls or in front of their shops. Then at the end of the main road would be the Sula Pagoda with its gold top and entrance doorways lit up with rings of white, yellow green and blue electric light bulbs. Chinatown was the only part of Rangoon which seemed to have any life in it after darkness decended [sic] upon the city.
Towards the end of the year the W.V.S. opened up an Eastern Counties club in a big building beside the Rangoon river
cont…..
[page break]
[photograph of indoor swimming pool]
SWIMMING POOL IN W.V.S. [underlined] EASTERN COUNTIES CLUB [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 173A [/inserted]
[inserted] [underlined] 1. [/underlined] [/inserted]
[newspaper cutting and photograph of the harbour in Rangoon]
[inserted] CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE. [/inserted]
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] 2. [/underlined] [/inserted]
[newspaper cutting and photograph continuing the story of Rangoon]
[page break]
[inserted] 174 [/inserted]
- 30 –
where we were able to have tea and cakes and a rest or play tennis and other games. Then there was also a swimming pool in the building.
A little way out of the city, was also the service open air swimming pool which I went to on one or two occasions. I used to enjoy being in the cool water and then coming out and drying myself out whilst lying beneath the hot sun on one of the grassy banks surrounding the pool. just before going into the canteen a few yards away for tea and sandwitches. [sic] This canteen was run by the W.A.S. (B). (Womens Auxilary Service Burma.
In my opinion there is only one spot that is really worth paying a special visit to in the area and that is to the huge Shewedagon Pagoda which is one of the largest in the world and stands about two miles from the centre of the city. The height of the Pagods [sic] from the ground to its tip is about 360 ft which is higher than St. Pauls Cathedral. The whole of the dome is painted over with pure gold liquid and the full beauty richnes [sic] and magnificence of everything in an [sic] around it are indescribable.
Set at 90o apart are the four caved [sic] canopy entrance stairways of 109 steps each, leading up in stages to the area surrounding the dome. To walk around the square formed by the North East, South and West Gates it would take me at least two hours. All around the base of the hill on which the Pagoda is built runs a small dried up moat near the South gate is a very picturesque small lake. Perhaps if I draw a small diagram of the Pagoda area it will help you to understand more fully what I am talking about.
When I visited the great Pagoda for the first time I approached it by way of Pagoda road which runs from Chinatown straight up past the Cathedral and on to the main entrance which is South Gate. One hundred and fifty yards from the entrance gateway on either side of the road is a Chinthie which are sybolic [sic] as the guardians of the temple.
These Chinthies at the approach to the Shewedagon Pagoda are carved from stone and look something like squating [sic] animals something like a lion cum bull dog, anyway you can see from the photograph what they look like exactly.
No one is allowed to proceed further than the first half dozen steps without taking off their footwear. So on arrival at the South Gate, I sat on one of the many little stools offered to me by Burmese women and children who wanted to look after my shoes for a few annas after I had taken them off until after I had completed my tour of the Pogoda. [sic]
Each side of the stairway were bazaar stalls. Most of the stalls were selling flowers of various colours and varietys. [sic] Almost everyone that I saw going up to pray before the Budha, [sic] held in their hand a small bunch of flowers of some sort which they intended to place in a vase near one of the many idols. Many of the stalls were also selling hundreds of different picture [inserted] BOOKS [/inserted] printed in Japan. I looked through some dated 1942 in which parts were translated into English print along with the languages of the Far East. Every one of the books that I picked up were full of properganda [sic] showing pictures of Japans might in the air and on the sea and land and other pictures glorifying Imperial Militarison. [sic] One picture showed the sinking of our cruiser the “Dorsetshire” and another the sinking of one of our aircraft carriers in 1942. In one book it showed and told of how they had planned to capture the whole of India and Australia. I felt like setting fire to the whole lot. On reaching the one hundreth [sic] and ninth step with my feet feeling cold on the stone I was met by a Burmese guide who offered to show me around the Pogoda. [sic] Facing each of the four stairways was a canopied shrine attached to the gold dome, each of which contained the figure of a squatting Budha [sic] situated behind iron bars. Each figure stood about 4 ft high and was studded with diamonds. Rubies, saphires [sic] and other precious stones. Each shrine was also decorated with vast array of various coloured flowers placed there by the people. At the time, I was before these shrines there were many people kneeling and praying on the mat in front of the Budhas [sic] and others were lighting small thin Christmas tree candles and placing them before the effigy. The pillars supporting each canopy were covered with various coloured semi precious glass and the whole of the floor around the gold dome and in the shrines were paved with patterned marble that came from Italy.
cont…..
[page break]
[inserted] 174A [/inserted]
[underlined] ONE OF THE GUARDIAN CHINTHIES [/underlined] (BURMESE LION).
[photograph of Chinthe outside of the Pagoda]
[underlined] ENTRANCE GATEWAY [/underlined]
[photograph of one of the entrance gateways to the Pagoda]
[photograph of men sitting inside the Pagoda]
[photograph inside the Pagoda] [symbol] NOTE CARRYING OUR SHOES
[underlined] STEPS OF WESTERN GATEWAY [/underlined]
[photograph of one of the entrance gateways to the Pagoda]
[underlined] ENTRANCE GATEWAY [/underlined]
[page break]
[photograph of Pagoda]
[diagram detailing the grounds of the Pagoda]
[page break]
[inserted] 174B [/inserted]
[underlined] SHRINES INSIDE THE PAGODA [/underlined]
[six photographs of interior and exterior of Pagoda]
[page break]
[two photographs of Buddahs]
[page break]
[inserted] 175 [/inserted]
- 31 –
The guide also showed me around the museum which contained various beautiful objects such as bullock carts, shrines etc made of solid gold or silver and studded with gems. All of these precious things were also kept behind bars.
I was also shown around many other temples around the dome containing marble sitting and reclining Buddhas. In one of the temples stood the largest bell in the Far East which weighed 85 tons only it was cracked. I think in fact that this bell is the largest in the world but I am not quite sure.
The Priests were dressed in a yellow/orange cloth and had all their hair shaved off. These were the only people who were allowed to enter the main temple beneath the pinacale [sic] of gold in which was situated the huge Budha [sic] of solid gold studded with hundreds of diamonds, thousands of Rubies and sapphires and other precious stones. The guide also told me that the Pagoda was over 1,700 years old but as I said before it is impossible for me to describe the full beauty of it all.
During September and October the fellow who slept in the next bed to me started a hobby of collecting butterflys [sic] to take home for his little son. Many afternoons and Sunday mornings, he used to get me to go with him. We made big nets from Bamboo canes wire and mosquito netting and we would wander for miles out in the wilds behind the billets chasing butterflies and searching for them amongst the bushes. At times we wandered across small swamps and streams through elephant grass and jungle and across paddy fields. The butterflies seemed to come out only when it was very sunny so it made us sweat all the more if we had to chase one a long way beneath the boiling sun. We used to get very excited on catching sight of a butterfly of a type which we had not already caught and would watch it flutting [sic] around first one way and then the other for minutes until it finally came to a rest on a leaf of a bush. Then we would gradually creep on it with our nets ready for action and perhaps it would fly away again before we reached it or would miss it with the first swoop of our net and off it would go again and we would have to watch it again until it had got over its fright and decided to settle once more, that is if we did not lose sight of it altogether. Then we would have to creep up on it once more. Sometimes we were very lucky and caught the butterfly that we were after in our net with the first swish, but other times we might chase our intended victim for hours and still not catch it and would perhaps end up catching a different one altogether. If we caught half a dozen different specimens after a whole day out in the wilds we thought ourselves lucky.
After we lost a rare butterfly whilst getting it out form our net into a small cigarette tin and on one occasion we go the tins in our pockets mixed up so on opening one that we thought was empty to put a freshly caught specimen in, one that we had spent hours just flew out and were we annoyed.
The other fellow used to work in the same gang as myself and often we would be working away on an engine and suddenly he would excitedly shout out “There goes a lovely one” and off he would go with his bush hat in his hand and come back smiling a couple of hours later and show me a little cigarette tin containing his catch, after he had chased it for miles across the bushy country surrounding the airfield. On getting back to our billet he used to pack cigarette smoke into the tin and then keep the lid on until the butterfly was gassed. He lost more than one by thinking that it was dead and a few minutes after taking it out of the tin it would revive and start to fly around the room and perhaps settle on the ceiling, then you would see him standing on boxes etc trying to recapture it with his net. Or if it flew out of the window off out he would go again.
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 175A [/inserted]
[photograph of man in shorts]
[underlined] THE BUTTERFLY CATCHER. [/underlined]
[photograph of airmen who occupied the same billet as Raymond Barrett]
[inserted] [symbol] ME [/inserted]
[underlined] OCTOBER OCCUPANTS OF BILLET NO. 7. [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] MY PUPPY [/underlined] [symbol] [underlined] NEXT ROOM’S PUPPY [symbol]
[photograph of two dogs]
[underlined] MINGALADON [/underlined]
[photograph of Raymond Barratt holding his dog]
[underlined] MY PUPPY AND MYSELF [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 176 [/inserted]
- 32 –
After the butterflies were killed he used to mount them on cardboard and cover the card with cellphane [sic] paper to preserve them. The dead butterflies seemed to attract the live ones as during those two months when it was sunny [deleted] he [/deleted] [inserted] WE [/inserted] used to get many different types fluttering around the billet block. The other fellow even used to sit on the doorstep during many of his dinner hours with net in hand waiting for them to come round.
People who used to see him go out on a hunt with his big net thought that he was mad but we used to have some good times and many laughs during these excurtions. [sic] For butterfly catching one certainly has to have a lot of patience. When we went home in November he took fifty or more different specimens with him. Some of them contained many glorious colours and the prize of his collection was a swalowtail [sic] with a nine inch wing [deleted] and [/deleted] span.
It was well worth spending all that time in catching them as in a letter that one of the fellows received in the billet the other day from him he says that he sold his collection for £45.00.
I remember one Saturday afternoon another fellow and myself decided to go to the races in Rangoon just to see them. We did not intend to back any horses as we had been told all about them by someone who had been to the races a few weeks before. He told us that in once race there were half a dozen horses, five of which looked in good condition and were the favourites in the betting list, the remaining one was as thin as a rake and looked as if it would fall down dead at any moment. Consequently, it was running at a good price and needless to say it came romping home first in front of all the other horses.
Anyway on arrival at Rangoon we were told on asking someone the way to the race track, that it was way out of town and that we should have come into the city by the Boat Club road. At that moment an old Indian came along pulling a ricksaw [sic] so we gave him a shout and on coming over we climbed in. The old boy was not much more than a bag of bones and when he picked up the shafts to begin to pull us along the weight of us both nearly tipped him up in the shafts. Anyway we made him follow the directions given to us as to where the racecourse was situated but after he had pulled us along for a couple of miles over the bumpy road I began to feel sorry for him as he began to run down the sloapes [sic] and drag us up inclines which seemed to take all the little energy and strength that he did possess and I felt that at any moment we were in danger of tipping him up and landing up on our backs. I told him to pull into the roadside where we got out and paid him off much to our pleasure and his.
We than [sic] thought the race course could only be just around the corner so we started to use our legs once more but after we had walked a mile and a half we began to sweat and feel [deleted] stinking [/deleted] [inserted] STICKY [/inserted] and tired in the afternoon heat and there was still no sign of the course. We had asked a Burmese who happened to be passing by at the time how much further we had to walk and he replied “a mile up the road” we continued our plodding for another mile and a quarter and arrived at the lakes but there was still no sign of course and as it was then nearly time for the last race but one, we walked back into the city and had a chicken dinner, iced drinks and ice cream before coming back to camp and having hot tea and going to the camp cinema to see the film “Laura”. I never did get to the race course.
On an average all the time I was at Mingaladon, I spent at least two evenings a week writing this book then I went to the cinema twice a week. Another evening I passed away by writing letters etc, and I went to the cinema on a few Sundays afternoons to listen to the classical concerts on records given there.
As I said before our biggest entertainment was football and we never had a bad football team all the time that we were in the Far East. It remained unbeaten after the 21st game on our ground at Mingaladon and in all they were only beaten eight times in over fifty games against some of the best teams in Burma.
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 177 [/inserted]
- 33 –
Whenever they played at least 100 supporters from the Squadron went with them. I have watched them play many thrilling games and one of the best was in the second round of the Burma Cup. We were without the services of our professional centre half and the one and only goal of the match came within two minutes from the end of the game. They played their successful first round game on the big Rangoon Stadium ground. this ground was situated on the other side of the railway station to theatre land so that the stands etc were badly damaged during the raids on the railway station and goods yards.
Towards the end of the year our hitch hiking troubles were partly solved when the army opened up a bus service running from the railway station along the Prome Road to Insien (the next village to Mingaladon). So we were able to get a lift to within three and a half miles of our camp quite easily.
[underlined] PART 7 OF THIS BOOK CONTINUES [/underlined]….
[page break]
[inserted] 177A [/inserted]
[photograph of a Pagoda]
[underlined] NGADAFRYS PAGODA EAST RANGOON [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 177B [/inserted]
[five aerial photographs taken from a Dakota]
[underlined] APPROACH TO MINGALADON RUNWAY [/underlined]
[underlined] TAKEN ON A TEST FLIGHT OVER THE RANGOON AREA. I WAS ON BOARD [/underlined]
[page break]
[newspaper cutting regarding its first water festival since before the war]
[page break]
[inserted] 177C [/inserted]
[inserted] OUR SQUADRON [underlined] 267 [/underlined] [/inserted]
[newspaper cutting regarding operations of Dakotas]
[page break]
[inserted] 178 [/inserted]
[underlined] MY OVERSEAS SERVICE PART 7 BY MR. R. BARRETT [/underlined]
By the end of October I began to get fed up with working on engines every day and longed for a change so I volunteered to go on a trip to Singapore and act as Air Steward throughout the journey.
On November 7th I was told to report to the Operations tent where on arrival I was told that I was flying on the following day and also what I had to do to earn my passage and the number of the aircraft that I was to fly in.
After dinner and a bath that evening I packed a few things together and put in an early call for 3.30 a.m. in the morning before going to bed. The next thing that I knew was that I was being shaken by the early call airman who was asking me to sign the book to say that he really had called me. Very sleepily I lifted one side of the net and popped by head and arm out and with the aid of his torch, I complied with his request. A few moments later I roused myself and got out of bed and lit a candle and then dressed myself. Next I took down and folded up my mosquito net and blankets and blew out the candle and with my bed roll and small pack containing washing and [deleted] heavy [/deleted] [inserted] SHAVING [/inserted] materials etc, I crept out of the room as quietly as I could so as not to wake any other chaps in the room. But I only accomplished this task after knocking over a chair and bumping into the table.
On emerging out into the darkness I made my way to the road very carefully avoiding falling in to the monsoon ditches alongside it. Then as I neared the Sargeants [sic] Mess Block, I could see the glimmer of red, flickering and lighting up the darkness from the cooks fires at the rear of the Sgts Dining Hall.
I dumped my bed roll outside of the block and made my way to the dining hall which was in darkness. But within a couple of minutes one of the Indian cooks came in and placed a lighted hurricane lamp on the table in front of me and after a further minute or two, the rest of the N.C.O. crew on my aircraft put in an appearance along with the Sargeants [sic] of the other crews going to Singapore Saigon, Bankok [sic] and on other trips that morning.
The native bearers then brought in the plates of porridge and egg and sausage and cups of tea for our breakfast. At 4.15 a.m. a lorry drew up and began to toot its horn, so I hurredly [sic] finished my cup of tea and went outside to put my bed roll upon the waggon. After everyone was on, we drive off towards the airdrome. The cold morning air rushing through the waggon made me feel quite cold as we passed the native buses that had stopped by the roadside for the night, one or two loaded carts drawn by water buffalos and one woman native trying to hitch hike a lift. I got quite a [deleted] nice [/deleted] [inserted] AN [indecipherable word] [/inserted] feeling as we speeded along with the [deleted] lorry [/deleted] [inserted] LONG [/inserted] shadows of the trees falling across the road in front of our bright headlamps. Even the airfield looked different at that time in the morning. All I could see in the darkness was the darker stilouttes [sic] of all the D.C’s around me.
It took me quite a long time to find the aircraft which I was going to fly in, and whilst the aircrew went over to the ops tent for briefing, and to find out the wind speeds and cloud formations heights on our route etc, I climbed in the aircraft and switched on the fusalage [sic] lights and green and red wing tip (navigation lights) this lit the darkness up outside with a greeny red haze. I then erected the canvas seats and placed a neatly folded blanket with a flying [inserted] HORSE [/inserted] stamped on each seat and then placed all the safety belts out in line ready to receive all the passengers. By the time I had completed these things, the crew had arrived back and
con……
[page break]
[inserted] 178A [/inserted]
[underlined] JAPANESE OCCUPATION CURRENCY [/underlined]
[Five Rupee note]
[One Rupee note]
[page break]
[Half Rupee note]
[Quarter Rupee note]
[page break]
[inserted] 179 [/inserted]
- 2 –
climbed aboard and the chocks had been taken away also the pilot started the engines. The first pilot and captain of the aircraft was an officer Flt/Lt Ward. the second pilot was a Warrant Officer the Navigator a Flt/srgt [sic] and the Wireless Operator a Sgt.
After warming up the engines we taxied down to the Staging Post situated on a dispersal on the other side of the run-way to pick up our passengers. On arrival at the staging post, the pilot stopped the engines and we all decended [sic] out in to the open once again. Almost immediately the manifest for the journey was brought up to us and I discovered that we had 12 passengers and mail. I then went over to the transit restaurant at the Staging Post and obtained 17 luncheon packages and had another breakfast myself while I was there.
On return to the aircraft I found the passengers gathered around and their [inserted] KIT [/inserted] already loaded along with the mail and as the Staging Post Office called out the names from the manifest they boarded the aircraft and took their seats. When the last passenger had climbed up the steps the officer turned to me and said “they are all yours” so after I had told someone to take out the undercarriage pins and control locks and hand them to me I closed and fastened the doors.
I then had to tell the passengers that under no circumstances were they allowed to smoke in the aircraft or enter the crews cabin and that they must fasten their safety belts for both take off and landing. Then after telling them that first we were going up to Pegu, 15 mins flying time away to see if there were any more passengers [inserted] TO PICK UP [/inserted] and then [deleted] pick up [/deleted] our next stop which would be for dinner would be at Butterworth airfield in Malaya just on the mainland opposite the island of Pennang four hours flying time away. I went up to the pilot and told him that we were all set. He then started the engines once again and began the taxi towards the end of the run-way. it had become full light by this time.
Whilst the pilot was testing his engines and carrying out a control check prior to take off I went round checking the locking of the passengers safety belts and helping those who did not know how to fasten them.
A minute later we swung into the run-way and off we went. Our passengers were mostly Dutch Officers and Officials on their way to Java in the Netherlands East Indies [deleted] and [/deleted] to try to bring an end to the war in that Country and of important British civilians who were key men going to the island to help it return to its peace time running. Many of them had evacuated to India just before Singapore was invaded by the Japs and to them it was as if they were going home.
As our Mingaladon run-way was not so very long and had a ravine at each end of it, and a dip in the middle four engine aircraft full of passengers were not allowed to land on it. So Liberators and other [inserted] LARGE [/inserted] aircraft bringing people from India and England etc, had to land at Pegu rougly [sic] 60 miles by road north of Mingaladon and then be brought
cont………
[page break]
[inserted] 179A [/inserted]
[One cent note]
[Five cent note]
[page break]
[underlined] ENGLISH CURRENCY IN MALTA [/underlined]
[One cent note]
[page break]
[inserted] 180 [/inserted]
- 3 –
down to M in D.C’s. So that is why we had to call in at P. For the first 10 mins after take off we followed the narrow banked up single track railway line which [deleted] runs [/deleted] [inserted] ran [/inserted] across paddy fields and near to small woods in which native basha villages were situated. Then almost [deleted] to the second [/deleted] five minutes later we were circling and losing height and going in to land.
As soon as the engines were silenced a petrol bowser drew up and the mechanics stationed on the strip began to refuel our aircraft and whilst our captain went over to the control tower, I had a chance to look around this spot where our aircraft had at one time brought in supplies from Akyab.
Although the sun was shining brightly, and it was hot the place seemed so silent and forlorn. There was absolutely nothing to be seen around us except a few four engine aircraft the control tower sticking up on the other side of the wide dead flat one and a half mile metal runway and jungle on all sides. On the return of our captain we found that the trip up to Peru had been unnecessary and that there was no more passengers for Singapore. So we took off once again as soon as it was possible and headed southwards. Whilst flying along at 9,000 ft it became a bit cold and everyone was glad of their blankets. The Country of Southern Burma was very similar to that around our camp and before long we found ourselves flying over the sea and over hundreds of small islands of all shapes and sizes. Some were just barren rocks sticking up out of the water and other were covered in dense jungle. From what I could see hardly any were inhabited but I bet with a small boat it would take one a whole lifetime to explore just a section of them.
As we flew along, I could just make out the mainland in the distance haze. When I got tired of looking at the different islands, I chatted with some of the passengers before settling down to read a book that I had brought along with me. After being two hours in the air, I handed out the luncheon packages and for the following 3/4 of an hour everyone concentrated on eating. Before digging into my book once again, I went up front with the crew and gave them their rations and had a look at the navigators map to see precisely where we were.
Then during the proceeding two hours I had an occasional look out one of the windows to look at the scenes below or at the engines and the propellor [sic] going round or at the vapour trail coming from the wing tips but to keep turning my head to look out of the window made my neck ache. So oblivious to the continual roar of the engines I consentrated [sic] wholly on my book.
The next thing I knew was the wireless operator opening the cabin and telling me that we were nearing out [sic] stop so I had to get up to check the safety belts once again. Then I went up front to see the whole scene in front of us. I could see the marked passage and swept through the minefields approaching Penang Island which loomed up out of the water except for the section nearest to the mainland which was flat and just above water level and it was on this part of the island that the town of Georgetown was built. I could see the buildings etc quite clearly as we neared the town and the small fishing boats native sailing boats etc floating around the harbour and in that cleared shiping [sic] lane also the ferry boat which plied between the island and the mainland. As we came nearer and nearer to Georgetown we gradually lost height and just before reaching it at a height of a few hundred feet we did a steep left bank and turned towards the mainland three miles away and as we straightened up once again cont…..
[page break]
[inserted] 180A [/inserted]
[underlined] GEORGETOWN PENNANG [/underlined]
[three photographs of buildings in Georgetown]
[page break]
[photograph of crowd of natives]
[page break]
[inserted] 181 [/inserted]
- 4 –
I could see the run-way of Butterworth airfield situated nearly at the waters edge right in front of us.
We immediately received permission from the control tower to land on asking for it over the radio, so we went straight in without making a circuit a few moments later we were safely on the ground once more. A short while before this time our aircraft used to land on Penang island itself but as the strip was a bit short and an Air Marshal nearly overran it on landing his aircraft the new order about landing on the main land came out.
On stepping down from the aircraft a lorry converted into a bus was already waiting to take our passengers off to the transit canteen for dinner. I climbed aboard the 15 cwt van which drew up for the crew a little later. By this time the Staging Post personnel were already refuelling and checking over [inserted] OUR [/inserted] aircraft. No minor snags happened to the engines during our trip from Pegu so we had no excuse to stay at Pennang and have a tour of the island.
On the way to the transit canteen the pilor [sic] stopped the van in front of the control tower so that he could book in and whilst we were stopped there we watched our Squadron’s No 1 aircraft to Singapore that day take off. It had left Rangoon an hour before us and had come straight to Butterworth. On arrival at the transit canteen after a short ride along a bumpy track on either side of which were aircraft bomb blasts boys and a wreck of a Jap bomber, we were waited upon by Chinese waiters throughout our four course dinner.
Then after a cup of tea and a cigarette, we were told that the bus was waiting outsid [sic] to take us and the passengers back to our aircraft. After counting everyone and finding that no one was missing we moved off. The pilot again stopped at the control tower only to book out this time.
After everyone was aboard again and the captain had checked over the form 700 to see how much petrol and oil had been put in our tanks I had the locks and pins taken out once more and then our engines roared into life again after their brief rest and out we taxied to the run-way and after receiving permission to take off, off we went. A moment after our wheels had left the ground, we found ourselves over the sea once more heading towards the Island of Pennang but we almost immediately did a left bank and headed south once more following and flying over the coast line of Malaya.
After seeing that the passengers were comfortable, I read more of my book but after the next two hours the journey began to get a bit boring and my ears began to get tired of hearing the continuous road [sic] of the engines. So I went up front with the crew and watched the navigator plot out our course on his big map every 15 mins or so. Then looking out over the pilot windows, I could see the country of Malaya stretching 50 miles or more in front and to the left below us. Then on our right was the sea.
I remember one big swollen river twisting and turning and gradually getting wider as it neared the sea that we passed over as our navigator was able to check our position by it. Hundreds of little tributaries ran out from either side of the river into the surrounding country. They looked just like the roots of a big tree.
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 181A [/inserted]
[photograph of aircraft]
AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR KEITH PARK’S AIRCRAFT AT SELETA [underlined] AIRPORT – SINGAPORE [/underlined]
[photograph of a billet]
ONE OF THE BILLETS IN WHICH THE [underlined] AIRCREW STAYED [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] SINGAPORE [/underlined]
[two photographs of the control tower at Kallang Airport]
[underlined] KALLANG AIRPORT – CONTROL TOWER. [/underlined]
WHERE THE CREW WERE BRIEFED BEFORE WE TOOK OFF FROM SELETA
[page break]
[inserted] 182 [/inserted]
- 5 –
Then as we got further south, we could see the rows and rows of trees all in alignment which stretched for miles and miles and made up the hundreds of rubber plantations. It was mid afternoon when we passed over Mallaca on the South West coast of Malaya. The native and European houses and shops were strung out along the coastline beside the beach and the sea.Then the scene below continued to be miles and miles of rubber trees and every so often a plantation settlement. Around about three thirty p.m. we started to fly over the swamps which a few years before the Japs had started to swarm over in the commencement of their invasion of Singapore island when our commanders expected them to come in from the sea. The south of the Island facing the sea was bristling with huge guns and pill boxes and defence systems which were supposed to be impregnable whilst the rear of the island facing the mainland had none of these things to defend it. It was in these same swamps that thousands of British troops went into and laid mines. In front of the advancing Japs whilst they were under enemy shellfire and it was also in these swamps that our forces made their last ditch stand knowing that they had no chance of being taken off the island. For them it was either death or surrender and they held out until they were ordered to give in as they were hopelessly outnumbered and it was just slaughter to carry on.
As we neared the island and it grew larger before us we were able to distinguish with the aid of the navigators large map the four airdromes, the large naval base to our left, the town to the south side of the island, and the harbour full of shipping of every description in front of the town also various other installations such as oil storage tanks etc.
After deciding which was Seleta airport we flew towards it [deleted] lowering [/deleted] [inserted] LOSING [/inserted] height all the time. The run-way was situated just across the waterway which separates the swamps from the island and this wide strip of water is also used as a sea plane base. We circled the airfield once and made our approach to the runway and just before touching down we passed over a dozen or more Sunderland flying boats anchored on the water.
On coming to a stop, a bus was waiting ready to take away the passengers and their luggage and whilst this was being done, I gathered the blankets together and put them in the crews cabin. Then a jeep drew up and took our kit away, and the crew and myself picked our way over the muddy ground to the control tower beneath which I found my bed roll etc waiting for me in the jeep. By this time, our passengers had disappeared some had been driven off in a Dutch van that was waiting for them and the civilians went off in a bus that was going into the town. Whilst the captain was making arrangements with the Staging Post to get our aircraft refuelled and inspected for that day the rest of us sat drinking cups of tea in a nearby tent which was run by the W.V.S. About half an hour after we landed the No 1 aircraft of our Squadron to Singapore that day the one we watched take off from Butterworth) arrived The reason why he landed after us was because the aircraft had landed at Kuala Lumpar [sic] in Malaya on its way down to drop off passengers. Five minutes after landing another of our Squadrons aircraft landed. This one had gone u/s somewhere a few days previously and the crew told us that they had the time of their lives during their short holiday. I only wished we had gone U/S at Penang.
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 183 [/inserted]
- 6 –
It was just beginning to get dark when the three complete crews climbed on to the lorry/bus which was to take us to the air crew transit mess.
On leaving the airfield our drive first took us through nice green countryside and then a little later it began to get a little more tropical as we passed by paddy fields and palm and coconut trees, native bashas and villages. After travelling for [deleted] suppose [/deleted] [inserted] APPROX [/inserted] ten miles [deleted] or so [/deleted] we turned into a main road and passed by many trams loaded to capasity. [sic] We seemed to emerge from the darkness out into an area which was full of life. The pavements were thronged with people of a dozen or more races and the shops and stalls on either side of us were lit brightly by electricity, oil lamps or candles. Then a little later we left the shops and stalls behind us and turned off into another road on either side of which stood large residential houses and blocks of flats. Each building stood in its own grounds and was lit be electricity. This scene was nearest one I had seen to old England at night, since coming overseas. A little later we turned into the driveway of one of these houses and drove up to the building. We than [sic] climbed up an outside stairway and found ourselves in a large room off which ran many other smaller rooms.
The large room lit by electricity was full of stretchers and camp beds with mosquito nets above them belonging to other air crews staying there for the night. Also in the large room were easy chairs and a few tables as I entered someone was playing a record on a gramaphone. [sic]
I found a spare stretcher in one of the small rooms and as it was a nice night, our second pilot and myself decided to sleep out in the verandah. [sic] After a quick wash to freshen ourselves up a bit, we walked down the driveway lined with palm trees to the road and walked to the left for 250 yards until we arrived at the driveway of the transit mess house on our right hand side. At the entrance doorway, we had to book in and as it was an aircrew mess I had to sign myself as Sgt Barrett. As all the seats around the tables were occupied when we went in I had to wait for a couple of minutes before I went into the dining room. When I did go in and had taken a seat, I found myself amongst Wing Commanders Group Captains and other high ranking officers. Perhaps that accounted for the wizard meal I had for dinner. Later we retired to the lounge which contained a licenced bar and nice easy comfortable chairs, I sank into one of these and the rest of our crew did the same and over a few glasses of beer etc, we had a long chat about various things and rested at the same time. We decided that it was too late to go out anywhere and we were all feeling a little tired after all those hours in the air that day.
Around 9 p.m. someone came up to us and told us that we had put our kit in the wrong building as our Squadron had a house of its own a little further down the road. It was near on 11 p.m. when we walked back along the road and as we were tired and did not need any early call on the following morning, we decided not to move our kit that night. So after rigging up my net over my stretcher between the bannister and verandah [sic] rails I got into bed.
The crew who had arrived in Singapore the day before us were taking our aircraft back to Rangoon on the following day and we had to take the aircraft back which arrived in from Rangoon on the following day.
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 184 [/inserted]
- 7 –
I remember waking up in the middle of the night and finding that a tropical storm was in full swing. It was thundering and lightening and raining. The trees were swishing and swaying in the wind, but as the wind was not driving the rain in on to my bed which was exposed to the open, I did not mind so I went off to sleep again.
The next thing that I knew was when I heard the second pilot ask someone who was decending [sic] the stairs what the time was. To which the reply came back that it was five past seven. We both immediately decided that it was far too early to get up and as breakfast finished at 8.30 a.m. it was quite early enough to climb out at 8.15 a.m.
I was just dozing off again about half an hour later when our Captain came up and asked us if we were going to breakfast as it was 8.30 a.m. I knew that an hour and a half had not passed since, we had asked the time but it turned out that it was 8.30 a.m. Singapore time and the fellow who we had asked had forgotten to put his watch on an hour when he arrived on the island. On hearing this we jumped out quickly and walked up the road to the transit mess and although we were late, we managed to obtain a big breakfast. There was no ration of sugar or milk for our tea and porridge etc. It stopped drizzling with rain around about this time. We took our time walking back to the sleeping quarters and in daylight the place looked more than ever like a bit of dear old England with the big houses standing back from the modern roadway and the large lawns and flower beds in front of the building [deleted] to [/deleted] [inserted] AND [/inserted] some even possessed tennis courts in the gardens. Even the hedgerows alongside the pavement were in bloom along with flowers planted beside the low garden walls.
After having a wash and shave etc, we folded up our sheets, blankets and mosquito nets and walked over with them to the 267 Squadron transit [inserted] HOUSE [/inserted] a couple of hundred yards further down the road and near to a large block of flats occupied by Chinese etc.
After setting out my bed once again in a small room, I sat out in the back verandah [sic] and finished off my book. The scene from that spot was quite a nice one, and as I sat there I breathed in and smelled the lovely sea air. Just below where I sat was a small lawn at the end of which stood some of the cunningly concealed defence points, underground gun pits etc. These faced directly out towards the sea where it was expected that the Japs would try and invade the island from. As it turned out these points were never brought into use against the Japs. Although if we had had to invade the island to retake it, I expect they would have been used against our invading forces.
A couple of miles around the bay to my right, I could just make out the sea edge of the town. The bay was full of transport and troop ships and beyond them, because it was a very clear day, I could see dozens of small islands just off the main island of Samatra [sic] and just to my right was a small ship that had broken loose from its moorings and had run aground. Sitting there in the sun was just like being at the seaside for the day. I certainly enjoyed that morning.
At noon we strolled down to the mess for an early dinner and after a cup of tea we started out towards the town after we had found out which roads to take.
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 184A [/inserted]
[underlined] GENERAL VIEWS OF SINGAPORE [/underlined]
[three photographs of Singapore]
[page break]
[three photographs of Singapore]
[page break]
[inserted] 185 [/inserted]
- 8 –
We had to walk the two miles to the main road where the tram lines ran and after a short wait a tram came along and stopped in front of us. It was already crowded but somehow we managed to squeeze on it and off it went stopping every so often to let people get off and others get on. After about four stops I found myself sitting down on a seat with Chinese girls on either side of me. When the conductor came along, I bought my ticket which I think cost me five cents. The currency by the way was in cents and dollars. I got a bit mixed up with the prices of things at first but after turning them into rupies [sic] or pounds shillings and pence a few times I soon became used to the 100 cents = 1 dollar and 1 dollar 2/4d. We soon found ourselves travelling through the suburbs of the town which seemed to be made up mostly of Chinese shops, stalls, factories etc, and the pavements also seemed to be thronged mostly with Chinese men, women and children, especially children, of course there were many Malayan people with them as well.
Then as we neared the centre of the town, the shops became more and more modern until we decended [sic] from the tram just past the Cathedral. The second pilot then went off to try and find a relation of his that was somewhere on the island and the navigator and myself made arrangement to pick him up later on that afternoon. I then spent the following two hours looking around and touring the shopping centre. It seemed funny to me to see [deleted] the plate [/deleted] [inserted] A MAIN [/inserted] High Street once again after so long. I had got used to looking up and seeing Rue de -? Via -? And other foreign street names. I only wish I had taken more money with me on that trip as there were so many nice things to buy in the shops. In fact, any English women would have gone mad if they had seen all the unrationed goods and silk, satin and dress material that was not couponed, that I did that afternoon. In the windows of the fruit shops were unlimited supplies of bananas and large pineapples which were priced at just over 1/- (one shilling) each, at that time were fetching £5.00 in the English fruit shops.
Most of the assistants in the big shops were very charming nice complexioned Chinese girls, all of which spoke English and wore coloured flowers in their jet black hair. In one shop window was a large array of photographs of Jap prisoners and any of the population if they recognised any of the Japs as the ones connected with any of the Singapore war crimes were asked to go inside the building and give evidence against the criminals.
After getting tired of walking around the shops and looking at lovely things that I did not have the money to buy, we walked to the large building that had been taken over by the N.A.A.F.I as the forces canteen and sat in easy chairs drinking cups of tea and eating cakes until our 2nd pilot turned up and joined us once again. We all then began to walk towards the eastern outskirts of the town stopping once to enter a modern ice cream parlour for an iced milk shake. ON arrival at the tram stop we watched at least four trams pass by packed full to their limit. After that, we started to thumb a lift and it was not long before a van stopped to pick us up along with some Dutch women who had been evacuated from Java and some European children who were going home from school. The van dropped us off at the point where we caught the tram into town so we still had two miles to walk back to our house. Darkness had fallen before we reached it and on arrival I had a wash and then walked up to the mess for late dinner after which I retired to the lounge once more and had a few drinks. Then after arranging for someone to give us an early call.
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 185A [/inserted]
[underlined] GENERAL VIEWS OF SINGAPORE [/underlined]
[four photographs of Singapore]
[page break]
[inserted] 186 [/inserted]
- 9 –
and for someone to make up some sandwiches for us to take with us in the morning I walked slowly up the road which was bathed in a soft mellow light from th [sic] round silvery moon that was shining above me. It was a perfect tropical evening and I looked up at the millions of twinkling stars with their background of black velvet it made me come over [deleted] all [/deleted] [inserted] VERY [/inserted] sentimental indeed. The very air seemed to be breath-taking and it was certainly a perfect setting for a romantic evening.
On reaching our house it was not long before I was beneath my mosquito net. But before I got into bed I stood out on the verandah [sic] for a few moments looking at the lights of the town further around the bay and looking at the lights of the ships anchored out in the moonlit bay. It certainly was a beautiful night.
I had no sooner seemed to have fallen asleep when I felt someone shaking me and saying that it was 3.15 a.m. and time to get up. After a quick wash which got the sleepers out of my eyes I felt much fresher and on venturing outside the building I found that the moon had disappeared and that it was drizzling with rain. It was pitch dark and the air was very cold and depressing and as I walked up the road towards the mess for breakfast with the rest of the crew and every so often we heard the rumble of thunder in the distance and saw flashes of lightening on the horizon which lighted up our surroundings and made the palm trees stand out above anything else. At the time I thought it was not going to be very nice weather for flying in that day. All was deathly quiet except for the sound of our own footfalls on the road. We had just sat down to breakfast when the second pilot of our crew discovered that his wallet was missing, then a few moments later the other crew of our Squadron who were flying back to Rangoon that day and who slept in the next room to us came in for breakfast and we discovered that two of them had lost their wallets and anothers briefcase was missing. On hearing this I immediately felt for my wallet not that there was much in it but for all that I breathed a sigh of relief when I found that it was still in my shirt pocket which was very lucky as I left my shirt beside the bed all night and yet the second pilot who was sleeping on a stretcher beside mine left his shirt beside his bed and had the wallet taken out of it some time during the night between 12 and 3 a.m. Perhaps it was because his bed was next to the window overlooking the verandah [sic] but the burglar must have been light footed as none of the building heard any strange noises during those hours.
After a quick breakfast I went to the rear of the mess and collected the sandwitches [sic] that I had ordered the night before from the native cook. We all then hurried back to the house and began to search it and we found the brief case in one of the down stairs rooms with its contents of navigations maps and charts and of course plotting instruments etc scattered all over the floor but there was no sign of the three wallets. He certainly must have been a light fingered devil who had crept into our rooms that night. As we were due to take off at a certain time and as the thief had left no trace whatsoever all we could do was to inform the R.A.F. police what had happened and let them look into it, not that the chaps who had lost their wallets expected them to be recovered. As it was, we held the lorry up which was waiting to drive us into the airfield. Eventually after the fellows had given all the particulars to the S.P’s we got under way and it was certainly a cold and dismal drive at that time in the morning. When we came through the outskirts of the town on the evening that we landed on the island the streets seemed to be full of life and lights, as we drove through them that morning all was dark and silent and dismal. It seemed as if the whole of Singapore was sleeping and there was not even a single
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 187 [/inserted]
- 10 –
light in the native villages that we passed through and the cold morning air rushing through the lorry made me feel cold but, for all that I nearly fell asleep during the journey.
When at last we came to a stop I found that we were in front of a large modern control tower building but not at Seletar airport. It was at Kalang the main airport on the island. The captains and navigators went into the building for briefing and for informations about weather conditions along our route etc, and when they came out [deleted] they [/deleted] [inserted] WE [/inserted] were driven off once more in the dark until 10 minutes or so later we reached Seletar airfield just as it was beginning to become light.
We had to hang around for half an hour or so until our manifest was finally made up and closed. We than [sic] knew that we were carrying nine passengers and bags and bags of mail to Penang and Rangoon. We walked over to the airdcraft which was a much older one than the one which we flew down in and beside it we found our passengers waiting. Most of them were soldiers and airmen posted to Rangoon or who were catching a boat from Rangoon home to England. As soon as we had checked them with manifest and the coolies had loaded on the mail, we were away as quickly as it was possible and once more a flying horse aircraft was in the air.
Our passengers seeing that they were service personnel did not need much looking after or pampering so before long I had put my blankets down on the floor along with others and a little later I was fast asleep. As we climbed higher it began to get rather cold and I had to get up once and pull one of my blankets from under me and put it over me instead. I then slept until the navigator woke me to say that we were nearing Penang so I had to get up and wake everyone else and see that they fastened their safety belts securely once more. Then on looking out of the window I saw a familiar scene reversed this time the island was on our left and I just managed to get a glimpse of Georgetown before we banked to the right towards the mainland and the clearing on which Butterworth strip had been built.
Everything had happened during our stop was very similar to when we called in on the airfield two days previously, such as being driven to the transit canteen for dinner and booking in and out at the control tower etc.
We stopped there no longer than an hour and a quarter. Before taking to the air, I checked the bags of mail destined for Penang with the manifest as they were unloaded. Soon after take-off, I went up front with the crew and we were soon at a height of ten thousand feet and through the front window I had a wonderful view of area in front of us. At first on leaving Penang Behind us I discovered from the navigator that we were on a course which would take us diagonally across to the East coast of the Peninsular at a point near to a town in Eastern Siam. The pilot put George (the automatic pilot) in by setting and locking the controls in correct position on that course, so that the aircraft flew itself and the pilots were able to sit back and read a book or admire the scenery. Every so often the pilot altered the altitude control as we lost height through falling various numbers of feet in the air pockets. The navigator was by far the busiest man in the crew, he was forever looking at his maps and plotting our course so that we could tell exactly where we were all the time and then [inserted] [indecipherable word] [/inserted] the different log charts to make up giving the readings of engine instruments our flying heights, our speed and how long we took to fly between his plotting points and how much petrol we used etc. I borrowed one of his spare large detailed maps of Malaya and Siam and from that I did a little map reading of my own. I found it very
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 188 [/inserted]
- 11-
interesting picking out rivers villages hills etc marked on my map 10,000 feet below us. Then almost immediately after we caught sight of the sea, I made out in the distance haze the town that was our course check. I forgot what the name of it is now but it does not really matter does it?. It only goes to show that by finding the town so easily the navigator had done a good job of work.
Just before we reached this town the captain took George out and then he had to look after all of his controls with his hands and the rudder with his feet. He then followed the navigators instructions and with the aid of his compass, we changed course and turned until we were heading in direct line with Rangoon. Next he put “George” in once again and let the aircraft have its own way until we caught sight of the big cloud formations far ahead of us. At first it was touch and go if we would touch them at all. Some of us guessed that we would and others that we would just miss them. Well a little later they loomed bigger and bigger before our aircraft as we reached them it was clear that on our course, we would run into the end of them so our captain took [deleted] our [/deleted] [inserted] over [/inserted] control of the aircraft from “George” and we began to climb until we were above the first formation which looked like mountains of cotton wool beneath us. Then to miss the following few formations which were higher still instead of climbing to get over them or diving to get under them we had a bit of fun banking and weaving in and out of them. It was a lovely sensation watching these puffs of white cloud coming straight at us then at what seemed the last moment we just dodged and slipped around them.
Then suddenly there were no more clouds in front of us and we were flying beneath a cloudless blue sky and could see the land beneath us perfectly clearly once again. The pilot then re-set our course for Rangoon by compass and re-adjusted our height to 10,000 feet and put “George” in once again.
It was around about that time that I got out my packet of sandwitches [sic] and handed them round to the crew. Then a litle [sic] later in the distant horizon we caught sight of the sea once again only it was the west coast of the peninsular this time. By that time the pilots were taking it in turns to fall asleep and for a while I took over the wireless operators seat and listened with the earphones over my ears to a programme of music coming over the air from a wireless station somewhere in China. Doing this made me forget the roar of the engines for a little while. After half an hour of listening to the wireless, I went back to map reading once again and picked out from the map of dozens of small islands that we were flying over off the west coast of Siam. After getting tired of this I retired to the rear of the aircraft and re-joined the passengers and once again I lay on the floor between my blankets and went to sleep until we were nearing Rangoon. Then after getting everyone to fasten their safety belts for the last time, I found on looking out of one of the windows that beneath us were familiar flat miles and miles of paddy fields and native villages built in small woods typical of Southern Burma. Then a few moments later I caught sight of our airdrome and after one circuit we received permission to land and went in gradually losing height until we touched down on the metal runway and after swinging off to the right at the end of it we taxied to the staging post on our Mingaladon airfirld [sic] where we discharged our passengers and bags of mail before restarting our engines and taxying off to our Squadron dispersal where were guided to a parking point by our own ground crew. So
cont…
[page break]
[inserted] 189 [/inserted]
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ended my 1750 mile flying trip which proved to be a very interesting one for me. I know that the description of it that I have written is nothing like the actual scenes etc, But I have done my best to give you a fair idea of it all.
One of our Squadrons lorries drew up alongside our aircraft a few minutes after we had come to a standstill and after our captain had booked in, it took us all up to our domestic site and on arrival at my billet it seemed as it I had been away from it for weeks. On the following morning much to my regret I was back working at my old job.
On Wednesday 14th November we held a teriffic [sic] party in our billet for four of the followers who were in my gang at work and who also lived the same room as I, who were going home after being overseas for 3 years 8 months. Two of them were the [deleted] followers [/deleted] [inserted] fellows [/inserted] who had lived in the same tent etc as myself since we had left Italy so it meant that my best friends were leaving me. They took the little dog along with them when they left next day to to [sic] fly to Calcutta but I learned later that they had to leave it behind in Bombay as Freddie was stopped by the authorities from taking it up the gangway as he was about to board the ship for England. That dog had certainly travelled since we had brought him with us from Italy.
But the Squadron was not long without a pet as on Thursday the 22nd of November I adopted a little puppy which was about six weeks old. At first it was just a bag of bones but before long everyone had taken a liking for it and began to bring things back from the cookhouse for her and she soon began to fatten up.
Two days later I saw a first class show in our cinema. The programme included Leslie Henson, Helen Hill, Kenway and Young and other well known variety stars. On Saturday the 1st December our Squadron football team got beaten for the first time after playing 22 games which was quite an achievement.
Next day I went down with a touch of dysentry which left me as weak as a kitten for the next four days. I could not eat anything and I had to swallow six big white chalky tablets every three hours throughout the daytime. I spent most of my time during these four days crawling back and for the between my bed and the w.c.
However I was back at work again on the 7th December and on the same day as the Squadron was lacking entertainment, six of us got together in the cookhouse that evening and formed a committee to arrange a Squadron Dance. Two days later on the Sunday which was my day off I went into Rangoon and had a long chat with the manager of the Y.M.C.A. building (Civic Hall). I found out that he was willing to hire out the ballroom to me for an evening early in the New Year. I then went to a restaurant which was in bounds to troops and asked the manageress if she would supply me with a quotation for 400 dainty fancy cream cakes, 144 bread rolls and 4 long jam rolls. She told me that he did not usually take orders like that as she was short of flour etc for their own supplies in the café. However after a while she said she would supply my requirements if I supplied her with the jam to go in the rolls. Next I had to chase around all the printing works and shops that I could find in the town and get them to give me a quotation for 150 dance tickets and 150 invitation cards. All asked a teriffic [sic] price for the order so I made a note of their prices to give to the committee at our next meeting. On Tuesday afternoon the 11th December I watched that thrilling game that I told you about when our football team got knocked out.
cont….
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[inserted] 190 [/inserted]
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in the second round of the Burma cup by an odd goal. We held the next dance on the evening of the 20th when I gave our little gathering all the information that I had obtained. They all seemed enthusiastic about the Dance but did very little towards offering to help me arrange things. We decided to hold the dance and chose a date the 11th January [inserted] & [/inserted] to charge all the fellows 5 Rupies [sic] for a ticket. Then with regards to the printing we decided to take the cheapest and best offer. I worked it out and found that if we sold 150 tickets and let the women come free it would be just a nice number of people to be at a dance and it would allow me expenses of up to roughly £56.00.
Next day it was getting near to Christmas, we decided to brighten our room up a bit so a few of us spent the evening cutting toilet paper into penants of all shapes and colouring them by dipping them in either green, red, or blue ink and watered down [deleted] anti [/deleted] [inserted] YELLOW [/inserted] malaria tablets. Our finished efforts were quite good and someone got hold of some cotton wool from the M.I. room and made it into little balls so as to resemble snow. Some one else drew coloured Christmas cards and stuck them on the walls around the room.
On the 22nd December I saw our C.O and told all about our arrangements for the Dance and said if we had to pay for the transport to take all the fellows down into town and back again the same night and to pick up the women etc we would only be able to run the dance at a large loss, but if we did not have to pay for transport, I was prepared to run it and not make a loss. It was the C.O’s suggestion in the first place that we should hold a Squadron Dance and no one did anything about it until the few of us got together to see if it were possible to run one. He then said go ahead with your arrangements and do not worry about the transport. “I will see to that” and then he went on to say “come and see me every other morning and let me know how things are going and if I can help you in any way, I shall do so” That was fair enough for me so I went down to the big city and before booking the Civic Hall I tried to first hire the ballroom of the boat club and then the one in the W.V.S. Eastern Counties Club but I was unsuccessful at both places. So as the Civic Hall was open for booking on the 11th January I booked it. Then I went to the printers and gave them a rush order saying that I wanted the tickets on the following morning. Then at the caterers I gave my order for the 11th and paid a deposit along with 4 tins of jam which I had managed to [deleted] to [/deleted] [inserted] TALK [/inserted] the Sargeant [sic] Cook in charge of our ration store into giveing [sic] me. Then I went back to camp and started ringing up all the unit bands in the Rangoon area that I had been told about. A number of them were booked up for the night to play at officers messes etc, and I finally reduced the possibles [sic] down to two. a 12 piece army Welfare Band or a R.A.F five piece one. The committee decided on the latter one so I booked that. After that I had another chat with the Sargeant Cook and in the end he promised me the loan of tea containers [underlined] cake trays [/underlined] for the night along with tables from the dining hall and forms to put in the lorries picking up the women. On top of that he also promised me to supply us with sandwitches [sic] and hot tea as long as we found some chaps to help the cooks out making it all.
Then I went to the canteen and asked them to get in an extra supply of 50 bottles of lime juice and lemon squash cordial for the dance week and I gave them a written order for it. Next I had to find and talk to the Officer in charge of our Squadron Passenger Welfare Section and from him I received a promise unofficially of 500 drinking cartons.
cont….
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Very few people realize the hell of a lot of hard work and worry that there is entailed in running a Dance especially with the Far East and when you have got to transport all the dancers 12 miles to the dance hall and 12 miles back. Most of the fellows when they heard that it was going to cost them 5 Rupies [sic] for a ticket seemed to think that we were out to make a fortune of the dance. That was all the thanks that we got for our trouble in arranging entertainment for them. Up until that time, we paid out all the deposits etc from our own pocket. However we told them if thats what they thought, they need not come as we could sell the tickets elsewhere. We certainly were not going down on our hands and knees and pray for them to come after devoting most of our evenings and days off to arranging the dance.
Then I had to think of 4 reliable chaps who would act as doormen and who I could trust not to accept 5 Rupies [sic] and let anyone in. This proved quite a problem for me as most of the chaps who I thought of wanted to dance.
That same evening one of my friends offered to make out three big coloured posters for me to go in the Airmens, Sgts and Officers Messes advertising the dance. That solved another of my problems.
The next day which was the 24th December, we all had to work as usual even though it was the day before Christmas, but immediately after dinner that evening, we were all away over to the canteen to buy our monthly beer ration. On arriving back in our room, we settled down to a little sing song and party and this went on until someone suggested going over and paying a visit to the nearest native village. Our bearer who lived in that village had told us earlier in the day that as it was also the time of one of Burmese Festivals they were holding an open air concert that evening and that the festivities would go on for three days after. Thinking that I might see something interesting to write about, I agreed to go along. So half a dozen of us set out from camp with [inserted] A [/inserted] half empty bottle of beer in one hand and a full one in every pocket. We crossed the main road and made our way carefully over the paddy fields and a stream on the other side until we reached a single span bridge beneath which ran the large concrete water pipe line which came from the large lakes north of our camp and went on to Rangoon. We stopped for a few moments by this bridge and listened to the jumble of native music keeping time with the thump of what sounded very much like a tom tom drum. The music issued forth from the wood which was full of flickering lights 200 yards in front of us on the other side of the small bridge. Before we proceeded I stood beside the water pipe and you can guess how large it was when I tell you that the top of it was well above the level of my head.
On arrival on the edge of the woods, and the first native stalls which led up into the two rows towards large stage in front of which swatted rows and rows of Burmese men women and children and at the sides of the stage were bullock carts etc on which people were swatting and sitting whilst watching what was going on, we were met by the village school teacher who introduced himself to us in fairly good English and asked us to follow him. He took us down the gangway between the two lines [inserted] OF STALLS [/inserted] and through the crowd [deleted] of stalls [/deleted] until we reached his school which was a large Basha building situated just in front and to the right of the stage. There he spoke in Burmese to some of the people nearby and they disappeared and returned a few moments later with a couple of forms which they put down for us to sit on.
cont….
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From there we could see the bamboo made stage cum-platform quite clearly and almost at our feet were the end of the rows of swatting Burmese people and near to our right were the bullock carts. On the stage the so called band which consisted of all sorts of weird and wonderful instruments kept up a continuous noise of clash, banging and wailing which was supposed to be native music. I could not make head nor tail of it, the noise in my ears did not even seem to resemble a melody in the slightest way. It just seemed to be a few notes repeated over and over again and after a few minutes the noise began to get on my nerves although I must say all the Burmese seemed to be enjoying it all, and when the band did finally stop for a breather, the people clapped and clapped. On completion of the applause the air seemed so silent until the people in the crowd started talking to each other in their native tongue.
We certainly must have looked a bit undignified sitting there drinking out of a bottle, so that perhaps accounts for the reason why a little later the school teacher brought out little clay cups and offered us one each to put our beer in before drinking it. Although I have a funny feeling that the real reason was because he wanted us to offer him a cup full. We did so out of courtesy and within a short while he had a bigger taste for beer than we did.
During this brief pause in which the band ceased to play I had the chance to have a good look at some of those weird instruments. One looked like a kind of bamboo xtyaphone [sic] and another a trumpet cum-horn-cum bugle which gave out a tinny noise like all three instruments put together. The only instrument that looked like one was the drum which was a big [inserted] LONG [/inserted] barrell [sic] with the ends covered with skin, and when playing it the Burmese beat the skin with the back of his hands. A few moments later, a male Burmese comedian climbed upon the stage and said many things that kept the children in front laughing all the while. We could not understand a word of what he uttered so we just had to sit there and look as if we did. As soon as he finished his act the band started up with its row once more. Then a native girl of about 14 years of age and dressed in colourful native costume came on and did what I think was one of the Burmese national dances. Some of the actions were extremely difficult but, she carried them out quite gracefully. In a way it reminded me of Russian type dancing. The girl also used her hands a lot to put expression into the dance.
During this turn the schoolmaster introduced us to the headman of the village so we had to offer him a drink of beer which he gratefully accepted. As our stocks of liquid refreshments were getting low we told the schoolmaster that we would soon have to be getting back to camp. to this he replied that we must stay and hear the next turn as it was specially for us. So we sat down again whilst he got up on the stage and said something or other to the audience in Burmese. Then a number of boys and girls from his school who were sitting in the front rows of the audience got up beside him and then a little fellow of about 8 stepped forward and said in quite good English that they were going to sing a song for us. He then stepped back in line with the others and they began to sing “You are my Sunshine” in English. The one or two who sang out of tune at different points were glared at by the others. On the whole, they sang very well indeed. There were about ten children in all on the stage and their ages ranged from about 5 to 10. All the little girls wore coloured flowers in their jet black hair which was pinned up in various styles mostly by a carved ivory comb. Some had their hair cut short in a fringe all around their head, but most of them when they let their hair down to
cont….
[page break]
[inserted] 182A [/inserted]
[underlined] THE VILLAGE [inserted] NEAR MINGALADON [/inserted] SCHOOLMASTER WITH HIS WIFE AND SON.
[inserted] [deleted] VILLAG [/deleted] [/inserted]
[photograph of schoolmaster and his wife and son]
[photograph of children with bullock]
[photograph of children in field]
[underlined] OUTSKIRTS OF THE VILLAGE [/underlined]
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[inserted] 193 [/inserted]
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comb it out, it came below their wastes. [sic] Another custom that a lot of women and girls used to carry out was for them to cover their faces with thick powder or a thin white paste so as to hide their beauty until they were married. This custom also applied to the Chinese.
For an encore the children sang “My Bonny lies over the Ocean” for us also in English. They then jumped scrambled off the stage and took their places in the audience again. The schoolmaster then took us into the school “Basha” building to the rear of where we were sitting and showed us the classroom which was lit by hurricane lamps and introduced us to his wife along with his baby son. He told us that it was impossible to obtain slates etc, in the country but that some of the chaps in our Squadron who had visited his school one day had clubbed together and had got the aircrew to bring back from India slates, crayons [inserted] CHALK [/inserted] etc, for the children. We then took our leave of the village and, as we picked our way over the marshy fields we could still hear the band going at full blast in the distance.
On arrival back at our billet, the fellows all wanted to know where we had disappeared to, and after relating to them all that we had seen in the village those had stayed in the room wanted me to take them to see it all. I put them off by saying that I was too tired to walk over the fields again. So the billet party resumed with full gusto once more but, during the hour following the recommencement the fellows kept on [deleted] with [/deleted] [inserted] TO [/inserted] me so much with asking to be taken over to the village that in the end I was badgered in to submitting to their wishes.
So a little later [inserted] on [/inserted] loaded with fresh bottles I found myself crossing these fields for a third time that evening. The band was still going full out when we arrived at the edge of the wood. Before proceeding up to the stage, we inspected the two lines of stalls and I stopped for a few minutes in front of a Burmese woman who was sitting behind a fire of wood sheltered between two bricks on which rested a kind of frying pan. I watched her flatten out tiny balls of looked like white rubber and drop them into the pan one at a time. Almost as soon as the heat got to the disc it began to expand and then the women picked up two objects something like carpet beaters and flapped the disc from one side to the other back and forth continuously over the fire. They gradually grew until it had reached the size of a large pancake and both sides had browned in places. Then it was placed on top of a large pile of others that had been cooked earlier in the evening. The woman offered us one but we did not like to try it. At that moment the schoolmaster came up to us at the stall and I explained to him that my friends wanted to come and see the festivities. I then asked him what the pancakes were and he told me that they were eaten by Burmese instead of bread and were a kind of corn flake. He then bought one from the women for 2 annas and gave it to us to inspect before proceeding to eat it, after we had declined a portion of it. I was surprised when I took hold of the crisp wafer and found out that it was as light as a feather. The schoolmaster then took my friends to visit his school and got his children up on stage again to sing for them. Then before going back to camp we visited the native restraunt [sic] Basha situated at the end of the line of people selling their goods and next to two little Burmese girls selling from large baskets, cigars and bundles of small white candles.
[page break]
[inserted] 194 [/inserted]
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On entering the restaurant, we found a great array of foodstuffs in front of us. The native proprietor insisted that we bought some thing to eat and as the only things that we recognised and thought safe to eat in all that queer assortment of eatables were eggs we bought some of those after finding out that they were hard boiled and sat and ate them along with all the beer that remained in our possession.
After entering the billet, we had just settled down once more when a Warrant Officer came into the room and asked us to hand him all our glasses and tell him what we wanted to drink which we did and off he went out into the night once more. Of course we were then unable to drink so we sat talking for twenty minutes or so before deciding to go and look for our glasses. On arrival in the Sargeants [sic] Mess I found the W/O in the middle of a large crush in front of the bar, he had not forgotten us after all. Then a little later, he passed our filled glasses back to me over the heads of those behind him. All those drinks must have cost him a little fortune and the best part of it was that none of us even knew the fellow.
I was in the Sargeants [sic] Mess until the bar closed, and I was invited along with all the others to the Officers Mess. So we all trooped in small groups over the football pitch and into the marquee in which the officers bar was situated. Where incidentally drinks of every description were free that night. It was well after midnight when I made my way across the football pitch again only towards my billet block this time. On the way, I called in at our cookhouse and found the Sargeant [sic] cook was well under the weather. Two of the other cooks soaked in sweat and standing in front of a fire giving out teriffic [sic] heat and surrounded by dozens of cooked and uncooked chickens and rolls of ham. I felt very sorry for them as it certainly was no holiday for those cooks. There they were in that heat getting the fellows’ dinner ready for the following day and we who were to eat that dinner and benefit from their efforts were out enjoying ourselves. I offered to lend them a hand but it was gratefully declined so after wishing them a Merry Christmas I went back to my room and so to bed.
I got up for breakfast on Christmas morning and along with the others in my room we all went down to the cookhouse together. Later on during the morning of this third Christmas Day of mine overseas and the fourth one away from home I watched a team picked from the English footballers on our Squadron play against a team picked from the Scotsmen. Everyone in the Squadron that morning turned out to watch the great international match and the cheering for both sides was teriffic [sic] during the game. Some of the Scots supporters turned out waving home made yellow flags with a red dragon painted on them. One fellow wore a home made kilt and hat and all that goes with the outfit and carried his flag on top of a 10 ft pole which he stuck behind the Scottish goal for luck during the game which ended up by Scotland winning by two goals to nil much to the delight of all their supporters. I must say that the result was expected as in Scotlands team they had the two Squadron professional footballers. After the game we came back to the billet and sat on our beds talking until it was time for dinner. I will not write much about the meal as from the Menu you can read about all that we had to eat etc. By way of a surprise during the meal the schoolteacher had brought from the village his little girls and boys dressed in their best colourful native clothes to sing for all the fellows. As was the usual custom the Officers waited on us throughout the meal but we would have got our food much quicker if we had gone up to the servery for it ourselves.
By the way, my dog ate the half chicken that I had brought for him back to the billet from the dining hall with me. I think she wished that Christmas came every day
[page break]
[inserted] 194A [/inserted]
[photograph of tables set for Christmas dinner]
[underlined] THE TABLES BEFORE WE SAT DOWN FOR CHRISTMAS DINNER [/underlined]
[Christmas day menu front cover with picture of Flying Horse. Burma 1945]
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She was not the only one either.
I nearly forgot to say that, earlier that morning when there was a heavy damp mist covering the camp it looked like Christmas time, but the sun soon came up and dried it all away. As the temperature that afternoon was well over 100o most of the fellows wanted to rest on their beds after dinner, but a few of them myself included decided to go on one of the Squadron’s lorries which was going into Rangoon to a dance which was being held in the W.V.S. Eastern Counties Club near the docks.
As usual about 250 fellows were in the ballroom and a dozen women so that the only thing I enjoyed was the piece of iced Christmas cake and mince pies etc, that was given to me during the interval. Long before the dance was due to end we were hitch hiking back to camp which we reached just in time for late tea and more mince pies. As it was a bit dead in our room earlier in the evening, a friend and myself went over to the [deleted] Squadron’s [/deleted] [inserted] SARGEANTS [/inserted] Mess where it was an open night and in there we got talking to two officers who had come up from their mess because it was dead there also. They complained that instead of enjoying themselves they were all in bed. Our conversation ended up by them inviting us to their mess to brighten it up a bit. For a while we sat drinking and talking on the edge of the football pitch beneath a starry sky. Then we had a good old supper of bread and cheese along with mince pies and many other things. A little later just as the lights went out my friend disappeared but I did not miss him for a while and as he told me a little earlier on that he was not feeling well I thought that he had gone back to his billet to bed so I did not worry. Next morning I was told that two officers bought him home at 2 a.m. after finding him lying out in the football pitch. As the night went on we sat talking about different things in the dark and were joined by more officers who also joined in the conversation and it was after 2 a.m. when the party broke and made off to bed.
On arrival back at my room I was thunderstuck. [sic] I had left it because things were too quiet and at 2.15 in the morning I found the place an uproar and in disorder. It certainly had brightened up since I left it. In fact too much for my liking and it was a long time before everyone got to bed and silence reigned supreme once again.
On the 26th December (Boxing Day) I took things easy and slept during most of the morning in the afternoon and in the evening I went to a cinema show.
Two days later I saw the C.O. about getting prizes and decorations and told him that it was impossible to obtain either anywhere in Rangoon. Then I suggested that I could get them most probably if I could have a few days in Calcutta. To this he replied that we had an aircraft going to Calcutta a couple of days later so if I put in a leave pass he would sign. He then told the Squadron Leader i/c flying to put my name down on the manifest. So I quickly got hold of a form (295) leave pass from the S.W.O’s office and made it out and then I went to pay accounts and changed my money into Indian currency.
Next day I watched an Irish football team from our Squadron play a Welsh team. At half time, Ireland were winning by 3 goals to nil but after the interval they seemed to go to pieces and amid the roars and shouts of the Welsh supporters Wales finished up winning the game by 7 goals to 3.
Next day being a Sunday, it was my day off so I spent it by taking out the invitation cards cont…
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[inserted] 196 [/inserted]
- 19 –
for the Squadron dance to all the hospitals and units where European women worked. My travels that day took me to every part and section in the Rangoon area. After a lot of hard work and trying times when trying to get lifts to the different places I covered 15 units and houses etc where girls lived. It was quite a diplomatic job talking nicely to everyone and trying to get them to promise to come along on the night and telling them what a nice dance it would be and all its attractions etc. then I had to invite the C.O’s of the other R.A.F. units and Squadrons on our airfield and also the Group Captain. On top of that I had to sell tickets to the fellows and give invitations to those who were bringing their own partners to the dance. Yes it certainly was hard work seeing to everything.
That same day I found out that the aircraft in which I was to travel to India in, was an old Mark 1 Dakota which had finished its flying hours and was going to [inserted] A [/inserted] maintenance Unit to be scrapped. The fitters and riggers had been working on it for weeks trying to get the aircraft servicable [sic] and fit for the air. On three consequetive [sic] days our trip was postponed because something or other went U/S on the aircraft In fact I began to wonder if I ever would get to India and back before our dance came off.
On Monday 31st December (New Years Eve) everyone was issued out with a large helping of rum which seemed to warm ones blood and light you up. Everytime [inserted] ONE [/inserted] took a sip of it. That night also the Sgts and Officers Messes were open to all ranks and it was in the Sergeants Mess later on the in the evening that I met an Officer who was on my old Squadron in Syria, Corsica and France etc. When I had last seen him, he was a Flight Sergeant Spitfire Pilot on “A” Flt of 242 Squadron. Since then he had been back to England received his commission and had been turned into a transport aircraft pilot and had come overseas again. We had quite a good chat about old times and people in the old Squadron before parting that night.
When the C.O. announced that it was midnight, I was in the Officers Mess and we all joined hands and sang “Auld Lang Syne”. Whilst we were singing I thought back over the whole of 1945 and of a year ago to that minute when I was singing the same song whilst linkind [sic] hands in the Sgts Mess at Barri in Italy whilst it was freezing cold and snowing. Yes I had certainly came a long way during that year. Little on New Years Eve 1944 did I think that on the following New Years Eve I should be sweltering in the Burma heat and as I stood in the Officers Mess singing in the year 1946 I also wondered where I would be to sing in 1947 and what would happen to me during 1946.
On the evening of January 1st, I was informed that the Old Mark 1 aircraft was at last servicable [sic] and would be taking off on the following morning. So after packing the things that I would need during my short trip in my small pack, I walked down to the Guard room and put in an early call for myself and then I went to bed early. Another fellow in my room and a Corporal were going with the same aircraft to the M.U to try and get hold of some engine spare parts etc to replentish [sic] our technical stores on the Squadron.
It was ten to five when I looked at my watch after signing for my early call and after tying one of my blankets into a small bundle I went down to the Mess for an early breakfast.
cont…
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Then I came back to the billet and joined the other two fellows and picked up my small pack etc. We all then walked over to the Sgts Mess block to where the lorry was waiting to take us down to the drome.
On arrival at the aircraft I found that it looked worse inside that [sic] it did outside and it most certainly looked as if it was time that it finished flying in the air. What made its [deleted] worst [/deleted] appearance [inserted] WORSE [/inserted] was the Mark 1 Dakota’s narrow propellor [sic] blades. We climbed into the cockpit cabin and ran up the engines before the crew turned up to see for ourselves what they were like.
Then a few moments later along with the crew came another 15 aircrew and officers from our Squadron who were going to India for leave etc. As there were no seats or safety belts in the fusalage [sic] we all had to sit on the floor and the area looked so crowded that as we taxied towards the end of the run-way, I began to doubt whether or not the engines had enough power in them to enable the aircraft to leave the ground
During take-off we all sat [deleted] and sook [/deleted] as near as we were able to the crews cabin door so as to take all the weight off of the aircrafts tail, so enabling it to rise up much more quickly.
Not one of the passengers or the crew relished looking forward to the trip in that old aircraft and I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief when we left the ground and steadily gained height. [inserted] AT 7 A.M. [/inserted] During the first part of our trip it was very cloudy so we were unable to see much of the scenery below us and we hugged the coast line all the way as I think the captain thought it a bit too chancy to cut straight across the sea to our destination in case anything went wrong. We had no Mae Wests or Dingys [sic] on board so we were glad of the [deleted] Les [/deleted] decision. If we had gone over the sea and something had happened we would have been in a sorry plight. After a short while in the air it began to get very cold indeed and most of the passengers sat shivering and looking at each other. Luckily I had slipped a couple of newspapers into my side pack the night before, so for a while, I was able to sit shivering and read a paper instead of staring at other people. About 2 hours after take-off 10,000 ft beneath me, through the clouds I caught familar [sic] glimpses of the still flooded areas of Akyab island and of the mainland nearby. Soon afterwards I had to unpack my blanket and wrap it around me as I was unable to stop shivering even after moving up and down the aircraft a few times. Approximately an hour after passing over Akyab the weather began to clear and soon we were flying in perfect conditions. The sun was shining and visibility was exceptionally good for dozens of miles around us. I caught glimpses of the coast town of Chittagong which is the first place of any importance in India. After crossing the Burma and India border at the point where it meets the [inserted] BAY OF [/inserted] Bengal. [deleted] Bay. [/deleted] We continued to hug the coast until we passed over the river Ganges near to where its eastern tributary joins the sea. Then we flew on a straight South Westerly overland course towards Calcutta. By this time we had lost a little height and it began to get a bit warmer in the aircraft and I could see the shadow of our aircraft beneath and to the side of us skipping along the barren ground of some of the plains of Eastern India.
Twenty minutes after changing course we passed over a large tributary of the River Brahmaputra approximately 25 miles north of where it joins the Bay of Bengal. Then a little later we passed over the large Western tributary of the Brahmaputra approx a hundred miles north from where it joined the sea.
cont….
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[inserted] 198 [/inserted]
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From each of the tributories [sic] ran hundreds of much smaller ones trailing off like a spider’s trail. So the whole area beneath us often looked to [inserted] BE [/inserted] made up of both large and small waterways twisting and winding across the plain towards the sea.
Then lastly just before reaching Calcutta we passed over the Western Main tributary of the river Ganges at a point approximately 75 miles inland. Then almost immediately after that we found ourselves circling the airfield of Dum Dum and its surrounding installations etc, in preparation for landing.
At the far end of the runway our aircraft was met by a vehicle with a board attached to the rear of it which read “follow me” Our pilot did as instructed and was led [deleted] by [/deleted] [inserted] TO [/inserted] a distant concrete dispersal area.
On stepping down from the aircraft the vehicle driver told us that he would take the crew to the control tower so that they could book in and that he would send down a passenger vehicle to pick the rest of us up. As my two pals were travelling as crew they had to go along and leave me.
The rest of us waited around for a quarter of an hour after which there was still no signs of any conveyance coming to pick the rest of us up. So in ones and twos everyone began to walk slowly toward the control tower. On our way there we passed the large hanger in which silver Commando and Dakota aircraft belonging to the Chinese Airways were being serviced. The interiors of them were painted in buff and chocolate colour and on the wings and fusalage [sic] were the queer Chinese matchstick marking painted in black. On arrival at the modern control tower around which many more buildings were in the process of being erected, we were directed to the passenger arrival and departure office. We reached this building by making our way through the dozens of Indians who were engaged upon the construction work mixing concrete and laying bricks, etc.
At the office we were informed that we would have to wait at least two hours for an airfield bus to take us into the town, so three other passengers and myself walked to the next building which was the airfield restaurant.
[missing word] the dining room was full we sat down in wicker chairs around one of the small tables in the restaurant annexe. An Indian bearer with a spotless white turban on his head brought to us a tray on which was a pot of tea, four cups and saucers and two containers of milk and sugar. A few minutes later there were vacant seats in the dining room, so we went in and took possession of a table near the door and almost immediately another bearer with a number tag on his white tunic appeared and waited patiently for us to give him our orders. I thoroughly enjoyed my four course lunch, it was the best I had eaten for months. A hundred times more than [deleted] the [/deleted] [inserted] OUR [/inserted] R.A.F. food. Being there on leave, on my own gave me a feeling of freedom from the R.A.F. for a while and for a few days I was my own master and I was free to do whatever I felt like doing in a big city. Believe it or not I even got a kick out of pulling my first chain in almost two years.
Whilst having my lunch I discovered that we had gained an hour on our arrival in India so I had to put my watch back.
On making my way back to the passenger office, I found my two pals and the crew who were also waiting for a lift into town.
cont….
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[inserted] 198A [/inserted]
[inserted] [underlined] 1. [/underlined] [/inserted]
[newspaper cutting about Calcutta]
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] 3. [/underlined] [/inserted]
[continuation of the newspaper cutting about Calcutta]
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[inserted] 199 [/inserted]
- 22 –
We stood there talking for 20 minutes or so and were contemplating hiring a taxi when from around the corner of one of the buildings swung an almost full shabby small blue bus.
There was only room for six left, so it was first there who got a place in the bus. I was one of the lucky ones as I did not have any bulky objects such as suitcases or large travelling bags with me. So consequently I was off to a quick start and after a scramble I found myself in the bus. Even though I was fourth aboard, I had to sit on my blanket roll which I placed in the gangway between to two rows of seats.
The country and houses in the area around the airfield were very [deleted] Anglesises [sic] [/deleted] (English) but as we passed over the bridge spanning dozens of railway lines the scene changed and we found ourselves travelling through the suburbs and slums of Calcutta. This is one of the worst areas in the world as regards living conditions. In fact with so many people thronging those streets I began to wonder where they all could possibly live. After travelling a further few miles we reached the more modern and clean Calcutta and a few moments later after having travelled for about 11 to 12 miles, the bus stopped outside the Continental Hotel in Chowringhee. (The main road or High Street of Calcutta) and we decended [sic] on to the pavement. As this hotel was for Officers only I walked along with some of the N.C.O. crew, until we reached Sudder Street two blocks further on. We turned into Sudder Street and on just before reaching the end of the street we came to the Astoria Hotel on the left hand side. Facing the end of the street was the Calcutta Fire station but that did not interest us so we went into the hotel and I booked a room for myself for the next four days whilst the crew booked for one night only.
After being shown to my room, I had a wash before proceeding to the dining hall where I had a second 3 course lunch that day. Next I sat down for a while out in the sunshine and along with some other people staying at the hotel watched an Indian magician carry out quite a number of amazing tricks. Just as his performance ended, my other two friends turned up along with the rest of the air crew who could not get on our bus and who we left behind at the airfield. At 5 p.m. the three of us decided to explore a part of the town before dinner which was at 7 p.m. Within a few minutes of leaving the hotel we found ourselves walking around the acres of small stalls and shops which were situated beneath the covered in New Market. Without exaggeration, one could buy almost any conceivable article in that market without points or coupons etc. Honestly there were so many nice things on show that if I had had a £1000 in my pocket I could have easily have spent every penny of it during my tour of the stalls. When I saw the [deleted] toy [/deleted] shops gaily lighted up and stacked full of toys and dolls of every description, I could not help being sad through thinking how happy any English child would have been just to be able to set their eyes on such an [deleted] army [/deleted] [inserted] ARRAY [/inserted] of toys. Instead of which at that time they only had empty toy shop windows to look into. Whilst looking at silk and satin clothing and material etc, I got separated from my two friends and before I knew where I was I discovered that the time was a quarter to seven, so I made my way back to the hotel. To me it seemed as if I had only left it a few minutes before. I had been so interested in those hundreds of lighted stalls that time had flown by.
Just as I was sitting down to dinner at my table I was joined by my two friends and for the next 1/2 hour we were busy making soup, fish, chickens and accessories, jelly and custard, fruit and coffee etc disappear.
cont..
[page break]
[inserted] 200 [/inserted]
- 23 –
It certainly was a refreshing change to see a nice white tablecloth and serviettes once again and sets of cutlery all set out and it was also a change not to have to queue up for our food outside our cookhouse and get it slapped into our plates.
The dining room itself looked quite gay as the Christmas decorations and baloons [sic] and coloured lanterns etc, had not then been taken down.
[symbols]
[page break]
[inserted] 200A [/inserted]
[photograph of a street in Calcutta]
SECOND CITY OF THE EMPIRE is not as quiet as this now. But there has been a security ban on photographs from wartime Calcutta.
[underlined] MODERN SECTOR [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 200B [/inserted]
[five photographs of streets and buildings of Calcutta]
[page break]
[five photographs of buildings and monuments of Calcutta]
[page break]
[inserted] 200C [/inserted]
[photograph of a war memorial in Calcutta]
[page break]
1
[inserted] 201 [/inserted]
I duly said farewell to the aircrew next morning and wished them well on the next stage of their flight in india [sic] to where would be the graveyard our old Dakota.
They said “do not worry, we will see you in three days time with a nice new machine”.
When I first booked in to the hotel, I was informed that it was possible that I would not be able to leave the hotel during my visit. The reason was that during the fighting in Burma and the defence of the border of North East India there was in being an Indian National Army that joined forces with the Japanese thinking that they were going to win the war.
At this time the trials of a number of the leaders captured was being held in Calcutta and the verdicts were due at any minute and it was felt that when announced the sentences could result in serious riots occurring in the city.
However the sentences given out next day were only of a mild nature and the threat therefore did not materialise.
During those 3 days I wondered [sic] far and wide and was fascinated by the the [sic] Chowringhee bazaar where I managed to purchase lovely decorations for the Rangoon Town Hall for the occasion of the squadrons dance.
They took the form of huge bells of different colours. I purchase hundreds of paper flowers that would be enclosed in the bells when they were erected over the dance floor area.
I remember well that [inserted] in [/inserted] one place I saw a crowd of people on the pavement looking at something in their mist [sic] and on getting nearer I found an Indian squatting cross legged and in front of him was a wicker basket. In his mouth was a tin flute. As I joined the throng he started to play Indian music and low and behold up rose very slowly a python.
Whilst I was fascinated needless to say I did not try to get any nearer. [inserted] [symbol] [/inserted] [inserted] [symbol] PROVING THAT THE MONGOOSE COULD STRIK [sic] FASTER THAN A SNAKE THIS FOLLOWED. BUT THIS COLLECTIVE PLATE [indecipherable word] PASSED AROUND FOR THE SPECTATORS TO PLACE A FEW [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] ANNAS UPON IT. I HOPE HE GOT ENOUGH [symbol] [/inserted] to go and purchase a replacement snake. Of course he did not use the python against the mongoose.
During my explorations another experience occurred that will live in my mind forever and that is that during one of my walks I suddenly came upon the racecourse. As I walked [deleted] down [/deleted] [inserted] ALONG [/inserted] by the track and the virgin white painted rails glistening in the sunlight, I could have easily been at Ascot on lovely summers day.
Yet on turning my back and having walked a few hundred yards I came into an area where inhabitants lived in virtually mud huts and who were undernourished and extensively impoverished. Malformed bodies lay around on earthen pavements.
It was almost as if I had stepped back 2000 years in just a few minutes.
[page break]
2
[inserted] 202 [/inserted]
During my last visit to the Chowringhee bazaar I think I must have had a flush of madness or lost control of my senses, I found myself surcoming [sic] to the salesmanship of someone selling parrots.
I ended carrying back to the hotel with a cage in my hand in which was a green parrot with a red beak.
During the last day of my wanderings I stopped in the heat of the day for a nice cold drink in one of the many bars situated in the area I found myself in. Sitting at the next table was a Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force. Of course we obviously entered into a conversation with each other and it transpired that he was in the middle of a leave a [sic] knew the city quite well.
He was most interested to learn of all my travels and experiences and related many of his own. After a short while it was as if we had known each other for years.
We [deleted] immediately [/deleted] [inserted] MUTALLY [sic] [/inserted] agreed to meet later in the day when he would call at my hotel.
I had just finished my evening meal when he turned up and off we went and our journey on foot, took us for a number of miles and various points of interest were brought to my attention. On a couple of occasions we stopped for a drink or two, as we neared my return to my hotel informed me that he would like to take me to a very nice club that he had found and where he had spent a number of evenings.
He held a [deleted] ritual [/deleted] [inserted] RICKSHAW [/inserted] and gave instructions and off we went. After a short journey [deleted] he [/deleted] [inserted] IT [/inserted] came to a halt and after he had paid off the attendant started off towards [deleted] the sun [/deleted] [inserted] SOME [/inserted] steps leading into what appeared to be a most impressive building. My attention and eyes were immediately drawn towards a notice that said OFFICERS ONLY and at the door stood a steward who was obviously posted there to check on those entering the establishment.
I came to a halt, [deleted] he [/deleted] [inserted] AND [/inserted] said no way can I go in there. I was told yes you can, my reply of course was oh no I cannot.
The next few minutes I think I was the only airman to be promoted directly from leading aircraftsman to squadron leader even if it was not official.
I was handed and was met with an insistence that I attached a pair of epaulettes of the rank of squadron leader on the loops attached to the shoulders of my khaki shirt.
I think that the few drinks that we had had melted my resistance and I eventually complied and in we went without any difficulty. In fact we were met with a most efficient salute which along with my colleague I had to acknowledge.
Two things very soon became apparent as my new found friend was concerned and that was that he had piles of money and was something of a gambler.
On my 1/3d or 1/6d a day pay as a leading aircraftsman I was somewhat restricted with regards my spending. However although I tried very hard that evening I was not allowed to pay for a round of drinks. Although we ordered the drinks alternatively he insisted that the cost was debited to his account.
[page break]
3
[inserted] 203 [/inserted]
My friend also insisted that we played on a dozen or more fruit machines situated in one area of the impressive club. Again he insisted on filling up my pockets with coins for the machines, he would not even accept the money on the occasions when I managed to win.
As the evening wore on and it was time to leave and go back to the hotel we were both more than a little merry. On arrival I found that the aircrew had safely arrived and we were due to return to Dum Dum Airport mid morning next day for our journey back to Rangoon.
We both [deleted] paid [/deleted] [inserted] BADE [/inserted] each other farewell with best wishes for the future but not before I demoted myself from squadron leader back to the aircraftsman.
I do not think I have ever come across such a generous person in my life and there was simply no reason why he should have be so kind to me and what was more [deleted] amazing [/deleted] [inserted] ANNOYING [/inserted] was the fact that we did not even exchange addresses in England. I very much regretted this failure on the following morning.
Alas it was goodbye to Calcutta. The aircrew had arranged transport back to the airfield from the hotel and low and behold on arrival at Dum Dum a lovely new aircraft awaited us. However when I climbed aboard with my belongings the decorations etc, it was lucky that those large bells were folded down into a flat section making just a rather large parcel. The reason was that the aircraft was packed full with [deleted] India [/deleted] [inserted] ENGINEERING [/inserted] stores etc for Mingladon. [sic] I ended up having to sit on a packing case.
You can guess also the comments I received as I loaded on the parrot and cage which occupied the top of the next packing case to my own.
This time I had more confidence during our trip down the runway before take off. ON our return journey, the pilot also had the same feeling as we took the direct route across the ocean between India and Burma.
However due to the turbulence he had to travel at a very high altitude on occasions and with no oxygen available the air became somewhat thin and affected our breathing on occasions.
Other than this the flight was rather uneventful and we duly found ourselves making a smooth landing at Mingladon [sic] and taxi-ing to 267 Squadron’s dispersal point.
After thanking the aircrew for their help and assistance we obtained transport back to our campsite.
The remarks of the aircrew were nothing to those that I experienced when I carried the parrot into our billet room. I do not know whether I had been sold a sick bird or it was the high altitude of the day before was the reason [deleted] for feeling [/deleted] [inserted] HOWEVER I WAS [/inserted] very upset when later that day I found the poor parrot dead at the bottom of his cage.
[page break]
[inserted] 203A [/inserted]
[invitation card to 267 Squadron dance]
[underlined] INVITATION TICKET TO OUR DANCE] [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] BALANCE SHEET FOR SQUADRON DANCE HELD IN THE CIVIC HALL. (RANGOON).
JANUARY 11th 1946. [/underlined]
[blank] – [blank] – Rs – As
To Hire of hall. ………………………..…… 25. – 0.
To Cleaning Hall …………………………… 10. – 0.
To Hire of Band ………………………..… 150. – 0.
To Printing of Tickets (300) …………… 55. – 0.
Spot Prizes (8) …………………………….… 58. – 0.
Streamers, Balloons, Decorations,
Bearer’s Tips’s Etc. ………………………..103. – 0.
Limes Juice (40) Bottles. ………………... 85. – 0.
Fancy Cakes, Buns, Swiss Rolls Etc .. 166. – 0.
Drinks for Band, Doorman and
Other Helpers. ……………………………… 28. – 0.
Tips to 3 Doormen and 4 Refreshment
And Decoration Helpers. ………………. [underlined] 70. – 0. [/underlined]
[blank] [blank] [underlined] 750. – 0. [/underlined]
Rs
Sale of 150, Tickets at 5Rs 750
Rs [underlined] 750 [/underlined]
Signed. [four signatures]
[page break]
[inserted] 20 [/inserted] 4
The next few days besides my work on various aircrafts I was busy making the final arrangements for the Squadron Dance on 11 January.
On that day however all the parts of the jigsaw fitted in perfectly. The rest of the small committee helped to decorate the city hall and hoist up the large colourful bells with their contents. I had to arrange transport to travel hundreds of miles to the hospital units etc in the area to collect and finally return female partners for our airmen.
In spite of much criticism from many of our colleagues, everyone who attended seemed to enjoy themselves and the ladies were most impressed when the time came for me to pull the strings and hundreds of paper flowers emerged from the bells overhead. This was certainly in extreme contrast to spartan life that they must have lived over the previous months or years since they left England. I even received the congratulations and thanks of my commanding officer.
Life over the next few months took a routine pattern. During my many visits to China Town, many merchants loved to set out displays of rubies which were mined in the PEGU area north of Rangoon.
Not knowing much about the gems although many of them looked beautiful I always had the doubt in my mind that they could have been fakes. So I always declined to make a purchase.
I have often thought that if I had been an expert on rubies I could have ended up making a large sum of money.
One date that sticks out in my memory was from the 14th to 16th April when the Thingyan Water Festival was held. It is a religious festival and it was considered lucky to have water thrown over ones self.
On one of these days we filled up 40 gallon [deleted] oak [/deleted] [inserted] OPEN [/inserted] topped barrels of water onto the open topped lorry that was taking us into town. On the trip we took delight in throwing water from smaller containers over anyone we passed by the roadside or over occupants of the open vehicles that passed us in the opposite direction.
It was of course not all one way and the habitants threw back water over us as we passed them. Everyone acted in a good natured way, but at the end of our journey we were all wet through except our driver. However the hot sun of [inserted] THE [/inserted] day soon dried us out.
Another incident which sticks out in my mind was when our pilots were being regraded in readiness to return to civilian flying. In turn they were taken up on a flight accompanied by our commanding officer. On take off they had to reach an airspeed on the runway and then on becoming airborne throw a switch feather one engine [deleted] and [/deleted] [inserted] UNTIL [/inserted] told to restart same.
[page break]
[inserted] 20 [/inserted] 5
On one such trip the pilot on being told to restart the feathered engine touched the wrong switch and stopped the second.
The aircraft immediately lost height rapidly and belly flopped on the ground. Luckily both CO and pilot was unhurst, [sic] however the Dakota came to a rest in the centre of a native village with both wing tips and nose situated very near to a basher hut.
If one had tried to lower it into that position it would have been rather difficult. The final twist to the story is that a flying horse [deleted] which [/deleted] was the village’s lucky mascot and when they saw the one on either side of the aircraft they thought it was a lucky omen.
We never did learn as to what grading the pilot licence the CO issued to the [deleted] person [/deleted] [inserted] PILOT [/inserted] concerned.
[inserted] [indecipherable word] [/inserted] When one left England one was given a repatriation number. As the months went by my own number got nearer and nearer.
Mid June arrived and one of my colleagues came rushing into our billet and said he had just come from the orderly room when he discovered that the next list had arrived and both our names were included, the result was that we almost danced with joy.
It was an exciting time during the next few days. My last day arrived before proceeding to the transit camp in Rangoon so I decided to make my last visit to Mingladon [sic] Airfield. As I linked up with my working gang they were about to finish work for the day. Before leaving the aircraft that they were working on they, as we always had to, put the covers over the engines as the cowlings had been removed.
I duly remarked to them that the last thing I would do to help before leaving was to cover up the engines and went up the platform steps placed under one of the engines and as I reached up to throw the cover over the engine my foot slipped and knocked the front of my leg on one of the steps.
Although it was a rather painful experience, I did not worry too much at the time, However that evening I gradually deteriorated and as the night wore on I was perspiring profusely, feeling sick and dizzy and going hot and cold.
I though [sic] that I had caught malaria and next morning I could hardly walk on my leg and limped out of the billet and up onto the lorry that took us daily to the airfields. I told the lorry to stop as it passed the RAF hospital on its journey and limped into sick quarters and reported sick. A little later I was seen by the Medical Officer and next thing I knew was being admitted into hospital. As a result of a blood infection, for the next few days I had 100,000 units of pencillin [sic] injected into my bottom every day at 4 hourly intervals.
[page break]
[inserted] 206 [/inserted]
On each of these 4 hours night and day the [inserted] nurse [/inserted] came along, lifted my mosquito net and punctured by [sic] rear end.
To my concern and consternation and grief I regret the few of my colleagues of the squadron who were due to go home to England with me came in to wish me good-bye. When I was finally discharged I returned to my billet and found empty spaces in the room.
I then reported to the squadron’s orderly room and demanded to know whether having missed my ship out of Rangoon my name could be put down for the very next one.
Much to my consternation I was informed the Squadron was due to be disbanded and that the aircraft and personnel had been posted to various parts of India. Also that I was, with a number of others and one aircraft had been posted to Bombay.
I became right agitated and in no uncertain terms stated that I should really be on my way home and it was somewhat rediculous [sic] that I had to go all the way to Bombay and immediately leave the squadron that I had been posted to.
I was informed that the next troopship to leave Rangoon was to be the last one and that all places had been allocated. I was told there was nothing I could do, but after more insistence on my part I received confirmation that the orderly sergeant would place my situation before our squadron movement officer.
I returned to my billet duly dejected. Next morning I was told to report to the orderly officer and I was informed that they had managed to arrange for me to travel on the last boat leaving Rangoon direct to England. I was told to pack my kit and proceed next day to 27 PTC Rangoon Transit Camp.
I was there for the next 9 days, finally on 29 July after a trip down Rangoon River in a landing craft in pouring monsoon rain, I found myself walking up a gangplank of a troopship with my kit bag loaded over my shoulder and said hello to SS Carthage 5000 tons.
However there was a difference this time insomuch it was the first time that I knew which country the journey would end, Dear Old Blighty.
We sailed at 4.00 pm after lifeboat drill and I watched the receding coatline [sic] of the Ranoon [sic] area and so it was goodbye to Burma with 1400 Army and 1000 RAF personnel on board.
Life aboard was very much the same as described previously although not quite such a rigid programme.
July 30th. Food very good. Run into a storm during evening, I noted the boat rock a bit. 290 miles covered to noon.
July 31st. When sailing across the Indian Ocean the weather became very rough indeed. So much so during the afternoon I was sea sick for the very first time in my life. I along with the majority on board felt really dreadful and did not care if the ship had sunk.
By early evening I was feeling my usual bright self once more and went and drew the evening meal for the 14 who sat at our mess table to eat. On that occasion only 4 of us turned up to partake of same. 397 miles covered to noon, it was so warm I slept on deck.
[page break]
[inserted] 207 [/inserted]
August 1. We arrived off the coast of East Ceylon early afternoon and reduced speed by half, 359 miles covered.
August 2. We sailed into Columbo harbour and dropped anchor (lost it) at 8 pm. Weather was fine and we were 8o North of the Equator. 214 miles covered. The harbour was full of ships of different sizes and shapes. Total miles covered since leaving Burma 1,260. The ship sailed at 4.20 pm from the coconut tree lined bay that surrounded us.
Next day we ran into a few storms but it was the first night for months when we observed a sky full of stars. Another 305 miles covered up until noon.
We passed an island 450 miles out and were told that it was the last land we should see during the next 5 days.
August 4. Another 400 miles to noon. I was appointed mess orderly for the day and we watched an ENSA concert in the evening.
August 5. 357 miles. I played bridge at evening.
August 6. 361 miles. Later that day we started [inserted] to [/inserted] run into another gale.
August 7. Everything was tied down and stowed away ready for another big storm that hit us at 4 am whilst I was asleep. However it did not slow us up as we had covered 374 miles that day up until 12 noon.
August 8. Passed the Rock of Aden at 6 am and entered the Red Sea later when the sea became calmed once more. 392 miles covered to noon. The Straights were 13 miles wide and we were then 100 miles distant from Abysinia.
August 9. We passed by [inserted] a [/inserted] volcanic island and it was hellish hot and like a furnace below decks where I was on duty. During the day when I was able to get up on the deck and get fresh air for short while, I found the dolphins were swimming and jumping out of the water near to us. That evening we had a similar show up on the open deck.
August 10. My last day on duty. We passed a large coral reef and later an island named after the first man to fly [underlined] Niosus [/underlined] [inserted] ? [/inserted] in the old Greek legend when the sun melted his wings. [inserted] 10C [/inserted]
August 9th. We sailed passed the Brother Islands at dusk.
August 11th. Passed Mt Sini early morning which was 26 miles inland, it was the site where God gave Moses the 10 Commandments. The ship docked outside Port Suez at Noon and a Dutch boat was anchored nearby.
A large amount of [deleted] pardoning [/deleted] [inserted] BARGAINING [/inserted] took place with the local natives that came out to us in small boats in respect of purchases of leather goods etc.
We also watched 48 RAF colleagues disembark who had been posted to units in the Middle East. I noted that it was a glorious sunset that evening.
[page break]
[inserted] 208 [/inserted]
August 12th. We sailed once more at 3 am in the morning and when I arose later, went up on deck, we were sailing in the greater of the bitter lakes. Just off Kabrit which I knew very well and mentioned earlier in my story.
There was an Italian battleship still anchored in the lake after 2 3/4 years, however we noted that it had steam up so it must have been about to move for the first time after such a long period at anchor.
As we neared the end of the Suez Canal passing by Ismailia and onto Port Said, I saw scenery that I had seen twice before on my way to Syria and on my way back going to Corsica.
We were told that the cost of our troopship passing through the Suez Canal was £3,000 and this was some 44 years ago.
It was then out into the Mediterranean (yet another trip for me).
August 12th found us sailing along the Egyptian coast with no land in [deleted] site [/deleted] [inserted] SIGHT [/inserted] 330 miles covered to noon.
August 13th. No land for 200 miles in either direction. The ship passed between Malta and Scicily [sic] late at night. We did very well that day with yet another 420 miles covered to noon.
August 14th. Passed the Island of Panterllieria early morning [deleted] the [/deleted] Bone at 10 am and bone at 3 pm followed by Phillipville 9 pm. These 3 sites are of course in North Africa.
Of course the other major difference with this sailing from all the others was that there was no blackout to contend with and this applied to the islands and coastline that we passed during the hours of darkness. To us it was like passing fairyland once more.
August 15th found us off Algiers at 7 am, it was very misty at the time, later that day we were at the point approximately 50 miles north of Oran. We watched another beautiful sunset with the fiery ball of th [sic] sun falling behind a mountain range of South East Spain. During that day instructions were received by the Captain to proceed to Tilbury instead of docking at Southampton.
August 16th. We passed near to the Rock of Gibraltar at 6 am, the ship was in the Straights when I arose and went up on deck. We sailed by Cape Cadiz and Cape Trafalgar in the morning and near to Portugal at Cape St Vincent during the afternoon and off Lisbon just before midnight.
August 17th. The early risers saw the town of Oporto (home of port wine) on the starboard side. It was also at that time very cold and the sea was rough. At teatime having passed off Cape Finisterre we entered the Bay of Biscay.
[page break]
[inserted] 209 [/inserted]
August 18th. We drew arms from the ship’s armoury. There was no rush for ice drinks due to the temperature drop for the first time for almost 3 weeks. Out of the Bay of Biscay at 2 pm and later off an island near the Brest Penisular, [sic] finally that day off Cherbourg at 8 pm.
August 19th. We sited [sic] the White Cliffs of Dover and the Harbour on the Portside. When I went up on deck, a great cheer went up from us all who observed this [deleted] site [/deleted] [inserted] SIGHT [/inserted] that we had waited years to see once again. Even though it was rather misty and to us very cold after being used to the tropical heat for such a long period of time.
Later we changed from Khaki to the heavier Royal Air Force blue uniform and we watched as we passed the Channel forts in the Thames estuary. We had a glimpse of Southend Pier at 12.30 pm and finally docked at Tilbury docks later that afternoon having sailed 7,407 sea miles.
In due course I went feeling very light footed down the gangplank and at long last stepped foot again on dear old English soil after a period of 3 years and 35 days.
This is where my story comes to an end. [inserted] I [/inserted] Thank God for watching over me during all my travels and think of those who had not been so fortunate and who [deleted] I [/deleted] [inserted] ARE [/inserted] buried in graves all around the World.
“THERE [inserted] BUT [/inserted] FOR THE GRACE OF GOD [deleted] GO [/deleted] [inserted] LAY [/inserted] I”
[page break]
Although my trip to Siam, French Indo China and Hong Kong was cancelled at the last moment I thought you might like to see a few photographs of the first two named countries so I have included a few on the following pages.
[page break]
[underlined] SAIGON [/underlined] (FRENCH INDO CHINA).
[three photographs of buildings and streets in Saigon]
[page break]
[inserted] 200D [/inserted]
[underlined] GENERAL VIEWS OF SAIGON [/underlined]
[four photographs of views of Saigon]
[page break]
[underlined] GENERAL VIEWS OF SAIGON [/underlined]
[four photographs of areas in Saigon]
[inserted] 200f [/inserted]
[underlined] BANCOCK – SIAM [/underlined]
[photograph taken from aircraft]
[underlined] AIRFIELD [/underlined]
[photograph of bazaar]
[underlined] BAZAAR. [/underlined]
[page break]
[inserted] 200 [symbol] [/inserted]
[photograph of Japanese prisoners of war working on the railroad]
JAPANESE PRISONERS WORKING ON THE [underlined] “BANCOCK RAILWAY”. [/underlined] THE SAME ONE THAT THEY FORCED OUR PRISONERS OF WAR TO BUILD DURING THE WAR. DURING WHICH TIME HUNDREDS OF BRITISH DIED FROM FEVER, ILL TREATMENT, STARVATION, ETC.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
My overseas service by Raymond Barrett
Description
An account of the resource
Raymond spent his time in the R.A.F. overseas, this lengthy memoir covers the period July 1943 until August 1946. He served in the Middle and Far East and Italy. He was an Engine Mechanic/Fitter and this is his story. The memoir has maps of his travels and his reflections on the countries he visited, their history, geography and politics.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Raymond Barrett
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Typewritten pages, maps
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Memoir
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BBarrettRBarrettRv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Burma
Tunisia
France--Corsica
Italy
France
Italy--Sicily
Egypt
Syria
India
Burma
Syria
Syria--Aleppo
North Africa
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Tricia Marshall
242 Squadron
air sea rescue
displaced person
entertainment
fear
fitter engine
flight mechanic
fuelling
ground crew
military living conditions
military service conditions
petrol bowser
recruitment
sanitation
service vehicle
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/163/22382/PBanksP15020014.1.jpg
c011fc297578d3af89a632d6bfea7173
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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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Banks, Peter. Album two
Description
An account of the resource
The album contains a varied collection of photographs taken whilst based at RAF Feltwell from 1937 onwards. There are aerial views of Windsor and Buckingham Palace, Harrow aircraft, plus social and service events. Post-war he was transferred to Singapore via India and Burma. The album reflects his social life with occasional photograph of his service activities at RAF Seletar. His return to UK via Bombay at the time of Indian independence is recorded, followed by scenic shots round Wick in Scotland. Finally there are some photographs of Angkor Thom in Cambodia. It also contains pages from newspapers dated 18 and 19 June 1940. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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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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One photograph album
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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PBanksP1501
Transcribed document
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I Saved My Baby From the Nazis by Robert Henrey
"In these sorrowful hours," says Marshal Petain in his broken-hearted statement to the French nation, "I think of the unhappy refugees who in utter distress flee along the roads."
For the last three days I, too, have been a refugee. A week ago I left London to rescue my wife and my one-year-old son from the Germans as Nazi tanks scorched across the Normandy pasture fields bringing their savage hordes hourly nearer our 16th century farmhouse.
This farm, where my son was born last summer, nestles in the [photograph] My son and his mother photographed on arrival in London. [/photograph] rich land above Deauville, where they make Camembert cheese and where the cream and butter are supposed to be the best in the world.
From the fields where my cattle grazed so peacefully I could see, across the mouth of the Seine, the once noble city of Le Havre, where the ocean greyhound Normandie used to slip before the war so gracefully to her moorings
Waves of 'Planes
It was with foreboding that one evening last week I jumped out of the car that brought me to the gates of my farm. The little half-timbered house built in the days when the English still held Calais lies in the middle of a six-acre field planted every ten yards with cider apple trees.
At right angles to my house was that of my farmer, which I built for him with thatched roof to harmonise with the cattle sheds that form the rest of the wing. In front is the well with its thatched dome, on top of which grow multicoloured irises.
Half way down the field I saw my wife running towards me. She had left our little son in his pram, and led me into the house where dinner was simmering on the stove.
Five minutes later the drone of an aeroplane could be heard.
It circled twice over our house and then made towards Le Havre. Soon twenty more arrived and did the same thing.
Child Massacre
Five minutes later we watched these aeroplanes drop their bombs over the city. They arrived in waves of twenty, burning, bombarding and machine-gunning for four solid hours every night.
The Nazis were aiming not only at the utter destruction of Le Havre, but also at our own boys, who behaved like the heroes they are although so few have returned to tell the tale.
As we walked sorrowfully back to the house a woman with a baby in her arms asked us the way to a certain farm. She said she had come from Rouen by foot, and that the Nazis had entered the city at 10 o'clock that morning.
Two Nazi tanks had thundered down the main street of Rouen just as Mass was about to start. They had galloped 70 miles ahead of the nearest German infantry, and entered the city by surprise, firing at both pavements as they rumbled through the streets.
But when the tanks reach the bridge across the river (where the cafes are always packed at this hour of the morning) the French blew the bridge up, sending both tanks and twenty French motor-cars into the water below.
Then another bridge was blown up, and then the aerial bridge.
When my wife and I heard about Rouen, we decided to leave. But could we get a car? The only train from Paris that morning had been machine-gunned by Nazi airmen and cut in half. Scores had been killed.
We walked down to the village of Villers-sur-Mer. It was pitch black and air-raid wardens were whistling in front of windows where the slightest crack of light could be seen. Everybody who had a car had gone except the doctor and the nurse who was expecting four maternity cases during the next few hours.
Bombs All Around
We walked up again while forty Nazi 'planes whirred above our heads to continue the bombing of Le Havre.
The next morning we put our house spick and span. I helped my wife make the beds and myself made up the cot. I did not want a speck of dust to remain on the furniture. My mother-in-law had laid the table for lunch. "Let the fire die down," I said. "I don't think we'll need it."
I walked down to the village where the notary told me that the Germans might be expected at any time. They had broken across the Seine after machine-gunning all the refugees on the ferries. A friend offered to drive my little family to the other side of Caen. I came up again and said to my wife, "We are leaving immediately."
She understood. We took nothing but the baby's pram and a little lamp to heat his meals during the journey. I said good-bye to the house which represented all my dreams, all my savings, and picked a rose in the garden. We never looked back.
Now the Germans will be eating the meal we had prepared. They will be tearing the sheets from my baby's cot, driving their bayonets through the little things that had been in my family for five generations. All my books were there, all I loved, all I cared for. My cattle would have been grazing in the fields when they arrived - I hope they fed my rabbits.
Chased Round Trees
The Germans pursued us all along the roads. Their aeroplanes would arrive, and flying only a few hundred feet high would machine-gun and bomb the caravan until three hundred cars would be ablaze, and most of their occupants killed.
Some that had escaped the first slaughter would run into the woods only to be chased round the trees by the Nazi airmen. But half an hour later the dead would be laid out by the roadside, the burned cars left to their fate, and the refugees behind would press forward to hope and the west coast.
The Tommies said that each time they arrived in a village the people ran for their lives, knowing that within half an hour of the arrival of our troops the Nazis would bomb them.
The last trains from Paris took 40 hours on the journey, were bombarded half a dozen times and women held on to the outside handles because there was no room inside the compartments. Cattle trucks were crowded with half-stifled children.
[advertisements for Craven 'A' and Samona]
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Title
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I saved my baby from the Nazis
Description
An account of the resource
Newspaper page from Daily Sketch with account of a father who went to Normandy in France to rescue his wife and one year old son. Describes bombing of Le Havre and German advance. Goes on to mention aircraft machine gunning refugee columns.
Creator
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Robert Henrey
Publisher
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Daily Sketch
Format
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One newspaper page
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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PBanksP15020014
Coverage
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Civilian
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Wehrmacht
Spatial Coverage
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France
France--Deauville
France--Le Havre
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-06
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1940-06-18
displaced person
strafing
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/335/3498/PSzuwalskaW1510.1.jpg
2e6242f277e30976d0a903e8ed41648c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/335/3498/ASzuwalskaW150910.2.mp3
bad2c71d058d0aa84ead68fac89a2896
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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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Szuwalska, Wanda
W Szuwalska
Wanda Gawel
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Wanda Szuwalska (- 2020, 2793043 Royal Air Force). She travelled to Great Britain from Poland and served as a clerk and a driver with 300 Squadron.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-09-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Szuwalska, W
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SC: Make sure that that’s — This is now recording. So, I’ll start this by just introducing both of us. We’re conducting this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre Archive. The interviewer is myself, Steve Cooke. The interviewee is Mrs Wanda Szuwalska.
WS: Szuwalska.
SC: Yep. And we are at your home in [redacted] West Bridgford on the 10th of September 2015. Can I ask you then to start wherever you want to, even before the war started and tell us what your memories are of going into the RAF.
WS: Yes. Poland was, until the Occupation, four hundred and twenty-three years and when the first war started, in 1914, which we celebrated in this country, hundred year anniversary of this war. Poland become, in 1920, a free country. And there was a lot of lands left, not used, whilst Poland was under the Occupation because the people did not want [unclear] lands, went out from Poland and live in France. So what happened when Poland became a free country, descendants of those people came back and tried to obtain their land and sell it. And my grandfather with his six brothers and one sister, bought land, a lot of land and divided it before — because all of us. And we built a little village. There were seventeen houses because there was somebody else and we lived at a farm. I’ve been born on the farm. And we’ve been working on the farm. The life was wonderful. School was [unclear], to got to school, [unclear] and happy – we were very, very happy there. And in September 1939. 1st of September. From ‒ suddenly the worries. You see, the communication wasn’t at that time like it is now. Internet, telephones, anything. We had a paper and some had a telephone. And not telephone only, radio which — a little one. Not the sort of thing that you can hear, only, but — The war started. Hitler attacked Poland and completly ruined [unclear] little town. And then, all our army moved from west to east because we had a pact with Russia that they will not invade us. And all the Polish Army went to the East. I shall never forget — seventeen of September 1939, about three o’clock in the morning, we heard a lot of something noise. We woke up. Looked through the window and there was Russian tanks. Going on the road, because we lived very close to the main road there. And we found out that Sovietin, which was Stalin, dictator, invaded, invaded the Poland. Just made the pact with Germany. Invaded Poland. So. All our army was taken by Russia. By the Russian soldiers. And they’d been taking to prison, to Russia, Katyn and there was hundred and — I believe, there was hundred and twenty thousand Polish Army killed in mass grave in Russia. Now. On the 10th of February 1940, suddenly two o’clock at night, knock to the door, Russian soldiers come, and say, ‘You’ve got a half an hour to get ready and we are taking you somewhere that you have better life.’ And there was a sledge outside with the horses and we had to — The officer told us what we have to do and two young soldiers, not more than probably eighteen, nineteen, left in the house to, that we don’t escape, that we —. And I was [unclear] and these two young men told us what to take with us. They knew better that where we’re going that we knew. There was five of us. I was the oldest at sixteen. My youngest brother was only seven or eight. My mother completely lost it. Think she didn’t know what to do, but father kept it calm. So these two young men say, ‘Take the flour. Take some meat what we had preserved. Take blankets.’ Take, you know, everything like that. ‘Warm clothes because you’re going somewhere that’s —.’ If it wasn’t because of them, I don’t know how we will back. Anyhow, they took us to the station and put us in a wagon. A cattle wagon that was separated and eight people into one. Sort of like a platform and another one. And we started — we left our station on the 13th of February and we travelled for about four or six weeks, north, to Russia and we came to Kotlas, River Vychegda, and there, there was Arkhangelsk. Right to the North Sea. And then when we get from the train, we get into the sledges driven by horses and for three days we were going through frozen river and so many people were left in some barrack on the riverside. It was a barrack built and we’d been left in the barrack. In those barracks then, twice as long as my home and my room here. And they had only about half a metre for each person. And there was built, like a platform, so much away from the, from the ground. And we didn’t know why we’d been left so many in each place. But what happened. When they — April — spring came — start coming. All the, all the side of the — there were plenty of woods. They’d been chopping woods and putting them down the river and they were going to a place where they cut them and make the — something of this wood, sort of — So what happened, when the winter came very quickly, some of those big pieces of wood, you know, old trunk, were frozen into the river, so we had to dig them out from the ice because if they move with the ice, they would do a lot of damage to the riverbank. So that’s what we work. We all had to work. I was sixteen, already seventeen because I was born on the 18th of January 1923, so I was already seventeen and I had to work. And when we work, we got one rouble and a pound, one, one kilogram of bread, who works. But only twenty grams when the people, they don’t work. So my father work and I work so that was we could get some bread. And we get a little money to buy some soup. [sighs] The soup usually be made with the dry fish, which you never know what it was. [laughs] But it was very good, very salty and very tasty, so my mother could put more water to it so we could share for everybody else. And we just lived there. We didn’t know what’s happening in the world but we got sometimes some news from the boat that was travelling up and down the river. And of course I was young and flirt with everybody and see the boat and see somebody. We found some news. And then we got news that there are some Polish soldiers in Katowice, into one city. And then I was, well I was the oldest one and I had to do everything because my mother wouldn’t let my father to go in case he disappears or he lost his way, so I was — It doesn’t matter if something happened to me. So I, I went there, with one friend of mine, a young boy, my age, quite clever and we find out that we, that war started between Germany and Russia and officers came a few days later to our barrack and say, ‘You are free. And you can go wherever you are.’ So going the other way, we had a convoy, we had — We be looked after. But then we’d been left there on our own. You’re free. No money. Nothing. Not knowing that at all. We have to make our way. Find out that in south of Russia, Uzbakistan, the Polish army is being formed by General Wladyslaw Anders, and we have to go there because there is a big camp for all the people who came from Siberia down to south. We’d been travelling wherever we could walk. That’s why I see some people on the television now, how we walk, how we got on to some train. How we had to sleep on the station. And you sell everything what we had. Or simply begging for some bread. But I must say that the Russian people themselves, just people on the street, they were very good. They were sympathetic with us. And we travelled thus. So we found out, then, when Hitler advanced on Russia, Stalin wasn’t prepared for it. So he asked Mr Churchill to help. So Mr — Our diplomats here in, in London, the diplomats who escaped from Poland when the war started, said to Mr Churchill, ‘Tell Stalin to release all those Polish people from the prison camp and they’ll be the best fighter for Hitler.’ And Stalin went for it. That’s why we’d been released. Free to join the Polish Army so we can fight. Fight Hitler. Which which Polish Army proved that they could be — That they fight. So we went all this to this, to this, travel. Some people got lost. One lady lost her arm trying to get onto the train. Fell. It was tragic. It was always like you see in the war story. But now it’s better organised I think. And we got — I managed to get to the Army because I was already nearly eighteen. So it was. My youngest brother went to little Cadets, also. And we got into British uniform, and we serve and Russia wanted that we fight from the East together with the Russian. But General Anders was — He was in a Russian prison camp. He knew exactly what the Russia is. So he insisted that we travel to the Middle East, join the British, and American, and we were in a British uniform, because British — Britain gave us uniform and food. So. So we travelled. So of course he managed to get us and we travelled to the Caspian Sea to Pahlavi , to Persia. Which is Iran now. And then from there we travelled to Tehran and there were camps and we prepare, all the drills and things like that to get into the war. Now. I can remember very well, we’d been approaching on the 1st of April, to the Pahlavi, to the Persia, and we’d been so happy singing all hymns and different patriotic song, that, that we are free now. That we’re out of Russia. And somebody — We stood there — Because looking — Getting into the port, and somebody said, ‘Look. What are you singing for? This is the 1st of April. April’s Fool.’ And everybody went so quiet. We were frightened. And maybe it is April Fool. We don’t know where we were approaching. Where we were going. Maybe we were going to another prison or something. And then somebody started laughing, ‘No, no. We are going in the right place but it is April Fool.’ 1st of April 1942.
SC: Three.
WS: No. Two.
SC: Two. That’s fine.
WS: I joined the army in ‘42. And we train. All we do in the Middle East, we train to be prepared. There was different courses of everything and driving for the women and all sorts of special learning. English. Many languages. And in 1943, suddenly appeal came from Royal Air Force to, to our — Everywhere. If anybody would like to join air force because Battle of Britain which absolutely, now as you know, even — Then. So many forces, air force was damaged. So my cousin, who was there in Polish Army, advised me, ‘You go to Britain because there is quicker from England to Poland, than wherever we will be when the war finish.’ And I joined. And I came to England. Straight away I started to learn, language, and of course all advice. I must say this, this is a bit funny but I must say it. We learned, what, that Britain is very intelligent, well-educated country. Industry. Everything like that. You know Britain was always on top of the world. And we’d been told that all the British ladies are slim, tall, sophisticated. Always hair done. And we came from Russia. We ate everything. We’d all been a little bit podgy, you know, so, ‘Don’t eat too much.’ All the time. And you know what? We even got a lipstick, free. In forces, we got a lipstick, so we must use lipstick because that is how this English ladies look like and so we haven’t got to look any different. Okay. We just arrived to, in the port, into Liverpool. Liverpool. Five o’clock in the morning. So we all went ready. All lipstick. All saying, ‘How does English ladies look very, very sophisticated?’ [laughs] And suddenly, you wouldn’t believe it, we saw the normal ladies, going in overalls, having the curlers in the hair and with a bucket and mop, because they were coming to clean the ship, where we arrived to. And we laughed and laughed and laughed because, because that’s what we were told was completely different. [laughs] But it wasn’t different. It was just like normal. We travelled to so many countries, we knew all people that were sophisticated, well-bred, in the yard there were working people. I mean for us, it was normal how the world is. Anyhow, that is by-the-way how it is. And then we came from Liverpool to North Berwick near Edinburgh to be there before they allocate us. Naturally while we’d been staying here and there, always learn English or some typing or whatever. And then we were sending to Wilmslow near Manchester. There was a big camp. That we changed our khaki uniform to blue uniform. And, on several, on some interview, somebody asked me, ‘Why did you wanted to change khaki uniform to blue uniform?’ And I say, ‘Because it’s nicest. Better thing.’ I didn’t mean only because I wanted to be in air force, I was just saying, as a woman that it’s nicer, nicer to wear blue than khaki. And that was a laugh and I got a lot of applause because that interview was with a lot of people. I think it was in Faldingworth. And then after Wilmslow course I was allocated to 300 Bomber Squadron. That was a Polish Squadron. Ziemi Mazowieckiej. And I was there as the Clerk GD, Clerk General Duty. And I work on the flying control but not talking to the planes that they were going away. There was [unclear], a lady who spoke, but my duty was to get information about weather, because on every aerodrome there was a caravan standing there and getting every hour, a weather. Because the planes, the Lancaster were there. The biggest plane. The nicest plane there is, Lancaster. And it was very important. Yes I forgot to mention. Yes. And then you see, because they had to know. Usually, usually six or seven people in that plane. And I usually do General Duty there. Getting the information about the weather. When they came down, then it was take-over by me. ‘You go to dispersal.’ So and so. And what the section was advised to go to their dispersal because after a plane landed, they usually, drivers were going, usually women doing this work. Going to dispersal. Got airmen into car, well it was a little sort of lorry, and took them to the Briefing Room and that was my duty. And I was there serving ‘till the end of the war. Meanwhile my, I met a young man who actually I knew from Poland, and he was trained to be a radio operator on Lancaster, my husband, Jan Gawel. He flew seventeen operational flight, bombing, bombing Germany and two, another — I don’t even know how to say the other place. Well he done nineteen flights altogether. He was — The Gawel family, they all had a heart problem, that is the Gawels got a heart problem. He is a Gawel, yes. And he died very young, just as I say. Not even aged sixty. We got married in Faldingworth in a chapel. The air force chapel. Faldingworth is in Lincolnshire and there is something going on and I will be there in Faldingworth on the 26th of, 26th of this month. I’m going there, I’ve got an invitation to be there. And, I’ve been several times to Faldingworth. That is my station. So, then we had to — Now. We’d been demobbed and also we’d been left almost on our own. And there was no such a lot of organisation like it is now, they help. You can go somewhere. There’s a service centre here, here, here. Nothing. And we were left. So what are you going to do? Where are you going to live? English people were very, very good. When you walk in and say, ‘Have you got a room to let?’ I remember my husband was still flying in Thirsk and we walked to one house and it was a council house. Mr and Mrs Heal and with a son, and we say, ’Have we got a room?’ I had already a little girl, Jadwiga. And she looked at us and you know, I cannot I cannot believe to — Now, they had a two bedroom and one room downstairs and a very big kitchen-diner and they let us to have a bedroom and a room downstairs and they, two of them with the son, lived in that kitchen and the son had put a small sort of, like a settee-bed, so he slept in this kitchen. At that time, it didn’t mean anything to me, but when I think now, how those people was helping us, I just can’t believe — I’ve got quite a big house for me and I live here alone and a lot of people are coming to this country and there is [unclear] to take them, as you know.
SC: Yeah.
WS: Would I do anything like that? You know, it’s terrible how the church — How the world change. Anyhow, then we had to move. So every airman who was de-mobbed, got a suit and a raincoat, something like that for the civil life and fifty pound. Well fifty pound was lots and lots of money, because my husband had three more friends and they all put this fifty pounds together. For two hundred pounds and paid deposit for a house. 120 Blue Bell Hill Road in the district here in Nottingham and they lived — And they all moved. We had a three-bedroomed house. Three bedrooms. So. We lived in a small bedroom with a child and then in one big bedroom, two gentlemen and one attic bedroom, one room. And they lived — And the agreement was, at that time, I’m telling you, accommodation and food for one week was two pound. Two pounds. [laughs] Best we stop and sell up. So they agreed that instead of — They were paying me. Asked one pound a week. And I should, they should live there and I should cook and feed them for one pound and that another pound, a cheaper way. So after a year, they get their fifty pound back. That was all agreed. Well to earn a little bit more money, instead of them taking, the kitchen was very small, there was no washing machine, like it is now. Then they were taking to the laundry, good money to small house like that, and they had the socks to, to darn, so I darned each hole for tuppence and I used to say, ‘I will wash for you. And dry and press.’ And they’d be, instead of paying to the laundry, taking, that’s what I earned the money to keep this going. And that was our life. Then my daughters went to school, I had two daughters, Jadwiga and Alicja, and they went to school in that very poor district and what happened, at that school, they got the lice. You know what the lice are? In their hair and I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t believe it because we had these lice in Russia and everywhere. And that was terrible. So I used to sort of save money as I could. I can cook very well. Not like my sister, like his mother. As, very good. I cook sort of very cheaply and I fed those people, those men. They didn’t mind because two — For whatever we went through, anything was good enough. A little bit better, it was something. And I managed to send them to private school. It was two pound. I think it was two pound a month, two pound a week. I forgot. Something to this private school, because of these lice. I couldn’t bear any more lice, what they went through in Russia, things like that. And, but that is, that is my story. There is nothing more to say because life in England was completely different. We got the job [unclear]. When I wanted the job, somebody advised me, ‘Go to the factory where they make clothes.’ And there was this small factory. A private — And Mr Davis ran this factory and I came to this factory but of course there wasn’t like this you have so much weeks to learn. You had to know. And I said to this manageress who gave me a job, that I can machine. Never never seen an electric machine in my life but I knew how to — [laughs] I knew how to use the lockstitch machine but that was probably with the treadle and things like that. So when I put my foot on this treadle on the electric machine, even if it was moving, I would be miles away [laughs] really, but again, in a factory, the girls was marvellous. They help. You know. Especially when they see there is a foreign girl, they help. In no time, I was earning quite a good money. Piecework. Everything was piecework, which I agree, piecework absolutely. And, at the end of the day, I worked there thirty-three years, so, at the end of the day —
SC: What’s the name of the factory?
WS: Davisella. And it’s still building there, on the, Davisella Ltd. Mr Davis was the owner. That was a small place. We didn’t have more than about two hundred people. And we had all department. We had the design room, samples and machine room, finishing room, dispatch and all this they used. An absolutely marvellous business man, I must say. The only thing is, he didn’t have the private pension scheme and at the beginning I didn’t know why, but then I found out that the private pension scheme run like this, if I declare that I want to put two pound a week for my private pension scheme, the firm had to put the same amount of money and he was such a — He didn’t want to do this private thing because he didn’t want to pay the money. Which of course. I don’t know how else could have done. Anyhow, at the end of this, my career there, I was the factory manager and Head of Production and the funny thing is, we had a manager before me, Mr Fiat. He was well-educated, he was also Jewish. Speak very nice. And the girls on the floor, they understand me better although my English probably weren’t. And I remember Mr Fiat said, ‘Girls, if you’ve got a surplus of shuttles, give them back to Wanda because you should allow, only have six, no more.’ When he spoke, ‘Wanda, what he mean surplus? What does —‘ There were some girls couldn’t — didn’t know what surplus [unclear] ‘If you’ve got too many. If you’ve got more than six.’ ‘Okay.’ They understood me better with my broken English than that man, but that was, that was very funny. You know, I loved, I loved my girls. And I’m still in touch with those girls after we finished work. How many years ago?
Other 1: Twenty.
WS: Yes. And I — On the telephone. And sometimes we meet here. We are trying to meet here again, that I cannot manage very well, so here is my nephew. They can help me, you know, and bring something to give [unclear] or something like that. [laughs]
SC: Right.
WS: So, because I’m not, as you know, I’m ninety-two, be ninety-three in January, so for me it’s a bit difficult, you know, to get running around. I think I have told you everything. At the end of the day.
SC: You’ve certainly taught me a lot. You’re a very, very good communicator.
WS: I don’t know what else to say. That’s all.
SC: Did you go back to Poland very often?
WS: Oh yes. I went to Poland, I — We couldn’t go, we couldn’t go to Poland because Poland wasn’t a free country after the war finished, without an agreement in 1943, Poland was — that was Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, they sold Poland. Yes. To Stalin. Churchill believed Stalin, whatever Stalin said, he believed Stalin. He never found out what Stalin was anyhow. So, to go back to Poland, you have to take the British Nationality. And, I took it, of course we had to pay for it. I took the British passport and I went to Poland first time with my daughter, it was in 1962, I believe.
Other 1: Two daughters.
WS: Pardon? With my two daughters. 1962. I had some problem on the border. They didn’t like us who lives abroad. They didn’t like us. On the board things. Polish part. And say, ‘Why did you come from, to Poland?’ So I said, ‘I came to show my daughters beautiful country, my part of the country.’ And then I done something, I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. Oh, I went in car and I — We had to buy the vouchers for petrol, and I didn’t know anything about it and I, I run out of the petrol and stood near the petrol where people were very good — they go, brought me some petrol, so I get to Vrotslav. And then I bought a lot of, enough vouchers to last me for this petrol. And when I’m leaving Poland, they stopped me because I had too many vouchers and I say, ‘Oh you wouldn’t believe it.’ I said, ‘Well I — why I’d done it. I cannot take it.’ I say, ‘Well then I will rip it.’ ‘You cannot rip it.’ And I say, ‘What do you do?’ ‘You shouldn’t have them.’ He wrote a — Silly question. And I, I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do with them? How am I going to do it?’ So I just, I remember the bribe, yes, bribe you say. I just had some dollars and as I put some dollars inside this voucher and I say, ‘Well you get rid of it.’ And so he see there are dollars and he took this. And he said something to me. ‘Didn’t your government advise you of everything, that when you go to Poland, how you have to behave, what you have to do? ‘ And I remember, I was so, it was terrible, I was absolutely — I say, ‘You mean my government, no, my, British government, because my government should be here, free government in Poland.’ I don’t know, but they didn’t arrest me because what do they want with the women? I mean they — the men didn’t go to Poland for a long time. They were frightened because one of very good pilot of 303 Squadron, of the Battle of Britain, Skalski, Stanisław Skalski, he is famous. He is everywhere in things like that about this fighter. And he went to Poland for his mother’s funeral and he was arrested and he was kept for six years in prison because he flew here, for the Battle of Britain. Oh there is, there is books about it, I mean he is famous. So, but I was so mad, but they didn’t do anything wrong to women. They didn’t want a woman to keep in the prison. What women are. And that’s what I, going to Poland, to Krynica [?], I’ve got a lot of family in Poland, about, all together about thirty-three people. But I’m forgetting now all the younger, but I’m still in touch with my cousins in Krynica [?] and in Nowy Sącz.
SC: Whereabouts in Poland is that? North?
WS: Krynica, [?] Górska, is in a Polish mountain. Right on the east, er, south of Poland. Krynica [?].
SC: Okay. South-east.
WS: It’s very famous. At the moment something is going on there. And then Nowy Sącz is not very far from there but — and very close, there is a Polish, there is a salt mine in Poland, that is, the salt mine is on the register of UNESCO. Yes, I’m saying right thing?
Other 2: Yes.
WS: I must say this one. Now. One King of Poland married the Hungarian Princess. And her name was Kinga and when she came to Poland, she, she bought to Poland her dowry. Her dowry was, so she took her ring and wrote to the mine and say, ‘I bought you a salt. Dig there and you’ll have a salt.’ And that is the salt which you which you dig and you have got to think, ‘I’ve got even [unclear]’ [speaks in Polish] And salt. And what happened, when my great-granddaughter was born, that I have got four picture there, I have only one great-granddaughter, and when she, when my granddaughter told her husband, he’s German, and my granddaughter is living in Germany, she’s — she said, ‘What name?’ And she was telling her husband this little story about Kinga giving Poland this salt mine, this village [unclear] and my granddaughter’s husband says, ‘Kinga. We name her Kinga.’ And I was over the moon. You know, that he just brought this name from the little — is it a story or, sort of, I don’t know how you call. You know I’m forgetting some. I don’t —
[Wanda speaks with other people]
WS: So, you see that’s a little, again what I’m adding to my life. My life is —
SC: Yes.
WS: So full and I’m working and I’ve got a lot of medals and a lot of things like that, because I work in social, in every organisation, Scouts and whatever it is, you know. Always doing something. Is there anything else? I think I told you everything.
SC: So you’re working in lots of organisations now.
WS: Oh yes, I mean there is — you see, again, we had a lot of organisation. By being taken to Russian prison, coming and being together, service being together. We like to be together. So when we came to the civil life and started, we got all, and we started to have organisation. There was Scouts, there was all the military, there was Polish Air Force Association, there was Combat — you know, Combat Association. There was a lot of — and we’d be always together. But what happened, our children never join us. Now they could be two story. We didn’t encourage our children to opt to join us because we were full of spirit, we are doing everything, but I think we started from nothing and we’d been about twenty-five, thirty, and we manage. Or even forty, sixty. We managed to get together. I don’t know why our children cannot do it. I’m doing everything in my power to sort of say, ‘Join us. Join us. And see what we’re doing.’ But I’m afraid, the life is everybody is very well-off. They can manage to go for a holidays. They can have car, caravans. They can they can go all over the place. Even my grandson, he goes to, first, three weeks to America. We didn’t. We didn’t have any money. So we were happy to be together. We build a Centre. We bought two very good house to share with the [unclear] and we didn’t get any help. We build a church from all our money. And we’ve been very — for instance, I can give you [unclear]. We built the church, and I was earning that time, twenty pound a week. I give hundred pound to build a church. So that was my five weeks’ wages. Can you imagine anybody who earned at least two hundred and fifty pound a week, that is approximate, can you imagine anybody giving one thousand two hundred and fifty pound for any donation. Nobody. They’d rather go for a holiday. You see this is the difference. And nothing can be done about this so we haven’t got any organisation at all. There is only Scouts and Girl Guides, but also not, we had a very, very, very big jamboree about four weeks ago. There was five hundred and forty-seven Scouts and Girl Guides there. And believe me or not, but I was the only one there with this generation.
SC: Gosh.
WS: I managed to get a lady who had the children there and I said, ‘Look, I give you so much money, take me there and bring me back.’ And she did. And it was unforgivable. Unforgivable to see those people, young people there in uniform, marching and things like that. And about a thousand visitors came here, so we had fifteen hundred people in that place, near Northampton. I forgot the place. That was a British Legion place. They rent it us for three weeks for this camp. So I go everywhere. And I’m going to be in Faldingworth next weekend. And then Air Bridge. Saturday Faldingworth, Sunday Air Bridge.
SC: Yep.
WS: In York.
SC: And in October, you’re definitely coming to the —
WS: Yes. At the end of October, we also have a ceremony in York cemetery. There is a Polish war cemetery in York, as you know. And I’m going everywhere, wherever I can. And even if I have to pay, I save somewhere else. But even if I have to pay the full money for somebody to take me there. Sometimes it could be fifty pound.
SC: Yep.
WS: Sometimes they say, ‘I take you for thirty pounds.’
SC: Yeah.
WS: Some say, some more, then I get somebody else or something like that. I have to pay a lot of money. I can’t have a car. They took my car away. They took my licence away. And —
Other 2: Last year.
WS: Pardon?
Other 1: Only last year.
Other 2: Last year. She has —
WS: I mean, went to hospital —
SC: Let’s not go there. Right.
WS: Nothing happened. They told me that my heart condition doesn’t let me to drive and I feel the same. As you know. Am I different since last year?
Other 1: No, but you can’t see it. It’s there, but you can’t see it.
WS: Oh, I, I —
Other 1: It’s an aneurysm.
WS: I, still it’s a year and I still — I cannot. I cannot forget it. I haven’t got a car. Since I had a car, since 1956. And now suddenly I haven’t got a car.
Other 1: It was before ’56.
WS: No I think I bought it —
Other 1: Oh no, no. Pascha was eighteen months. Yes, ’56.
WS: I bought my car in 1956 and I remember it very, very well.
SC: It was when I was born.
Other 1: 375 Consul. Black.
WS: Yes.
Other 1: I remember it well.
WS: Yes. That was my first car.
Other 1: Red seats. Bench seats. Column change. Yeah. I was four. I was five.
WS: I don’t know, but since then, but that was something to have a car over — but since then, I had a Morris 1,000. I had a Mini. I never had —
Other 1: A Morris 1,000 Convertible.
WS: Convertible.
Other 1: They went to Poland in it. Two, three women.
WS: Oh yes.
SC: Wow.
Other 1: In 1963.
WS: The, the, the boot was open and I had some cushions there and my youngest daughter was lying there keeping her legs on my, on our seats. Older daughter was — Oh what have you been doing? And some boys, little boys going on the pavement and we’re going, ‘Daddy. Are they going to build like that in Poland?’ You know, there was something for everyone. [laughs] Alicja was sitting there with her legs up on our seat.
Other 2: You had a Volkswagen.
WS: I also had a Volkswagen. Everybody said Volkswagen is a very good car. I went to Poland in my Convertible. I didn’t think if I went in Mini, I can’t remember.
SC: No.
WS: I go to Poland. And my Convertible, Morris 1,000 Convertible, was alright. Everybody —
Other 1: 558RMU
WS: Yep.
SC: Gosh.
WS: And milkman is coming. Milkman is coming. And say, ‘Have a nice holiday. Where are you going?’ I say, ‘To Poland.’ ‘With this thing? Aren’t you frightened? My goodness.’ I don’t know. We went to Holland and they say, ‘Welcome to Holland. Where are you going to stay?’ ‘We’re going to Poland.’ With this, you know, they called it because it was Morris 1,000 Convertible. And you know, we went there and came back and nothing happened. We were going to Poland in my Volkswagen 1,300. And my, what do you call, [Polish word]?
Other 1: J563011
WS: Oh [speaks in Polish]. So. I managed to get to Poland, to Vrotslav and I say, ‘Can you repair this?’ And they say, ‘Yes.’ But I knew how much it cost because I asked somebody there. But they didn’t charge me. Only about, how they charge Polish people. They charged me the same as I would pay here in England. And I say, ‘Why?’ And I quoted the name of the gentleman who has got the same thing. And he said, ‘Now look. If you went to the hotel and you waste of two days’ holiday and it cost you much more. So if that happened in England, you pay this hundred pounds so you have to pay hundred pounds.’ And they will say, ‘We’re going to work all night to get it ready for you, so tomorrow morning, and you can sleep in our house and tomorrow morning you have a car ready.’ And it was ready. When I came back, even you told me that they’d done a very good job.
Other 1: They re-wound it.
WS: They re-wound it.
Other 1: Completely.
WS: They done a very better job than [unclear]. So you see there’s such a lot, a lot of things. Oh.
Other 1: It — No, you had the Morris 1,000, then you had the grey Mini C567BR8, ‘cause I had it afterwards. Right. Then you had the Volkswagen. Then you had the blue Mini. But I don’t remember the registration.
WS: [laughs] The funny thing is my daughter from Germany say, I say, ‘I’ve got a new car.’ ‘What car?’ I say, ‘Blue. Blue.’ And Jadwiga, again. ‘I want to know what car.’ ‘I told you I’ve got a blue car.’ And she said, ‘Mama. I never believed that you could say silly things.’ And I say, ‘Ah, I got it blue because I wear blue suits.’ I was talking about everything I wear. Always hat. Blue hat, blue car and that’s nice.
Other 1: All she wanted was the name.
WS: She wanted — and I didn’t, I didn’t think it matters, as long as it’s a blue car. [laughs]
SC: Blue. Yes. These, these journeys must have been easy compared to the journey you’d made from Poland that you’d described all the way through to Iran and —
WS: Yes, that was a pleasure journey where I was going. I mean I enjoyed every minute. Even something gone wrong, I never was — I never even worry when something gone wrong. I remember, in East Germany, there was still East Germany, Communist, and my car gone, that was a Volkswagen. And I stopped. ‘You can’t stop here.’ I say, ‘Well I can’t go, I haven’t got — My car doesn’t go. Something wrong.’ And this soldier. German soldier. ‘You can’t stop here.’ And I say, ‘Well what can I do? I just, just had a drink of water and I can’t move.’ So, because I had a rack, roof-rack, yes, because that was not very, not very big thing. So. I was thinking, ‘My goodness. Somebody can come and steal something.’ But no. I had about three or four soldiers round the car. All mad. Standing there and I never been so safe in my life, in East Germany because they thought I may be a spy.
SC: Gosh.
WS: So they guarded me. And that was good for me. I say. [laughs] You know it’s such a — and I never was frightened of anything at all. I don’t know how I got through it. I just don’t know.
SC: You have some inspirational stories and you’re obviously very resilient and resourceful.
WS: I never thought anything can happen to me, you know.
Other 2: I don’t think you do when you’re younger.
SC: No.
Other 2: You don’t have any fear really. As you get older you see things. Dangers.
SC: Yes.
WS: Yes and you know, I don’t know how it’s going now. I don’t think it’s the same. For instance, my nephew. You know, since he was about fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, he knew everything about, about motorbike, Lambretta. How to put it together. How to take all — into the pieces. A lot of round here and I sometimes looked at him and say, ‘How do you know where to put them?’ And he knew everything. You know. He knew better when he was younger than he knows now, I think. [laughs]
SC: Yes.
WS: Wasn’t it like that?
Other 1: [laughs] Yes.
SC: I’ll stop the machine now.
WS: Okay.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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ASzuwalskaW150910, PSzuwalskaW1510
Title
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Interview with Wanda Szuwalska
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:48:43 audio recording
Creator
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Steve Cooke
Date
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2015-09-10
Description
An account of the resource
Wanda Szuwalska was sixteen years old when Germany invaded Poland. The family was deported to Siberia by the Russian army. They travelled for several weeks to the Arkhangelsk region where Wanda then worked as a logger. When war intensified between Russia and Germany, they were freed and she went to Uzbekistan where General Anders was forming a Polish Army. She joined up and travelled to Pahlavi, Persia, now Iran, and then on to Tehran where she trained in an Army camp. She then joined the Royal Air Force, came to England and was allocated to 300 Squadron where she served as a clerk, directing aircraft on the ground and was a driver. Wanda married Jan Gawel who was also in the Royal Air Force and they had a family. After the war, she worked in a clothing factory in Nottingham. After her husband died, she married again. She is a member of the Polish Air Force Association and has been awarded medals and honours for her involvement in Scouts, Girl Guides and social organisations.
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
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1942
1943
Contributor
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Cathy Brearley
Carolyn Emery
300 Squadron
dispersal
displaced person
ground personnel
love and romance
RAF Faldingworth
round-up
service vehicle
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1079/11537/APopikaR180806.1.mp3
a31c72321680486a97fccbb762c58367
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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Popika, Ruta
R Popika
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ruta Popika (b. 1928). She was born in Lithuania with dual German nationality. She lived through the Russian occupation and emigrated to Germany during the war before making her way to England in 1947.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-06
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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Popika, R
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SC: So, this is Steve Cooke uhm, interviewing Mrs Ruta Popika for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. We're at Chaddesden, Derby and the time is 10.45 on the 6th of August 2018. So Ruta if I can ask you to start telling us your memories from that early time and just tell me everything that you want to tell me.
RP: Now the memories really start I think from, I was born in what then was Lithuania the, on the banks of the river Nemunas. Now the river Nemunas is the major river between what then was Germany and Lithuania and it starts in Russia somewhere, I never remember where it starts and it goes into the Curonian, they call it now I think the Curonian Bay or something
SC: Aha
RP: Anyway I lived, we lived there until I was seven. My father's work was customs officer and he did that all the time we were in Lithuania and from there we sort of, it's a long story, we were all born, there were six children, at that time we were only five children when we left there. From there we moved to several places and the first place we went to was Nida and that is on the Curonian Spit, I think they call it now and it's an absolutely gorgeous place, it's on a peninsula that starts from what is Russia now but then was Germany, half of it was German half of it was Lithuanian. So since my father was a customs officer we always lived on the border. We stayed there for three years and we moved to a place called Panemune, now that is again on the river Nemunas and on the other side of the river was a town called Tilsit in German, Tilze in Lithuanian and I can't remember what it is in Russian now, they've changed it completely and we lived there for a couple of years until Hitler started being a little bit greedy, I think, he wanted to take Poland so he said to Stalin now if you don't mind us occupying Poland you can have Lithuania, not Lithuania but the Baltic states and just overnight. First of all Hitler, Hitler also wanted a part of Lithuania minor that is where we lived. This was actually before I think I don't suppose we can go back
SC: Okay it's okay, you come back
RP: It is, that is, what happened first of all when we lived in Panemune, the Germans decided they wanted to have that part of Lithuania, Lithuania minor, so they just moved in overnight and we just saw our father disappear. And what had happened is: because he was a customs officer he had to move straight away to the new border which was now Lithuania and Germany it became, so of course a few days later he sent for the family and we all moved, he had to find somewhere for us to live there so we all moved to Lithuania major and we lived there until the war started actually. shortly and before the war that was when the Russians decided, decided they wanted access to the Baltic sea and they, they just marched in and took it all because the three Baltic states were not prepared for a war or anything like that, which is whether there was any, what happened politically I don't know. And uhm all at once we were under the Russians and the Lithuanian no longer, our ruler was, the president was Smetona at that time, I can't really remember what happened but he I think he'd gone, he left because he must have known that something was happening. We lived there under the Russians which meant we had to go to uhm we, had to learn Russian at school, so I learned some Russian for a while but then the Russians started deporting a lot of Lithuanians into Siberia and with the sort of job my father had, we would have been in line for it as well. So at that time then anybody, any of the Lith, Germans living in Lithuania and because we were born in a part that had gone from Lithuania to Germany and it sort of altered even the French had occupied it at one time years ago, many years ago
SC: Yeah
RP: And the Germans said we want the Germans to come out of Lithuania and into Germany so with my father having six children, six children by then, they felt it would be much safer for us to be in Germany so we registered as Germans because we were entitled, we could do that because that part of where we were born we could be either
SC: Yeah
RP: So we emigrated into Germany and when the war started and the Russians were moved out of Rus, out of the Baltic states and as you know the, the Germans went a lot further than just through the Lithu, through the Baltic states then after, because in Germany we were in a sort of a transit camp, spent a lot of my years in camps
SC: Yeah
RP: Because my father had bought a farm in the way when the Russians came and he had to move away from the border, he bought a farm so we could go back when the Germans chased the Russians out, they sent us back to Lithuania. But they sent us back then as Germans so when the war started actually, no it hadn't started but when the war started going badly for the Russians and the Russians of, badly for the Germans not the Russians and the Russians were sort of oppressing the Germans and the Ger, they were winning over the Germans because the Germans they’d spread themselves a little bit too, too wide
SC: Yeah
RP: And they started losing so of course as the Russians were coming nearer, we felt it was, well my parents felt it was safer for them to pack everything up and move into Germany
SC: Yeah
RP: And we were in a wagon and we travelled in, stopped in several places where we could sort of stay for a few nights. We stayed in Poland in one place for a few months I think even
SC: Yeah
RP: And I can remember while we were there, this is something that I seem to keep on remembering, and there were Jews there in a camp and I know a lot of people went to have a look they were hanging, they were hanging 10 Jews. I don't know what they were supposed to have done but if one did something, they just would hang them
SC: Yeah
RP: But no way would I go so, so many people went to watch it and I thought no. I was, what was I at that age? About 4, 13, 14 I think, maybe a little bit older but I just couldn't do that
SC: Yeah
RP: And from, when the, as the Russians, as you know the Russians kept coming further and further so we kept fleeing further and further from the Russians all the time because we knew what our fate would be if the Russians overtook us, we end up in Siberia. So we gradually moved from one place to another place every time the Russians came nearer and we settled in one place when the war started getting, the Russians and English, they were getting closer to each other and where we were, on one side the Russians were about thirty kilometres, the Americans and English or English and Americans were about five kilometres, so we thought well we are safer to stay where we are because they are nearer. But now this, the English stayed there and allowed the Russians to move on
SC: Yeah
RP: So we were overtaken by the Russians again. Now as far as any, the war itself, the bombardment and that, we avoided most of that because we were always in villages somewhere you could hear bombardment going in the distance, but never sort of very close. So of course, once the Russians and the English and Americans got together, we were under the Russians. So we, my father still, I don't know how it happened that he'd still got a wagon and horses and our belongings, we didn't have that many belongings by then because how much can you, you've got six children and
SC: Yeah
RP: So I don't think we had any furniture but we had clothes and whatever we needed mostly
SC: Yeah
RP: Uh we dec, my father decided that we can't stay under the Russians so we started to travel a bit walked a lot and the wagon, not very far but until we came, we stayed overnight underneath the wagon sleeping there and the Russia, there are some Russian soldiers came there and my father could speak Russian and he sort of started saying we are trying to find our way back to Lithuania, well we were not, we were trying to go the other way
SC: Yeah
RP: And fortunately they believed us, but what was happening a lot at that time as the Russian soldiers were raping women left, right, left, right and centre and my sister and myself we were sleeping under the wagon and they started sort of looking around and the man in charge says, leave them alone they're Lithuanians. So, once they left instead of going, they told us which way to go, well we knew which, which way Russia was. Uhm we went the other way and there was a field there which I think there were American soldiers there and I’d already, I went to grammar school and I had learned some English so my mother said to me go and talk to them. I couldn't speak a lot, but I could speak a bit of English and they let us go in, they let us through the border and that is of course how we got to be on the English side then. How my, my, how my parents arranged all these I don't know, it's really when I think about it I can't imagine how they coped, they found somewhere for us to live they, they found food when we could but while, I found while we were fleeing from the Russians there was this one place where we stayed there were some German women there. Well, we went through Germany that time and there were women there baking bread night and day so that all, because there was a line of nothing but wagons refugees and they were baking night and day to give to the people who were fleeing from the Russians instead of them fleeing from them. They just stayed there and baked, and we found, well, the Germans they were very good to us. I can't, can't say anything really bad but the only thing that they did is they kept my uhm, first of all they kept my oldest brother because he was 16 they took him in the army whether they liked it or not then when we were fleeing from Lithuania, they had stopped my father and my second brother but because my father had got rheumatism they allowed him to go but they kept my other brother and we've never seen them since
SC: Gosh!
RP: So once we were in the British zone they were just my father and mother, my sister, myself and my youngest brother. Yes, only my youngest brother, the other one had, the second youngest he had been killed by a, in a road accident by a bus. It was about a bus going about every week I think but he was killed by one of them
SC: Gosh!
RP: Because they were, they were hanging on to a wagon, you know how children do, they hang on
SC: Yeah
RP: And he jump, one jumped towards the ditch and my brother jumped the other way and there just happened to be a bus coming
SC: Gosh!
RP: On an empty road there's a bus coming. Anyway, this is why we sort of, our family we were just my youngest brother, my sister, myself, my father and and myself. And once we were on the British zone then, uhm this is something we were sort of in account, we kept on sleeping wherever there was any uhm space and this one night I know we were sleeping in a school room with straw, used to be straw just covered up with blankets and we slept there and some American soldiers came in and they were as bad as the Russians raping women and they raped several women there and one of them came up to me that age I don't know whether I was 15 yet, I was about 15. But I started talking in a little bit in English, all at once I became human to him and you know he, we just stood there and talked until some military policemen came in and he just jumped out through the window but he had not, if I hadn't been able to speak English it would have been the most traumatic thing for me
SC: Yeah
RP: I mean at that age
SC: Yeah
RP: And from there on we, oh we were overrun by the Russians again. Because the English and the, well the Allies really, they allowed the Russians to go further so we were under the Russians again and from there we said we got relatives, we got an address in West Germany that we wanted to go there and we were allowed through we had to go on to delousing and all sorts of things but eventually we ended up in a camp not very far from Hamburg. From there I went to a school, there was a Lithuanian grammar school that had opened so I’d rather had to go through Hamburg to the Lithuanian school. During the holidays they started recruiting people to work in England, first just in England my sister came to England then to work in a hospital. Then the following year they were recruiting again, I was too young at that time to go anywhere I was also at school, but the following year they recruited people who wanted to go to Australia, America, England and this, the grammar school I was on we were I think five pupils and everybody was at that age, the men they were about 32 then and I was about 17, 18. And a lot of them were going abroad, the teachers were leaving so the school was closing and I decided I was just old enough, I was 18 by then I’d come to England to work for one year, stretched a bit and that was in 1947
SC: Gosh!
RP: And of course, since then I’ve settled here, got married, married a Lithuanian
SC: Yep
RP: Brought up two children, got a granddaughter
SC: Ah, yeah
RP: And I’ve got, I’m happy here. Sometimes people say, would you like to go back to live in Lithuania? I’ve always said no because my family by then I was married, when Lithuania became independent, my husband had already died by the time Lithuania became independent
SC: Yes
RP: He would have loved to know it to be
SC: Cause that wasn't until 1990
RP: 93
SC: 93
RP: yes
SC: Yeah
RP: 92-93, yes
SC: Yeah
RP: And I know I went as soon as Lithuania became independent, I decided I’d love to meet my in-laws because my husband had got three sisters in Lithuania. His sis and all them, there were three brothers and three sisters and the brothers got away, the sisters were overrun by the Russians. So they were there and I wanted to meet them. So I went to Lithuania but it's just a pity my husband,
SC: Yeah
RP: Couldn't live to see that
SC: Yes
RP: Because my husband died in ‘86.
SC: Yeah, gosh!
RP: So I mean, several years after he died Lithuania became independent
SC: Yes. What about your father?
RP: Oh, my father stayed, my mother died, she, they both stayed in a camp in Hamburg
SC: Yeah
RP: And they spent their life in in a camp because they got nowhere that they were I think getting a little bit too old to work, no they weren't really because my mother was 53 when she died. She got cancer
SC: Yes
RP: We wanted them to come to England and they were in a transit camp actually to come to England and it was discovered that my mother got cancer
SC: Yes, you said
RP: And they wouldn't let them in and she eventually died in hospital there and my father he stayed in a, I think the camps would have had reduced to but it was still in sort of camp conditions until he died, he died 75
SC: Gosh! So, he was there all of that time?
RP: Yes, and my father was nine years older than my mother, so you'd have to work it out
SC: Yeah, yeah
RP: And I’ve settled in England and I’ve got a family
SC: Yeah. But from really quite an early age you were travelling
RP: Yes
SC: All the time
RP: From really I was, where I was born on the banks of the river, oh, that was beautiful for children that was ideal because the house was on the banks
SC: Yeah
RP: And we used to just go down the, down to the river and play and used to be steamships going past with passengers and used to wave to them. I had a lovely childhood there and then even when we went to Nida which still is the border town now between Germany, between Russia and Lithuania and there used to be a lot of holiday makers coming there because this was a lovely holiday resort. But from the age of seven, three years in Nida, then we got to Panemune and then we were there only about six months when the Germans decided they wanted it, we fled into Lithuania and that is
SC: Yeah
RP: Never sort of had settled life till I came to England.
SC: Yes
RP: And then I lived in the hospital for one year, one and a half years I think at the isolate, was the Isolation hospital then and turned to the Derwent Hospital then I worked at the Manor Hospital as in nursing there
SC: Yeah
RP: And worked at the co-op, got married [laughs] and that is how life carried on
SC: Yeah. Well, that's wonderful, thank you so much. I’ll pause this now for a moment.
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 Ruta Popika
Creator
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Steve Cooke
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-08-06
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
APopikaR180806
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:25:18 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Lithuania
Russia (Federation)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1945
1947
Description
An account of the resource
Ruta Popika was born near the river Nemunas, in what was Lithuania before the war. She remembers her family being forced to move eastwards and westwards from Lithuania according to the changing tides of war. Remembers the occupation of the Baltic States by the Russians. Mentions various episodes of her life as a refugee: German women baking bread and handing it out to the refugees fleeing from the Russians; the hanging of Jews; Russian soldiers raping women and being spared because she was Lithuanian. Tells of her 16-year-old brother being taken into the army by the Germans. Tells of American soldiers raping women and being spared because she spoke English. She spent many years in a German transit camp and then moved to Hamburg, where she attended a Lithuanian grammar school. Her parents spent the rest of their lives in German transit camps. Explains how she never had a settled life before she moved to England for work in 1947.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
anti-Semitism
childhood in wartime
displaced person
evacuation
Holocaust
home front
round-up
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/3464/PMooreWT1506.2.jpg
ba450a2587f7d4bdd809b39eda3c5fa9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/3464/AMooreWT160703.2.mp3
6fa0b673061052f9a9f442da1a4176b2
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
Moore, Bill
William Tait Moore
William T Moore
William Moore
W T Moore
W Moore
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Three oral history interviews with William Tait "Bill" Moore (1924 - 2019, 1823072 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He served as a navigator with 138 Squadron.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-28
2016-03-18
2016-07-06
Rights
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Interview Agreement Form - Moore, WT, William Moore-03
Identifier
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Moore, WT
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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TO: Right, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, whatever the case may be. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre. The gentleman I’m interviewing is Mr Bill Moore. My name is Thomas Ozel and we’re recording this interview on the 3rd of July 2016. Now, could you please tell me what year you were born?
WM: 1924.
TO: Mhm. And when you were a child, were you interested in aircraft?
WM: The first time I was introduced to the aircraft was when I was taken to Guyun [?] Southern Highlander’s annual camp and that was when I came in contact with my, my first aircraft. And at that time, I was a drummer [?] boy in a band [?], and at that time my father had made me eighteen month older and I was supposed to be because otherwise I would have been too young to have went to the camp with men. As a matter of fact, that eighteen months stood by me for the rest of my life.
TO: And whereabouts did you grow up?
WM: I grew up in a town called Dunoon which is on the Firth of Clyde in Argyllshire in Scotland.
TO: And were your parents involved in the First World War?
WM: My father was, yes. As a matter of fact I just told somebody the other day, that I knew where my father was a hundred years ago. In other words, he was right through the whole of the First World War. He was a great battles, the Battles of Boulogne [?], first and the second one, and also the one that was also celebrated this week. And then he was actually taken prisoner by German forces and he was taken to Poland, and he worked in Poland there and that was, and that was until the armistice came along. In other words, he had about, he about between six and nine months as a prisoner of war, mm.
TO: And what was your first job?
WM: My first job, all depends how you mean your first job. If you mean your first job when you started doing [emphasis] something and getting paid for it, well I was delivering milk and newspapers in the morning. Later on I delivered butcher, butcher meats and I delivered the evening papers, and among one of the most famous characters I delivered to was Sir Harry Lauder, who was a very famous Scottish singer and comedian. And every time I went there I got a farthing [emphasis] each time, which meant that I got a fully penny in one day, but that was four farthings. And I did that from, from Monday to Saturday. And anyway, after that of course I left school, but I left school when I was thirteen. The reason I left school when I was thirteen was because it was during the Great Depression years and every penny my family could earn was to be encouraged because people needed it to survive [emphasis], although my father was always in work, but that was about it because I used to come in. And that was what my mother saved the money so that I could have my school books paid for, instead of, instead of waiting for someone to pass on second hand books to me.
TO: And in the 1930s, did you hear about Hitler’s aggressive behaviour?
WM: Well yes. As a matter of fact, of course I did, but it was quite, quite strange. Go back further than that, when I was a young boy, I was in what we called the Boys Brigade, which was just an organisation but it was started, it started way back in 1883 by a chap called William Smith, and the uniform they had then [emphasis] was, was taken more or less from the Third Lanark Rifle Volunteers in Scotland. It wasn’t military but the idea was for discipline, because in those days Scotland, Scotland and discipline was two things that people wanted, although with me, that was many years later. I did not meet Sir William Smith himself but I knew both of his sons who carried on the Boys Brigade after him, and also I met Mrs McVicker in Belfast in Northern Ireland when I used to take the Boys Brigade myself [emphasis] over there, and that, that was, she was the, she was the wife of the founder of the Boys Brigade in Northern Ireland. When I joined the Boys Brigade it was through the Life Boys, which was a genuine organisation. I went through there and I went right through the Boys Brigade, and at my age, I’m still a member of the Boys Brigade Greater World Fellowship.
TO: Would you mind if I just closed the window?
WM: No, carry on, yeah.
TO: Is that okay?
WM: Oh, you might get the traffic, yeah.
TO: Yeah, is that okay?
WM: Yeah, carry on [pause while window is closed]. That’s okay.
TO: Okay, thank you. And what did you think, what did you think of Chamberlain?
WM: Well first of all, going back before Chamberlain’s time and before he was making speeches, what I was saying is we used to look at news reels and we used to see about all the equipment that the German boys and girls were getting, and at times we were quite envious of it, because there was gymnastics, there was gymnastics, I was swimming, I was hiking, I was doing all these same things as, as a, the German Youth were there. Maybe not so severely [emphasis], but that was where the Boys Brigade, as I’ve just said.
TO: Mhm. Sorry, there’s a noise coming from the kitchen. Is it okay if I shut the door to there as well?
WM: Yes, yes, yes –
TO: Sorry [door closes].
WM: Can you stick that through?
TO: Sorry.
WM: You could get a nickel [?].
TO: Yeah [pause during continued background noise]. Sorry about this, sorry. And what did you think of the Munich Agreement?
WM: Well, put it, put it this way. What did happen was that I think growing up at that particular time, we weren’t really interested too much in politics, but then we began to gather that things were getting rather serious. And the big thing that was going around at that time was, was people sincere? And there’d been so many promises broken that, and I’m talking about Scotland now, was the people in Scotland at that time just said, ‘well if, if these people keep on breaking promises, what’s, what’s the Prime Minister going to do? Is he going to be leaving it [could be believing it].’ And of course, it seems, it seemed to us at that particular time that he was being foreborstered [?], brainwashed and as if he was being used as, as they all were in those days was, is a patsy.
TO: And what did you think of Churchill?
WM: Well, Churchill in the early days was quite a hero [emphasis] because he was a type of fellow who had been through the Boer War, he’d been through the, through the First World War and of course he was still a fiery rebel as far as politics were going as, at that time in the UK.
TO: And do you remember the preparations that were being made for war?
WM: Well, it all depends on who’s side you mean, because the big thing that we noticed, and that was that where, where the German forces were going over [?], taking over different places. Some of them were, were considered to be German lands of former times, but, but even when they came to Austria and they were welcomed into Austria, at times we wondered whether there were other people there who weren’t quite happy about it, with this, you know? But it wasn’t ‘til, it wasn’t ‘til as we say, clouds [?] are going that, and horizon, as if the, all the promises that were given, made were just null and void. The reason we said that was at that particular time was because the fact was that even, even being with Chamberlain, trying to negotiate [emphasis], and of course France as well were negotiations to see if they could actually bring about a more sensible [emphasis] approach, ‘cause people like my father said that the terms of various things that had been laid in after [emphasis] the First World War were so severe that it was almost impossible for the, for the German people not [emphasis] to revolt against these conditions, and of course this is what people were thinking in the UK at that particular time, was that that’s what they were trying to do was just to regain what had been lost. But of course later on when it came into the, these negotiations that they had, nobody was very sure [emphasis] whether that Chamberlain was playing for time or not. It could have been, it could have been a great strategy on his [emphasis] part. Many people think it was, many people think that he was quite gullible. But if one reads on the history of the Royal Air Force, well the Royal Air Force was starting an amalgamation between the, the Fleet Air Arm, or the Naval Services. The Naval Service became the Royal Air Force and that was 1918. Now, with that coming on, we noticed as young people, we noticed that there was different things happening [emphasis], and also, I remember at one time I noticed that the, the talk was about different types of aircraft, ‘cause that was through the magazine I used to subscribe to. And then of course what happened, I was in the school cadets in my grammar school in Dunoon and we, we were the Army cadets, and of course we wore the kilt et cetera, the same as the local Hern [?] Division, and the Guyun [?] Southern Highlanders. Anyway, I, I started thinking about aeroplanes and there was an organisation just started up which was called the Air Defence Cadet Corps. Well this Air Defence Corps, Cadet Corps, the nearest place to Dunoon where I was, was at what is now Glasgow Airport, and I had to find a handout, to find the money for to go in the boat and train and go up there and attend the lectures et cetera what was necessary to do to be a member of the Air Defence Cadet Corps. Anyway, of course along came different aircraft that we saw, and the, the first of the new [emphasis] ones that I saw and touched was the Wellington Bombers, and that Wellington Bomber came up to me, to Abbotsinch, which is, as I said, Glasgow Airport. Abbotsinch I managed to walk through it and I was absolutely taken with it. As a matter of fact I felt as if I’d fallen in love with it. And then of course what happened, things went from one to another, and then of course along came, along came the Polish incident and with that Polish incident of course it was followed very closely in Scotland because the people of Scotland, people of Poland were always very close [emphasis]. A lot of people don’t realise [emphasis] that but it was a fact, because I always remember that they used to send boxes of eggs from Poland and what we used to do, we used to buy these boxes, these crates, and we’d turn them into canoes that we, that we lined with canvas, and we used to sail in the Clyde. But that, you know, that was, that was our knowledge of in Poland on that day, apart from what I’d been told by my father. Anyway, what happened was along came, along came, as I say, with the trouble in Poland, and of course, then of course the First World, the Second World War started and at that time, being in the Boys Brigade and being in the Air Cadet Defence Corps, I was nominated as a member of the ARP, the Air Raids Precautions people, as a messenger. Then that was fine, that was alright but I still had to go to my lessons with the Cadets, but that was alright, everybody carried on. That carried on and then of course along came, along came 1941 [emphasis] and that was when the Air Training Corps started, and I, I went along. I had to say I was finished with the Air Defence Cadet Corps which everybody else [emphasis] was, and we signed up for the Air Training Corps. That was quite strange, that was on a Monday night, and I went back along on the Friday [emphasis] night at the first official meeting, and we fell in and we fell in ranks according to sizes et cetera, et cetera, and I was made a flight sergeant. And the reason was that, I asked them and said ‘oh no, you’ve had training [emphasis] in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, so you know probably more about it than instructors do,’ because they were all school teachers who had volunteered to do that cadet work, and of course being made a flight sergeant, without uniform of course, it took a wee while to get uniforms, but that was it, and that was, that was me well and truly a part of the Royal Air Force. Anyway, that went down very well and I passed all the examinations. My aim was to become a member of aircrew. I fancied that, not just the glamour of it but there was a practical side. Anyway the, along came a day when I went along to Edinburgh and I took all my papers, exam papers and everything else, and bearing in mind that I was a year and a half older than I was on paper than I was supposed to be, and when I got into Edinburgh the chap says to me, ‘are you sure [emphasis]?’ I said ‘yes.’ He said ‘what you were doing?’ So I told him, he says ‘oh, that seems alright,’ he says ‘alright,’ he says ‘we want you to go along to this hotel and you stay there and you come back here in the morning, and you go there and you find that you’ll be registered and et cetera, et cetera.’ So I did that, go back there the next day and there were one or two other chaps around that I knew, and we, we went in again [emphasis] and we had exams to take and tests to take and, a by the time the day was finished I was a member of the Royal Air Force, and what they did to us was that they gave us a little silver badge that we, we had to wear at all times. And that was to show that we were a fully fledged member of the Royal Air Force, and all we had to do then was just wait until they were ready to take us in [emphasis]. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t being called up for National Service, we were all volunteers of course, which is a big difference because we were already members, voluntary members, and of course the, joining the Air Force like that you volunteered. But as I say, after that, once you’re in, you didn’t get to volunteer again [laughs]. You, you’re then volunteered [emphasis, laughs].
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day the war started?
WM: The day the war started, yes [tape beeps]. It was a Sunday morning and I was at a bible class in Dunoon, and shortly after that the sirens went and we all had to go to a post. And with us at that particular time, as I say, I was with the ARP. So we had to go there and be ready for to, for to be messengers. That was what, that was what my job was then, to be a messenger [emphasis], so I had to go to my post, which we all knew where we had to go to, and that was it. But after the all clear went then we stood down again, no, mm. But of course there was, was times when there were raids on the Clyde and all the rest of it later on, and my compatriots had a lot of hair raising activities. Most of that by that time I was, I was in the Royal Air Force.
TO: And was there much bomb damage or bombing around where you lived?
WM: Well, not so much on my [emphasis] side of the Clyde but across the water on the Firth, right from Greenock and Glasgow, Greenock and Port Glasgow, right up the Clyde, right up to Clydebank into Glasgow itself. Oh yes, all the industrial areas. There was quite a lot of very heavy damage, yes.
TO: And when the war started, were you, were you expecting that German bombers would be coming on the first day?
WM: Oh yes, well that was, that was it. It wasn’t, it wasn’t long after that there was a couple of raids that was, that was, that came across Scotland before there was even, even them in England, yes.
TO: And how did you actually feel when you heard the war had started?
WM: Well, put it this way, with having quite a knowledge from my father about his experiences, and what we had, what we had actually seen on the news reels about Poland, and I really mean about Poland, that was when we realised what could happen, yeah.
TO: And did you watch news reels a lot at the cinema?
WM: Oh yes, oh yes. Yeah, when you went to the, when you went to the cinemas there was always, always a portion for the news reels at the beginning of every performance, and that was very good. The news reels were very good, they, they brought everything to you, mm [papers shuffle].
TO: And so when you volunteered for aircrew, what kind of medical tests did they give you?
WM: Well, you had, you had a full medical. You know, you had blood, heart, you had all sorts of things done and then, you even had a type, a place where it was called up [?] on night vision. We never knew about night vision in those days and we were told, told about that and you had a test to see whether you could, you could see and come back again and your vision – you had, you were taken into a darkened room and they had various sort of tests they gave you in there, including different things and different numbers and the results was in different colours [emphasis], and if you, if you, if you could identify these things through these different colours then that meant that your, that your night vision was quite good, and you passed and you could identify then, then you’re dropped out. ‘Cause that was one of the main things at that particular time, was night vision.
TO: And what role did you train for aboard, in aircrew?
WM: Sorry?
TO: What, what position, as in, were you trained for?
WM: Well you see, when I went to Edinburgh I was classified PNB, pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, you know, the idea being that you selected for that term [?]. Anyway, what happened then was that I was called, called to the colours, not called up, I was called to the colours which once again, as I say, was different from being called up for National Service, very proud of that of course. Anyway, I, I got a notification to go to London and there I went to, to Lords Cricket Ground and, with many other people. There was one or two people that I’d met on the train, met down there before, went inside and some of these fellows I still know today, which is quite amazing. Anyway, what happened there in, in, at Lourdes, you – and there is a big plaque there today, big black plaque indicating that was where the aircrew was at that particular time. Going back to that, we had further [emphasis] tests and, I suppose to see whether anything had happened in between times, and then we, we got all the usual jabs for left and right, two arms up together and that one and that one going along r at the same time and, and then you had FFIs and things like that, and then of course you came along to another [emphasis] big room and that’s where you started getting your uniform. And there was a system [?] what you’re gonna get, when you’re gonna get, and by the time you got to the end you wonder if you’re able to carry everything, you know. Anyway, we all managed to get there, and at the end of that we were introduced to a corporal, two stripes. Now, we thought that was a high rank [phone rings], oh –
TO: Is that a phone call?
WM: I’d better take it. Sorry about that [tape beeps]. It’s a bummer [?] –
TO: Hmm, anyway –
WM: Anyway.
TO: So you spoke to her [unclear] –
WM: So anyway, as I was saying, we, we were then under this corporal [laughs]. He, he told us that he would be looking after us in more ways than one [emphasis] for the, for the next few days. Anyway, we went along in London to a place called Avenue Close which was a new block of flats in St. John’s Wood which had been built and never been occupied, and the Royal Air Force used that for all their new recruits, and, but there’s no, there’s no canteen facilities there, no mess hall, and we went across to Regent Park’s zoo where we dined. The animals had been evacuated and we were there in place of the animals [laughs].
TO: And did you train to be a navigator?
WM: Put it, put it this way, what happens, all depends how deep you want me to go into this, I don’t know. Anyway, what happened was that we had to, we had to pass more, several tests there. They were very strenuous, very strenuous, extremely strenuous, you know. And then of course we were there for about a week, and we were all setting off to different places and the group that I went with was up into the north east of England, to a town called Scarborough where they had quite a number of initial training wings. And what they were, they were just like boarding schools [laughs], certainly a little bit different but that’s what we took them to be. It was just like going back to school or college and starting all over again, and my one was number seventeen, and I was in what we called the Odelpha [?] Hotel, which is a hotel right opposite the Italian gardens in Scarborough. Now, there we studied navigation, theories of flight, engines, just about everything, even how to use a knife and fork in the mess, and that is quite true [laughs]. That seems quite a thing but that was quite true [laughs]. But that was a little on the side [?] there. But we actually studied all of these things, and at the same time we had to do guard duties and various other things like that, and there was two or three times when we were there, there were air raids go on and even a time when there was suspected that we might have had a German couple of U-boats in, about eight boats coming along and they expected them to come up and be looking for certain people that were there on that shore [?] there, people who had been at a conference and we were all turned out for that. They didn’t tell us very much about it but later on we heard it was Churchill and the cabinet members in the Retreat as they call it nowadays. Anyway, but that was, we didn’t know anything, why it was [unclear]. Anyway, what happened was that we had to sit the final exams and everybody in there was doing the same exams, you know? Anyway, what happened after, I passed, I pass through that quite successfully and I was waiting a posting. My posting then was a place called Scone [pronounced Scun], not Scone, Scone [pronounce Scun, emphasis], which is just, just outside of Perth in Scotland and that was where you got to learn to fly on Tiger Moths. Now, when you flew in Tiger Moths up there, we had already been classified from ACs to AC1s and when we, we went up to Scone, actually passed Scone in the Tiger Moths and we thought we could be trusted to do a couple of circuits and you came back down. They didn’t give you wings in those days, they gave you a propeller, always a propeller on your left sleeve, and then we became a leading aircraftsman, which was your first step up. Anyway, what happened after that, I, I was sent from there all the, all the kit bags and everything, and I was sent to a place called Broughton-in-Furness. Broughton-in-Furness, it was like a commander course, only the Royal Air Force calls it an escape course, and you did everything on there that you could possibly do if you were trying to escape. It was always put down to you in the Air Force that you had to try and escape if you were taken prisoner. That was, that was a thing. It was always drilled into you, if you could get back, so much the better. Anyway, that was, that was all about. When that was finished I went to a place called Heaton Park in Manchester. Now, Heaton Park in Manchester, it was mostly Nissan huts, the old corrugated iron ones, you know? And sometimes you also got billeted out with the local people, sometimes you’re lucky and you did both. Well we, we were quite lucky. We were billeted out, and just within a stone’s throw off Heaton Park [laughs], and we, we were with a landlady whose husband was in the Middle East at that time, and we used to pay her half a crown, was two shillings and sixpence in those days and that was for, to leave the snub [?] off the window so that we could lift the window sash up and crawl in after half past ten at night. Well she used to make, she used to make a cup of bronzer [?] up for that [laughs], because she had let out two rooms and that was eight of us in her house, yeah. Anyway, the, everybody knew it happened, but you’re [unclear] to be in by eleven. It was just in case you had trouble getting back you know. Anyway, if you were in the main camp, you had to make sure you were in at half ten at night [laughs]. Anyway, after that we were, we were taken back into the camp, and this was a big camp. There was hundreds of people in there and guesses – we didn’t do a lot of paperwork there but we did a lot of physical training, marching, all that sort of thing, and every time the, every time the Royal Air Force tunes went up you had to march to attention. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you had to march to attention. Anyway, what happened after that, you got your uniform. Now, if you were going to, to South Africa, we, we began to learn these things, you went to South Africa you get tropical kit but long [emphasis] trousers. If you were going to Rhodesia, you get tropical kits with short [emphasis] trousers. If you’re going to America, you more or less get issued with civvies, as we called them, and if you were going to Canada then you were alright. Anyway, what happened to us was that we got issued with short trousers and we said ‘oh no, we know what we are [?], we’re going to Rhodesia. That’s pilot training,’ et cetera, et cetera. Good, anyway, we got shipped out, we were on a ship called The Andes [emphasis]. You’ll see a little thing there –
TO: Oh yes.
WM: Andes, you know, ship.
TO: Oh right.
WM: And I’ll show you it afterwards.
TO: Yeah, show me it afterwards.
WM: But what it was, was this ship, The Andes was brand new in the Clyde in nineteen, 1939, and it disappeared then came back again all painted grey, but where we [emphasis] met it, we met her in Liverpool. And this friend of mine, Alec Care, we must have joined up, helped each other, and we were on the ship and we said ‘bye-bye’ to Liverpool. There’s the – ‘bye-bye, bye-bye,’ you know, and we sailed down the Mersey. Anyway, a while after that we, I judged that we had been round the head of Northern Ireland, go down the west coast, and now they could, well according to roughly the speed of the ship and that, and we’d be near the Bay of Biscay. All of a sudden night fell and I said to my friend, ‘Alec, this boat’s going the wrong way.’ He said ‘you and your Clyde navigation.’ I said, ‘this boat’s going the wrong way [emphasis], we’re now going back north.’ So we ended back up in the Mersey again. Then what happened, we got in there because I suppose they got word there was a pack of U-boats around, you know, and that’s why they changed us. Anyway, we got up into the Mersey and looked across and I said to Alec, I said, ‘there’s the five-three-four over there.’ He says, ‘what’s a five-three-four?’ I say, ‘I’m not telling you, you might be a spy.’ He says, ‘euch.’ I says ‘oh, that’s a five-three-four.’ He says, ‘come on Bill, what is it?’ And I say, ‘that’s the Queen Mary.’ ‘Oh.’ Anyway, we admired this big ship because, well I knew her from the Clyde right from when one of my great uncles was helping to build here. Anyway, there she was. Anyway, we, we had a meal there, and the next thing we heard was the whistle went, ‘all RAF personnel so and so and so and so,’ went ‘oh that’s us, what’s happened now? Oh.’ ‘Get all your kit together, assemble here in, in fifteen minutes.’ ‘Oh boy that was, that was quick.’ ‘Cause you hadn’t, hadn’t taken in any kit bag, was just us, you stood up so it was just a matter of taking your kit bags and going to deck. We were then taken across onto the Queen Mary, and we were weighed [?] down so far in I thought we were going to go to New Zealand or somewhere, and [laughs] – anyway, the Queen Mary set off and a few days later we were in New York [emphasis]. We didn’t see a lot of New York, we had a bit of leave time on the promise that we wouldn’t be late coming back, so that was good, and we got on a train and we went up to Moncton, New Brunswick. All the way up to Canada by train which was a great experience for us, ‘cause the first thing we noticed was the food. Now, there was nothing rationed, this was American trains and we were getting the best of everything. Anyway, we got to Moncton, New Brunswick and the, and we were not given any winter clothing because we were still in this kit that we thought we were going to Rhodesia, so anyway [laughs], for two or three days we walked about up there and they used to call us ‘Scors’ because we were walking around with blankets on us to keep us warm, mm [laughs]. Anyway, that was, that was all part of the trials and tribulations. Then of course was, we were told to fall in and you, you, you’re told that you’re now going to a training station. They didn’t tell you where you were going, they just told you’re going to a training station. So we got on a train, and this was the Canadian national railways and we said, ‘well, Canadian pacific goes that side and nation [?] is that side, mm, oh well, fair enough.’ So we landed up in Winnipeg, went all the way through to Winnipeg, then we got off that [emphasis] train and we went up to another [emphasis] one, up past Portage la Prairie and then the railway finished so we got, we got on we’ll call it a bus [emphasis], and this took us up to Dauphin, Manitoba and then we, we were at Paulson and Dauphin and there we did bombing and gunnery training. We did all these sort of elements again that, that everyone had to go through the same things, and then the next round of course we did, we did flying training and, and then of course we did the navigation, another step up. That was fine and we were still all together, no deviations. Then of course we passed all that and I had a, I had an excellent, I had an excellent bombing record, really excellent one if I say so myself, you know. Anyway, next thing we knew, we graduated from there. You had to pass, it was a hundred percent pass, you know, there was always people dropping out and, but we carried on and we went, we went down, down [emphasis] the line to Portage la Prairie. Portage on the Prairie, that was – now that there [emphasis] was the school for air observers, you know? That was number seventeen air observer school, Portage la Prairie, and there of course we, we got changed around a bit. I was told that I was a good candidate for, to be air observer. I said, ‘how about piloting?’ ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘if you’re an observer you’ll get to fly as well. You’ll get to pilot as well,’ you know. I said ‘well that’s okay.’ He did really ‘cause you were told [emphasis], you know? Anyway, I graduated from there. I got my wings there, and eventually, eventually ‘cause we [coughs], we went back to Moncton, New Brunswick and we got on a ship to come back to the UK and that ship I recognised as [laughs] the Empress of Japan. I said to my friend, I said ‘I don’t like that name, Empress of Japan,’ you know. We got up beside it and it’s now called the Empress of Scotland [laughs]. They had changed its name. Now this was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so we come back, we come back across the Atlantic, the North Atlantic, and we sailed up the Clyde and eventually we went to a place called Harrogate. So Harrogate we were more or less brought back to earth again. Rations of course still, instead of the food we’d been having in Canada and that, you know, America. And we, we then – well the [laughs]. It was quite strange, they gave us another FFI to see if we’re alright and we’re okay that way, and another medicals to see if we’re alright, you know? And the next thing I knew, I was, I was in a detour [?], so my friend went that way and I went that way, so that was it. Anyway, I landed up at a place which is just outside of Wolverhampton, and this was an advanced navigation and low flying school called Halfpenny Green. Now, quite a number of years ago they made a film there and then called it “Halfpenny Field,” but it was Halfpenny Green [emphasis], and today it’s been nominated to be Wolverhampton Airport. Anyway, what we were doing there is that we were taught low lying pass flying, landing on beaches, landing on small areas and we wondered why this was all about, you know? But anyway, we didn’t ask any questions, you just did as you’re told and [laughs], ‘cause you’ve already volunteered [laughs]. Anyway, that was it and we [unclear] was successful, it was, it was excellent. We [tape beeps] treetops. We were making bomb, making, making bomb attacks on the railway bridges across the Severn and even, even the RAF stations that knew we were coming but of course they weren’t open up at us ‘cause they knew it was an exercise, and all various target like that. And also as I say, we were learning to land on short, short runways or grass and beaches and all sorts of fancy things like that. Anyway, this was all preparation because what you didn’t realise that you were, you were being selected there, and that was, that was when I was, I felt as if there was something, something strange [emphasis] about all of this because everybody was going to do different things, and that was where, where, where we were taken aside one day and told out where we were going to, you know? And some of the, some of the chaps went one way and I went another way and I landed up in this aerodrome which the first thing I had to do was sign the Secrets Act all over [emphasis] again, because you’d always, everybody signed it but this was what they called a double one, extremely secret, you know? Now, with that all I could see around this place was a multitude of different types of aircraft [laughs]. So we wondered what this was all about. Normally you went to an air station there would be two different types or something like that but on this particular one there was several, you know? And, and of course [laughs, pause] what we, erm, I’ll bring it back [pause], hmm.
TO: Was this for the SOE?
WM: Yeah, this is, this is, this is really the beginning of the training for that, you know? Well the, we had been doing the training, you know, and of course, as I say, when we were, what we were doing this sort of thing, you see, the secrecy that was coming up, we really wondered what we were, what we were doing [emphasis], you know? Anyway, we were told then that we had joined 138 Squadron, you know? Now, just like everything else, nobody ever knew what 138 Squadron was doing or any other squadron, but we soon began to find out what it was. And it always seemed strange at the beginning that no one would tell us much and we began to wonder what we were doing there, and we were, we were confined to the station. We were confined to the station for at least two weeks [laughs]. Anyway, that’s what we, what we were doing then was we were, we were learning to fly once again low level at night time. We had to do all sorts of things and [pause] we just – oh we were introduced, we were introduced to people who were pilots and, and aircrew and to us, you know, they were a bit rag tag and bob tailed by the looks of them, they were, they weren’t exactly all spick and span like we expected us to be, you know [laughs]. Anyway, excuse me a minute.
TO: It’s okay [tape paused and restarted].
WM: We were introduced to groups of people and we were told that ‘you’ll fly with this one and fly with that one, but you might fly in two different ones on the same night.’ ‘Oh, that’s alright.’ ‘So what we’re going to do is, we’re going to introduce everybody, but just remember that when you do get introduced is that, remember what you’re signed [?].’ ‘Cause there was a secret come out, we were at Tempsford. That was the home of the flights for the SOE, and of course there again that was the reason why all these different odd aircraft was lined [?] up, was that they were used for different purposes. Later on what we used to say, we used to say that Bomber Harris used to send over there all the old junk that he didn’t want on Bomber Command [laughs]. Anyway, what happened then was as I say, you got to know the different colours ‘cause by that time, as I, as I, as I say, I was, I was classified and reclassified into what I was doing and this was observer, and that was what I graduated as, and of course I still kept up my flying skills. That’s another story, I’ll come back to that. But anyway, there we were and we, we had one or two short flights with different pilots [phone rings] and we got to know – [tape beeps].
TO: No problem.
WM: No, when we, when we flew with these different chaps, they got to know us, we got to know them and each had their own specialities, and what used to happen then was once, once the powers that be realised that you could do [emphasis] what you’re supposed to be able to do on paper, then they would trust you with an operation. The reason being was that we were using the fields or pieces of, strips of roads or even, even old glider fields, we had to land, and it wasn’t always the best of territory ‘cause we did this with Lysanders which was the single engine one, you know? I got lots of pictures of Lysanders over there somewhere, mm, and the idea being there’s, is that when – you were given a map reference, and you had to study that map reference very carefully. And we never [emphasis] tried to find out how our passengers were, and they didn’t try and find out who we were. There was no communication. The reason being is if we got shot down, or either of us got taken prisoners you couldn’t, you couldn’t tell them about the other ones, alright? ‘Cause the ACA [?] people were considered to be a different category from what, even what we were, and we were a different category from them entirely, and we were a different category from normal aircrew, and even – that was known in Germany, that was known. Don’t tell me how they got to know but that’s another story. Anyway, we did, we did several of these operations. We were taking people out and sometimes it was a matter of taking two people or three people about. Squash, it was a bit of a squeeze in the, in the Lysander but we weren’t [?] gonna enjoy the ride, and all I could say was all the trips that I made was very successful, and I flew with certainly [?] different pilots from time to time on that. Then of course likewise they had different observers, you know? But we had great faith in each other, and the navigation aids that we had was elementary map reading, night flying et cetera. We didn’t have the joy of T and all the other things that came up later on. We were actually doing it like the old time pilot, many, many years before.
TO: I don’t know how much detail you can tell me about this, but when you brought these agents over from Britain to Europe, did you have a certain, were you, did you have an arranged landing field?
WM: Oh yes, when we, you know, same thing [?] we left, we left Tempsford. Well, I knew where we were going [emphasis], I had to know where we were going, and the pilot knew where he was going but I took him there, you know? I took him there, passengers there. Well these passengers were known to be coming. There would be a reception committee ready for them to whisk them away as soon as they were on the ground, oh yes. There was a good communications, yes.
TO: And did you ever see any German aircraft when you were flying on these missions?
WM: Oh yes, yes. There’s – oh we, well, put it this way. In those days we were flying low [emphasis], very low, and we weren’t too bothered about it. Now and again you run into a bit of trouble, but the night fighters was mostly come to different bits, I’ll tell you more about that, alright? But the, even, even by all the secrets that we had, there was a terrible tragedy that happened through the London office where somebody infiltrated into the London office SOE, and they, they gave away people on the ground, and they were just massacred. But you know, that was one of those terrible things about that, and that was country man to country man, and I’m sorry to say that was in Holland, mm. But we, we, we never knew exactly how our people got on, alright, or if we were picking somebody up and taking them back to the UK, as soon as we landed back at Tempsford they were taken away and we never saw them again, but they were taken away to their different places like that. Quite strange to say there was a big house just quite near here where, where they used to go back you, you know? Did –
TO: Did you, sorry.
WM: No.
TO: Did you – it’s an odd question, but did you get a sense of pride knowing you were helping secret agents?
WM: Oh yes [emphasis], yes. Well as a matter of fact, we, we felt we were doing a good job that way, because the thing was nobody, nobody heard about it, but we knew what was going on, sometimes by results. We got, you know, we got to know back, back on the station how well the people that we had delivered had reacted to what was going on, ‘cause there was just a matter of them infiltrating back into populations and we never heard anything, but if it was a special operation they were going to do, someone would say well, ‘well done chaps,’ or something like that, you know?
TO: So what, what, do you know what year it was that you started helping SOE with this?
WM: 1942.
TO: And was it just western Europe you went to?
WM: Well, well put it this way, what happened after, after a while, we started getting different aircraft, ‘cause in our station we used all the old stuff, Whitleys and things like that and various other ones like that, vintage. Then of course we got, we got one or two of the American ones come in, you know? And there was one time that we were delivering stuff to the Maquis. Now the Maquis was different from SOE, Maquis’s French. So what we were doing, we were delivering guns and ammunition, there was a full load in a Hudson. Now the Hudson was an American aircraft that was designed to land in the prairies, naturally [?] on good tarmac runways, but anywhere a farmer would put up a windsock, that’s where they were designed to for, and one particular time we, we had this load of stuff, full load, and we had to land on this area and it turned out to be, it was an old glider drone where people used to learn to fly gliders [emphasis] in France, you know? ‘Cause where we were [?] about a hundred and eighty kilometres north east of Colonia [?], you know? As near as I can tell you about that one, ‘cause a lot of stuff’s still secret. Now that is fact.
TO: Mm.
WM: Anyway, what happened was that we, we landed safely, we turned around and as we turned around to face to go out again, we began to sink. Anyway, I said to Nobby who was the skipper, I said ‘Nobby I don’t like this.’ He said ‘aye, you’ll be alright Bill, we’ll get rid of all this rubbish, we’ll be alright.’ So anyway, the Maquis came out the bush, as I call it, took all this stuff away. They disappeared and then the, the lady who’s in charge of that section, she came and she says, ‘what’s troubling you?’ I says ‘I don’t think we’re going to get out of here.’ So we got the sticky bombs ready for, to stick it to the aircraft and blow it up, and she said ‘ah, I’ll see if I can get the villagers up, push you out,’ you know, just like that. Anyway, she went back to the village. Now, normally we were aware on the ground about fifteen, twenty minutes at the most ‘cause anything after than that was dangerous, yeah, you know? She went down and she got the villagers up and it was quite a way away, but anyway, I asked [?] too many questions about that. Up she comes with the villagers, but on their way back they met the general sergeant who was in charge of the village, and he turns round and says to them, ‘now, all you people, you’ll be in trouble. You’re out here, it’s after curfew, you’re supposed to be in the village.’ And of course the idea was that she turned round and said to them, ‘but your big black aircraft is stuck in the mud and we’ve got to push it out, and the Gestapo says if we don’t push it out they’re going to shoot us all and you.’ So he says, ‘I’ll go and look after the village, you go and push the aircraft out.’ So in the end they got us out. We didn’t need to blow it up.
TO: So just to clarify, were you stuck in the mud [emphasis]?
WM: Aye, just going down, like that.
TO: And how big was this aircraft?
WM: Hudson.
TO: And how –
WM: Twin engine aircraft, hmm.
TO: Were you ever scared during these missions?
WM: Of course, yeah. But they, you don’t go like that you, you, gung ho, you know what I mean by gung ho? We weren’t gung ho. We prided ourselves on being professional.
TO: And is there, are there any other occasions from your time with SOE that you are allowed to tell me about which you recall, a lot?
WM: Oh yes, lots of things that we – as a matter of fact, during, we didn’t bring them all [emphasis] back, but during the time that we were there [emphasis] we brought back four chaps, four men, Frenchmen, who actually in later years turned out to become prime ministers, prime ministers of France, hmm.
TO: And sorry, did – when you, what happened when you left SOE and started back on standard bombing missions?
WM: Well anyway, what, what happened was we were always alternately from time to rime on different missions. It wasn’t as if we, we just jumped from one back into that one, but we were always, was always in the, always doing the missions. Sometimes it was only a few aircraft going out for a special mission, or sometimes, sometimes we joined up with the, a bomber stream. It all depends on how, how we were required, and we, a lot of our chaps became leading lights on the Pathfinders, because of our highly successful rates in navigating to targets.
TO: And do you remember your first bombing mission?
WM: Yeah, first, my first bombing mission was to Kiel, Kiel Canal, mm. And that, that, that was also for – the idea there was to try to block the canal from time to time. We, in the early days there wasn’t anything that we had big enough that could do [emphasis] it, but the idea used to be that if you could bomb something, you know, bomb ships or something like that, that would make traps in the canal, you know, then of course that, that would be a help on keeping stuff from going through it, you know, hmm. But, no we covered a high variety of trips, you know, oh yes.
TO: And what aircraft were you in for these bombing missions?
WM: Well first of all I was in, I was in Wellingtons, you know? We did a lot of Wellingtons and then of course we were onto Lancasters. We converted [?] onto Lancasters, mm.
TO: And could you please describe the conditions inside a Wellington?
WM: Well in the Wellington there was, it was rather cramped but we still considered it a good aircraft. And by that time we had six in the crew, and we, we had crewed up and we were flying together, but you know, it was just, it was just, there was no comfort, there was no comfort. Each person had their own little cubby hole or section [coughs] but that was all. But once you got up over ten thousand feet, then of course, then it gets a bit uncomfortable, you know? You’re always [?] trying to keep warm was the thing, you know? Then of course you’d all sorts of wires for – you had your air com [?], you had your oxygen masks, you had all these sorts of things, you know? And as I, as I say, it was, it was a lot, a lot colder than it was later on in the Lancasters and even the Halifaxes and Stirlings, mm.
TO: And as an observer, what were you duties for the mission?
WM: My duties – we were highly skilled navigators then. We were, we were a step above the, we were a step above the normal navigators, mm, yeah, because we did, we did everything. We did the whole job. It was the same thing as – at one time, what happened was that the, every aircraft had two pilots. Anyway, there came a time when they took one pilot away and then it was the observer that was the backup pilot, you know? Anyway, after that, after that when the big four engine jobs come out, the, they brought in the role of flight engineer, and the flight engineer was supposed to be able to fly, but the way I’d seen it right from very beginning was that I reckoned that I knew enough about flying, and I told people ‘as long as I can take her home and land it, that’s good enough for me’ [laughs].
TO: Slight side story, a few weeks ago I interviewed a man who was a flight engineer for Lancasters, and he said he was taught how to fly the plane but not how to land it.
WM: Yeah well [laughs], well that’s the – my, my big thing was I was taught how to land them, yeah. And I had a good, had a good background in flying and piloting in the lighter aircraft, but then of course between the Wellingtons and the Lancasters and the, we had a – well we did it quite often. We did it as part of an air, sometimes, sometimes you went up for, to test your engines. You did that, you did that pretty often, or to see the rest of the aircraft, and I always took the opportunity to be able to land the aircraft.
TO: And can you tell me a bit about Halifaxes?
WM: Not a great deal. I didn’t do a lot of trips on Halifaxes but you know, she was also a good aircraft, but I know there’s, there’s friends of mine who, if you have an argument they say ‘ooh, it’s far better than a Lancaster’ and blah, blah, blah, but that’s only, the Halifax was a good aircraft. It couldn’t fly as high [emphasis] as a Lancaster and it wasn’t as fast as Lancaster but that was just about it, mm.
TO: And what’s your take on Halifax versus Lancaster?
WM: Oh [laughs] to me it was the Lancaster [laughs].
TO: And was the interior of a Lancaster different from that of a Halifax?
WM: No, much the same, mm, much the same. It’s just the skin.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Just the skin, you know? You know, you know, everything was for bomb loads.
TO: Mhm. And you mentioned something about Stirlings earlier.
WM: Yeah.
TO: What’s your take on them?
WM: The Stirling was, she was the first of the heavies, and she was, she was quite slow [emphasis] and didn’t have a high ceiling rate, you know, but she did a good job in her day [?], oh yes. There was many, many a crew that did great work in Stirlings, oh.
TO: There’s a D-Day veteran I spoke to a couple of years ago, his glider for D-Day was towed by a Stirling.
WM: Oh yes [emphasis]. Well there was a lot of that. Halifaxes and Stirlings did a lot of glider towing, yeah, oh yes.
TO: And what bombing mission of the war do you remember the most?
WM: Er [pause]. Just, just before, just before the war finished we [tape beeps] there were two big ones, and that particular night our wing commander, Wing Commander Murray, who I’d known from Tempsford days, you know? He, he came along and he said he wanted to fly with us that night and be the captain, and he said, and I said ‘no, you can bugger off.’ It’s not we wanted [?] coming into aircrew, you know, taking over. ‘Cause I could say that to him because we’d flown together a lot. Anyway, he says ‘what happens if I don’t sit in the pilot’s seat.’ I said ‘alright then you can come along, that’s my seat’ [laughs]. I mean it was my seat when I was needed, yeah. I said ‘no you can come along and be second pilot,’ you know? But it was, it was, it was quite a thing. It was a place called Magdeburg, it was of the big ones that we were on, but several other big ones as well of course. I could, just hold that a minute? [Pause, tape beeps]. Now there was several big ones but the last, the last big one was Potsdam. That was a real big one, yeah. As a matter, matter of fact, that one was in the, in the fourteenth, fourteenth, 14th of April, so that was one of the last big ones, you know? And that was a night one, and there was another was on the 13th [emphasis] of April was another time we went to Kiel, and what had happened was the night before we went to Kiel, and we put this battleship and we sunk it, we turned it over, mm. And it came back but they wanted us to go back again, but one of the retorts was that night, one of the crews was, ‘I hear you don’t want us to put it back up again’ [laughs]. But that was a, and that actually blocked a canal, that actually blocked a canal, you know, ‘cause then of course one of the, one of the last of the big ones we did was to Bremen on the 20th and 22nd of April, you know, yeah. And course there was places like Merseburg and various other ones like that, you know? But this is something I keep to myself.
TO: Okay.
WM: You know? Because I got, you know, I’ve got – the way I look at it is, it’s not, not a thing we brag about, you know? It’s, it was wartime and that was it. And today I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve got many friends across Europe and across Africa and they come from all sorts of walks of life and all sorts of countries.
TO: Sorry, can I ask what happened to the wing commander who wanted to be on the flight?
WM: Oh yes, oh well he came in the flight with us there and that was it, Wing Commander Murray. We were flying F for Freddie, yeah, and of course, well anyway, he was in charge of the squadron, you know?
TO: Mhm.
WM: And he stayed on the Air Force for a while, you know, and I lost touch with him, you know?
TO: Mhm.
WM: Because we’d been, we’d been quite good friends there, mm. But after the war, after the war was, you didn’t really go out of your way [emphasis] to keep in touch, although with my own crew [emphasis] in the Lancaster we have done. As a matter of fact even, even now [emphasis] one of my chaps in aircrew, a fellow called Jimmy Dagg, a New Zealander, his great grandson plays rugby for the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. His name is Israel Dagg, mm.
TO: And are, just in raids in Germany in general, how much anti-aircraft fire was there?
WM: Oh plenty. As a, as a matter of fact, what a lot of people don’t realise was that the amount, the amount of German troops, and specialised German troops that had to be contained within Germany because of what the, the Bomber Command was doing. Now as a matter of fact, that was, it was, it was a surprising, there must have thousands upon thousands had to be retrained in Germany who could have been going somewhere else, and they were all very highly trained people, mm.
TO: And did you ever encounter night fighters?
WM: Oh yes a couple of times, but we were quite lucky. We, we managed to corkscrew away, but the night fighters, what you had to watch even more carefully than over, over a target area or on the way back was just before you landed, because there used to be quite a few of them that used to prowl round about aerodromes and airfields in this country, and waiting for people to come in ‘cause that’s when you’re, you’re, you’re most vulnerable, when everything was shut down. And there was quite a number of people that got shot down just before they landed.
TO: And could you please tell me how this corkscrew evasive manoeuvre worked?
WM: Well that’s, that’s just what it was, a corkscrew. You might have been flying more or less level or up and down a bit, and then the corkscrew was like that. That was a corkscrew, yeah. They got away, yeah, mm.
TO: Did anyone in the crew ever get sick when that happened?
WM: Oh yeah [emphasis], my mid upper gunner used to get sick as soon as he put his foot inside the aircraft [laughs]. Once we were still fly, still take off he was alright.
TO: Mm. And did you ever, during the, did you ever find out how much, whether you’d hit the targets during the raids?
WM: I know we did [emphasis]. As I say, one of my specialities was, was bombing.
TO: But could you see photographs of it later?
WM: Oh yes, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, mm, yeah.
TO: And were you ever on raids to Berlin?
WM: Yeah, mm. Oh yes, as I say, that was, that was, that was one that would come up quite often, mm [pause]. Hell [?], mm.
TO: Sorry, you still okay for me to ask questions?
WM: What?
TO: Are you okay for me to ask questions?
WM: Yes, yes.
TO: ‘Cause just let me know if you want to stop.
WM: No, no.
TO: Okay. And what did you think of the German aircraft of the war?
WM: Oh very good, excellent, yeah, excellent yeah. As a matter, as a matter, as a matter of fact, at the end of the war there was one, one German one, you know? And I thought, I thought at first it was a shooting star, you know? And it wasn’t, it was a jet, and it flew past me just as if it was a shooting star and when I went back to report on this, and they said ‘ah, it probably was a shooting star you saw.’ I said ‘no, no, no, no, this is an aeroplane.’ That was one of the areas [?] ones that we’d seen [?] and spotted, yeah, ‘cause, you know, you got debriefed after every, every trip.
TO: Was there any ever occasions where you had to turn back from the target because of bad weather?
WM: No, I was, we were alright. No, we didn’t, we never, we never turned back. Ground crew were every bit as good as our aircrew.
TO: Mm.
WM: They kept our aircraft in excellent [emphasis] condition. We never had any [emphasis] complaints about our ground crew, mm.
TO: And you explain to me how the briefings worked for the missions?
WM: Right, well what, what happened was that when, when you landed, when you landed you’re taken from the aircraft back into wing on, it was trucks, we used to call them crew trucks. So in other words you didn’t split up, you’re taken in, in a crew truck, and there you’re integrated and say how the trip went. And of course you had your version of what went on and then of course your cameras that you had in your aircraft also their versions, and we always seemed to marry, marry up on tours exactly the same, no. But we had a, we had an excellent [emphasis] crew. We had two New Zealanders, two Scotsmen, two Englishmen and one Londoner [laughs].
TO: And what about the briefings that you had before [emphasis] you went on a mission?
WM: Well the briefing was, what happened, they assembled. Now first of all they had an all-in briefing where the, every member of the aircrew was there, and then after that was, that briefing was done and that was more or less told you where you were going and et cetera, et cetera, and you split off into different sections. The gunners was going to see about their guns and talk to their gunnery officers and the flight engineers, they went to see the air officers. The air observers and navigators would go in together and the pilots and the, and the observers were together, you know? That’s, that’s how it went ‘cause you know, we, we had to make sure we were exactly correct at all times between the pilots and observer, the pilot and the navigator, mm.
TO: And when you, were you sitting in the cockpit during the mission?
WM: Yeah.
TO: Could you, could you actually see anything below you during the mission?
WM: From time to time you could, yes, mm. From time to time you could, yes, mm.
TO: And what sort of things could you see?
WM: Well it all depends. The more water about the place the better it was, better reflections and things like that.
TO: And could you see what the Pathfinders had left?
WM: Oh yes, it all depends – well that was to be able to recognise, make sure that you had taken the right targets.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Because the Germans were, were quite sophisticated because they could try to imitate your Pathfinder’s TIs, what they put down, no.
TO: And were you involved in raids to other cities like Hamburg?
WM: Oh yes, mm.
TO: And what do you remember from those missions?
WM: Well a lot of them, well the big, the big one in Hamburg was a big fire raiser. But that happened to be that the wind conditions, everything was just right or wrong [emphasis] as regards which way you’re looking at it. As far as we concerned that was right, as far as the Germans were concerned, it was a big disaster because at that time a lot of the buildings in Hamburg were wooden, mm.
TO: And were you surprised when you heard how successful the raid had been?
WM: Not surprised, ‘cause that’s what we went for. Most successful it was, well, the better the raid was, mm.
TO: And was, were you involved in the raid on Dresden?
WM: No I wasn’t, but we were on standby, but I wasn’t involved in that one, no.
TO: Mhm.
WM: The, some, some people on the 90 Squadron were, ‘cause at Tuddenham 90 Squadron and 138 Squadron ran alongside each other, you know?
TO: Mhm.
WM: No.
TO: And when did you, when did you react, or how did you feel when Churchill announced that they would start bombing Germany?
WM: Start [emphasis] bombing?
TO: Yeah.
WM: Oh that was right at the beginning.
TO: Yes but how did you feel?
WM: That was [sigh], well put it this way, we had already had casualties our side, so it was just war, no. It was war, yeah.
TO: Mhm. And was your aircraft ever damaged by anti-aircraft flak?
WM: Oh we had, we had, but we had nothing really serious, mm. No, we had holes all over the place from time to time. Some very close to the occupants was [laughs] but –
TO: Mhm.
WM: No, we always managed to get back.
TO: And were you ever given, did you get new bombs as the war went on?
WM: Oh yes, yes. We, we dropped just about everything that was going, yes. Oh yes, no.
TO: Did you ever, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Did you ever get any of the massive bombs that Barnes Wallis had developed?
WM: Well, there were different ones yes, yeah we did. We went on a couple of trips to Bordeaux and things like that, yes –
TO: Might be –
WM: But, I know for a fact that even Barnes Wallis’ bombs, and the big ones, big ones that were dropping there, the German’s fortification of the submarine pens was, was terrific. Now they even today you can have a walk through them and see what it’s like, oh yes. But there [emphasis] is what I say, is that the – sorry I, there’s what happens is what – the amount of German personnel that had to be employed because [emphasis] of the Bomber Command raids was tremendous, tremendous [emphasis]. It wasn’t just one or two round the village or something like that. The number of people they kept back within Germany itself was properly, oh it must have been millions.
TO: And what do you think was the most important battle of the war?
WM: Well it all depends what you mean battle. Do you mean aircrew or land or –
TO: Any, anything.
WM: Or the ships.
TO: Well most important campaign then.
WM: Well, they’re all different, all different. You know it all depends, you know, if you say that – well the thing that lead up to the retention and taking back over Europe, and that was D-Day.
TO: Mm. And were you involved in that?
WM: Oh yes, yes.
TO: Can you tell me about any of the missions you went on?
WM: What, what we were doing, we were, we were, we were on the mock, one of the mock raids further up the coast. And a lot of the stuff that we were dropping that night was, was like aluminium foil, and that was showing them, well came up on the radar where there was massive amount of aircraft flying around, you know? And [laughs] of course at the same time we carried a lot of bombs, but we tried as much as possible to use them away, away from where we’d be flying over, as if it was again going further afield in. But at that time what we were trying to do was trying to keep away from human habitation because that was, that was just something that we were asked to do, because keep it away from the towns and cities and northern France, mm.
TO: Mm. And on, in bombing missions in general, what kind of targets were you actually given at the briefings?
WM: Well it all depends, you know, because no two briefings were the same, no. Yeah, you had factory towns, all sorts of things that you’re going after. You know even, I wasn’t, as I say, I wasn’t in on Dresden but there is a book called “Dresden,” and if you want to know anything about Dresden, get hold of that book. Now, it’s about that thick, and it goes back into the old days of Saxony, and it goes all the way through from the different things all the way, right through, right up until modern times. But that explains exactly what happened in that city. It’s very [emphasis], very complicated. It’s, but it tells the whole story of Dresden, not just one side of the, it’s the whole story, mm.
TO: And, I’m sorry to ask this but did you suffer heavy losses on your missions?
WM: Oh, well, from time to time we had losses, but we never, we never had what we considered a heavy loss, mm.
TO: And what did you think of Arthur Harris?
WM: Oh, we supported him. He was, he was our, our chief. We looked up to [could be after] him, yeah, we did.
TO: And what do you think of his tactics and strategy?
WM: Well I thought they were alright, because if you go back, go back in time that was his instructions that he was getting from the Air Ministry. That, that what a lot of people forget about, was that he [emphasis] was getting told by the Air Ministry what they wanted [emphasis], and that came from the cabinet meetings.
TO: Mhm. And do you think Bomber Command was treated unfairly after the war?
WM: No [emphasis]. They were not treated fairly. It was completely unfairly. As far as I’m concerned, even, even it took, it took for recognition, it took over seventy years [emphasis]. Now, on my, my medal bar, I’ve got the ‘39-‘45 Star, but also I wear [tape beeps] a little brass mounting [?] which says ‘Bomber Command,’ you know? That took seventy years for them to give it to us. Have you seen it?
TO: I think I saw it briefly when I met you last Sunday.
WM: It was in the middle.
TO: Yeah [paper shuffles]. And could you ever see fires below you on the ground?
WM: Oh yes, oh yes, definitely.
TO: Mhm, were they large or small?
WM: All depends, all depends what area and what you were doing. Some time you knew, you knew, you know, you had raging fires. Sometimes, sometime, see it all depends what the target was.
TO: And do you remember seeing fires when Hamburg was bombed in 1943?
WM: Well that’s what I said to you, I said to you already that that was a big one, you know.
TO: Mhm.
WM: But that was – then again, you’ve got to read the story about Hamburg, because what happened was that all the conditions for a bombing raid was right. The wind and the target and the structures of the building and everything, it all came into it.
TO: Mhm. And what did you think of the thousand bomber raid on Cologne?
WM: Well that, that was one of the best adverts that Harris could have. I won’t tell you what the thousand bombers were because nobody knows, but what he did was he got all the aircraft that could fly and return from there and used that. You know, right down to, there were some of the Blenheims [emphasis] that were in there to make up a thousand bombers, you know? That was a big propaganda one. And not only that, you say something about Harris and doing that, but there again, all of these things came from the War Cabinet. You know, this is what people forget or don’t know, there’s War Cabinet and then you come down to the Air Ministry, and the Air Ministry would then passed it onto Harris. And Harris was, alright at times Harris was dogmatic about what we were doing, but you think of Dresden. The Russians were fighting like hell coming our way, and at the same time the amount of German troops and everything else that was passing through, through Dresden, and what was happening in Dresden, what they were actually manufacturing [emphasis] for the, for the German, erm –
TO: War effort?
WM: Well, the German war effort [emphasis] was terrific. There was everything from stuff for the U-boats and aircraft and everything like that, it was all over the place. And this is admitted in this book, this book is, is called “Dresden” and it tells you street by street what they were doing, mm.
TO: And do you remember hearing about the attack on the Ruhr damns?
WM: Oh yes. Oh we were also, we were also on standby for that mission. We were sat, you know – the idea was that if it didn’t work that night, we were going to go the next night. There was, there was another three squadrons ready to go the next night –
TO: And –
WM: But it actually came through.
TO: And did that improve morale a lot?
WM: Oh yes, definitely.
TO: This is going to be –
WM: Scampton, were the, were the, were the Dambusters squadron was, we were also stationed at Scampton for a while, mm.
TO: This is probably going to be an odd question, but what was your least favourite aircraft to fly in?
WM: A Bolingbroke.
TO: Mm.
WM: A Bolingbroke was the American Canadian version of a Blenheim. She was underpowered and if you lost one engine, you had trouble trying to make it back to your base. But in Canada, a lot of chaps were lost over the lakes in the wintertime when they lost one engine, they went down through the ice.
TO: Mm.
WM: But that was, that was my one, a Bolingbroke. But as I say, I flew them and we were alright.
TO: And what was your favourite aircraft?
WM: Well I started off, I had a love for the Wellington but of course, later on it was the, it was the Lancaster. But old Lizzy, she never let us down and Lizzy was the Lysander. But the other thing, there’s one that’s hardly ever mentioned and that was the Anson, and of course the, the amount trainees that was through on the Lysanders was amazing. Everybody praises the Lysander, the Anson, mm.
TO: Mm. We’re actually out of battery on the camera, so is it okay if we have a break while I charge it up?
WM: Yeah, yeah, sure [tape paused and restarted].
TO: Okay so, can you tell me a bit about how you came to be involved in Operation Manna?
WM: We, we were stationed at RAF Tuddenham and we, we’d actually been on ops and we were called forward to stay and we thought ‘oh, well it’s another op,’ and this was on a Sunday.
TO: Mhm.
WM: And we were told that we were going to have stuff loaded on and we were to drop it, but it wasn’t bombs. It was in our containers, the containers that we’d used for dropping the stuff into the, into the Maquis as well, when we used to drop stuff. And that, that was alright. And when we got in the air, of course we didn’t know the whole [emphasis] story but it’s like a very good friend of mine says, her grandmother told her to hide under the table because she thought this was a message [?] they were gonna come and do some bombing [emphasis] round about there. Instead of that of course we were dropping the food. Well that was, that was the plus the operation started, but I suppose you know the story about that, about the two Canadians who went – can I tell you that one? Well what happened was Operation Manna came about because there was two young Canadian officers who had permission to go over to the German lines and speak to the German commander if it was possible and advise them that they could arrange for, to have food dropped into Holland because all the people there were starving, and that included the German troops that was there. Anyway, after negotiations, they had managed to get to them and they managed through the negotiations, the fact that we would be flying in Lancasters [emphasis] and dropping the food and we would not be dropping bombs. And of course the Germans advised that their anti-aircraft guns wouldn’t be firing at us, but they forgot to tell a lot of people with a rifle that what was happening, so it wasn’t impossible for us to get a few pot shots aimed at us with people on the ground with rifle fire. But anyway, we landed, we didn’t land [emphasis] of course, we just went in and we dropped it and certain food dropped and that was it, but later on, on the second or third day, by that time they’d got a bit organised and we were dropping food into, into football grounds. And what had happened, they got the local people to put big white crosses on the football grounds and that’s where we had to drop into. And one of the, one of the trips we were doing was at, we were flying in, and this, all the Lancasters said ‘ooh, a sprog crew.’ And this came, become across us and we had to veer quickly and let him come in, and when we were dropping our stuff, one of them went outside and landed on the railway line. Anyway, I could see lots of people round about it ‘cause it was taking quite a while to get into it of course, but by this time they’d realised it was, it was food in it and not bombs. Anyway, many years later in Africa when we were reopening a new rugby field, and in the pavilion later on I was telling the story, and I said ‘yes, it was, we were dropping the food to Holland’ and there was one of these things, a fellow, and I said ‘it was just like a lot of little ants round a sugar lump.’ And all of a sudden, somebody put his hand on my shoulder and I looked round, there’s this big fellow, a youngster, must have been in his early twenties, and he said to me, ‘you nearly killed me.’ And I said, ‘what do you mean I nearly killed you, I’ve never seen you in my life before.’ He says, ‘I was the first of these little black ants to get there’ he says, ‘because I saw it falling outside and I rushed to it, and all the other people came and dived on top of me’ [laughs]. So you see, it’s a small world there. But also I’ve got, I’ve got a large number of friends in this area, Dutch people, who actually received the food and they also still have services where, where they bless Manna, and there’s one particular family who come here into our court here, our Debbie’s [?] court and one, one Wednesday a month, and she was five years old when we dropped our first lot of food, and she’s always been thankful, thankful all the time, and she does tell people that ‘oh, Mr Moore, Uncle Bill here, he saved my country from starvation’ [laughs]. So you see that that was a real pleasure to do that, and I was actually awarded the Dutch Medal on that one, and very earnestly I consider that one of the finest medals and for the finest properties [?] that I received during the war.
TO: So would you say that’s the mission you’re most proud of?
WM: Yes.
TO: And when you first learned about Operation Manna, were you surprised that you’d be dropping food and not bombs?
WM: Oh yes, no, no.
TO: And could you, what do you remember most about Operation Manna?
WM: Well, the amount of aircraft. Well after, after the first Sunday, after the first Sunday it was well organised, ‘cause the first Sunday and Monday it was a trial run to see what happened really, but after that we, we had several squadrons that was dropping the food, and of course even, even some of the Americans were dropping food as well. But there were dropping food further afield than what we were, you know.
TO: And –
WM: At the beginning the war was still, the fighting was go on. It wasn’t, you know, it carried on afterwards but the first, the first few days of it that was still when the war was going on, you know.
TO: And what about, could you see if any Dutch civilians on the ground were waving British flags?
WM: Oh yes, well you could see them waving [emphasis]. You’re not always sure what they were waving but they were waving and clothes and waving anything at all when I realised on the second wave what we were doing, ‘cause it wasn’t, wasn’t bombs we were dropping.
TO: Mm. Well Bernie, the veteran, other Manna veteran whose number I gave you, he told me that flying so low he could see a Dutch boy waving a Union Jack.
WM: Yeah well, he must, he must have been very lucky to have – ‘cause it maybe that someone dropped the Union flag –
TO: Mhm.
WM: And then he got it, but not a Union Jack [emphasis].
TO: Mhm.
WM: It’s a Union flag. Do you know the difference?
TO: No, please explain.
WM: Well the Union Jack [emphasis] is flown in the brow of a ship –
TO: Mhm.
WM: The Union Jack is the one that’s – Union flag [emphasis] is the one that’s flown everywhere else.
TO: Oh right, I didn’t know that. Thank you.
WM: Mm, the Union Jack is the small staff in the front of a ship.
TO: Mhm [pause]. What kind of, when you were sat in the cockpit, what kind of equipment did you have in front of you?
WM: I know, I know that this is [?] navigational equipment that we could use. We had, we had G, we had Oboe, we had all sorts of different ones, yeah, mm.
TO: And how did G work?
WM: Well G was, G was in two, two, two beams, and where these two beams crossed, that’s where you were. It’s as simple as that.
TO: And did that improve navigation?
WM: Oh yes, yeah, mm. Well the H2S was a different story entirely. The H2S was you were beaming down and the more [?] water that was around the clearer the river [?] became, but your only trouble about that was the German fighters used to vector onto the, what we were, we were projecting. Sometimes that could become a hazard.
TO: And how many occasions do you think you deployed Window?
WM: Oh quite a number, even, even when we were doing training operations we were dropping Window, which we never counted, it didn’t count as operations as such. But we, we were dropping Window many a time, yeah, during training flights, mm.
TO: And when bombs were dropped from an aircraft, did the plane become noticeably lighter?
WM: Oh it came, you rose, you rose slightly yes, mm. All depends on how much, how much stuff you’re actually carrying or dropping.
TO: And could you please explain what the procedure would be for, in terms of what the crew would do, each crew member would do and say when you got over the target?
WM: Well each person had their own to do. The pilot, he was taking instructions from whoever was doing the, the lead onto the target. Sometimes we did that with myself, quite a number of times of course, and sometimes, sometimes it was the wireless operator, sometimes it was another, we had a radar operator as well, they used to use that over the targets ‘cause as I say, we were, we were still on special duties. Of course your gunners were always on the left and as I say, engineer, he had to be very careful then making sure everything was alright on his side, yeah. But everybody was active.
TO: Mhm. And were there ever any times on a mission when you could more or less relax?
WM: No [emphasis]. If you relaxed you, it was wrong. There’s many, many a time, many a time – what happened with us was that, and I’ve said this before, we never really relaxed until we were home. Can we give that a break for a minute? I’ll show you something.
TO: Yes, certainly [tape beeps]. Mhm. And did you or anyone else in the crew have a special name for your own aircraft?
WM: Yes, well we, we called our one after the Loch Ness Monster, that was it, yeah, mm [laughs]. It was, it was a favourite of ours you know, especially with two Scottish men was there [?] and we adopted, we adopted the rest of them, you know? Mm.
TO: [Paper turns] and when you were on missions, could you, or rather night missions, were there other British planes flying near you?
WM: All depends, all depends on what type of mission you were on.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Now, if you’re in the stream, well – at the beginning the squadron took off but you had a rendezvous point. A lot of rendezvous points were like Beachy Head, you know, and they used to assemble in that area and then they took off. And of course the thing about that was that the Germans also knew we were assembling at different places, and they could actually send out their night fighters if, if they did, you know? But there was, there were umpteen different places and they couldn’t, they couldn’t get to them all [emphasis] because often there was more than one raid on one night, on the same night. And that was deviations to keep away from maybe the real big one of that occasion, you know.
TO: And how many times a week would you go on a mission?
WM: Well sometimes it was night after night, three nights in one week [emphasis]. Sometimes according to the weather, it might be about eight days, maybe a week.
TO: Mhm.
WM: The weather had a lot to do with it you know?
TO: And were you ever escorted by fighters?
WM: We, well we, we were escorted ‘cause we did quite a few daytime raids, yes, we were. But we, we were quite, we were quite happy with that, mm. ‘Cause we used to see them, we used to see them on the verges of the, of the streams, you know, mm.
TO: And do you remember what kind of fighters they were?
WM: Well the ones that we saw was Mustangs, mm. All depends on how far in you were going. If you were going a long way in that was, that was a Mustang. Sometimes, sometimes it was a Hurricane, sometimes it was a Spitfire, mm. But they were only used as short flights, mm, whereas a Mustang was built for long range, mm.
TO: And was it cold aboard the planes?
WM: Oh it was never pleasant [laughs]. At one time everyone used to have a different [?] suit. It was like a fur jacket and things like that. But once we got onto the heavies they took all that stuff away from us, saying we didn’t need it. Well that was alright for these [emphasis] people, they weren’t flying [laughs], mm.
TO: And did you ever carry food with you aboard the plane?
WM: Ever carry?
TO: Food with you?
WM: No, all I carried, used to carry was five, five barley sugars, sweets.
TO: And what sort of entertainment did you have back at the airfields?
WM: Well all depends on what the, if it was, if it was one of the pre war stations there was generally a building that was used for dances and things like that, and concerts. If it was the war time ones then sometimes all you did was make sure there, there was an empty hangar and you had something in there. But, you know, that was how it was done, no. But that, that, that was the main thing of entertainment, you know, ‘cause the picture shows and things like that within the camp always started off as I say with propaganda [laughs], mm.
TO: When you saw those propaganda things, did you ever wonder whether they were being truthful?
WM: Well, the things we used to say ‘woah, woah, woah, woah’ [emphasis] and things like that, you know, the British sense of humour, you know, mm. And that’s a fact, mm.
TO: And were there any particularly popular songs?
WM: Oh yes there was all the, all the, I’ve got, I’ve still got all the tapes here of all the popular songs, mm, oh yes, I have all them, yeah. All of the artists at that time, yeah, and these artists I have, I have run [?] many a concert here and had the same ones come performing for me.
TO: And was there anyone that you knew of who refused to go on bombing missions?
WM: I never met anybody who refused to go on a mission, but I always remember there was two people who graduated and got their wings and then they, then they refused to go on ops. But that’s the nearest I ever came to it. But they never did any ops, they never were in, they weren’t even on a bombing station. And I’m sorry to say that we heard later on that they’d transferred to the Pioneer Corps and both of them got killed [pause].
TO: You mentioned that there was a raid where you had to attack a German warship in Kiel.
WM: That’s right.
TO: Do you remember its name?
WM: Not off hand, no.
TO: Would it be the Hipper?
WM: Oh it’s quite possible, it’s quite possible it was, yeah. I’ve got the date there, I told you the dates of it the other –
TO: Mhm.
WM: Yeah.
TO: I think I remember, I remember the sinking of the Hipper though because it was sunk on the 9th of April which coincidently is my birthday.
WM: Oh [emphasis].
TO: So –
WM: Oh [emphasis], 9th of April?
TO: I think I kind of have a selfish reason for remembering that if you see what I mean. Or maybe it was the Cher [WM laughs], I’m not sure. I do know though that –
WM: No, no, no. 9th of April [pause], 13th, 13th of April.
TO: What does it say was the target, or –
WM: That was in Kiel, mm, yeah. That was the 13 of April.
TO: Mhm.
WM: That’s what that was, that was the target.
TO: Mhm.
WM: That was the one that I told you that we, that we we bombed it that night and knocked it down and we had to go back again and make sure, one of [?] the chaps said ‘are you sure you don’t want us to put it back up again?’ [TO laughs]. ‘Cause you’d obviously got somebody –
TO: Mhm.
WM: Who [laughs] would give you an answer for something [laughs], mm.
TO: And were there ever any occasions were you could, where you ever flew over neutral territory and could see the cities all illuminated?
WM: There was one night we were, we were coming back from a trip, and the next thing I saw was these lights, and I thought ‘well what the hell is going on?’ And what had happened was that the [laughs], we were almost sent to Dublin, and what that was, was that the wind speed was ferocious and what we thought we’d found out was that we were nothing near [emphasis], we were nothing near the wind speed, what the actual wind speed was, and of course as soon as we saw that we turned round and we were on the way back.
TO: Mm.
WM: But that was the nearest I’ve been to being on neutral territory, you know.
TO: Mm.
WM: From that point of view, mm.
TO: Mm, and were there ever any occasions where you were accidently fired at by allied anti-aircraft guns?
WM: Well, what we, what we had was that we had the Junkers 52-53 aircraft, and we used to do special missions on that and we used to fly low [emphasis]. And what had happened was that that one had been liberated in the desert and we were using it on special duties, but there was no esigners [?], painted black, and going out was fine. Coming back [emphasis], it wasn’t until we got into our own territory that we used to get a few pot-shots at us, you know? Probably because [laughs] we were flying without the proper identification and things like that, that’s why we get into trouble. But we never actually, never actually had anything serious happen to us.
TO: Mhm.
WM: But that was under secret risk [?].
TO: Mhm. So was it, so you were trying to use, you were using German aircraft for the missions over France?
WM: Yeah.
TO: For the SOE.
WM: Yeah, SOE, yeah.
TO: So it wasn’t always Lysanders then?
WM: No we, we used many, you know, the Lysander was for the agents.
TO: Mhm.
WM: But as I said before we used to use other aircraft for taking other stuff in, for Maquis and things like that, you know.
TO: Mhm.
WM: Oh yes, mm.
TO: And did you ever meet any senior commanders during the war?
WM: Well every now and again you had a parade where we didn’t actually, we didn’t actually get to meet [emphasis] them as such. Not like, not like last Sunday, no.
TO: Mm. And were some missions much more dangerous than others or were they more or less the same?
WM: Well, what we used to do, we used to classify every mission as dangerous, because if you didn’t and you dropped your guard, that’s when you would have been in trouble. I don’t say they weren’t, but we never loaded [?] to be.
TO: And were there ever any times where you, where your missions were just taking photographs of areas?
WM: Oh yes, we had that [emphasis] from time to time, yes, mm.
TO: Could you tell me about any of those?
WM: Well they were, they were done by 138 Squadron and that was, you know, the idea behind that was sometimes it was targets, that they had been bombed, and sometimes they might have been targets that we flew past. We passed them as if we were going somewhere else and we might have been taking them then. But we got a lot of practice in that, because that’s another story I can give you, mm.
TO: And did you hear how other events of the war were going?
WM: Oh yes, we were kept up to date, we were kept up to date. As I say, between the news reels and bulletins, you were kept up to date, mm.
TO: Were you ever worried that Germany might win?
WM: Well, we, I would never say that, that I was frightened of them winning [?][emphasis], but we always worried every now and again where it might have been something that was going the wrong way, but not, not for an all out win no. No, no, no.
TO: And what was the most feared German night fighter?
WM: The Junkers-88, ‘cause she’d a cannon on her, and she, she actually fitted onto her guns that would fly, fire upwards and try and get under the bellies of the Lancasters. And that’s where we lost quite a number of Lancasters, firing guns from the, from the JU28, JU88s, yeah, mhm [pause].
TO: And did you ever feel any animosity towards Germany?
WM: Well, that’s a difficult one because, you know, there was people who lost friends, relations and all the rest of it. Some of them got quite bitter but on the whole people just took it as war.
TO: And how do you feel today?
WM: Ah, what I can say is that I have been involved in promoting rugby, football all over Europe and all over Africa, that’s my answer to that.
TO: And how do you feel today about your wartime service?
WM: It was something – when I had to something and that’s what I did, mm.
TO: And do you think the war was worth the price?
WM: I think yes. I think yes, because that’s another story I can tell you, that you haven’t asked me about.
TO: Yes, tell me, yeah.
WM: Well after, after the war finished, we still had special duties to do, and one of the first was to bring, bring back prisoners of war which were British, well there was all sorts involved but most of the ones we brought back were British, and a lot of the stories that they related to me including two of my uncles who were prisoners of war since 1940. Some of the stories they had to say was horrific. Anyway, when we finished that job bringing back the prisoners of war, we, we then went onto ferrying people from parts of Germany down into a place called Eastridge [?] in France and we had camps there where we took the refugees into, and a lot of these people thought that we were going to lock them up, same as they’d been before. But it was trying to tell them that it was to help them and that the, the camp was just secured so that the local people wouldn’t be coming in to try and get what they were getting, ‘cause this was to try and build them up again, you know. But then of course after that, the next big thing after that, we, we were put on photograph and the whole of Europe. We started off with photographing the likes of London from about two thousand feet, and then towns like [unclear] Woking here, from about four thousand feet and then the countryside was from, anything from ten to twenty thousand feet. We did that for the whole of Europe, mm. And that was 138, 138 Squadron again, because what we did, we’d started doing it at Tuddenham and then when they realised that we were quite successful, they transferred us over to RAF Benson and we did that over at Benson. And then of course we, we had several substations, substations in Norway, substations in France, we had substations around the country here at different places where we would load [?] to land and fuel up, and we had special signal recognition that we could, we could use and that went on for quite some, quite some time, ‘cause that photographing Europe was one of Churchill’s ideas that he left behind after he was out of office.
TO: And during those photography missions, could you see the damage from the bombing?
WM: Oh yes that was the idea, mm. Anyway you done it at two thousand feet you could see right down, no [unclear] of course, mhm, mm. That’s where we, well that’s where we started [emphasis] photographing, mm, but it was the while, the whole area was done, mm.
TO: Are there any other missions of the war that stand out a lot to you which you’d like to tell me about?
WM: Personal ones?
TO: Well any, any ones you were on from, that were missions that, but only if you’re willing to talk about, don’t if you –
WM: No.
TO: If you don’t want to talk about it it’s fine.
WM: No, as I say in general, in general we, we carried out what we had to do, and as I say, 138 Squadron of special duties, we were doing all sorts of things and there’s lots of things that, that we still should not talk about, because we are sworn to secrecy about them, because that was in conjecture [?] with SOE, ‘cause there was lots of people who maybe still, maybe not in favour of some of these operations.
TO: Mhm. What about some of the other bombing missions? Are there any others that you’d like, any others that stand out that you’d like to tell me about?
WM: You know, you know, the big, a big, a big thing was that there was missions we knew [emphasis] –about and there was other missions that people were on that we got to know about and [tape beeps] I can assure you that once the reason, these missions – people said ‘oh that could have been us,’ you know? ‘Cause even the Dambusters, ones we were a back up squadron for that. It wasn’t a method, it wasn’t just a method of a few fellows doing that, there was back up squadrons as well.
TO: And when did you hear about the Holocaust?
WM: Well that, that’s hard to say because we, we, we got, we got to know in bits and pieces. As I say, I started to learn a lot of that from our own prisoners of war that we were bringing home, and then of course we found out from other people who, who had been there in the camps. And, course the big thing about it was you didn’t realise just how widespread it was. I don’t think anybody did at that particular time. I know there was some friends of mine who visited Belson and visited the other ones in person and as I say, they were horrified how the treatment that people was getting. But that’s a different category all together you know, that was someone away from, away from a normal war. That was, that wasn’t the same.
TO: Were there ever any times when you were tasked with dropping leaflets?
WM: Oh yes we had that from time to time, mm, we had that, mm. We were never sure whether the leaflets were doing any good or not.
TO: Arthur Harris said after the war that never engaged in those leaflet dropping exercises because it only accomplished two things. One, it gave the German defenders practice in getting ready for the real thing and two, it supplied a substantial quantity of toilet paper for –
WM: That’s right.
TO: The Germans.
WM: That’s more or less correct, yes, mm.
TO: Mm [page turns]. Did you ever wish you’d been in something other than the Royal Air Force?
WM: I had been in the Guyun [?] Southern Highlanders –
TO: Mhm.
WM: But not, not an active service, no. But I never, never felt as if I should have been there, no.
TO: And did you ever wish that you hadn’t been an observer or a navigator? Did you ever wish that you’d been a different position on board the aircraft?
WM: Well we did, on aircrew we went around the different jobs in case anything happened to one of us up there. We actually flew in different positions [emphasis] from time to time [emphasis].
TO: So did you ever fly the Lancaster yourself?
WM: Oh yes, yes. Oh yes.
TO: But the pilot would always do the takeoff and landing?
WM: Well that was the idea, although we had to do, I had to be able to land the aircraft.
TO: Mhm. So would you consider yourself a flight engineer as well as an observer?
WM: No, observer, my observer, my observer – I covered all these courses –
TO: Mhm.
WM: As an observer, mm. The flight engineer came into his own with the four engine bombers, mm.
TO: And you mentioned you were on Wellingtons for a while.
WM: Mm.
TO: Were they generally reliable?
WM: Oh course [emphasis]. They were the most reliable bomber that we had.
TO: And did you hear about the, how the early bombing of the war was progressing?
WM: Well the thing is, everybody hoped that it was for the best because there’s everything else. There’s, the accuracy improved. Obviously the saturation bombing was started by the Germans. They started saturation bombing. Our people tried to go for individual targets and alright, after that there was [emphasis] saturation bombing, you know.
TO: And were your airfields ever attacked by German fighters?
WM: Not to my knowledge no.
TO: Mm. And I’m sorry to ask this, but were any of your friends killed during the war?
WM: Yes. A lot of school friends, school friends and friends from the Boys Brigade, oh yes, mm. School friends were the younger ones but the older friends were the ones I’d made through the Boys Brigade, and they were, most of them was on aircrew [emphasis], different categories.
TO: How, how was morale in Bomber Command throughout the war would you say?
WM: Good, it was good. It was excellent.
TO: And why do you think it stayed so high despite the losses?
WM: It was the camaraderie of sticking together, yeah, oh yes, mm. We were all volunteers, and we’re still volunteers [laughs].
TO: And you know after Dunkirk, was there a general fear of invasion?
WM: Not fear [emphasis] of invasion. There was, what did I say, there was – people didn’t think it was imminent but [phone rings] it could happen, you know? Hello?
Caller on the phone: Hello.
WM: Hello dear.
Caller on the phone: How are you?
WM: I’m very, very [tape beeps].
TO: And what did you think of the atomic bombs that were used against Japan?
WM: Well the big thing about that is that it could have happened to us, because as we know from hindsight, that the Germans had been working on that, and that could have been us. And of course, if the development of the V2s had come, could have come, come all the way across the Atlantic into America [emphasis]. As far as I’m concerned it’s, it’s one of these weapons that it could, it could obliterate mankind if it went on too long. And of course we noticed what happened with the aftermath of these things, but our war was nothing compared with that. I also, also think that if it hadn’t been for the, for the ones dropped in Japan that millions of troops would have been massacred, and it doesn’t say how far on everything else would have went if they hadn’t been dropped because that may have gone on for years and years and years, so it may have been at the time was a good thing.
TO: And, just going back to the crew that you were good friends with –
WM: Mm.
TO: Did, did they talk much about their lives before they joined the Air Force?
WM: Yeah, we all had that, but yeah. The pilot, pilot was a sheep farmer in New Zealand, our radar [?] man was an accountant in New Zealand, our wireless operator, his father had a joinery business across in Lanes [?] Bay, across the water from where I come from. The, the rear gunner was an, a surveyor for the [unclear] down the water here and the mid upper gunner his, his family had got a hotel in Canterbury in Kent, and that’s quite strange was that I got married on a Friday night in Scotland, and we had another party in the Fleur-de-Lis Hotel in Canterbury on the Wednesday following, because the crew was all going home to New Zealand and places like that. But no, we did, and as I say, Jimmy Dagg, his great-grandson is playing rugby as Israel Dagg for the All Blacks, [unclear] rugby, mm.
TO: And did you ever actually, I know you could see them from the sky, but after the war did you ever go through any of the cities like Berlin or?
WM: No I didn’t. All I did was flew, flew over them you know, mm.
TO: Mhm. And what’s your opinion on Britain’s involvement in recent wars like Afghanistan?
WM: Well there, there again the – that’s an entirely different thing. It all depends how far back you get. It’s always been said that, that nobody ever wins a war in Afghanistan, ‘cause even going back to even before Christ [emphasis] there’s been, been wars and people trying to take over and trying to settle Afghanistan region. But some, some of the other, some of the other wars that goes on, you just wonder why, no, because – on the other hand you don’t really get down to it, you know. The likes of Korea was quite a war, and also the McArthur at the time, he was right up to the Chinese border and he was, he wasn’t defeated or anything but the American government told him to come back, and of course that was reintruded when the, when the two states were formed, Northern and South of Korea. Now, if you talk about Sing, Malaysia. Now in Malaysia there was thousands of troops and everything in there, and where I was from in Africa, there was African regiments in there from, from Rhodesia, from Kenya, from Tanganyika. They were called the King’s African Rifles and they Rhodesians, the Rhodesian regiment, they were all involved in there, no. And then of course you got these other skirmishes up, was up in Europe and there again, they all seemed to arise from either petty politics or religions. If you, if you go into some of these other ones where there’s still fighting today, and you turn around and you say to Syria, but what is it? It’s one against one, it’s a civil war. That’s really what it is, but why can’t they get together on it? You know, there was a civil war in Spain pre-1938. Now that was a vicious war as well, but 1938, thirty-nine it came to a close and a person who took over Franco and the nation was brought together again. Before Franco died, he brought back the king and that was, that was brought back and that settled both people, both lots of the people in Spain. Now you see all these other ones that’s gone on, skirmishes and even in the South American countries, that’s all about drugs, that’s not really about people, it’s about drugs and things like that which is entirely [emphasis] different thing entirely [emphasis]. Now holy wars as I call them can never be settled, ‘cause one, one against the other they will never, never change [emphasis]. What happens with these things is they just goes on and on and on, and that, and that’s been going on for centuries, or one country wants to take over the other one and it’s through, it’s though their, their type of religions it happens, which is wrong.
TO: And one of my last questions now, what’s your best memory of your time in the war?
WM: When I met my wife [both laugh]. I came, I came back from a raid, a raid on Bordeaux and I was given three days leave. Instead of that I got it made up to ten days and I, I went home and I got a lift in fish truck. I was never sure if it was real fish or scrap fish for [laughs] for to go for manures or something like that. But anyway, I got there and the first thing my mother did was put all my clothes in the boiler and she’d have put me into the boiler if I hadn’t got into the bath. Anyway, that night I, I went along to the local dance, the big pavilion, the big high balcony and all the people up there spectating, and I was dancing with this young lady, and my friend wanted to dance with her. ‘Come on, come on, this is my one, you go and pinch your own lady,’ you know, ‘your own girl,’ you know? Anyway, what I didn’t know was that her mother and father, two sisters and sister-in-law and some kids were all up on the balcony, and every time I danced, being in the Air Force they were shouting ‘hooray,’ because their son Walter was in the Air Force in India, and my friend Vann Muir [?] was in the Navy, so I was winning according to them, and I did [laughs]. That was my happiest [emphasis] that was my happiest [emphasis] occasion in the whole war, mm.
TO: Mhm. Well that’s all of my questions –
WM: Alright.
TO: Do you have anything at all that you want to add?
WM: No, it’s just [unclear] want to say this, I’ve had another two of these interviews, there might be a little discrepancies or differences but –
TO: That’s fine.
WM: It’s all going from in here you know.
TO: That’s fine, your memory’s been great –
WM: Oh.
TO: And I’ve really enjoyed what you’ve told me.
WM: Oh, no.
TO: So thank you so much for telling me.
WM: Oh okay, thank you, welcome, thank you very much.
TO: Thank you so much for your wartime service as well.
WM: I must see you from time to time somewhere –
TO: Yeah.
WM: Along the line. You come to some of these gatherings from the Royal Air Force, I’ll be there.
TO: Mhm, thank you.
WM: Yeah.
TO: It would be great to see you.
WM: Thank you very much indeed.
TO: Thank you.
WM: Anyway –
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Interview with Bill Moore. Three
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02:50:38 audio recording
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Tom Ozel
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2016-07-06
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Bill Moore grew up in Scotland and volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He completed 36 operations as a navigator with 138 and 161 Squadrons.
Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
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England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
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Katie Gilbert
138 Squadron
161 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Bolingbroke
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
briefing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
displaced person
fear
Gee
H2S
Hudson
Lancaster
Lysander
military service conditions
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
perception of bombing war
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tuddenham
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/972/10035/AAllenH170309.2.mp3
0594515a85d792e9bb322ebb51538db7
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Allen, Harold
H Allen
Harold Abrahams
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An oral history interview with Harold Allen (b. 1923). He served as ground personnel as a wireless operator.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2017-03-09
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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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Allen, H
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Transcription
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HA: 099RAF.
TO: And what year were you born?
HA: 1923. So I am ninety three. I’ll be ninety four in May.
TO: You mentioned last time that your parents were from Poland. Was it?
HA: Yes. They came as immigrants in the twentieth century when the pogroms were on there. And it was [pause] there was a lot of anti-Semitism then and also the economy was bad.
TO: Did they ever talk about their lives in Europe?
HA: Well, we actually have a life history of my father and my mother compiled by a niece of mine. So, we’ve got these booklets of my mother’s life in Poland and here and my father’s life. And we think there are still remnants of the family there. I don’t think we’ve, I haven’t even been there. I’ve been meaning to go but I’ve never got around to it.
TO: And did you experience any anti-Semitism when you were growing up?
HA: When I was grown up?
TO: Growing up.
HA: When I was —
TO: When you were at school.
HA: No. Not in — I went to a Jewish School. Jewish Free School. And yeah, there was anti-Semitism and that’s why I changed my name. I couldn’t get a job. My original family name was Abrahams. And in those days if you lived in the East End then, you were a Jew, you had a job getting, you had difficulty getting a job. And a lot of people changed their names and all sorts of things.
TO: And when did you get your first job?
HA: Oh God [pause] You mean before or after I was in the RAF?
TO: Before. Before the Air Force please.
HA: Pardon?
TO: Before the Air Force please.
HA: Before the Air Force. My sister worked in a building firm. That was in the city of London in a tiny little place called Little Britain. And she got me a job with that firm there.
TO: And did you hear about Hitler’s behaviour in Europe?
HA: About what?
TO: Hitler’s behaviour in Europe in the 1930s.
HA: Hitler. Oh yes. I heard all about it. Well, it was on the news and it came through and there were refugees. And it was children who were smuggled out. There was Schindler. Schindler’s List. You know about that. And there was all sorts of things happening. And there were refugees living in London and they belonged to an organisation called the Association of Jewish Refugees. AJR.
TO: And what did you think of Chamberlain, and him appeasing Hitler?
HA: Oh. Horrible. Chamberlain was a fraud. Appeased Hitler. He was an appeaser. And we felt he was [pause] to tell you the truth it’s so far back I can’t remember the detail of it. But there’s a wonderful book floating around here. A very good photo book of the history of Jews and it tells you all the places that have been [unclear] There’s one called the Pale of — what was it? The Pale of [pause] The Pale. I mean it was a separate land put aside for the Jews to live in it. The Pale of Settlement it was called. And it happened in Poland, I think. You could ask my wife. She remembers all these things.
TO: And do you remember the preparations that were being made for the war?
[pause]
HA: Preparations?
TO: Like maybe air raid shelters.
HA: Oh yes. There was a thing called the Anderson shelter which was basically a corrugated piece of iron that was bent over and there was earth on it. And it was meant to act as an emergency bomb shelter because the Germans started to Blitz London and the East End in particular because of the docks. But people were sleeping overnight in the underground stations on the platforms. Well, I never did that.
TO: Were you living in the East End?
HA: Yes. Until I got called up at the age of nineteen. I had to volunteer for the Air Force because I could have gone into the army. Because I didn’t want to get in the army so I volunteered for the air force.
TO: Do you remember the day when the war started?
HA: What day was that?
TO: I think it was a Sunday. The 3rd of September 1939. I just wondered if you remember it.
HA: It was when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. That was the nearest one was it? When the Germans advanced. And over, they annexed Austria as well. Austria become, became [pause] Hitler — look you’re asking me something in memory that I simply can’t remember.
TO: That’s fine. That’s fine. Were you — did you have any relatives who were in the armed forces?
HA: Yes. My brother was in it. He was a gunner. An anti-aircraft gunner. And I had a brother in law who was also in the army. And they went to the — eventually they went to the north east. To Africa. Fighting the desert wars against, you know with Rommel and all that. And the 8th Army. Montgomery. And at that time the Germans [pause] the British bombers, what were the big bombers? The —
TO: The Lancaster.
HA: The Lancasters were out bombing Germany. Every night, you know and you could see some of them going over sometimes. Depends if you were near an airfield or not.
TO: What did you think of the RAFs bombing campaign?
HA: Like all bombing campaigns a lot of innocent people died because of it, but nobody talked about German civilians dying because of the bombers going over. But certainly a lot of civilians died on this side when the Germans dropped their bombs and flew low in. One of them flew under Tower Bridge, I think. I heard it was a fighter. A Stuka. A dive bomber.
TO: And do you remember what rations you had when you were — before you joined up?
HA: Meagre. Yeah. You had the coupons. Food coupons. So you were entitled to so much of this, that and the other. And some things you couldn’t get at all. Like you could never get a banana. You could get fruit that grew in England but fruit that was imported you never, hardly ever saw.
TO: And do you remember the — seeing any of the Battle of Britain?
HA: Well, I didn’t actually see it. I mean it was — are you talking about the bombing thing?
TO: Well, the, the dogfights and the bombing. Either.
HA: No. We wouldn’t see the dogfights. They didn’t happen very much over England. They were mostly on the continent because the English had anti-aircraft batteries all the way along around the coast and they had —my brother was in one of them. And they had these balloons that they used to float which were meant to bring the aircraft — to keep them away or bring them down. I’m not sure if they ever did but — ok?
TO: Do you remember when the Luftwaffe started bombing London?
HA: Well, yes. The bombs just came down. They were fire bombs. Incendiary bombs. And, you know the people were recruited to do air raid precautions. ARP. And there were people that would go on to the rooftops and try and put out incendiary bombs. But they were, they were special divisions you know. And I was evacuated to High Wycombe and that’s where I ran across Bomber Command Headquarters. I lived in High Wycombe.
TO: What do you remember about seeing the Bomber Command Headquarters?
HA: I don’t think I saw the headquarters but we knew that it was nearby. Bomber Harris it was.
TO: How did you feel about Bomber Command’s attacks on cities like Hamburg and Dresden?
HA: Dresden was a big mistake. Dresden was an open city and it was a cultural city. And it, it was, it was firmly opposed by people who said they shouldn’t have done it. But I’m not sure of the detail of that. I mean I’ve been near to Dresden. But I belong to a synagogue choir that took off to Czechoslovakia after the war and we went and visited all the sites where there were Jewish Communities. And there would be deserted synagogues. And we went to the cemeteries. And in fact, in the old synagogue that I belong to here Finchley Reform, they’ve got a Torah that came from there. And there are a number of them.
TO: And what year was it that you joined the RAF?
HA: God, I don’t know. 19 — 19 — [pause]
TO: Would it be 1942?
HA: ’42, I should think.
TO: Ok. And can you tell me about the recruitment process?
HA: Pardon?
TO: Can you tell me about the recruitment process?
HA: Process?
TO: Yes.
HA: Well, you were just taken to an intake place where they fitted you up. Then they decided what you were going to do. And I became a wireless operator. But ground. It’s very vague. My memory’s not very good.
TO: That’s fine. You’re doing great so far.
HA: Pardon?
TO: You’re doing very well.
HA: Not sure how accurate all this.
TO: Did you consider volunteering for aircrew?
HA: No. I know that if I did that I’d be a dead one. I had a father who was ill. He was asthmatic and I was worried about him being at home because I was one of nine children. And aircrew — I shied away from it. And then I was down in Paignton in South Devon where they had a big hotel where they’d lodge a lot of the intake people. And then we were training for wireless operators. We were up in Blackpool.
TO: And what training did you have for being a wireless operator?
HA: You had to learn the Morse code. And once you learned it you never forgot it. It stuck in your mind. Even now I know the whole of the Morse code, because when you were actually becoming a signals man you, you sent the signals out encoded but in plain language. So, you had to know when you read the messages that you had to send. You obviously had to interpret them into Morse.
TO: And did each letter of the alphabet have its own equivalent in Morse?
HA: Yes. A - de da. B - da de de dit. C - da de da dit. D - da dit dit. E - dit. F - dit de da dit. G - da da dit. H - di di di dit. I - dit dit. J - de da da da. K - da de da. L - de da dit dit. M - da da. N - da dit. O - da da da. P - de da da dit. I - dit dit. C - da de da dit. So, you know, it’s there. You never forget it. Of course, it became obsolete because the advance of technology. You know, there was radar and all sorts of things.
TO: You mentioned something last time about wireless operators speaking to one another in Morse.
HA: Yes. We used to. In Blackpool we’d call to each other. Or if we called another station and it was in the morning we’d call them up and use a shortened version for good morning which was GM da da dit da da. And that was common knowledge. And I had a friend of mine who was sent down to the Congo River in Libreville. And I’ll never forget the call sign there was an H 7 H de de de de da da dit dit dit dit dit dit and he was a friend of mine. So we kept in touch, you know.
TO: Did people around you ever wonder what you were doing when they were talking to each other in Morse?
HA: I think they thought we were nuts. You mean like in Blackpool? Well, the landladies were only pleased to have customers. We were billeted there. They had the power of billeting but they got paid for it. I don’t know what the landladies thought. They must have got used to it.
TO: And do you remember what kind of equipment you were using to train with?
HA: What kind of equipment?
TO: Yeah. The types of radios.
HA: Radio?
TO: Yeah.
HA: No. We never got to that stage. We had a Morse key in front of us and that was connected to the transmitter. We never actually saw the transmitter. It was basically a box and they could tune it in to different, different wavelengths. They worked on the wavelengths. There was, I think, I’m not sure if they had frequency modulation then. They’ve got it now. FM. It’s a long way back. I can’t remember those days.
TO: Was it hard to learn the codes?
HA: No. It wasn’t for me. Some people took to it easily. I’m not sure about others who couldn’t. You’d have to be of a certain frame of mind to do it. And in many ways it was like a bit of a hobby. And there were different transmitter keys. There were buzz keys that the Americans used which went from side to side. Are you familiar with those? They were on a spring and you whirled it and it went [unclear] And there were others where you actually went down with the keyboard.
TO: And what do you think was the most important battle of the war?
HA: When the Second Front was opened. When the German, when the Germans tried to invade Russia and they tried to get in to Moscow and Stalingrad managed to keep them at bay. It was the first time that the Germans had known defeat. That was the turning point. And there was a big lobby to open the second front because there was a lot of opposition to it because they didn’t want anything to do with the communist Russians. In the end they had to accept. The Germans just got near to Moscow.
TO: And do you remember when America joined the war?
HA: I don’t but I think it was when they, they got bombed in Pearl Island. The American fleet was lying at anchor and the Japanese came in and took a big toll of them. It was when the Japs joined the war.
TO: Do you remember how you felt though when you heard America had joined Britain?
HA: Well, I felt pleased because we had an ally. You know, England is a relatively small island. To put up anything to combat the might of the Germans. The Germans had been preparing for years and years for war and they had tanks and all sorts. And the whole of their industry was devoted to the war effort. Eventually of course the English had to do something similar.
TO: And what did you do in your spare time in Blackpool?
HA: Spare time? [pause] Well, there was the troops were given entertainment by an organisation called ENSA. And they used to go around the country and there were various well known people who gave turns and did things. Some of the voices you would, were quite well known. Vera Lynn and some others. I’ve forgotten the names of them now.
TO: People like Gracie Fields?
HA: Yeah. Probably Gracie Fields. Yeah.
TO: And what was your rank in the RAF?
HA: A leading aircraftsman. LAC. LAC. 1803099 was my number in the Air Force. I can still remember it. And I got my discharge book. We’ve got it here. Discharged from the Air Force. And they gave you —
[break in recording]
HA: Coupons when you got discharged. And clothing.
TO: And were you a non-commissioned officer?
HA: No. I was a leading air craftsman. I was just one of the rank.
TO: And did you hear about the Battle of the Atlantic? With the U-boats and the merchant ships?
HA: Yeah. You heard a lot about it because the U-boats were sinking supply ships. You know, as a regular thing. And they used to travel in convoys and they would have guns on some of the ships that were bringing food over. And all of it was coming over from the Atlantic you know. From America. And we had a lot of their food. You’ve heard of spam I’m sure.
TO: And can you tell me about how you were sent out to Nigeria?
HA: How I was —
TO: Sent to Nigeria.
HA: Yeah. I was on a troop ship. It left from Glasgow. What was the port at Glasgow? And it had a regular trip down to South Africa and it was a Dutch owned company that went down there on a regular trip. So, we got to South Africa and then we got transferred over. I think it was called the Windsor Castle. I’ve just remembered the name. It was the Castle Line.
TO: And do you remember when you, when you were actually told that you were going to Nigeria?
HA: Yeah. I thought we were going to Burma and that was a place you didn’t want to go to because there were a lot of illnesses there. But when we went to Nigeria they gave us [Methocrin?] and our skin used to turn yellow. It was designed to contact — to keep you [pause] to deal with Yellow Fever but the result was that your skin went a bit yellow.
TO: Did you ever catch any diseases while you were there?
HA: No. No.
TO: And did you, was anyone on the ship, were you afraid that the ship might get attacked by U-boats?
HA: Well, there was always the fear there but there were things you didn’t talk about. You were below decks and you never saw very much. And, you know the boat was equipped adequately with life-saving equipment. You know, with the floats and everybody was issued with a jacket so that if you got into the sea you could float. You know. That sort of thing.
TO: Did you ever have life boat drills?
HA: Pardon?
TO: Did you ever have life boat drills on the boats?
HA: I’m sure we did. Yeah. I can’t remember in detail but I’m pretty sure we did.
TO: And were you allowed on deck?
HA: Well, not a lot [pause] Yeah. On the boat the officers were kept separate from the erks as we used to call them. You know. It was a class thing and it existed right throughout. Officers had special privileges, special quarters and all that.
TO: Did that ever bother you at all?
HA: Sometimes it did. It used to annoy me. You see the officers came from the middle class and mostly they were from schools, you know that were beyond the grade that I had anything to do with. So, there was always a bit of antagonism from some people who were, if you like you can call it politically aware. Don’t forget we had to deal with Mosley and the family background there. The Astor family who were pro-Hitler almost.
TO: Did you ever talk about politics when you were in the RAF?
HA: Yes. Amongst ourselves. There was a group of us that used to. And there were discussions, you know. At certain meetings. But mainly we’d listen in to the radio and because we were wireless operators we had radio equipment. So we could get things, you know that maybe other people couldn’t get.
TO: And what were your living conditions like in Nigeria?
HA: Very primitive. Long huts with corrugated iron roofs and when the rainy season was on the rain would come and pound on the, on the roof and you could hear it. It was like hailstones.
[pause]
TO: And did you — was it, was it very warm in in the climate?
HA: Yes. It was tropical. It was oppressively warm so that you perspired a lot. Well, we had clothing that was not exactly lightweight but it was a tropical outfit. The usual pockets and, you know standard uniform.
TO: Did you, did you ever see, see — you mentioned you’d seen fighter planes being shipped in last time.
HA: We didn’t see them. They came in boxes. They were, they were assembled in Lagos somewhere. And there were stations where they would hop up to the Middle East. They had to go in small routes because of the fact that they were fighter aircraft and they couldn’t carry much fuel and they weren’t designed to a fly long way. So they used to — I’ve forgotten the name of the territories up north from Nigeria. I remember some of the names. Maiduguri. And there were hill towns there where the, the well to do used to go to get a bit of cool air when it was very hot. And there was Chad. That was the name of some of the territories.
TO: And what was your — what were your everyday jobs in the RAF in Nigeria?
HA: Well, I can’t remember. There was always a routine. You got up in the morning. You had your breakfast. You did some exercises somewhere. You went to your designed position where you were operating and you would wait until messages that had been encoded were passed to you and you would transmit them.
TO: Was it — were there a lot of messages coming in?
HA: I can’t tell you. We didn’t, we were not party to the meaning of them. They were encoded. So, there was another department that did that deciphering.
TO: And what did you do in your spare time in Nigeria?
HA: Used to read books. You could go about Lagos. There was a cinema there but it was pretty — there wasn’t very much to do in your spare time. And that, as I say they laid on the entertainment. Musical star. ENSA.
TO: And was Lagos a segregated city at that time?
HA: Pardon?
TO: Was Lagos a segregated city?
HA: Segregated?
TO: Yes. Was it segregated?
[pause]
HA: Do you know I can’t remember the detail of it. I know there was the RAF station. That was outside the edge of the main town. And that was more or less where the jungle began as it were.
TO: Was disease ever a problem for any of your colleagues?
HA: Pardon?
TO: Was disease ever a problem for your colleagues?
HA: Some of them got ill. Yes. It was pretty rampant.
TO: What’s your best memory of your time in the RAF?
HA: The comradeship. Because we were all together and I met guys that came from, you know some came from Canada. At the time when the, you know the North Americans came in. Got to know people.
TO: And did it — was there anyone you knew who refused to take the anti-malarial medicine?
HA: Sorry?
TO: Did any of your comrades refuse to take the medicine they were given?
HA: I can’t hear you very well.
TO: Did any of your friends in the RAF, did any of them refuse to take the medicine that they were given to avoid disease?
HA: I don’t think so. Not, I never got to know of that.
TO: Ok. And do you remember hearing when — the day that the war ended?
HA: Well, I know that we were all cheered up. And I was back in England then. I think I was in High Wycombe or somewhere like that. Yeah. It was a great time.
TO: Did you get involved in any of the celebrations?
HA: Well, you couldn’t avoid it. It was — there were flags out everywhere and cheering and what not.
TO: And how did you feel when they — when [pause]
HA: I think I’ll have to go back seeing as I’ve got my sister in law here.
TO: Yeah. I’ve only got a few more questions actually. So — have you ever watched films about the war?
HA: Do I?
TO: Yes.
HA: Yeah. I do. I saw one last week about the SAS. You know, the Special Arms Forces that were dropped behind the enemy lines and I had read various books about it. About the SOE. The Special Operations Executive. And somebody we knew had written a book about it so I got a copy of it.
TO: I’ve interviewed a man who helped to take the SOE agents out to Europe.
HA: Pardon?
TO: I’ve interviewed a man who helped take the SOE agents to Europe. He was a navigator aboard the planes that were taking the agents.
HA: Oh, I never, I never got to know that. There were people that were dropped in spots you know where they where it went wrong sometimes. Somebody had betrayed them or, or the Germans were aware of what was happening. Or the locals were pro-German. There were. I’m not sure if I’m telling you the truth other than what I’ve read in books. So, don’t rely on what I’m saying.
TO: Did you lose any relatives in the war?
[pause]
HA: No. No. I didn’t. No.
TO: And how do you feel today about Germany and Japan?
HA: Well, Germany is a new country. It’s come up. And you know people are making a different way of living. Japan. I went there once in business when I was working for a company. And I didn’t have any feeling about the Japanese except that during the war they were not, you know they were pro-Nazi at the time.
TO: And how did you feel when, when the news of the Holocaust was revealed?
HA: It was unbelievable. We knew that things were happening. We got reports back here but you know when the, when the Russians first went in and liberated some of the Holocaust camps you couldn’t believe it. There were pictures shown of Bergen Belsen and the pile of bones and the gas ovens and all that. That was awful.
TO: Do you remember them showing that footage on newsreels?
HA: This is all currently looking at them. There may have been pictures in the newspapers when the allies first, when the Russian first got into some of the camps. Because they, the Russians advanced on to Berlin. Towards Berlin.
TO: And what have you done? What did you do after the war?
HA: Pardon?
TO: What did you do after the war? When you were demobbed.
HA: I’m an accountant. I took a course. A postal course in accountancy. And I’ve just done my fifty years of it and I’ve got a big certificate up in my room here to say that I’ve, I’ve been a member of, I’ve passed the examination of the Association of Certified and Corporate Accountants with the signature of the — on the thing. And that’s it.
TO: You — I think you mentioned last week you’d been involved in CND did you say?
HA: Pardon?
TO: Did you say you’d been involved in CND?
HA: Yes. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Yeah. I used to go out on their marches. Particularly when they started getting nuclear war, you know. And all that.
TO: And when — what, what was the process of being demobilised from the RAF?
HA: What was the what?
TO: The process of being demobbed from the RAF.
HA: The purpose.
TO: The process of being demobbed.
HA: Oh, the progress. Oh, you went to certain centres where they let you out and they gave you a certain amount of clothing and you got ration coupons and so on. And they tried to get you sorted out on some path where you could earn your own living. They did try various things. There were departments there. They were trying to reintegrate you into the civilian life.
TO: And is there anything you want to add at all?
HA: No. Except that war is a futility. Look what’s happened since then. How many wars there’s been. So, the war that was supposed to end wars never did. Because people go after power and power can lead to all sorts of things and discrimination and refugees. People going out, being taken out their homes by the millions. And children. And migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to get to England or any place in Europe where they thought they could make a decent living. Some of them made it. Some didn’t. Are you asking me personal history now?
TO: I was just wondering what your views are on it. That’s all.
HA: Well, I’m telling you. This country has always benefited from migrants. You know, when you think of the people who invented things and got on well in industry and they’re the backbone of the country. And the working people as well. The Trade Unions organise the working people and I was a member of a Trade Union.
[pause]
TO: Shall we pause there? Shall we finish there then?
HA: Pardon?
TO: Shall we finish there then?
HA: Yeah.
TO: Thank you very much.
HA: You’re welcome.
TO: Really enjoyed hearing you. Thank you.
HA: Yeah.
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 Allen
Creator
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Tom Ozel
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-09
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AAllenH170309
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:42:28 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Allen’s parents travelled to the UK to escape the pogroms in Europe. He lived in London during the Blitz. When Harold volunteered for the RAF he trained as a wireless operator on the ground. He did not want to join aircrew because he was conscious of his family responsibilities and he was very aware of the survival statistics. The sense of comradeship he found during his time with Bomber Command is his outstanding memory.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Nigeria
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
aircrew
anti-Semitism
displaced person
entertainment
fear
ground personnel
military ethos
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
perception of bombing war
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/504/10775/PDavisRS1604.1.jpg
3c0b1cae022bad63d50d98f5562ac423
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/504/10775/ADavisRS160807.1.mp3
8ec4918107465e2d762c79a495e3aa52
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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Davis, Ronald
Ronald Samuel Davis
R S Davis
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Davis, R
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Collection concerns with Ronald Davis (1922 - 2017, 1231181 Royal Air Force). He served as ground crew with 49 and 617 Squadrons. Collection contains three oral history interviews as well as photographs of people and aircraft.
The collection was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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TO: Right. Good morning. Good afternoon. Or good evening. Whatever the case may be. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre. My name is Thomas Ozel and this interview is being recorded on the 7th of August 2016.
RD: Thank you. My name is Ronald Davis. I’m ninety four years of age and I was born on the 2nd of March 1922 at a maternity hospital on the corner of City Road and Old Street which is in the City of London and which makes me a true Cockney. Born within the sound of Bow bells. My parents [pause] I can speak about were [pause] sorry, stop it there. Oh it doesn’t matter.
TO: No. You can just look at me. You don’t have to talk to the camera.
RD: I can talk to you.
TO: That’s fine.
RD: Right. And my mother was a little bit above working class but my father was very working class. He was a lady’s tailor which he hated from the day he started to the day he finished just before he died in his forties. And they lived in a humble two rooms in this house in New North Road. And shortly afterwards we moved to Mile End where my father’s mother and family lived. To be closer to the family. I was brought up in very humble surroundings and I said at times we had more dinner times than dinners. And my dad was hardworking but, but the tailoring trade was seasonal so when they worked they earned good money but when they were not working there was nothing coming in at all. I don’t think there was unemployment pay in those days. I was educated at a junior school where for reasons that my parents never understood I never passed the eleven plus which was the exam at that time and I went to a senior boy’s school in Bethnal Green where we moved when I was about seven years old. And this school in Bethnal Green gave me a very good general education and I found I did fairly well in that standard but I was not grammar school standard. I started work, aged fourteen as a solicitor’s office boy earning fifteen shillings and now seventy fifty five pence per week of which I gave me mother ten shillings towards my upkeep and kept the rest, less the deductions for myself which included my daily fare to the office which was a penny each way and, and for my lunches. After a year my boss called me in and said, ‘Davis, you’ve been very good for a year. You’re been a very good servant but we’re going to get another little boy in for fifteen shillings a week and you’d better find yourself another job. Not because we’re not satisfied with you but because you need a replacement and we have no place to promote you.’ I then went off and found, through an employment agency a job in another solicitor’s office in Chancery Lane, London. Central London as a junior clerk at twenty five shillings a week which was a very big increase from fifteen shillings. And I was there until the, towards the end of 1940 when I was eighteen and had decided that I wanted to go in to the Royal Air Force. I felt sure the only way I could get in was to volunteer which I did at the recruitment office in Whitehall. I was shortly afterwards interviewed and sent to RAF Cardington for assessment and within about six weeks I was called up, sent back to RAF Cardington for outfitting and a general description of what the RAF did and the discipline and appearance and the way you spoke to officers and things of that sort. I think I was there for about fourteen days and I was then sent to Bournemouth for my, what we called square bashing which is, which is learning to march and learning to exercise, general discipline and behaviour and things of that sort. In Bournemouth there was no RAF station. They, the, the RAF had taken over all the boarding houses that people had used at that time for their holidays. They were set up as bedrooms with washing facilities, a shared bathroom and, and we were there for three months altogether. I was given a room in this lovely boarding house overlooking Alum Chine with a view of the sea. It really was upmarket. And for the first time in my life, and I was eighteen years old, I had a room to myself. Because otherwise I had to share with my, my other brother and my two sisters who were all younger than me. And there I learned discipline. I learned drill. I learned exercise which I’d already done because I belonged to a Boy’s Club in the East End of London where we’d had lots of sports. Cricket. Football. Table tennis and things of that sort. So I knew about fitness and that. When I’d finished my training, incidentally my drill instructor in Bournemouth was a man called Sergeant Sam Bartram who in fact was a goal keeper for the England soccer team and also was the captain of a London soccer team called Charlton Athletic. Which at that time was in the First Division so he was very well respected and known by all the lads. In fact, as an aside most of the professional footballers or professional sportsman were drill instructors in in the RAF. It was very handy to have them on tap. From Bournemouth I was sent to RAF Halton which was a permanent RAF station and was Number 1 School of Technical Training. And there I learned all about aeroplanes. And a fitter airframe did everything on the aeroplane except the engines, except the armoury and except the electrician and something else. I can’t remember at the moment. But every other part of the aeroplane, the hydraulics, the pneumatics, the upkeep of the aeroplane, the refuelling, everything of that sort was done by the fitter airframe. And sitting on top of a bomber in the middle of Lincolnshire on a cold winter’s day filling up was, was no joke apart from the possible danger. At Halton I finished my course and became a, that was six months and I was immediately posted to RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. Which at that time housed, every aerodrome had two squadrons. Scampton at that time housed 49 Squadron and 83 Squadron. Both flying with twelve Handley Page Hampdens which were, strangely enough made in Cricklewood Broadway in London. When I arrived there, there were a lot of, I arrived there in April or May 1942 and and when I arrived there there were lots of trainees coming in. And at one stage we probably had as many as twelve airframe fitters working on one aeroplane which was really not enough because one or two could manage. But this is when the RAF were turning out lots and lots of people and they were being trained and sent off all over the world. It so happens that I remained there all my time caring for these Handley Page bombers. My particular bomber was P for Peter and I obviously had various, various pilots. And one in particular who was with me for a long time was a pilot called Aussie Holt. He was an Australian and wore a navy blue uniform as opposed to the air force blue uniform so he was rather distinctive around the squadron I think. He was the only Australian pilot there at that time. And he was with me for quite a long time but unfortunately he was lost on the, on the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst German battleships that went through the Channel unexpectedly. And I remember it was just after Christmas. I don’t think it was even New Year ’43 that we were loaded up with certain bombs that we were going to use when these bombers came out and then they were the wrong ones and before they could take off we had to do a very quick job of changing the bomb load so that they could go off on this raid. Unfortunately that was the worst occasion of any time that I remember on any squadron where we lost seven of our twelve aeroplanes. Including Aussie Holt who I grieved over for quite a while because I’d got to know him very well and he like me and we we, we were always chatting about various things. When you’re on a squadron it’s very difficult to adjust to losing your pilot but you had to get on and the more you got on the less you thought of it. But at times when crews were speaking about various things and we mentioned his name and there would be a pause for us to catch our breaths as it were and think about something else. You, you didn’t become attached to them personally like family but they were your crew and as a result of that it, it there was some effect. At least from me. I’m not sure whether it was the same for everybody else but at least for me it had some effect and often thinking of their family way back in Australia losing this wonderful guy who was their son. And then in, I think I said 1943 that, it must have been 1942 because early in ’43 49 Squadron was moved from Scampton because they were coming in to lay runways and the aerodrome obviously couldn’t be used during that time. So most of us were sent off to, not with 49 Squadron because I think when 49 finished with the Hampdens it didn’t come to life again for some time again later. And I know, and most of the crews were moved from Scampton to Waddington or Coddington Hall just a few miles away outside Lincoln where we became the 1661 Conversion Unit. Which was the place where they trained pilots to go from two engine to four engine bombers. Although, apart from the four engine bomber there were two-engined Manchesters. Not Lancasters. Manchesters. Which formed part of the early, early crews but they were a much bigger aircraft than the Hampden and therefore the size of two engines or four engines wasn’t so important as the size of the aeroplane. Can I stop there for a minute?
TO: Certainly.
RD: I’m running away here.
TO: Certainly. Yeah.
RD: Eh?
TO: Yeah.
RD: Ok. Now, am I doing it as you —
TO: Yeah. That’s great. Perfect.
RD: Yeah. Ok.
TO: Of course if you want to stop or take a break just say so.
RD: Yeah.
TO: Ok. Do you want to take a break now?
RD: Yeah. Please.
TO: Sure.
[recording paused]
RD: One thing that I, I want to tell you about was how, how I got to the air force. In, in 1938 when I was about sixteen I had a week’s, two weeks holiday. No. One weeks holiday from work. And I, I couldn’t afford to go away so my grandmother, I told you my grandmother who lived in Golders Green just down the road here invited me to come and stay with her for a week. So I cycled from the East End of London where we were still living to Golders Green which was a very upmarket suburban area and, on my bike which was my proud possession. And she looked after me for, for that week. And each day I, she would give me a bag of sandwiches and some drinks and biscuits and things and fruit and I would go off for the day. And I only got, on the first day, as far as Hendon Aerodrome which is just up the road from here now. And there I saw this RAF aerodrome with little tiny Tiger Moths and various other small aeroplanes. Biplanes. Single engine. And I sat on a stile all day long watching aeroplanes landing and taking off. And I think it was at that time that I decided that if ever I’m going to go in to the forces and there was talk of war at that time, I would want to go in the air force. And that’s why I joined up voluntarily. Yeah.
Other: Hello.
[recording paused]
TO: So, in the 1930s were you worried about Hitler at all?
RD: Oh yes. In, in the 1930s I was very worried about fascists of all sorts and kinds. I was brought up in the East End of London where there were very, very two powerful factions. The communists and the fascists. The British Union of Fascists had a very big unit in in Bethnal Green. And when I was sixteen, that would be in 1938 there had been all sorts of demonstrations. Particularly in Jewish areas. In the Jewish area where I lived there were confrontations between communists and fascists and communists and Jews. Young Jewish men. It’s a very interesting, you’ve caught me on a very good subject actually. It was a very interesting course. My, I am Jewish and my parents were born in England. My grandparents came to England in the middle 1890s. 1895 and one 1898. And my parents were born in England and educated in England. So I wasn’t first generation. I was second generation. Most of my friends would have been first generation. Parents not born in England. And as a result of that they had a different attitude to me. They always wanted to run away because that had been indoctrinated into them by their parents. My dad said, ‘You don’t run away from anybody. You stand up to anybody and confront them because a bully is always afraid of somebody who might confront him.’ My dad told me that from as long as I can remember. And as a result if I met fascists I didn’t, I didn’t run away. I, and I used to, when I was sixteen I never actually joined the communist party. I was never, never a communist as such but I used to go to communist party meetings because they were the people who confronted the fascists. So, yeah we were aware of Hitler but of course we knew nothing at that time about the concentration camps. Nothing whatsoever. That didn’t come out until well into the war. Probably ’43 ’44. Even ’43 there was very little. ’44 and ’45 there was a little bit of talk about it. It was only when we got to the camps, when the British Army and the American Army and the Russian Army got to the camps that we found out what it was all about. So, yes, definitely. We, we knew all about Hitler. And we also, I mean anybody with a common sense realised that a war was coming because it, it was you kept reading about these things. That Hitler had walked in to the Sudetenland and Hitler had walked in to Czechoslovakia and you automatically thought well where the hell’s he going to go to next? So yes I was personally very conscious. I’m not sure whether the same would apply to everybody else. That was my —
TO: And what did you think of the Munich Agreement?
RD: You have to remember I was very young. So I was seventeen and the communist party at the time and I associated with a number of people in that party. I was never active as such but I mainly saw them as the anti-fascists. Because you have to remember at that time neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party in Britain were anti-fascist. Were not anti-fascist. They were trying to come to terms with them. They weren’t anti. It was only the Communist Party that was anti-fascist. And for that reason. I ceased to have anything to do with the Communist Party when they made the alliance with, with Hitler in 1939 I think. 1938 or ’39. Sorry. Forgive me. What was your question again?
TO: No. You’ve already answered it. Which was what were your thoughts on the Munich Agreement?
RD: Yeah. The Munich Agreement. The Communist Party said it was the greatest political carve up in history. Where Chamberlain had been deceived. But the general opinion I think of the national newspapers was that this was going to solve all the problems.
TO: And were you ever in an air raid shelter during the bombing?
RD: Yes. We, in 1940 just before I joined up. February 1940. No. January. December/January ‘39 and ’40 my parents moved from the East End of London to Ilford where they rented a property with my mother’s brother. And there was about eight of us living in this three bedroom house with one bathroom and [laughs] but we were very comfortable there. Now, my dad, who in 1938 developed tuberculosis and couldn’t walk was in a [pause] I can’t remember what they called the hospitals where these people are. However, he was in a hospital, isolation hospital at Colindale here because it, it was terribly contagious at that time living with somebody with tuberculosis because of, you could catch it very easily. So he was in this hospital in 1938 to 1939 and when the war started my dad was sent home which made another one in this house and we all had to be very careful about it. Now, he made the decision that we would stay in our house. On the ground floor. We’d all get up and we’d be on the ground floor protected as far as we could be from a bombing raid and that we would not go in to a shelter. First of all it would have been no good for my dad to be down in those conditions. And secondly I think he was a very brave man to make that decision. To put his family at risk. His view was if we’re all going let’s go together rather than one at a time. So we never went to a public shelter. But I can remember the public shelters. I can remember going down them. I can remember when, before I joined up and after I joined up whenever I had leave and went up into town for a dance or something of that sort thousands and thousands of people sleeping down in in tube stations along the platforms. After about 9 o’clock at night they used to bring their stuff down and when you got off a train you had a narrow area that we walked through with all these people, all these families laying themselves out we mattresses like camping out. Which never really appeal to me [unclear] And my dad always said to me, ‘If you’re going out you’ve got to come home. You don’t stay out because there’s bombing.’ So that’s what we did. When my dad said that you did it. So I can. Very often walking through streets with shrapnel and all sorts of stuff falling down. So yes I did know about air raids and air raid shelters. There was one occasion when I was on leave and this would have been 1944 when I got to the Gants Hill near where my parents lived there. A road just off there. It was all blocked off by police because an aeroplane, a German aeroplane had come down on the corner of my parent’s street and was on fire above. Stuck in an empty shop. And I said to the policeman who was blocking the road, ‘You must let me through because my house is just down that road where, where the aeroplane is. I want to see if my mother and brother and sisters are well.’ My father had died by then. And he said, ‘Yes, go on.’ I was in uniform. He said, ‘Go on. You go through.’ So I went through and this aeroplane had apparently come, been shot down and had come straight down my mother’s road, scraping it’s wheels on the rooves of the houses and then plopped on to this empty shop. A miracle. Plopped onto this empty shop on the corner. There was no bombs exploded but the aeroplane made a bit of a mess of the building as you could imagine. And when I got to my front garden, a very small garden, there was a parcel lying there. And I knew it was the dinghy that had fallen out of the wing of this aeroplane as it was coming down. And I called my brother, I said, ‘Come on Ted. Let’s take this dinghy in. We’ll keep this as a souvenir.’ Which was a stupid thing to do but never mind. And my brother and I were trying to drag it in and my mother and two sisters were on the other side of the door, ‘Don’t bring it in here. it’s a bomb.’ You know [laughs] So, we, we left the dinghy where it was. And the other thing I can remember is the, one of the crew stuck in a tree outside, right outside of our house. One of our neighbours was trying to hit him with a, with a shovel. Calling him all, all the unknown names you’d heard previously. Yeah. So that’s, that’s what I remember about that.
TO: And what were your, when you were in the RAF at an airfield with aircraft on operations what were your everyday duties?
RD: My everyday duties were there were no days off. On a bomber command station in my 5 Group we worked seven days a week from eight till five. Eight to five. And every third day you did a twenty four shift because during the day we worked on the aeroplanes and prepared them for night raids when they were. And then a skeleton crew of about four or five would carry on after 6 o’clock through the night to see the aeroplane off or see them back or both. And then refuel them, prepare, repair any damage. Slight damages. Large damages went to the hangar but small damage was done out in the open on the airfield. And we would finish at four, five, 6 o’clock in the morning depending on what time they got back. And when we were finished we went off to bed and you then had the rest of that day off. So I would normally sleep till mid-day and then go in to Lincoln or one of the local villages just to have a bite to eat and a drink. Most of the boys used to go for a drink but I used to go for some food first. I had great problems with coping with the food. It was very poor. Very poor. I’m not going to say I was ever hungry hungry. But I wasn’t ever satisfied with the food. And at one time I discovered that there were mushrooms growing out on the airfield. And I had a friend of mine who was a country boy who knew the difference between mushrooms and those that you can eat and that you can’t eat. And he taught them to me. And I used to get up early in the morning before duties and collect two pounds of mushrooms out on the airfield. And I then used to take them to the, the NAAFI manageress used to live in a accommodation on the site. The NAAFI. And I had an arrangement with her that if I brought her two pounds of mushrooms she would cook me a pound on four slices of toast and keep the other pound for herself which she was very happy to do. It took people an awful long time to wonder what I was doing at the NAAFI manageress’s abode [laughs] With no other purpose other than to have my mushrooms.
TO: How would you describe morale?
RD: Morale was up and down. Morale was up and down. Most of the time morale was high. But you would get the occasional misery who would try to alter things. Speaking personally I think it’s in my nature to not, not to moan and have discipline. Self-discipline. But as for morale I never saw anything. I never saw anything that would make me worried. At any time. You’d get an occasionally a guy going a bit off the rails and let it all out but, you know, the next day he was fine, but morale generally was good. Yeah. I’m getting a feeling there’s a bit of something that shouldn’t be there in these questions. Is it my imagination?
TO: What? Am I asking questions I shouldn’t ask?
RD: No. No. The things that you’re asking me about we we never really had time to worry about morale.
TO: Ok.
RD: Morale was there. You only had a little bit of moaning and morale was there. And the discipline was there but the discipline off the airfield amongst the administration staff where you always had to have your buttons polished and boots clean and that sort of thing did not apply on the airfield. The, the NCOs were lenient with, I mean you saw the way we were dressed. Well, no officer would have passed that dress but that’s how we were. The discipline was lax as such out on the airfield because we didn’t have time and there was no necessity for it. Who was seeing us except the other crews? Yeah.
TO: And did you ever find out about the damage that the raids were causing?
RD: Yes. They would come back and say, ‘Oh we, we hit that target well and truly.’ Or they would come back and say, ‘I think we were in the wrong place,’ or something of that sort. But rarely did a crew tell us exactly what went on. What they told, were told at the debriefing after each bombing raid in the mess I do not know. But they would say, ‘No. We, we, I think we were in the wrong place today,’ or, ‘No. We hit this one. We really hit this one.’ But that sort of thing. As far as I can remember. If I think about it a bit more [pause] No. I, I can never say they sent us to the wrong target or anything of that sort. There was never anything of that sort.
TO: And what, how did you feel when you heard about the attack on the Ruhr dams?
RD: Well. I was involved in that obviously. I thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened. But it was a very, very, very costly exercise. A very costly exercise in the way of numbers of aircraft and numbers of crew that, that were killed. But it was a great puzzle to us because when the first aeroplanes arrived for the Dambuster raid we didn’t know what it was going to be. Hadn’t the faintest idea. Certainly didn’t know what we were going to carry. But one day — when an aeroplane, when a Lancaster flew over you knew the sound of it and invariably you didn’t look up. But if you heard a strange sound you would look up to see what it is. And these Lancasters came over with a strange sound. A different sound to the one that was usual. And when we looked up we saw they had no bomb doors. And so we automatically said, ‘Oh well, they’ve run out of bloody bomb doors again and they’re sending them out without bomb doors. We’ll have to fit them.’ But it was intended that that the bomb the round bomb was the base of where the bomb doors were. You couldn’t close the doors. It was so low they couldn’t close the bomb doors so they had to go without bomb doors and this thing was streamlined to comply with that. So that was the first thing we found out. That the new bombs were going to be without bomb doors. And we, we were extraordinarily proud of that. Extraordinarily proud of that. But as I say that was a massive, massive loss.
TO: So were you in 617 Squadron at the time —
RD: Yes.
TO: Of the raid.
RD: At the time. Yeah.
TO: After those losses did that affect morale?
RD: Sorry?
TO: Did those losses affect morale?
RD: No. No. No. We [pause] I think we were all very sad but there’s a difference between being sad and your morale. Oh no. At no time was our morale affected by that. So far as I know.
TO: And what do you, how did you feel when you heard about the rain on Hamburg in ’43?
RD: Well, I don’t know. We did dozens of raids on Hamburg. Which one are you speaking about?
TO: The one where there was the fire storm. When we first used Window.
RD: Oh yeah. Well, first of all you have to remember that the Germans made the first big firestorm in 1940 when they set fire to the City of London. So, so it wasn’t new. It had been done before. And so far as anybody in the RAF was concerned well bloody good, bloody shame you know. This war has got to be won. If that’s the way we’ve got to do it that’s the way we do it. I don’t quite think you realise how strong were feelings of Britain that we retaliate for all that we had been through for all that long winter. That long year. The Battle of Britain. You know, you, we had it all bottled up within us. No. No. No qualms whatever. No. Why should we? Why should we? We, we didn’t start it. We were trying to rid the world of a monster. No. I don’t see this view at all. I don’t see this view. I’m sorry but people may well think of it these days but conditions are rather different now to what they were. I mean do you realise how close we were to being overrun? If, if Hitler had had two penneth of guts he’d have walked straight into Britain and taken it over. We had no defence. Our army had lost its, all, all its equipment in, after Dunkirk. And if he’d have come straight across he would have walked straight into Britain and I mean there’s no knowing where or what have been after that. I don’t know who could. So you have to take all this into account when you think of raids like Hamburg. No. We had no qualms about them at all.
TO: Did you hear about how other campaigns of the war were going?
RD: Oh yes. There was no such, there might have been a bit of cover up here and there on certain losses or when they were made not quite so bad as they were. But generally speaking I am convinced that our press was as free as any press in the world. And newspapers didn’t like to publish bad news but, but we always got the bad news. No. I I don’t think. I might have been deceived about, but saying they used to say each time how many aircraft were lost on a raid in the morning new, ‘The RAF last night raided Hamburg with a thousand aeroplanes of Hampdens, Halifax, Manchesters, Lancasters, Halifaxes, Wellingtons. A thousand. Rustled up a thousand and they bombed Hamburg and six didn’t return.’ You know. It was announced like that. It was never that four hundred never returned. You know. There was never anything of that sort. They were, they were small numbers. Perhaps ten out of a thousand or twenty but they were numbers of that sort. But, but when on the Dambuster raid we lost I think it was, I think it was eight. Yeah. That was a heavy loss. And that would have been announced. They might have said that three were shot down. The crew had bailed out and they were prisoners and four are missing. Or something of that sort. Yeah. So I had no doubts whatever that the press did announce. That we were informed. Yeah.
TO: And what are your thoughts on the bombing of Dresden?
RD: Bombing of, well my thoughts on the bombing of Dresden I think I have no qualms whatever. I have heard the stories about what Dresden did and that it was only for peaceful purposes but we knew for a fact that pieces of the machinery for the rockets that were being dropped on Britain were made, manufactured, designed, designed and manufactured in that part of the world. So therefore Dresden meant nothing. I mean, every time anyone asks me I say well tell me about the City of London that was destroyed in one bombing raid with fire that burned the whole lot out. And I saw the city after the bombing so I know the whole bloody chute went in one night.
TO: Did you ever actually see any of the V-2s when they attacked London?
RD: I I I saw the V-1s. The chug chug chug. You couldn’t ever see the V-2s. The first thing you knew about the V-2s was, was it landing. The V-1s were, were these chug chug chug things and you knew that whilst the engine was running you were alright but the moment the engine cut out, when it turned to drop then start worrying because you’re, you’re in line for it. I’d heard lots of V-1s and also I’d heard recordings on the radio of them going over during the news. But V-2s you never saw. You only knew when they landed. I never heard one explode but I’d seen where some of them exploded and they really knocked it to smithereens.
TO: Were the V-2s — sorry.
RD: Sorry?
TO: Were the V-2s quite a shock to everyone?
RD: No. Because I think we were warned that the Germany had these things. We were warned beforehand that that they would be coming at some time and they did. But again I don’t think morale was affected by that. I can’t recall any one family that I met at any time during the war who had lost faith in in what we were doing. Right. I, I really can’t. Because even those that supported the, the British Union of Fascists, the BUF, even those, they were still British to the core. They never converted to, to German. You know, the British Union of Fascists they didn’t want to lose England. If if you can understand what I’m saying. No. No. So there was never anything of that to my, to my knowledge and I’d be very distressed to hear somebody say that there was.
TO: And why do you think Bomber Command were treated the way they were after the war?
RD: I think Churchill made quite an error of judgement. Something must have happened at some time between Harris and Churchill. Or Harris and some minister which, which, which turned Churchill and I think Churchill regretted for the rest of his days although I don’t think he ever said so publicly. He said one or two things but he didn’t say fully and publicly that he regretted saying it. But I was annoyed that Bomber Command was not recognised for what it did and it did a hell of a lot for Britain during a time when army, the years when the army was inactive until D-Day. I mean we were the only enemy that the enemy knew about. And I was very annoyed that Bomber Command was not recognised with a special award and that we who served in Bomber Command never had one single badge to show that we were Bomber Command. On the other hand Fighter Command never had one single badge to show it won the Battle of Britain. But those things should have been recognised. And personally I was distressed from day one that I mean, you know not distressed but I’m sorry that the service that we gave was not recognised in a better way than it was by just giving us a general service medal.
TO: And what’s your best memory from the war?
RD: My best memory is camaraderie. My best memory was that I was very lucky to be where I was doing what I was on a active squadron going to the enemy when I realised that for years and years and years other guys in the services were sitting around scratching themselves, doing very little but training ready for D-Day which didn’t come until 1943 — four. 1944. So that was my greatest memory. I was proud. I was proud to serve. I was proud to be there and I was proud to be on an operational squadron. I went in a little, I really was a little boy at eighteen and I really came out a man knowing what the world was. And which prepared me for my later career where I very fortunately made a, made a success. To give me what I’ve got today from, from that very humble start.
TO: And were there ever any occasions where aircraft crashed near your airfield?
RD: Oh yes. Oh yes. But you have to remember that some of the pilots when they arrive are novice pilots. When they arrive on the squadron for the first time they’ve had their training, they’ve had good training from small aircraft to large aircraft. But when they get on to a squadron with a crew and the bomb load and all the rest of it it’s a little bit of a different story until you’ve been through it several times. So I’ve seen lots of aeroplanes crash on landing for no apparent reason. When I was at Scampton with the Hampdens one aeroplane over shot the airfield. Remember when we were on Hampdens there was only grass. There was no concrete airstrip. So although there was a marked out place for aircraft to land and the Drem lights, Drem lights are lights that you can see from sixty seventy eighty feet which you can’t see from up above. And they used to come in on those. That’s another story. When they came back from a raid and there had been snow the Drem lights were covered up by the snow. So an aeroplane coming in on to a snow covered airfield could not see the Drem lights. So on those occasions ground crew would have to go out. There would be about fifteen every fifty yards. They would have one man every fifty yards with a goose necked, goose necked oil can with paraffin in that we would light when we got the signal. Number 1 got the signal from, from the conning tower to light his lamp and the other fifteen would, would light it and you would stand there in the freezing cold in the middle of an airfield hunched up waiting to get the light to light yours. And then you would light your lamp, oil lamp. Then run across the runway. Light the other one on the other side. So make a path for the aeroplane to land and as soon as he landed you put the lamp out. Run across and put the other one on. Wait for the next one to come. It was so primitive it was the only way you could do it if there was snow. What was the other question that I, that I —
TO: The question was what crashes did you see?
RD: Oh yes. Then, then onwards I interrupted it. One night, and bearing in mind we landed on grass and one aeroplane for reasons unknown, I don’t know why but it overshot the perimeter fence and went in to a field that belonged to a farmer further along. And this aeroplane unfortunately ran into about twenty heifers. Cows. Massive cows. And when we got there you couldn’t tell humans from animals. And that was the most horrible thing I have ever experienced in my life. We, we didn’t have to touch them. The medical crew did that. But to see this mixture of animals and humans was something that I’m very, very reluctant to talk about at any time as it’s very distressing. That, that’s what I can tell you about that.
TO: And were you quite friendly with the air crews?
RD: Generally speaking [coughs] generally speaking yes. It was, my aeroplane normally had the same crew. So that we knew them and we would chat about this, that and the other and things that young men talk about. It also helped them to keep their minds off what they were about to do. And, and then they would go off and we would welcome them back and all the rest of it. Sometimes when your crew wasn’t there it was a strange crew. Your crew was off on leave or something of that sort. Then a strange crew would fly the aeroplane. And I would do nothing. And they would just nod or wink and say, ‘How are you doing?’ And that that’s it, but we never had, if we saw them out in the pub we might say hello and have a little chat with them but we never had a lot to do with them because they were in a different mess to us. You know, half of them were officers so they were entirely different. The others were senior NCOs and again that wasn’t a mess that I used. So, we, we never saw them. And very occasionally did they actually come down to the flight because there was nothing, the flight is where the aeroplanes were dispersed. Way out across the field. They very rarely had to come down. Occasionally they would have to do compass swinging and things of that sort on the ground when they, two of them would come out. The pilot and the engineer and they would move the aircraft around on the airfield for various reasons. But again when they went off they didn’t, sometimes we went with them. I would often tow an aeroplane by the back wheel for compass swinging. We had to test, test the compass. Then the aircrew didn’t do it. I would do it with the compass. We also unofficially used to move the aircraft on the ground from one spot to another. It was not officially allowed but but we did and we also had a wonderful system that when aircraft had been repaired the engineers went up on the test. Which was, we didn’t make mistakes that way. And so I used to quite, fly quite a lot and yeah then then you would be more involved with the crews. But other than that we never saw a lot of them because there was never an occasion.
TO: Ok.
RD: But they were always friendly. Always appreciated. If there was sometimes some aircraft used to have a little peculiarity then you would tell them, ‘Watch that one because, it’s alright but you know it might need looking at. Let us know.’ Yeah.
TO: And what did you think of Arthur Harris?
RD: I thought he was my hero. He was my hero. He was. I mean I only saw him three times I think during, during the whole of my career but we knew him and we used to get orders and things of sort signed by him. But he was my hero. He was the greatest man that there was born. There was a Group Captain Whitworth. Now, how did I remember that name? A Group Captain Whitworth who was the senior officer at Scampton at that time who was the station commander. That’s the two squadrons. He was detached from either squadron. The wing commander was the, was the senior man in my squadron. And, and he was in charge of Scampton and I, he was a great disciplinarian. A bit of a pain in the arse sometimes but he was a very good man. And then I had a senior officer, Squadron Leader Bell whose family owned the Express Dairies. I don’t know whether that means anything to you but Express Dairies delivered milk to every house in Britain, and his family owned that outfit. And when I was demobilised and I was taking some exams for the Law Society I needed something signed to prove that I’d done something. And I looked him up after the war and he was delighted to see me and help me. Helped me very much. And you know I felt I was imposing on him but he assured me that he was glad to do it to an old comrade. And he gave me a reference that I needed for one of my exams to prove what I’d done. So yeah but Harris was my hero. Yeah. Yeah.
TO: How much time have we got? It’s about —
RD: It’s alright. Another ten minutes.
TO: Ok.
RD: Ten minutes. Yeah.
TO: Ok. Yeah. There a Bomber Command Centre form I’ll need you to sign afterwards if that’s ok.
RD: Yeah.
TO: I just don’t want to trespass on your time.
RD: Yeah. Yeah.
TO: I can see you’re going to lunch. When you were, on the occasions when you did go flying in the aircraft what were conditions like on board?
RD: In what way?
TO: Well was it very cramped?
[recording paused]
RD: No. Remember a Lancaster is a very big bomber. And you climbed up steps to get in the door at the back and then walk along the main part of the rear of the aeroplane ‘til you came to the main spar where you cocked your leg over and went in to the wireless operator’s little cubbyhole on the left. And, and then further along was the navigator on the left. And then there were the two seats for the pilot and the co-pilot engineer. And underneath that was the place where the bomb aimer used to lay. It, it was cramped but nothing like a fighter aeroplane. There are two, two things about that that [pause] I’ve forgotten what I was saying now [pause]
TO: Conditions aboard was it?
RD: No.
TO: Or positions of people?
RD: No. It was never, never cramped in a bomber aircraft. If, if you want to know what cramped is — in, in the in the pay in the Hampden there were pilot, second pilot, engineer, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and two other gunners. Now, the rear gunner, the one right at the back out on his own was in a cupola underneath the belly of the aircraft at the back. Above him would be the tail. And he would sit in that turret with his legs up like this, he’d obviously got support at the back, with his gun like that for eight hours. That was uncomfortable and cold. Absolutely freezing cold. He used to have to have a heating, a heated suit. And the sheer boredom of looking at nothing. Looking for aircraft. That was uncomfortable. But I don’t think I can say that anybody else was uncomfortable in a Lancaster. Except if you’re out on a gun, the rear gun at the back of the aircraft that swivels around I suppose you could say it was uncomfortable. I’ve written a lovely story that’s just been published about a Canadian pilot. But I’ll send you an email. It was nothing to do with me. It’s something that happened after the war but just as a matter of interest give me your email address.
TO: Ok.
RD: I’ll send it to you. Yeah.
TO: I’ll send you, if you like I’ll send you a link to an Imperial War Museum with Harris.
RD: From?
TO: That Harris did in 1977. I can send you a link via an email.
RD: Yeah.
TO: To a website where you can listen to an interview with Harris.
RD: Oh well they’ve got it up at Lincoln because I sent it up to, to them but this would, I don’t know if you know about the pilot who gave his life to save the crew.
TO: No. What was that?
RD: Well this is the story of —
TO: Ok. Send me that one.
RD: I’ll send it to you personally.
TO: Ok.
RD: Or to whatever address you want to.
TO: Yeah. Ok.
RD: But Lincoln have already seen it and it’s been published in the magazine.
TO: Ok.
RD: So you might have seen it there which you can then forget it.
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day the war ended?
RD: On the day that war ended. That which would be VE Day I was still [pause] up near Lincoln. But we used, for a special night out we used to go to Nottingham and I and a crowd of guys went out to Nottingham to celebrate and we did. It was alleged the prettiest girls in England were in Nottingham and so we used to make for Nottingham at any given opportunity. I think it was right actually. But that was VE. Now VJ Day I really can’t remember offhand. I might think about it later on. But certainly VJ night I celebrated in Nottingham which was the nearest big city.
TO: And — sorry.
RD: Sorry.
TO: Do you remember hearing about the atomic bombs on Japan?
RD: Oh yes. Of course. Well, one of our commanders Leonard Cheshire was, was on the raid. And, and we, we didn’t know until, until afterwards. But but but oh yes we thought, thought this was fantastic. I mean never ever thought it was what it was at that time. You know the atomic bomb. Ok it’s a big bomb that blows up everything but we did not realise the significance of the post bomb period and things of that sort. And at that time I don’t think it was considered. The important thing was to get it over. You know. Regardless. Why should we have any sympathy for these people who have done this? That is always my question. I’m not asking you but my question why should we care? We want to get the war over and however we get it over we get it over. I don’t say we’d do things that are criminal. I mean Idon’t think this is criminal. This is just the way you fight a war. I mean I don’t believe in anything illegal. It’s not illegal to me. Not illegal to me. Whether, whether I’m sympathetic to those people that did die at that time. Whether I’m still sympathetic now is another matter entirely but my thoughts at that time were absolutely thank goodness for that. It’s over.
TO: Right.
RD: And I knew it would be because it would be stupid to. We would have just wiped Japan off the face of the earth. Yeah.
TO: Do you remember hearing about the Holocaust?
RD: Oh yes. That was terribly upsetting. Terribly, terribly upsetting. We knew that that large numbers of people. I mean, you also have to remember that there were some refugees from Germany who got out before the war and they were in every, every community. So, we, we knew about this and were told how they got out with great difficulty without anything. On the other hand some of them did get out with some of their belongings. They had to get a special certificate and pay certain monies to take them out of Germany. Which they did and they arrived in England with them. So, you know, a lot of it, a lot of them came out quite legally but they were very few in relation to the numbers that we’re talking about. Yeah. No, I had no, I had no direct relatives who, who were there. Although subsequently I did find that there were some of my grandfather’s relatives who I’d never heard of who survived and came, came to England. But no, it was, it was earth shattering. How, how could any people do that? And and the other thing that infuriated me and infuriates me to this day is those Germans who said they didn’t know. Because I don’t believe they didn’t know. I think they just shut their eyes to it. You know. That’s the German man in the street couldn’t tell me that he didn’t know. People living next door. What was it? You know. So that’s, that’s the way I feel about that.
TO: I think I’m —
RD: Yeah.
TO: I’ve more or less run out of time.
RD: Right.
TO: But is there anything you want to add at all?
RD: No. No.
TO: No.
RD: Not really. I mean I could probably go on forever. I’m amazed that I, I remember as much as I, as I do. I feel very fortunate and gifted that I can still do it. Seeing, you know, contemporaries of mine. The way they are and ill health and memories are gone and Alzheimers and all and all the rest of them, so I consider myself very, very fortunate to still have my mind working. And the fact that I can travel and do travel and enjoy life to the extent that I don’t know how I found time to work [laughs]
TO: Well, thank you very much.
RD: You’re welcome.
TO: I really enjoyed it.
RD: Pleasure.
TO: Thank you.
RD: A pleasure to meet you Thomas.
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 Ronald Davis
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Tom Ozel
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ADavisRS160807, PDavisRS1604
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:15:05 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Ronald Davis grew up in the East End and worked in London as a solicitor’s office boy. He joined the RAF and trained as a fitter airframe. He was saddened when the pilot of the aircraft he services did not return from operation because they had got along so well. He and the other ground crew would also have to manually light flares to guide the aircraft on to the runway if the Drem lights were covered with snow. He also describes dealing with air crashes and sights that have stayed with him throughout his life.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1942
1943
1944
1661 HCU
49 Squadron
617 Squadron
83 Squadron
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
displaced person
faith
fitter airframe
grief
ground crew
ground personnel
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Manchester
military service conditions
perception of bombing war
RAF Halton
RAF Scampton
runway
training