3
25
527
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1751/34067/SWarnerC1801861v10006.1.jpg
83a12bde89828aedc1a8768498a02f5b
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
Warner, Charles Herbert Albert
C H A Warner
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-12
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
Warner, CHA
Description
An account of the resource
Sixteen items. The collection concerns Sergeant Charles Warner (1801861 Royal Air Force) and and Sergeant J F W Warner (976029 Royal Air Force). <br /><br />Charle Warner's collection contains correspondence, documents and photographs. He flew as a flight engineer on 101 Squadron and was shot down and killed 3 September 1943.<br /><br /> <span class="NormalTextRun SCXW196096160 BCX0">Additional information on </span><span class="SpellingError SCXW196096160 BCX0">Charles Warner</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW196096160 BCX0"> is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/124437/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span><br /><br />J F W Warner's collection contains his service and release book and his decorations. He served as an engine fitter in North Africa. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Geoffrey Warner and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
22 Bangholm Bower Avenue
Edinburgh
8 July 1945
Dear Mrs Wilkinson
Thank you for your kind letter and I hope you will forgive me not replying sooner. I have received a letter from your brother in Italy and have just written to him telling him what I know of the night 3/4 September 1943.
Two days ago I was sent back home, on indefinite leave to await release from the service, and have applied for a job in Cambridge. Should I get this post I will be staying not very far from you and I will be very pleased to see you at any time.
Charlie had done four “ops” and we copped it on the fifth “op”. The first one was to Peenemunde on the Baltic coast, just north of [inserted] Stettin. [/inserted] It was a great raid, maybe you remember reading about it in August 1943. All the newspapers were full of it and the RAF had given them photographs of the actual fighting and the target area to print with the various accounts of the raid. Then more recently, within the last two months actually, there have been various reports praising the work the boys did that night when we ruined Jerrys secret equipment laboratories which were working on what we now know as VI and VII’s. As I said, it was a lovely night and a full moon, no clouds, just like daylight, just the night fighters paradise.
Next we went to Munchen-Gladbach in the Rhur and had a pretty rotten night – heavy cloud all the way but got our target all right. Our next trip was the big city – Berlin and after a fairly hectic night we arrived home safe and sound.
The forth was Leverkusen and the target was some chemical works.
The fifth and last as you know, Berlin again.
I know the boys had been buried at Lingen, the Germans told me, about three weeks after my capture. I don’t think we had any snaps taken of the crew after Charlie joined us at the unit, and as you possibly have never seen any of us, I am enclosing two snaps for your mother. One was taken at ATU in April 1943 and shows “Mac” the rear gunner, Jack Billington the wireless operator, myself, David Carpenter the pilot and Jim Waterman the navigator.
Neither David Browne, the midupper Gunner, nor Charlie, was with us at that time. The other snap is of my wife, son and I after being repatriated. If you could spare me a snap of Charlie, I would be extremely grateful.
Thank you for your good wishes and kind invitiation [sic] and if I get down to your part ot he [sic] counry [sic] I will certainly avail myself of it.
Yours sincerely
Donald Flett
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Mrs Wilkinson from Donald Flett
Description
An account of the resource
Transcription of a letter. Writes of events on night 3/4 September 1943. Mentioned 'Charlie had done four ops before they copped it on the fifth. First op was Peenemunde, gives description of target. Mentions targets of other operations and that fifth was Berlin. Mentioned that Germans told him where crew was buried after he was captured. Writes that he was enclosing two photographs, one of the crew, for her mother as she had probably never seen them.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D Flett
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-07-08
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-07-08
1943-09-03
1943-09-04
1943-08
1943-04
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Lingen (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page printed letter
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SWarnerC1801861v10006
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
final resting place
killed in action
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2215/40621/BBurnsDRBurnsDRv1.2.pdf
13956a0faf79bfc21be66fdb3be96a72
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Burns, Bob
Denis Robert Burns
D R Burns
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. Collection concerns Warrant Officer Bob Burns (1525609 RAFVR) he flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron and became a prisoner of war when his aircraft, Lancaster ND853 was shot down 27 April 1944. Collection includes an oral history interview with John Usher about Bob Burns, photographs, documents, various memoirs of his last operation and captivity. It also contains recordings of his saxophone being played.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Usher and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-04-07
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Burns, DR
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Bob Burns computer compendium
Description
An account of the resource
Draft of memoir with contents page - giving service history. Followed by pages with reference to photographs for name and rank, deferred service, ground training dates and places, training in Canada, back home for service flying, 5 Group, 51 base, 106 Squadron, last operation, Luftwaffe pilot who shot them down, graves of crew members, escape attempt at Arnstein, ministry of defence records, Dulag Luft, Stalag Luft 7, return home and flying after the war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D R Burns
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1946-01-19
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--Sheffield
England--London
England--Sussex
England--Brighton
England--Newquay
England--Manchester
Canada
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Nova Scotia
England--Harrogate
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Arnstein (Main-Spessart)
Poland
Poland--Opole (Voivodeship)
England--Shropshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Cornwall (County)
Manitoba
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eleven-page handwritten document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BBurnsDRBurnsDRv1
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
10 OTU
106 Squadron
1660 HCU
29 OTU
5 Group
aircrew
bombing
Caterpillar Club
Dulag Luft
escaping
final resting place
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Ju 88
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
navigator
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Abingdon
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Cosford
RAF Metheringham
RAF Scampton
RAF Syerston
shot down
Stalag Luft 7
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1009/18735/ESoutezDMadgettLR-AGXX0526-0001.2.jpg
9d6adca632e8b9d6914ad43081f1fa8c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1009/18735/ESoutezDMadgettLR-AGXX0526-0002.2.jpg
fce94f96a4cb091c22234c663990ec58
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
Madgett, Hedley Robert
H R Madgett
Description
An account of the resource
250 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Hedley Madgett DFM (1922 - 1943, 147519, 1330340 Royal Air Force), a pilot with 61 Squadron. He was killed 18 August 1943 on the last operation of his tour from RAF Syerston to Peenemünde. The collection consists of letters, postcards and telegrams to his parents while he was training in the United Kingdom and Canada. In addition the collection contains memorabilia, documents from the Air Training Corps, artwork, a railway map, diaries, medals as well as his logbook, photographs of people, places and aircraft. Also contains letters of condolence to parents and a sub collection containing a photograph album with 44 items of his time training in Canada'.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Joan Madgett and Carol Gibson, and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br /><span>Additional information on Hedley Madgett is available via the </span><a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114690/" title="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/madgett-hr/ ">IBCC Losses Database</a><span>.</span>
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
2015-03-17
2019-06-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Madgett, H
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
70 Abbots Way
Beckenham
May 26th
Dear Mr & Mrs Madgett,
I write so sincerely
Thank you for the photograph which you sent me, I will greatly treasure it, my son is the one standing next to Bob and the third boy is Robinson they called him Robbie the engineer. I am sorry to say the only news I have received is that my Son is officially presumed killed, and that the bodies of P. O. Bradly & Norton were found & buried 16 miles from the place they bombed, so that’s 3 of the crew lets hope the other 4 are safe and well somewhere. I still live in hopes of them turning up one day, poor chaps
[page break]
must have been badly hit up on that last journey.
I have not yet received my sons personal belongings, but should do so soon as I filled a form in 2 months ago to claim them, they then sent a letter to say they will return soon as they get instructions from the Air Ministry to do so, I’ve heard nothing since.
Once again thanking you for your kindness.
Yours Sincerely
D Souter
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Hedley Madgett's parents from D Souter
Description
An account of the resource
Thanks them for photograph. The only news she has is that her son was officially presumed killed and that the bodies of P.O Bradley and Norton had been found and were buried 16 miles from the place they bombed. She writes that she has still not received her son's personal belongings but should do soon.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D Souter
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ESoutezDMadgettLR-AGXX0526
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
final resting place
killed in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/WoolgarR [Pesaro].jpg
6696b37cde158c2d6a039b276028b19f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/AWoolgarRLA160614.2.mp3
b9431c15a89852018320c9d130b2f688
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
Woolgar, Reg
Reg Woolgar
R L A Woolgar
Jimmy Woolgar
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/items/browse?collection=87">17 items</a>. The collection consists of an oral history <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/2148">interview</a> with air gunner Reginald Woolgar DFC (139398 Royal Air Force), correspondence to his father about him being missing in action and subsequently rescued from the sea, his <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/2205">log book</a>, <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/854">service and release book</a> and nine photographs.<br /><br /> He flew operations as an air gunner with 49 and 192 Squadrons.<br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Woolgar and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning John William Wilkinson. Additional information on John William Wilkinson is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/125319/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Woolgar, R
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Please scroll down to see all X items in this collection.
Reg ‘Jimmy’ Woolgar was born and schooled in Hove. He began working life as a valuations assistant and was training to be a surveyor, which was interrupted when, in December 1939, he joined the RAF. Although he had aspirations to become a pilot, he trained as a wireless operator/air gunner instead. His wireless operator training was carried out at the wireless training school, RAF Yatesbury. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/849/PWoolgarRLA1609.2.jpg His air gunnery training on Fairy Battle aircraft was conducted at RAF West Freugh. On 15 November 1940 he was promoted to sergeant and posted to No 10 OTU at RAF Upper Heyford. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/845/PWoolgarRLA1601.2.jpg Initially flying Anson aircraft and then Hampdens with C Flight, he had his first ‘Lucky Jim’ moment, on 6 February 1941, when his Hampden aircraft was forced to crash land in a field near Cottesmore, in Lincolnshire. The aircraft was written off, but he and the pilot survived with minor injuries. At the end of operational training, instead of going directly onto operasations, he spent the next 5 months as a screen operator instructor. Eventually, on 1 September 1941, he was posted to 49 Squadron, Hampdens, at RAF Scampton https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/852 where his very first operational trip (described as a baptism of fire) was to Berlin. With headwinds going out and coming back, and nil visibility, it was likely the crew would have to bail out. Fortunately, the skipper found a break in the clouds and the aircraft landed wheels down in a field near Louth. The aircraft had to be recovered back to base, transported by road, on a low loader. On another occasion, on a mine laying operation to Oslo Fjord, his aircraft was peppered with anti-aircraft fire, it returned to base with 36 bullet holes in the fuselage and mainplane. A bullet had also passed through the upright of his gun sight while he was looking through it, whilst another tore through his flying suit. The nickname ‘Lucky Jim’ was beginning to stick.
In February 1942, on an operation to Manheim, the port engine, hit by flak, cut dead. Despite jettisoning all superfluous weight, which unfortunately included all the navigation equipment, the aircraft rapidly lost height, and the pilot ditched the aircraft in the English Channel. Whilst the crew had struggled to keep the aircraft airborne, (on a single engine), it had steered on a massive curve and unbeknown to them was headed down the English Channel, before it ditched. The crew scrambled out onto the wing and managed to inflate the dingy, then had to cut the cord attaching the dingy to the aircraft using a pair of nail scissors, moments before it sunk. In the water for hours, the crew thought they were drifting near the Yorkshire coast, but were rescued by a motor anti-submarine boat, much to their surprise, near the Isle of Wight.
Operational flying was intense, Reg would feel wound up before take-off and there was much apprehension on the way out to the target. Often, they flew through intense flak that was sometimes so close they could smell it. There was always a sense of sense of relief once they came away from the target. In between operations, each day was treated as it came along with many off-duty hours spent socialising in the local hostelries https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/853
After his first operational tour (he completed two) he was commissioned and became gunnery leader with 192 Squadron in 100 Group.
After the war ended, he signed on for an extra two years and was posted to Palestine as an air movements staff officer. Luck was again on his side when, one day, he was on his way to an Air Priorities Board Meeting at the King David Hotel when the hotel was bombed, resulting in many army and civilian casualties.
After a short tour in Kenya, as Senior Movements Staff Officer, he returned to Palestine flying with 38 Squadron until August 1947. In his flying career he amassed over 1000 flying hours. For services to his country Reg was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/858
He was released from the RAF in September 1947. Initially employed as an assistant valuations officer, he studied to become a Chartered Surveyor and secured a job as a senior valuer with the City of London. He later became the planning valuer of the city. After 14 years he was made a partner at the firm St Quintin Son and Stanley. Reg retired in 1971.
08 December 1939: Joined RAF as a wireless operator/air gunner
28 August 1940: 145, 3 Wing, RAF Yatesbury - Wireless Operator training
29 October 1940 - 15 November 1940: RAF West Freugh, No 4 Bombing and Gunnery School, flying Battle aircraft
November 1940: Promoted to Sergeant
15 November 1940 - 20 August 1941: RAF Upper Heyford, No 10 Operational Training Unit flying Anson and Hampden aircraft
02 September 1941 - 24 March 1942: RAF Scampton, 49 Squadron, flying Hampden aircraft
28 April 1942 - 24 June 1942: 1485 Target Towing and Gunnery Flight flying Whitley and Wellington aircraft
02 July 1942 – 3 July 1942: RAF Manby, Air Gunnery Instructor Course
4 July – 10 July 1942: RAF Scampton, Air Gunnery Instructor flying Manchester and Oxford aircraft
25 July 1942 – 10 August 1942: RAF Wigsley, Air Gunnery Instructor flying Lancaster aircraft
3 October – 27 October 1942: RAF Sutton Bridge flying Wellington and Hampden aircraft
28 October 1942: RAF Sutton Bridge, Gunnery Leader Course
End of 1942: Awarded RAF Commission
09 Nov 1942 – 18 March 1943: RAF Fulbeck flying Manchester aircraft
14 May 1943 – 11 June 1944: RAF Sutton Bridge flying Wellington aircraft
20 June 1944 – 27 July 1945 RAF Foulsham, 192 Squadron flying Halifax and Wellington aircraft
29 April 1946 – 30 August 1946: Palestine, Air Movements Staff Officer
01 September 1946 – 21 January 1947: Kenya, Senior Movements Staff Officer
30 January1947 – 10 June 1947: Ein Shemer, Palestine, 38 Squadron flying Lancaster aircraft
13 July 1947 139398 Flt Lt RLA Woolgar released from Service.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DE: Start the, start the interview.
RJW: On our seventieth wedding anniversary my grandson stood up and said Papa, Reg, Jimmy because they had all three, all three generations there. Sorry. Sorry.
DE: Ok. So this is an interview with Reg Jimmy Woolgar at the International Bomber Command Centre in Riseholme Lincoln. It’s for the IBCC Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin. It is the 14th of June 2016. Reg. Jimmy. Just for the start of this tape could you tell me about your early life and your childhood before you joined the RAF.
RJW: Well before I joined the RAF I left school in Hove and I joined the rates department as the junior clerk and it was really the office boy who made the tea but I became a valuations assistant in the valuation department there before the war and started to train as a surveyor and in 1939 on the 8th of December I went to the Queen’s Road Recruiting Office and I joined the RAF and there I was in a few days on my way to Uxbridge with about five or six other guys all from office appointments. When I joined I, like everybody else who wanted to join the RAF, I wanted to be a pilot. Well I actually went to the Queen’s Road office in September and they wrote to me and said, ‘We have an influx of pilot training but we can take you as air crew.’ I went to see them, asked what that meant. They said, ‘Well you will fly as a member of an air crew.’ I said, ‘Well can I ever become a pilot?’ ‘Oh yes,’ they said, ‘Once you’ve trained as air crew you can become a pilot.’ But of course it never happened because it just seemed to be that whenever I, wherever I went I eventually became an instructor and after being trained as instructor they didn’t really want me to be a pilot or anything else so I concentrated on doing wireless operating/air gunnery. That really is what happened to me before the war. Is there anything else you’d like to know?
DE: Well, yeah. What was, what was training like?
RJW: Pardon?
DE: What was training like?
RJW: Training. Ah. Well now we went to Uxbridge for the ab initio course, the square bashing. Famous words which you’ve used, heard before, you know the sergeant who comes in to the billet and says, ‘Anybody here play the piano?’ ‘Oh yes, I play the piano.’ ‘I play the piano.’ ‘Oh well you two go and move the piano from the officer’s mess to the sergeant’s mess.’ Having got all through all that, off we went. First of all we went to Mildenhall doing absolutely nothing because there was a bottleneck of getting to the wireless training school so we spent about three or four weeks at Mildenhall doing guard duty. Sometimes going in the cookhouse even and then we went to a station called North Coates Fitties on the east coast and we, we mainly did guard duty there. We were, it was a fighter squadron and we were sent out to guard the beacons around, around the runway, all that sort of thing. Waste of time but never mind. That took us until the early part of 1940 and then we were posted down to Yatesbury, wireless training course. I think that took, I can’t be absolutely certain, the dates are in my logbook but I think it must have taken us until about April, oh, yes, it took us ‘till about April and then we went to West Freugh on the east coast er west coast of Scotland for gunnery training and low and behold we all became sergeants. I can always remember the advice given to us by a warrant officer, the peacetime warrant officers and people of that ilk they did some, a little bit resent that air crew would automatically become sergeants but they did try to knock us into shape and I remember we had a cockney warrant, station warrant officer who tried to guide us on etiquette in the sergeant’s mess and he said, ‘Ah, er, you will be at liberty to invite ladies to a mess dance but make sure you invite ladies [emphasise] and not ladies.’ And he said, ‘Now you’ve got three stripes, the girls will be chasing you but just be careful who you pick if you marry them,’ and he gave jolly good advice, he said, ‘Take a good look at her mother because what she’s going to be like in twenty to thirty years’ time.’ Anyway, off we went. They sent us on leave and said that we would be, receive instructions for posting and we did. We, we, a new, another bottleneck for OTU so in the meantime we went to Andover. Now, Andover, I was there at the time of Dunkirk. I remember that because going into the local town, cinema and that sort of thing the local army chaps that were coming back from Dunkirk were a bit fed up with the RAF because they hadn’t seen any Spitfires so it wasn’t a very comfortable time but from there we went to OTU. Now that was number 10 OTU at Heyford, Upper Heyford. We had our first real flights. Started off in Ansons, staff pilot taking a delight in trying to do aerobatics in an Anson to see how many guys they could make sick but anyway [laughs] we, we were supposed to crew up but it was a bit of a haphazard thing. You found yourself in one crew one week and another crew the next week. I had my very first Jimmy escape there. Um, it had been snowing and we were grounded and then suddenly there was a break and we were sent off and I was sent off with a New Zealand pilot, Sandy somebody. I can’t remember, and he was a bit dodgy. Anyway, we took off and the cloud base came down, fog or, no, cloud base and I couldn’t get a peep out of the wireless set, I couldn’t get a DCM back to base so we stooged around for a bit and he said over the intercom, ‘Jimmy I’m going to land in a field.’ ‘Oh ok.’ I decided, I came out of the rear upper turret and I crawled back and I sat up behind him. He came down to a field, through a break heading for some trees I thought but he put his wheels down and of course it was a ploughed field underneath the snow. He came in very fast and we went, tipped right over, right over. At the very last moment apparently, I never remember doing this, I leaned over his shoulder and knocked his, the quick release of his harness and he flew out of the cockpit and down. He hit the ground, he broke a rib I think, and the aircraft went over and I shot back, right back to the back bulkhead and I had a bit of a head wound but it wasn’t very much and the aircraft was a right off. Right. It didn’t catch fire thank God. We were called away. When we had the inquest with the CO I got a right rollicking 'cause I couldn’t get through to base on the radio but I couldn’t get anything out of it but I even got a bigger one for releasing his harness and they said, ‘That was, you should never have done that but you saved his life.’ They said that, ‘Had you not done that he would have broken his, he would probably, he probably would have broken his neck or broken his back.’ So it was a good thing that it happened but it shouldn’t have done [laughs]. I had another, I was in another crash there where we ran up behind another aircraft and damaged it and injured the rear gunner but I was at the far end so I was ok. But this seemed to happen to me for some reason or other and I don’t know why, at the end of the course instead of going off on ops with a crew I was what they called screened. I was a screen operator instructor and I flew in Hampdens and Ansons with crews coming through. Just looking after them actually. Making sure that the wireless operators did what they should do or got through if they couldn’t and that sort of thing. I was there for oh far too long. I didn’t arrive on to the squadron, 49 Squadron, until the 1st of September 1941. My very first trip was to Berlin. The very experienced pilot, Pilot Officer Falconer, who was quite elderly, he was twenty six so we called him uncle [laughs]. He eventually, he became a wing commander, he commanded a squadron but he was killed unfortunately. Very nice guy. Anyway, after we went to Berlin and on that occasion it was quite a famous one. Head wind going out, head wind coming back. Ten tenths cloud and nil visibility coming in. Being given the order to go on to 090 and bail out so we got there and Uncle Falconer said to the crew, ‘We may have to bail out chaps.’ So then squeaky voiced me from the back said, ‘Oh skipper, I’ve pulled my chute.’ Actually I’d pulled it on the way out and I was more scared of having a DCO that is, Duty Not Carried Out, DNCO and being responsible for returning than actually taking my chance with the chute so I kept mum, I didn’t say anything. And when I told him I can’t actually repeat for the tape exactly what he said but it wasn’t very polite and I don’t blame him. In actual fact he found a break in the, in the overcast and he landed with wheels down in a field at a place called Withcall. Withcall near Louth and um, er, near Melton Mowbray. It was under some high tension cables and it was so tight they couldn’t fly the aircraft out. They took the wings off and put it on a loader to get it back. That was my first trip. Baptism of fire. Every trip, nearly every trip has an anecdote but the ones that stand out are, we went up to Inverness or somewhere. I can’t remember. It’s in the logbook. Inverness or somewhere like that to do a trip to Oslo Fjord laying mines, being told, ‘Chaps pick the right fjord because if you don’t you’ll come up against a blank face of rock and you won’t be able to turn around.’ Anyway, we did. It was almost daylight all the time. Up we went, down the fjord, laid our mine. Coming back, on the headland, as we passed across the headland em we were fired on. Some light tracer stuff came up. Very small. I said, I was at the rear of course as the wireless op. I said, ‘Oh, let’s go around and shoot them up because there’s other guys behind us.’ And the skipper said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ So we circled around, we came back and all hell let loose. They peppered us. We had thirty six holes on our starboard side wing, starboard fuselage mainplane but it didn’t affect the aircraft. I think the flak was a little bit dodgy but anyway came back all right. As I got out of the aircraft the ground crew came and they said, ‘Hey sarge,’ they said to me, ‘Have you seen your cockpit?’ I said, ‘No, what’s wrong?’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it.’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ And they said, ‘Look your flying suit’s all torn’. And there’s a bullet hole at the back of me and then you know after I’d been sent to recover [laughs]. They next came to me and said, ‘You’re never going to believe this.’ The upright of the gun sight on my VGO twin guns had a bullet hole through it like that. The armourer gave it to me. I had it for many, many, many years. Unfortunately, it was lost but it was, I was proud to be able to show a bullet came out [?] as I was looking through it [laughs] so you know why the name lucky Jim sticks doesn’t it?
DE: Yeah. Definitely yeah.
RJW: Well that was then. We were, er, we tasted one of the first delights of the master searchlight. They introduced a blue central searchlight beam, radar controlled I think and all the other beams came on it and we were over Hamburg and we caught that and we had a hell of a pasting with the flak but old Allsebrook was very good and he got us out of that. We had one or two other things but like everybody else did. You never got, you couldn’t get through trips without having some sort of trouble sort of thing.
DE: Sure, sure.
RJW: Anyway, my last, no, next to last trip of course was by ditching which I’ve written about. Would you like me to — ?
DE: If you could talk about that for the tape that would be wonderful as well. Yes please.
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Well here goes. We took off about, I don’t know when it was. We were on Hampden G for George A397. We em, we were going to Mannheim. I think it was our twenty third trip and by this time we were a bit blasé. We thought going to be a piece of cake this. Mannheim. Yeah. That’s alright. So we weren’t really worried about it. The trip out was perfectly alright, over the target there was some flak but it wasn’t heavy flak, it wasn’t very much and we didn’t think that we’d caught any but just as we left the target our port engine cut dead and Ralph wasn’t able to do the relevant, it just stuck there. So we started to lose height. We lost height, we were somewhere about seventeen, eighteen thousand feet and we came down to four thousand eventually. In the process of doing that we got rid of all the heavy stuff we could think of. The guns. The bombsight. Unfortunately, Bob, the navigator, Bob Stanbridge stuck all his nav gear into parachute, one of the parachute bags that he used to take it out there, opened the doors in the navigator’s position, they swing inwards and to get rid of the bomb sight and the nav bag went out as well so we didn’t have any —. Anyway, off we went. Ralph was getting cramp in his leg holding the opposite rudder because of the loss of the port engine. Bob tried to tie the rudder pedal back with a scarf but couldn’t. Then I had a go. That was the scariest moment of all 'cause I had to unplug my intercom and had to crawl underneath in the dark but I did — I did actually manage to tie it up and that lasted for a while. I sent a plain language message out while we were still over France to say that we’d lost our port engine and may have to bail out, and although I was never a good wireless operator and I hated being a wireless operator, that message got through [laughs]. Anyway, eventually the fuel was down to zero and Ralph said, ‘Well, we’re over the sea, we’re going to ditch.’ So by this time of course we’d got all the hatches open because we’d been ready to bail out so all the sea came in. Anyway, he made — he made a good landing on top of the fog to begin with [laughs] but after that he made a jolly good landing and down we went. We scrambled out on to the wing, on to the port wing. The dinghy was supposed to burst out of the engine nacelle because of an immersion plug but of course it didn’t but Bob knew the procedure and with the heel of his flying boot he dug into the port engine nacelle and pulled the plug and up came the dinghy and started to inflate. It didn’t fully inflate but it started to inflate and by this time the four of us were standing on the, on the wing. All our ankles were awash in water. We then saw that the dinghy was attached by a cord disappearing into the engine nacelle and one of us said, ‘Well if the immersion plug didn’t work this won’t work, we’ll be pulled down,’ and Ralph said, I don’t know whether he said, ‘Just a minute chaps,’ but I think he might have done. He undid his flying jacket, went into his tunic pocket, pulled out a little tiny leather case out of which he took a pair of folding nail scissors, he then — he cut the cord, he did the scissors up, put them back in the case, back in to his pocket and he stepped into the dinghy with the rest of us. As we shoved off dear old G for George went down under the waves and there we were. We had to pump the dinghy up with the bellows because it wasn’t fully inflated but we managed alright. We were absolutely enhanced with the rations that were actually sealed in the bottom because there was a notice on it that said “Only to be opened in the presence of an officer” [laughs] so we said, ‘Well good for you Ralph.’ He was a pilot officer. And come daylight, in the far distance we did just spot what we thought were high tension pylons and some cliffs and we thought, well we were heading for Scampton of course, we thought oh well perhaps we’d drifted too far north, over-compensated and we were off Yorkshire, Whitby or somewhere like that. Anyway, not long after that that disappeared, we drifted around. We used the coloured dye, fluorescent dye in to the sea to identify ourselves and paddled and paddled around and eventually came back and found we were at the same spot again. The sun came out in the morning. It was very cold and very choppy. It was the 14th / 15th of February. It was cold. Anyway, we suddenly saw a school of porpoise and that was light relief until one of the crew said, ‘Yeah it’s all very well but what happens if one of these guys comes up underneath the dinghy?’ he said. Furious paddling away. We weren’t really gloomy, I don’t know why. I seem to think oh yeah, well we may get picked up but for no particular reason. We did see an aircraft which we thought was a Beaufighter in the distance but it didn’t see us. We sent the flares up but it didn’t do any good and then quite late in the afternoon we heard an aircraft engine and out came a Walrus. Circled round, waggled it’s wings, stayed with us, only a short time and off it went and it was almost two hours later when a motor anti-submarine boat pulled up and dragged us aboard. Eh, first question was, ‘Where are we?’ And somebody said, ‘We’re off St Catherine’s Point.’ ‘Oh, St Catherine’s Point. Where’s that?’ ‘The Isle of Wight.’ [laughs] And instead of being off Yorkshire we’d taken a huge curve and we’d been flying down the channel so luckily our fuel had run out when it did and we didn’t go too far out but the other thing was that the navy crew told us, ‘You’re dead lucky because you’re near a minefield. If you’d been in a minefield we wouldn’t have come out.’ So it was jolly good. We um, we survived all that, all three of us. Jack had frostbite. I remember cuddling his feet under my jacket actually ‘cause he was very cold. He got frostbite because he’d been sitting in the tin and he’d had the hatch open all the way but that was the only casualty that we had but it was quite a week because if I remember rightly at the beginning of the week we went to Essen, which was never much of a cup of tea that place, it was always pretty hot. And in the middle of the week we went on the Channel Dash. The Channel Dash was when the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau left Brest and that was quite curious because we’d been standing by for several days and we’d been given a sector. Our sector was off somewhere near Le Havre. If they ever got that far we were told that we would have to go out. On this particular morning after a while on standby we were stood down from the Channel Dash and the weather wasn’t very good but our bomb load was changed from armour piercing to GP bombs and we were sent off on a night flying test possibly for ops that night. We were recalled while we were actually in the air and sent off but not to Le Havre but off the coast of Holland because the ships had gone that far and been undetected and off we went. We didn’t see the ships but we saw, we think, an armed merchantman or something or other which was firing away but we didn’t really get near. The weather was so bad we really couldn’t see. What we did see, we saw a Wellington and we didn’t know that Wellingtons were on the trip but later we discovered that there was an armed, an unmarked Wellington which the Germans had captured and they were using it as an escort for the ships and it was coming in and some crews actually did encounter it firing you know. We only just saw it. We didn’t get through [?]. Anyway, it was uneventful for us in actual fact. I think we lost four crews out of the twelve that were sent up. I think I’m right about that but it’s in our journal. One more trip we did together as a crew and then later I’ll talk, I’ll talk about my rear gunner.
DE: Ok, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Our pilot, J F Allsebrook was posted away, the crew was split up. I think Bob Stanbridge was also posted but myself and Jack Wilkinson, Jack Wilkinson, he was the rear gunner we were left hanging around to be crewed up as wanted. Anyway, we started to crew up with Reg Worthy. A very competent pilot and we were very happy with that and in March we were crewed to go with him on ops. Unfortunately I had contracted sinusitis. Oh I remember. I’ll talk about that later, I’d contracted sinusitis and at times I got it very badly. It was very painful so I went up in the morning to sick call [?] — sick bay to try to get some inhalations to help me and they tested me and grounded me. They said, ‘You’re not flying like that. You won’t be able to hear anyway.’ [laughs] I protested a lot because I wanted to do the trip but no, no and when I broke the news to Jack he was extremely despondent. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to opt out. ‘I don’t want to go without you Jimmy because you’re lucky.’ I persuaded him that he’d be alright and, because I was replaced by McGrenery [?] who was a very competent WOP/AG who’d flown with me on a number of occasion and he was a hell of a nice guy. Sadly, the trip was to Essen and they were caught by an ace night fighter pilot called Reinhold Knacke on the way back, off the coast of Holland, just on the border and they were shot down. All killed. Reg Worthy and McGrenery were buried in Holland and Jack was washed up off the coast of Denmark. It’s quite amazing actually. And he’s buried in Stavanger. So there’s sad [?]. I had this sinus trouble. It was because much earlier on, on a trip to Brest we were in the target area and we lost oxygen and when you lose oxygen you dive down so we did a very steep dive very quickly and apparently my left frontal sinus became perforated. This bedevilled me a lot. In fact the problem was if you went through the medics with it too much you got yourself grounded and of course you lost your rank as a sergeant, you lost everything. So you didn’t sing too much about it. I remember that after the, after ops I was posted to a couple of training units. One at Wigsley. I’ve forgotten the name of the other just for the moment but it’s in my logbook, anyway, not far out of Lincoln and I can remember later on my wife came out to live in Lincoln. I remember we sought a doctor up in Lincoln in private practice to try and get some treatment for this sinusitis and you’re leaping right now to the end of the war. At the end of the war I was posted to air ministry, movement’s branch and I still had sinus problems and so I thought I’d seek the advice of the air ministry doctor. I got a good guy there. His advice was, ‘Well we can drill, we can drill a hole through the roof of your mouth for drainage but I don’t advise it. It may not be successful but if you had a couple of years in a warm dry climate that would do you good,’ and as a result of that I had a medical post for an extended period of two year service and I went, of all places, to Palestine of course but after that to Kenya but I’ll talk about that later on.
DE: Sure, yeah.
RJW: Anyway, coming back to 1942, during the ops period the intruders started following aircraft coming in and landing and so air crew were billeted out. We were sent to small holdings. I was sent to a small holding, an absolutely delightful elderly couple who had strawberry fields there. Very nice indeed. I spent one night there. I told them, ‘Take the payment but I’m not going to be here. If anybody wants to know, oh yes I’m here but I’ve gone to town.’ And with a friend of mine, Mick Hamnett from 83 Squadron, we found a couple of rooms in the City of Lincoln pub in, in the centre of Lincoln and whenever possible we actually spent the night there. It was quite a pub. It was run by a lady by the name of Dorothy Scott whose husband, Lionel I think his name was, was a nav, was away in the RAF as a navigator. Anyway, it was an air crew haunt. At the back of the pub she had converted what had been a store room into a very cosy bar and that was where air crew from various squadrons accumulated. In fact at the end of 1942, towards the end of 1942 my wife came up and we, we lived there, lived out there. Unofficially of course. And one night while we were out there was an incendiary raid on Lincoln, huge chandelier flares and the City of Lincoln was hit with a fire bomb, particularly our bedroom but the local fire brigade did far more damage with their water then the actual firebomb. Anyway, coming back to the ops period, I’m sure that you’ve heard all these stories before but of course we were bounded with rumours and things like that. The first thing we heard was that oh the vicar of Scampton did a hasty retreat when war started because he was a Nazi spy [laughs]. The other story was of the policeman who was standing at the erm, at the Stonebow one evening and the aircraft were taking off, going off and he made a remark to a passer-by, ‘It’s going to be pretty hot in Berlin tonight.’ It so happened that they were going to Berlin and he was removed. But the other story, well whether that was true or not I don’t know but the other tale which is perfectly true. There was a hotel by the Stonebow called the Saracen’s Head which we called the Snake Pit for some reason. Very good. Good food. You could get a steak there. Very nice. There was a barmaid there by the name of Mary. She was a New Zealander and she was older than any of us. She was probably late thirties, early forties. She was a charming lady and she had an amazing memory and she was our local post box because we’d been to OTUs either to Upper Heyford or Cottesmore. We’d got pals on that and then we were posted to squadrons around, different squadrons around Lincoln and you wanted to know how your pals got on and you could, you could tell her. She knew, you know, you know that George Smith or somebody would say, ‘Did he get back? He was on 44 on Waddington.’ ‘Oh yes he’s alright.’ All this sort of thing you see and the story goes and I think this is in one of Gibson’s books that at the time of the 617 training at Scampton Mary was lifted out of the bar and sent on some paid leave down at Devon. I don’t know whether you’ve heard that story before. Yes. It’s written down somewhere but I can tell you that that wasn’t a rumour. That was true. The other delightful story is really good. In those days there was a lady entertainer by the name of Phyllis Dixie. She was a fan dancer. Probably the first stripper in England right, and she was performing at the Theatre Royal. Some lads, some air gunners got hold of a twelve volt acc and an aldis lamp, got themselves up into the Gods. The end of the act was the dear lady removed her fans strategically as the curtains closed and they shone the aldis lamp [laughs] which I gather was true. Anyway, going on from Scampton and Lincoln I was posted, I was sent on first of all air gunner instructor’s course at Manby. Came back from there and instructed at Wigsley and then sent to Sutton Bridge on a gunnery leader’s course. I did rather well on the course simply because I think I was able to drink as much beer as the course instructor [laughs] and we, I got an, I got an A which meant I was a gunnery leader A and when I came back to base the gunnery leader said, ‘Oh you can’t be a, you can’t be a gunnery leader A, you can’t be a gunnery leader as a sergeant. You’d better apply for a commission. Fill these forms in.’ So, this is true. It was incredible. I filled the forms in and I said something about, ‘Oh I can’t remember,’ and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry about it they don’t check anything,’ he said, you know, I thought this was a bit casual. Anyway, anyway I did remember what was necessary and my interview, however I was, I had a sort of an office, well not really an office, a place, kept stores [?] and things like that where I operated from. Schedules of flying and things like that looking after air gunners as an instructor and one day a little guy came in, in to my office with some papers and in some flying overalls and one of the epaulettes was flying down like that so I didn’t know what he was actually and he started asking me questions about the, about the commission you know like, ‘What’s your father do?’ And that sort of question, you know. Anyway I suddenly looked at his other shoulder and he was a wing commander and it was the famous Gus Walker and this was before he lost his arm. I was on the station when some incendiary bombs were, no photoflashes or something, something went wrong with an aircraft out in dispersal and he rushed out from flying control in a van to try and get the crew out and the bombs went up and he lost his arm. He was a hell of a nice guy. So informal it wasn’t true. I think he became an air marshal, air chief marshal or something. A big rugby referee. And I think that’s about all I can think of that of that era but then when I went to, when I, yes when I was commissioned, commissioned, gosh when was it? Probably the end of ‘42 beginning of ’43, almost immediately I was sent back to Sutton Bridge as an instructor instructing gunnery leaders and then we stayed there. Oh well that was quite good. We had a number of Polish pilots who were really very good pilots and we did a lot of low level flying quite illegally. There was one stretch where a road and the canal and a railway was spanned by high tension cables and if you felt like it they’d fly underneath them if they could and pray they weren’t found out. But these guys were really, really low level and we used to, we had a front, there was a guy in the front, we were flying Wellingtons mainly, sometimes Hampdens but mainly Wellingtons and put a guy in the front turret and aim for a group of trees you know [laughs]. Dear me. Those were the days. And then we moved station from there up to Catfoss and there when I was at Catfoss my pilot, old pilot Ralph Allsebrook came back, landed one day and said, ‘Jimmy, I’ve joined 617 Squadron. It’s a special duties squadron.’ We didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about the, we didn’t know about, it was before the dam raids but we didn’t know what they were doing but he said, ‘I’d like you to be in the crew.’ So I said, ‘Yes. Good. Fine.’ I was a flying officer by that time and so I said, ‘How do you go about it?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Leave it to me, I’ll push the buttons and see the CO.’ Well he did but they were adamant that I wouldn’t go. He said, ‘No, you can’t go. You’re an instructor, a trained instructor here. We want you as an instructor and,’ they said, ‘In any case Trevor Roper is the gunnery leader of 49 Squadron. They don’t need two gunnery leaders. So I didn’t go. Ralph wasn’t on the dam raid because I don’t think he was finished training, whatever it was but he wasn’t on it but much later on he was on another raid, I think it was the Kiel Canal and many of the aircraft were lost including him. It was bad weather I think mainly. So I was lucky again, I didn’t join them. But I did get a bit fed up with not, not being allowed to go back on ops and we had a guy, one of our instructor’s, fellow instructors, a chap called Griffiths I remember, he went to, left us and went to Bomber Command headquarters I think it was. Either to Group, no, it was Bomber Command headquarters that’s right and he came back, he visited the squadron one day and I said, you know, ‘Could you get me a squadron?’ You know. And he said, ‘You want to do a second tour Jimmy?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind doing a second tour.’ He said, ‘Yeah, leave it with me.’ So I got posted to 192 Squadron at Foulsham. I got, I got a rollicking from the CO at the, at Catfoss because of the gunnery wing, CO of the gunnery wing. He eventually found out that I’d, I’d wangled it through Griffiths you see but anyway I went. I arrived on the squadron which was fairly newly formed. It had been a flight before. I can’t, off the back of my head I can’t tell you the details of that but it was a flight and it had become a special duty squadron. It was doing radar investigation. We carried special operators. They were civilians dressed in RAF uniform just in case they were prisoners of war and at the same time David Donaldson joined the squadron. A hell of a nice guy. And it was a very happy squadron. We shared it with, I can’t remember the actual number of the squadron, six something, six hundred and something Australian squadron shared the station with us at Foulsham. A bit primitive but it was alright and I had about fifty gunners. We had two flights of Halifax 3s and a flight of Wellingtons and we also had some Mosquitos and a couple of Lightnings and we would fly with main force, carrying bombs of course. Not all the time but we did carry bombs and we were endeavouring, or the special duties operators were endeavouring to discover radar frequencies and wireless frequencies on which the enemy were operating. Early warning systems and the fighter aircraft they were using and that sort of thing. It was quite interesting. All highly secretive. They had a lot of gear set up in the centre of the fuselage and it was all screened off with canvas. You couldn’t get at it and you couldn’t get any gen out of them about what happened, but it was pretty good. We initially we flew as a crew. The leaders David Donaldson, Roy Kendrick the navigation leader, Churchill, he told me his name was Churchill actually, he was the signals leader I remember that. Anyway, and Hank Cooper who was the head of the special, the special duties guys and anyway, and myself as gunnery leader and 100 Group put a stop to that because they decided that if they lost the aircraft they lost all the leaders so we were “invited”, inverted commas to occasionally fly with a crew that might have been a bit dodgy to try and put a finger on if there was a weakness. So from flying with the very best pilot on the squadron suddenly found yourselves with the worst one but it didn’t amount to anything. It was ok. I didn’t have any scary times. My logbook shows the trips I took. We did the normal things with the main force. I didn’t do any Berlin ones. A bit late in the day for that I think but they were the ordinary trips that everybody else was doing. Oh well, there were occasions. We did stooge off from main stream. I think the theory, the theory was that if, they didn’t mind if we attracted the odd fighter so they could find out what they were operating on. Now look, here’s is a really good story. We had on the squadron a pilot by the name of H Preston [?] who was quite a joker. I flew with him on a trip and we got diverted on one occasion to a station down in 3 Group. Stirlings I think. And we had the usual eggs and bacon breakfast and all that sort of thing and we wanted to get back to base in the very early morning and when we got out to the aircraft we had quite a lot of air crew on the station walking around it because we had antennae sticking out all over the place, you see. So Hayter-Preston was asked about a particular thing that was coming out of the back and he said, ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘That’s marmalade.’ They said, ‘What?’ ‘Well haven’t you got that? They said, ‘No, he said, ‘What does it do?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘If a fighter comes up behind you and that’s turned on, it stops their engine.’ ‘Oh,’ he said. Anyway, off we went back to base and went through briefing and about half way through the morning a loud shout from the CO’s office, ‘Hayter-Preston’s crew to my office immediately.’ Off we trot to his office. David Donaldson said, ‘HP, what’s all this thing you’ve been talking about down at,’ wherever we were.’ ‘I don’t know sir.’ He said, ‘I’ve had Group on to me.’ He said, ‘Crews down there are on to their CO, been on to their Group, been on to 100 Group.’ He said, ‘They might have even got the Bomber Command, I don’t know, but they all want marmalade.’ See. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I was pulling their leg.’ [laughter] Anyway, we walked out of the CO’s office, walking off. David sticks his head out of the door, ‘HP. Why marmalade?’ He said, ‘Well I thought I’d be topical because we’ve been doing jamming.’ [laughs] You know.
DE: Of course. Yeah.
RJW: I did find, I must say I found my second tour very much easier than my first tour. Mind you I was privileged I suppose, in actual fact. I recognise that but it was a time when all the heavies were going. The raids were very heavy indeed but I didn’t, I didn’t seem to run into any trouble at all. Anyway, we were, we were flying on the very last trip. I flew on the very last trip to a place called Flensburg which was very near to the something lunars, is it? I can’t remember the name. The place where the armistice was signed on the Danish peninsula on the night before. The idea was to make sure they signed it. We were one of the last aircraft to return and there’s always been a bit of a fight as to who was the last aircraft over the target in the war. All I can say we might have been one of them. [laughs] Anyway, war ended and we started having, we started taking station personnel on tours. Flying, flying over the cities and back again. We did two or three trips. We landed over there at some of the stations. Went to Northern Germany and I don’t know, somewhere in Denmark I think in actual fact. We were taking people and coming back. Anyway, by about the middle of, probably a bit later then by the middle ‘45, July maybe, something. I don’t know. We were being posted to various parts and we were asked what would we to do. Anything we’d particularly to do before we were demobbed and so I said I’d like to be a, what do they call them, Queen’s courier, you know, King’s courier. That’s right. Thought that would be interesting. No. No. Can’t do that. Eventually I got sent to Air Ministry in High Holborn in the movements branch. It was at the time when there was some big food crisis going on and lots of VIPs were going backwards and forwards to America and we were finding aircraft from Blackbushe to get there. We were dodging around all over the place setting up aircraft, setting up things. Anyway we, I was there for a while and I was conscious of the fact that my sinus was still with me so I thought I’d take the opportunity to get the, unless I’ve already said this.
DE: Well you said you’d come back to it so, yeah.
RJW: Oh I see. I’d take the opportunity to get the air ministry doctor people to say what I could do about it and one of them suggested that they could drill a hole through the roof of the mouth which was painful and not necessarily successful and he did suggest a warm dry climate would probably heal the perforation. Anyway, eventually I signed on for an extra two years and I was posted overseas. Of all places my initial posting was to Palestine. There I was, there I was air movement’s staff officer, they called me and I was secretary and chairman of the air priorities board. Because there was a lack of civilian passenger aircraft we were providing passages through UK for the army, navy, air force and the other government people. The Air Priorities Board would look at applications and give them the priorities as they needed them and that was the job that I was doing. I remember I was, we had our officer’s mess and the hospital overlooking the mass cityscape [?]. The whole city was out of bounds to us which meant of course we went there [laughs]. At various times we had to be armed and it was quite, quite a time in actual fact but the one big thing that did happen we had a number of atrocities by the Stern gang and the Ernham vi [?] Lohamei. They were trying to get rid of the British. Didn’t seem to be any trouble between the Arabs and the Jews. It was the Jews and ourselves and they were pretty aggressive. Anyway, on one, we had our Air Priorities Board at army headquarters which was in the King David Hotel and one day I was being driven up there to an Air Priorities Board meeting and there was a loud bang and big piles of smoke went up and my driver said, ‘I think we’ll turn back sir.’ I said, ‘Yes, I think we will.’ And of course it was the King David Hotel that was bombed, sent up and a lot of army people were killed, and civilian people. Great tragedy actually because so I understand and read that the Jewish guys that did it they stuck bombs in milk churns and they actually ‘phoned and told them that there was bombs there but they said ha ha you know, took no notice of it. Very bad. Anyway, after a while I angled for a posting to Kenya. My brother was there. What had happened to him was he had joined the war, joined the RAF before the war and he was a fitter 2E. He’d been to St Athan’s and he, early in the war he was posted to the Far East. The ship was torpedoed off Mombasa and he got ashore and he was sent to Eastleigh there and he stayed there throughout the war. He married there, English girl there and so he was there and after the war he joined an aircraft company. East African Airways I think but he was a, he became a senior engineer, became chief engineer of a Safari Airways eventually. So I angled for a posting there and I got it. They called me SMSO Senior Movement Staff Officer. I knew nothing about, I knew about air movements, I knew nothing about road and rail. I signed an awful lot of documents [laughs] but I, you know, had no training for it at all. It was, it was a very nice posting. A very easy posting. Originally, we were billeted out in hotels but there was a housing shortage there and all that sort of thing and they thought as an example we ought to have an officer’s mess so an older hotel we took over we used it as headquarters and we had an officer’s mess set up and I can remember we had a very easy going AOC who was a non-flyer. Actually a peacetime guy but a nice guy, very easy going and he never seemed, never seemed to send for you in his office, he came to see you and one day he came to my office and he said, ‘Woolgar I’ve a job for you.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘I’m going to make you the mess secretary.’ I thought, ‘Well yes sir but you see I do have to go to Cairo once a month for conferences, air conferences and I also have to visit stations around, you know, Aden, Eritrea and places like that periodically. I am away from base quite a bit.’ ‘Oh, oh alright, I’ll think about it.’ So comes back the next day and he said, ‘Jerry Dawkins is mad with you, Woolgar.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Cause I’ve made him the secretary of the mess,’ you see, ‘But I’m going to make you the PMC.’ So I was the president of the mess committee and I knew nothing. I really didn’t know anything, you know. There was much older people than me, senior to me to do it but anyway they all dodged it and I couldn’t dodge it the truth was but it was interesting because it was in the days they did a lot of entertaining and this AOC he entertained the army guy, the naval guy and on one occasion the Aga Khan. I met, I met a lot of people. I don’t know whether I should put this on the tape but Mrs AOC was a pain in the head.
DE: Right.
RJW: The flowers were never right, or she sat in a draught, or the meat was tough, ‘Flight Lieutenant I didn’t like –’ [laughs].
DE: Oh dear. Oh dear.
RJW: But you know, you know I was only in my, I was in my twenties, middle twenties and I always thought it was good because it taught me a lot. It gave me experience which I never would have had otherwise. Anyway, eventually I went to Ein Shemer I thought I’d like to do a bit more flying. I went up to Ein Shemer in Palestine to join number 38 Squadron. I was the gunnery leader come armament officer, come radar oh everything. Everybody was leaving and they said, ‘You can do this.’ ‘You can do that.’ And a bit of a mixture I think but the main role of the squadron was finding illegal immigrant ships. Illegal ships were probably like what’s happening now but these ships were coming with Jewish people from the Balkans you know and from the middle of Europe and they were coming in to land in Palestine because the intake was on quotas and the idea was that 38 Squadron should locate them by radar on patrols and then get the navy to intercept them and when we did find them the navy used to miss them and they landed and the army picked them up. They put them in detention centres, that sort of thing, for a while but that is, that is what we were doing and I was there until about August, August 1947 and then I came home. Do you want to hear what happened to me after that?
DE: Yes, please, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Well I came back to the Hove Corporation. They’d promoted me to become the assistant valuation officer. I wasn’t qualified. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year. God. [laughs] Salary. And I realised I had to become qualified quickly. There were two exams. The Chartered, Chartered Auctioneers and Estates Agent’s Institute and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, so I got my head down and fortunately both organisations and others I believe, they introduced special war service conditions. I was able to take the direct final which was good. It was a three year course but I did it in eighteen months. Ah yes. I put my family, my wife, my daughter through hell because we didn’t do, I didn’t go out, I didn’t do anything. I just studied because I realised that I wouldn’t get anywhere unless I did and having passed and become a chartered surveyor I marched off the council and said ah you know and they said, ‘Ah well yes, we don’t think you’ll be any more service to us as a chartered surveyor than you were before Mr Woolgar.’ Twenty five pounds a year increase in your salary and we’ll give you a grant of twenty five pounds towards the cost of your studies. Well that prompted me to search for another job and I was very fortunate. I went to, I secured the job of the senior, a senior valuer in the city planning department of the City of London. So from knocking the hell out of Germany I came back to rebuilding the fire bombed city which was very, very interesting. It was a fantastic job in actual fact. I dealt with Barbican, St Paul’s area, all the war damaged areas. I was fourteen years there. I — I eventually I was deputy and the boss left and I got his job. For five years I was the planning valuer of the city and it was really good but that’s a whole book.
DE: Yeah, I can imagine.
RJW: About what happened. Various things, lots of public enquiries, you had some very famous people of course and QC’s and things like that and we had a New Zealander who was the city planning officer called Meland[?] and he was a very informal guy. Not a bit like the city fathers were and his famous words were, he was under cross examination by a QC at a public enquiry and he was asked why it was necessary to compulsorily acquire a group of buildings to put a road through and he said, ‘Well you see the bombs didn’t always drop in the right places.’ [laughs] You know. Anyway, after, after fourteen years I was poached by a firm by the name of St Quintin Son and Stanley to become a partner there and to be responsible for all their planning work and that was very good, very interesting because I, having negotiated with the partners as the valuer for the city I was now negotiating with my deputy who had come up on the opposite side. He often said, ‘Yeah but Jimmy you said, so and so'. I said 'Oh well yeah' [laughs]. But that was, I’ve had a very, very interesting life really. The city was full of tradition. Full of everything. That’s a whole book really. Having dealt with Barbican, the redevelopment of Barbican, the city —
DE: Yes.
RJW: I was now dealing on behalf of developers for developing other parts of the city. The idea, the main idea the city leased most of its land out on ninety nine year building leases by tender. So the developers all had to make a tender, ground rent condition and the design of the building and that sort of thing. That’s really the way it worked and from time to time there were planning enquiries and I was instructed sometimes by clients as a valuer, as a planning valuer to deal with various appeals for land, on land that they wanted to develop which the city didn’t want them to and or they were local protests and got myself in the witness box and highly cross examined by very clever QCs but also roamed around the country because we had a lot of clients in the city that were elsewhere in the country. We acted for the Bank of England, we acted for the Stock Exchange and the, and quite a number of the banks, Midland Bank and Lloyds, people like that and so it was, it was all done at a high level. It’s kind of amusing some of the things that I was asked to do which I knew nothing about [laughs] and I always remember a firm Denis firm [?], they were in the sand and gravel business they always wanted to extract sand and gravel from the best agricultural land by rivers you see and there was always objection to it. Anyway, I fought one or two appeals for them quite successfully, fortunately, and one day the chairman asked me to value their mineral reserves and so, ‘I can’t do that, I’m not the minerals man. I know nothing about it.’ ‘Oh that doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘I just want, I just want you to value it for me.’ I said, ‘Well I don’t know how to value it.’ ‘You’ll find a way.’ I particularly wanted to do it and I got the impression that we might lose them as a client if you know, if it didn’t [?]. My junior partner and I we put our heads together and somehow or other we found a way and he said, ‘Ah, it doesn’t matter. Nobody else will challenge it because they don’t know the way either.’ [laughs] Anyway, we, what did we do? Well leisurely [?] we, during that time the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors celebrated its hundredth year. I had a bit of a role in that as chairman of one of the committees that dealt with it which was very interesting. Oh yes. I was, I was picked up by a building society and became a non-executive director. It was called The Planet, and over the years, I joined them about 1963 I suppose, as soon as I became a partner of St Quentin and over the years we merged with the Magnet Building Society, that’s right and then we took over a midland society that had called itself the Town and Country Building Society so we then adopted that name and eventually, for the last three years I became chairman of that. I had the most interesting time because we had overseas conferences. Notably one in Washington which was extremely good and oh and Cannes. They really looked after themselves these that was the international thing you see.
DE: Wonderful.
RJW: Very nice, very pleasant and during all this period we had various dinners in the Mansion House, dinners in the Guildhall and in 1971 St Quentin firm celebrated it’s sesquicentennial which is their hundred and fiftieth year.
DE: Thank you for telling me.
RJW: Yes. Right. So by that time we were three joint level senior partners right and we split up the duties of what we were going to do. We had a year. I got the job of having the dinner in the Guildhall. I was manager, because the city surveyor was a friend of mine he managed to get us, we were the first outside body to have a dinner in the Guildhall and we had it and got the governor of the Bank of England as a principal guest, Lord Donaldson, the Master of the Rolls, Lady Donaldson his wife who was to become, he was the sheriff at the time and it was a pretty high ranking do. It was very good but I’m telling you the story because it’s kind of amusing. We had a chap in the firm who looked after all those sort of things you know. He was very good. He got the nuts and bolts done for us. So I said to him, ‘I think you’d better go tell the police up at John Street Police Station that we’ve got some VIPs coming to the Guildhall on this particular date because they might want to take some precautions. So he takes the guest list up, goes up to John Street. He sees a cockney desk sergeant and this desk sergeant looks at this list and he says, I’ve forgotten his name now, the governor of the Bank of England, ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Master of the Rolls. ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Lord something, I don’t know and he went down and at the bottom it had Her Majesty’s Band of the Royal Irish Guard. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ he said, ‘George, got the Irish Guards coming. Full emergency.’ And because the Irish guards, it was at the times of the troubles and because the Irish Guards were coming they had all sorts of precautions. These chaps had to come in individually in civvies and all that sort of thing you know, by themselves and yeah. I thought that was rather amusing.
DE: Crikey.
RJW: Anyway, I retired in 1971, no 1973 that’s right. 1993 at the age of seventy three, got it right. We spent a lot of time cruising. We like cruising. We went on quite a few cruises. We got, we had a place in Majorca, an apartment there. A little place on the coast which was very nice. We spent quite a bit of time out there. That’s really it. Just got older. A bit more infirm, you know. The wheels don’t grind as well as they used to. I hope I haven’t bored you.
DE: No. It’s been absolutely wonderful. There’s —
RJW: I haven’t given you an opportunity to ask any questions.
DE: Well, I’ve as you’ve seen, I’ve jotted some questions down. I mean, again they’re quite, quite broad questions. What, what was it like flying in a Hampden?
RJW: Well you see, strangely enough there was no comparison was there because I’d flown in an Anson which was alright but the next type aircraft you flew in was a Hampden so it was, it was alright. Probably thought all flying was like that but for the wireless operator, rear gunner it was a bit dicey I think. People don’t really know this, you have a wireless set in front of you and what they called a scarff ring with twin VGO guns with pans of ammunition on them, right and a cupola which closes down over the top of it over the guns but in order to operate the guns the cupola has to be back which means when you’re over the other side you’re in the open air and you were standing up to be vigilant. Well I mean you couldn’t see sitting down. You wanted a turret standing up and eventually you have an electric motor on it but originally there wasn’t. It was [unclear]. There was a heating pipe came off the starboard engine I think, exhaust or something. Unfortunately it used to burn the living daylights out of you down on the ground and it was ice cold when you got up top [laughs] but you know. So it wasn’t that comfortable and the other position, the rear gunner was in a belly thing. A blister underneath and that was very, very difficult. You were hunched up, you know, you would get cramp in it. It wasn’t very nice but you know other than that it was alright although I must admit that when I mention to people, RAF guys, I was in a Hampden they say, ‘You were in a Hampden?’ They say, ‘You flew in Hampdens and you’re still alive.’ [laughs] No, no, no. They weren’t, they weren’t that bad really. I think our pilot like any, Ralph, he was quite happy with it. I don’t know whether the navigator was. Sorry.
DE: No. No. That’s, that’s wonderful. So what was, what was your favourite aircraft to fly in?
RJW: Sorry.
DE: What was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The —
DE: What aircraft was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The other aircraft.
DE: Yeah. What other aircraft?
RJW: Oh well I flew in Halifax 3s. Wellingtons. I think I flew in a Mosquito once or twice. Ansons. Passenger in a Tiger Moth. That sort of thing, you know. Oh and Lancaster, Manchester. Manchester and Lancaster yes but I didn’t do any ops in a Manchester or Lancaster. The Manchester was the forerunner as, you know about that. Yes. Yes. We had them on, they were introduced on 49 Squadron in about, I think about September 1942, something like that. One of the early ones and then fairly quickly replaced by the Lancasters. Oh the Lancaster were marvellous. I flew in the Lancasters of course in Ein Shemer. They were Lancasters. Yeah.
DE: I see, right, yeah.
RJW: They were good. We had, at Ein Shemer I’ve got to tell you one of the duties there was to provide an airborne lifeboat at Malta so we had a little jolly there for three weeks and so. A couple of aircraft with airborne lifeboats stationed at Valetta. You were on twenty four hours standby. Then twenty four hours down the pub [laughs] that was quite good and we did one, we did one exercise, the exercise was that we were taken out by the navy, cast adrift in a dinghy and the other crew had to home on it and drop the airborne lifeboat and the crew in the dinghy had to get in to it and sail it back in to Valetta harbour. We were the crew in the dinghy. We got told off for eating all the rations [laughs], but you know it was fun. It was quite good. Malta was nice too in those days. Post war you see.
DE: What was –?
RJW: Oh and Cyprus. That was another place we had to go to. We went to Cyprus. Yes. Sorry.
DE: What was, what was it like, what was the difference between being a sergeant and becoming an officer?
RJW: Oh well. It was quite good. It was more comfortable. The sergeant’s mess was very good. The food was always good. I never grumbled about the food. I think the air crew seemed to get additional rations or something. It all went in altogether but somebody once told me you get more dairy products because as air crew or something like that. I don’t know. But being an officer obviously was more comfortable. You didn’t have to make your bed [laughs]. You had a batwoman, batman or batwoman. You know a WAAF who did it for you. Cleaned your shoes that sort of thing. The chores. You had more chores done for you I found, but yes it was it was comfortable. Flying. Right. Oh I forgot to tell you an incident which is recorded in David Donaldson’s obituary. We were flying on patrols to locate the launching pads of the V2. In fact, we saw, I was with David Donaldson, we saw the first one go up and we got a fix on it and that is quite interesting because we told the special operator and he got his head down and we tried to get a lot of information out of him when we got back as to what he found. We got nothing out of him of course but of course what we did eventually find out and this is public knowledge now it wasn’t radar controlled. It was clockwork controlled but Churchill insisted that the patrols continued so even after they found out we were still going up and down on the line and on one occasion, daylight. It was on daylight a couple of, I don’t know what they were, I can’t remember, mix them up, I can’t remember what the aircraft were. A couple of German fighters. I can’t remember what they were now, a couple of German fighters came up, come up and we were just about to take evasive action when they tucked them in, they tucked themselves in the wing and the pilot went like that.
DE: Waved at you.
RJW: Waved at David. David. You know. Like that. Like that and then they peeled away and off they went. This was over Holland and they were quite friendly. This would have been, oh I don’t know, probably March, April something like that 1945. And do you know I remember that so well for years and years and years and I wonder sometimes did that really happen or did I dream it? And then in David Donaldson’s obituary it was mentioned and I thought goodness that is true, it did really happen. I meant, I should have told you before.
DE: No. That’s, that’s wonderful. What was, what was David like?
RJW: Yeah. Actually of course they’d, if they’d, if they’d have split up you know they would have, they would have had us you know, in fact.
DE: Sure.
RJW: Yeah. Yeah.
DE: What was David like?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: What was David Donaldson like?
RJW: Oh lovely. He was a hell of a nice guy. Easy going. He was a good CO. Firm, right. Never panicked. He was a solicitor by profession and he was very calm. We did the first FIDO landing at Foulsham. We went to Gardenia [?] and did our stuff there and incidentally on the way back, was it Balcom [?] Island, the Swedish island on the Baltic, fired various tracer bullets up in a V sign [laughs]. Nobody went near of course. Anyway, when we got back it was fog and David said, ‘Well we’ve got an option of landing on FIDO or being diverted.’ He said, you know, he said, ‘What do you want to do chaps? Do you want me to land or go somewhere else for your eggs and bacon.’ ‘Oh no David,’ you know and he did a perfect landing. Real, you know. The risk of FIDO was that you veered off it but, perfect. Yeah. He was like that. He said, ‘What do you want to do?’ [laughs]
DE: Wonderful. Yeah. So when you saw these two fighters —
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Were you mid-upper upper or were you the rear gunner?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: Were you mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner? When you saw the two fighters.
RJW: Yes.
DE: Were you the mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner?
RJW: I was in the mid upper.
DE: Ah huh.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Was that your –?
RJW: I was, yeah because I, the mid upper was the controller, in other words we used to take evasive action. If you were in daylight you take evasive action and once you had come back you’d take control. You would tell him corkscrew right, corkscrew left because the pilot can’t see.
DE: No.
RJW: They can’t see. They come in on a curve of pursuit like that and you’d corkscrew in, down and roll and up the other way you see, but if they split up either side you’d had it.
DE: Yeah. Did you did you ever fire your guns in anger?
RJW: Hmmn?
DE: Did you ever shoot at a fighter?
RJW: Ever see a fighter?
DE: No. Did you ever shoot at one?
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: At night time. Well I hoped it was a fighter [laughs]. No. Once or twice you know you saw the thing come out of, but never, I never had a sustained fight. Never had something come in two or three times but I can’t remember. Not on the Halifax. Never had anything on the Halifax or the Hampden. Fired the guns several times on the Hampden but I can’t remember exactly when they were. Sorry about that.
DE: That’s quite alright. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, which did you like better the night ops or daylight ops?
RJW: Oh we didn’t do much daylight. We did very little daylight. We did some mining in daylight but it was nearly all night ops. We always thought daylight was a bit scary but [laughs] but no I suppose the scariness really was in the middle of the flak. Then you really, in a Hampden you could hear it, you could smell it and you could see it. Puffs of puffs you know if you got there. If you were — Essen and Hamburg they were, they were the places that you got, and of course Berlin but I only, I only did one trip to Berlin. My first one. But that wasn’t very good because it was covered in cloud anyway. If you, when you, when we went to France, if we were bombing France if you couldn’t see the target, initially anyway, you had to bring your bombs back and that’s recorded quite a bit.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: By the way have you got “The Hampden File?”
DE: Yes.
RJW: Harry Moyle?
DE: No. Yes. We’ve got a copy of that.
RJW: That’s very good. Have you got, “Beware of the Dog”?
DE: I don’t know about that one.
RJW: 49 Squadron history. The whole history of 49 Squadron written by John Ward and Ted Catchart. It was actually published by Ted Catchart. If you get in touch with Alan Parr, you know Alan. He’ll tell you where and how you can get a copy of it. You should really have a copy of that.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Because that details everything.
DE: Yeah. Wonderful. I will do. Thank you.
RJW: Yes. It’s called, that’s our crest you see.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Cave Canem.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: So —
DE: Yeah. I’ll make sure we get a copy for the library.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Yeah. And the “Bomber Command Diaries.” You’ve got those.
DE: Got those. Yeah.
RJW: Yeah. I’ve got all those.
DE: They’re worth, worth a bit as well, they are as well. How how did you cope with flying nights?
RJW: How did I cope?
DE: Yeah. Flying nights. What —?
RJW: How?
DE: Flying operations at night how, how —
RJW: Finding them?
DE: Yeah. How did you, how did you cope, you know with interrupted sleep patterns and —?
RJW: I’m not quite with you sorry.
DE: No. Flying operations at night —
RJW: At night time.
DE: Yeah. Your sleep was interrupted.
RJW: Oh sleep.
DE: Yeah how, how did you, how did you —?
RJW: Oh well yes you went to briefing in the morning if ops were on. No not briefing. You’d do a bit of exercise and that. Go to the flight and then you’d have an early briefing and then you’d have a rest, have your eggs and bacon and then night time you kept awake. There were tablets they used to give you to keep awake. I can’t remember the name of them now but they didn’t do much good I don't think. And then of course after de-briefing when you came back, eggs and bacon and you had a long sleep. Sometimes you were on the next night but not very often that happened. Not in my day. It did later on of course.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: It did later on.
DE: Did you, did you take tablets to keep you awake?
RJW: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can’t remember the names now.
DE: Wakey wakey tablets.
RJW: Yeah. I can’t remember what they were. Caffeine. Yeah I think it was —
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Something like that. You could, if you wanted them you could have them but I can’t remember the name of them.
DE: Was it, was it Benzedrine?
RJW: Yeah. Yeah but I never found. You were wound up. Let’s put it, let’s be honest about it. Everybody was. You were apprehensive.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Ok. You knew the target. You kitted up. You went out. You were taken out to the aircraft and you fiddled around with all your gear. You had to make sure everything was ok and eventually you took off. Sometimes you often, sometimes you took off in twilight so you could see the setting sun as it were, you know. See Lincoln Cathedral. And because you were in the rear you were looking west you were seeing some of the light and ok you got a bit of jitters maybe you know. A bit. Apprehension more than anything else but you had to be very alert. Very alert. You had to be watching all the time and you reported back anything you see. Getting over the target, doing the bombing run. That was a bit of a wait you know. Flying steady, straight and steady and hearing the navigator or the bomb aimer going to the skipper. Everybody else was quiet. You could see the activity going on but if there was cloud below or the flashes coming up and everything else. If you were near flak as I said you could smell it and see it and all that sort of thing. Got away from the target. There was always a sense of relief once you come away from the target but of course it was just as dangerous coming away. You couldn’t — you couldn't relax or you shouldn’t relax, let’s put it that way. Probably that’s what did happen. You just had to be on your toes all the time but on the way back over the sea, over the North Sea coming back you were a bit relaxed then. Coming in to land of course you had to be very careful. You could have intruders, you know. You really, you couldn’t sit down. You couldn’t take a rest. And you know there were times and I’m sure others have told you this, you had a very dicey trip and you say, ‘If I get back I’m not going to come again.’ [laughs] Why come back? If I get out of this one that’s it, but you did, you know. You didn’t, you didn’t think much about, you didn’t think too much about it on the ground. At least I didn’t. You didn’t dwell about it. You didn’t think. You got wound up for ops. Then they were scrubbed so you were off to the pub you know it’s not oh, everything goes and you just, you just tended to live for that night, that night. You were in the pub with your pals drinking away and you didn’t give many thoughts to the fact that you would be doing the same thing tomorrow. At least I didn’t and I don’t think many other people did either. Some might have, but I didn’t. You just treated each day as it came along. You got scared, of course you got scared you know, got scared out of your life when you were in the dinghy but you thought, oh well, you know, something will happen. I’ll get out of it. Eventually you did. I don’t know but the greatest thing [?] was though, to be honest was to see your pals go although because in the main you didn’t know whether they were killed or not. They didn’t return. They were missing. Right. Failed to return. And there was always the hope that they’d be prisoners of war or they’d landed somewhere else but it, it didn’t sink in. It wasn’t like that, being in the army and seeing the person next to you killed. That didn’t happen unless your own aircraft, you could see an aircraft gosh I can’t remember the number of lucky breaks I had. Yes. On the, on 49 Squadron when I first joined Allsebrook I was a bit concerned and this is not against the guy at all but it is recorded somewhere this happened. He came to the squadron. He had flown into a balloon barrage under training and he was the only one that got out. On the first trip with him he was very keen, they’d made him the photographic, he wasn’t the, he wasn’t the station fellow, he was some sort of, something to do with photography and he wanted to hold the aircraft straight and level over the target to take the photographs [laughs]. So you know that was my first trip or second trip, I can’t remember which and I got a bit, a bit concerned about it and there was a sergeant pilot, or flight sergeant pilot that I’d been drinking with or knew quite well and he wanted a rear gunner and I thought, he wanted a WOP/AG, I thought. Well ok I’ll go and see if I can get switched into his crew and I went to see Domestra [?] who was our flight commander, Squadron Leader Domestra and he he said, ‘Oh no, I’ve done the crew schedules for the night,’ he said, ‘Come and see me tomorrow.’ His name was Walker this chap. He took off behind us. Engine cut. Went straight in. The bombs went up. Killed them all. I thought, I didn’t know it was him at the time. I saw it. When I got back we said, ‘Who was it that went, that went in?’ It was him. I thought oh my God, you know. Strange isn’t it? I must have somehow had a lucky penny. Oh yes and you will have heard this story and Eric will have told you. Others will. We had, the CO was called Stubbs. Wing Commander Stubbs. One day after briefing for ops, we were going on ops. ‘All the NCO’s will remain behind,’ remain behind. We got a real right rollicking about our form of dress, not wearing regulation boots or shoes. All sorts of things you know. Slovenly behaviour. Then he said, famous words, ‘Just remember the only reason you’ve got three stripes on your arm is to save you from the salt mines in case you are taken prisoner of war.’ Have you heard that? Oh yes. Yes. Yes. He said that. He said that and he got the name of Salt Mine Sam. Sam Stubbs. That is recorded somewhere but Eric Cook he was with me. I was on the squadron when Eric Cook was there you see and but he famously used to quote that quite often actually but yeah and it’s quite well known. There was a guy that was, I don’t know what his name was now but he was, he was an honourable bloke, honourable, he was a sergeant pilot and he was a bloke, he was an odd bloke, he refused to take a commission. I can’t remember his name but he was some sort of landed gentry of some sort and he was able to talk in high places as you did and we got a very meagre, half-hearted well it wasn’t an apology it was some sort of, you know it wasn’t really meant sort of thing you know. Sorry about that.
DE: No. That’s wonderful. I’m going to, I think I’m going to draw the interview to a close because you’ve been talking for nearly two hours.
RJW: Oh gosh. Have I?
DE: Yeah. That’s —
RJW: Have I really?
DE: Yes. Yeah.
RJW: I’m sorry.
DE: No, it’s –
RJW: I’ve probably bored you stiff.
DE: No. It’s absolutely marvellous and I’ve said nothing on the tape so it’s fantastic.
RJW: Eh?
DE: I’ve not spoken at all. It’s all been you so —
RJW: Do you, it’s funny everything else is going but that memory.
DE: It certainly is. Yeah. It’s fantastic. Yeah. Well I’m going to –
RJW: And while I’ve been talking to you Dan I’ve been living it visually.
DE: I could tell. Yeah.
RJW: I can see it.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can see the incidents right there.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: As you know.
DE: It’s been an absolute pleasure.
RJW: I didn’t realise, I didn’t realise it was —
DE: Two hours look. So I shall, I shall press pause and stop it. Thank you very, very much. That’s absolutely wonderful.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Reg Woolgar
Description
An account of the resource
Reg Woolgar was born in Hove. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force in December 1939 and trained as a wireless operator/air gunner. He flew Hampdens with 49 Squadron. His aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire on a mine laying operation to Oslo Fjord, including a bullet that passed through his gun sight. He recounts ditching a Hampden in the English Channel and being picked up by the Royal Navy off the Isle of Wight. He describes evenings out in Lincoln at the Saracen’s Head. After his first tour he was commissioned and became gunnery leader with 192 Squadron in 100 Group. Reg Woolgar was posted overseas in 1945 and recounts a bomb exploding near the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem. He also recounts tales of his time in Kenya and provides details of his career outside the Royal Air Force, as a planner and valuer for the city of London. He retired in 1971.
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-14
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Chris Cann
Format
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02:00:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWoolgarRLA160614
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Lincoln
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Mannheim
Middle East--Jerusalem
Middle East--Palestine
Germany
Germany--Kiel Canal
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-09-01
1942
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.
10 OTU
100 Group
192 Squadron
49 Squadron
617 Squadron
83 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
ditching
entertainment
fear
FIDO
final resting place
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
Hampden
killed in action
mine laying
missing in action
Operational Training Unit
RAF Foulsham
RAF Scampton
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Yatesbury
Scharnhorst
searchlight
training
Walrus
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/228/3373/AChattertonM160331.1.mp3
27703bd93c161251ba90d18d3a7a735b
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Title
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Chatterton, John
John Chatterton
J Chatterton
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant John Chatterton Distinguished Flying Cross (1031972, 159568 Royal Air Force). Included are his logbooks, a letter of condolence and letter to be passed to parents of a deceased crew member, mounted copy of entries to the logbook of Pilot Officer A Baker, 44 Squadron Operations Order book, and an oral history interview with Mike Chatterton (b. 1953) about his father, John Chatterton, and piloting the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by M J Chatterton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Peter Lees. Additional information on Peter Lees is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/113761/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
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
2016-03-14
2016-03-31
Identifier
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Chatterton, J
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MC: Carry on with my RAF career a bit at a time?
DE: Ah yes.
MC: Alright.
DE: OK. So, I’ll just check it’s recording, yes. This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Project, my name is Dan Ellin, I’m interviewing Mike Chatterton, it is the 31st March 2016 and we’re at Riseholme, also present in the room is Shelley the dog. So, Mike could you start please by telling me a little bit about your early life and how you grew up?
MC: Yeah OK. Well I grew up in a farming environment always and farming was always destined to be my future career I guess but I was always aware that father had been a Bomber Command pilot in the war and that was always a side-line of interest. I think I used to consider farming to be quite hard work and long hours and dirty and grubby and it didn’t seem to appeal to me that much so I used to not be devoted to that line of thought. Anyway, I suppose Airfix models are the main thing that started me off in aviation. Initially watching Father make them for me, and then after a little while getting involved and adding a few bits on myself and of course the good old Airfix models of fifty years ago was where they gave you all the precise names of the various bits so you learnt an awful lot about the aircraft at the same time as opposed to nowadays where it’s just lots of diagrams and arrows. But I think that was where my interest in aviation sort of came to fruition in all the models I used to make, and there were a lot of them, all over the house, and also I recall as I say initially getting Father to make them and he’d slowly let me do some of the easy bits and after a while he’d supervise me whilst I did the slightly more awkward bits, and after a while I slowly got to realise that actually I could do it better than Father could. I then got impatient with him trying to do it and just wanted to do it myself. That’s another, I suppose, idea of growing up, but didn’t actually hear a great deal about Father’s war time environment. I think for me, and I tell people that the highlight of the year for me wasn’t necessarily Christmas or my birthday, but the highlight for me was the Finningley airshow, and if you’d like to say religiously, I suppose you could say that, and as long as the, it wasn’t coinciding or contradicting with the harvest time, which was even more important to father, the Finningley airshow was one of the main events of our annual calendar. Along with my uncle, Uncle Will, Father’s brother, we’d go along in some battered old pick-up or something, join the queues, get to the air show and then follow the routine of going round the ground statics before the actual flying displays started, and then we were stuck in one place and watching the aircraft fly past, and of course in those days it was some wonderful old vintage aeroplanes, Shackleton’s and Varsity’s and some of the early jets and things like that. But for us the highlight was always the Lancaster, if there was a Lancaster airworthy at the time, if it was going to take part then that would be the main event. And of course, I’d then start asking Father a few memories about what he recalled, and used to get some of the fun, get none of the personal details at all, just some of the technical details, some of the fun activities he got up to I suppose, but none of the personal details at all. And so that was life as a kid, I think he then encouraged me to join the Air Training Corps which was a thing I’d never actually thought of much before. I used to love the airshows and I used to get very jealous of all the RAF people wandering around in their uniforms thinking I wish I could do that, but never actually thought about the idea of joining the air force, I thought there’s no way I’m ever going to get in the air force, and the way my academics were going I was sort of working towards being a draughtsman or something like that. I used to have a sort of natural tendency towards the drawing side of it but not the academics. And so I think a friend of mine said ‘How about joining the Air Training Corps?’ when we were about, quite late on about fifteen years old, and I said ‘Yeah, OK’ and we went along to the local squadron and joined, quite late on, because of, we were a bit older than normal joining age then things like gliding courses became available because you have to be a certain age for this. I think I went away on a gliding course and got my wings at Hemswell flying gliders. Where I then heard some more stories from Father about when he’d flown aircraft, Lancaster’s, at Hemswell and then whilst I was in the Air Cadets say things went on, because I’d got gliding wings I made a corporal, because I was made a corporal I got to be an instructor and because I was an instructor I got to be put forward for a flying scholarship etc., etc. It just sort of went on and on, and in the background there with Father always working away at the farm, helping with Father, I was aware that he was a member of various squadron associations because he was with 44 Squadron Association, so I used to be aware that every so often he’d go off and do that, but work I think, farming for him took all his time up and there was very little to do with aviation really apart from, as I say, the annual air show and occasional Airfix model, and I suppose then the Air Cadets were the turning point for me because obviously the idea is to get you air minded and the staff were very good and they used to encourage me to think about an idea of an RAF career which I say I’d never considered before, they were good for my confidence by the fact that I managed to achieve various different stages through the Cadets, I suppose that helped my confidence as well and so they persuaded me to actually give it a try and try and join the RAF as a pilot, which was a bit of a shock, but I went along I think in my sixth form and applied, went down to the selection centre at Biggin Hill and went through all the various processes which were pretty scary because you were having to sort of take part in discussions and then lead physical activities and then have little problem solving things and got called into the interview room at the end and they said ‘Not quite up to the standard we need but we like your enthusiasm so think about applying again in a couple of years time’. So that took me through school, and the air force had always said we prefer people with degrees, this is back in the ‘70’s, so I thought right I’ll get a degree and then I’ll apply again.
DE: Um.
MC: Well I’ll start a degree, and with Father’s background and my life on farming we decided to go for agriculture engineering and because of Father’s background as farming and also in the academics, because we’ll talk about Father later I guess, but he’d gone from the war back up to university and then gone straight, having finished his university course, to be a lecturer so he was involved in all the academics of that. So, he still knew a few people in the academics world of agriculture and so that helped I think to get me into the university course. Got some, scraped some A levels, I remember hearing that my A level results had come through whilst I was actually loading bales on a trailer, so combining the two together, the farming and the future air force. So, got to university and then applied, fairly quickly, because the university had university air squadrons and that was one of the requirements about where I was applying to go to, that they had a university air squadron which taught you to fly, although with no commitment at the time, and moved on. I think applied as soon as I could, got in there, so got a start being taught to fly the Chipmunk aircraft which again brought a few stories back from Father because it was one of the last aircraft he had flown after the war, and I suppose I didn’t get to hear much more from father about his flying time at that stage, it wasn’t really I suppose until quite a few years later on where having gone through my training, I got onto multi-engine aircraft and eventually got onto the Lancaster, and what I say to people is that I didn’t hear so many stories from Father about his activities but I heard having met a lot of the old veterans, a lot of the guys who knew Father, who would tell me some of the stories of what Father got up to, which he would never actually necessarily mention himself because they probably bent the rules rather a lot, and because of this, because of the contacts I made then I managed to find out and do some more digging. We’d always been encouraging Father to write his biography because we used to have all the little snippets but no sort of general put together information and so whilst I was at flying with the BBMF, flying the Lancaster and meeting so many people that knew Father from those days, I think Father was turning not towards retirement because you never actually retire as a farmer but he was in a mode where he was trying to do a little bit less and so he got more involved with the squadron associations, I think he became the secretary of 44 Sqn Association, so he was involved a lot more, spent a lot more time with that so again I got to hear more about what he was doing and what he had done in the war until, I say I was on BBMF, and then for us father and son idea I suppose the first time we actually flew together was in a Lancaster, so for me that was very, very special, taking him flying, I was only a co-pilot at the time so I didn’t have much say in what was going on but we got him on board anyway and flew around for a little while with him down behind me in the sort of wireless ops/navigator seat and then as my time on BBMF progressed I got to be captain then with the extra responsibility you get a bit of extra pulling power as well so not long after I got made captain of the Lancaster I managed to get Father back in the aircraft again and this time managed to get him in the right hand seat and me in the left hand seat so the Chatterton crew were airborne again. And what was very nice about that is, not only did I manage to get Father airborne but managed to get also three of his war time crew with us as well in the Lanc at the same time. That was the bomb aimer, the rear gunner and the flight engineer, so we all flew in the Lanc together. And I think Father used to really enjoy the fact that I was flying the Lanc, he spent far more time involved with the associations as I say and following what I was doing and every time I came back at the weekend I had to give him a full report of all the flights I’d had that week, at that time and he used to absorb it all and whenever I was flying around Lincolnshire, which was obviously quite a lot of the time as we were based at Coningsby, but if ever I was in the right direction I would always come back via Father’s farm and give him a bit of a flypast, so as I say he wasn’t used to seeing me much above four hundred feet or so doing that sort of thing. I think that sort of covers basically the connection between me and Father.
DE: Um. How does it make you feel flying with your Father and members of his crew?
MC: Um, when I was flying as captain you, lot of people ask me what it was like, what you’re thinking about when you’re flying the Lanc and I think my rather bland answer is that when you’re flying an aircraft like that you’re concentrating, or any aircraft to be honest, you’re concentrating on getting that job done, you’ve always got a job to be at a certain place, at a certain time with your mind set up to go and do a display or whatever so often at the actual time you’re not thinking too much about the importance of it, it’s only afterwards when you’ve landed and it’s all been successful, you can then allow your mind to wander back over what you’ve just achieved, on those occasions with Father, when I was flying with Father, it was just fantastic, absolutely marvellous, very, very, proud to watch them all. I know when, the first time I took them flying I was slightly wary of the rear gunner because he’d been the old man on the crew when the guys flew together, so I knew he was not very able but he, when we met them at BBMF, he had his, the rear gunner had his, I think grandson and grand-daughter with him, he walked with sticks and looking, you know, not very capable of clambering in the Lanc and so I was a bit concerned about how on earth am I going to say that having got this far it was going to be too dangerous to take him on board because he was going to be a sort of liability to himself and the rest of the crew? And I was thinking about this and they went out to have a look at the aeroplane first and he hobbled over towards the rear steps. He then dismissed his grandchildren, dismissed his sticks and ran up the stairs and in the turret before we knew it. So, there were no complaints, no problems there my fears had gone away then. Somehow, and it often happened with the veterans when we took them on board, I suppose that was one of the highlights of their lives, and so the youth just returned, and as I say even though they approached the aeroplane on sticks and walking frames somehow that just got thrown aside and they remembered lives when they were in their late teens and things like that. And whether the body itself may not have been willing but the spirit certainly was and we often used to see that, and the same as at East Kirkby it was getting the old boys on board and it was fantastic how they were so nimble again. The other thing, digressing there again, is when you got groups of these old boys together, in their eighties as they were, some nineties, is how they used to speak to each other. And again, they’d go back all those years, the sense of humour would be quite sharp, quite cutting but always well natured and you could see what a band of brothers they were I suppose.
DE: Did they include you in that as a pilot of the Lancaster or?
MC: I think we were embarrassed as the crew because if we used to go to these gatherings where they came to the aircraft at Coningsby or whether we landed the aircraft and had the old boys come round us we used to be embarrassed by the sort of celebrity status we had you know, and they were all asking for our autographs and asking what it was like to fly the Lanc, because there were quite a few of them in those days and it just seemed all wrong to me, really embarrassing you know that they were treating us like heroes and celebrities and yet they were the ones who obviously flew these aircraft for real as I say. Nowadays I think the veterans are treated with more due respect and things like that but twenty years ago when I was flying there was quite a lot of them around and they weren’t necessarily treated in the same way. But as I say that was what I used to recall is the embarrassment of them treating us like celebrities, but it was great meeting them as I say they used to fly these aircraft for real.
DE: Um, I think we’ll come back to that in a bit, could you tell me a little bit more about your career in the RAF?
MC: OK yeah. So, RAF wise, didn’t get in the first attempt at school, got in the second attempt with at university, so in my one of three years my university course was agricultural engineering, as I say it came from the RAF background, came from the farming background, the RAF just wanted a degree, they didn’t care what subject you had they just wanted a degree. So, we thought with my life at that point then agricultural engineering would be the best chance of getting through so we did. So, university where we got to learn the Chipmunk, and we flew that and I think I must have got about seventy hours or so, it was sort of every weekend, occasionally during the week, but mostly weekends so my university life was either working academics during the week and unlike a lot of people who sort of let their hair down at weekends, because I had hair in those days, we used to just go off to the RAF camp and fly. They’d have the RAF social life but generally not sort of the mad student social life. So, from university then the destiny was to go to Cranwell where we were trained to be officers, I think about sixteen week officer training, initial officer training course, usual sort of running around, carrying pine poles, leadership exercises and air warfare studies and general service background stuff, oh a lot of marching of course. I think my uniform fitted me better than average so I was made parade commander for Cranwell so again huge, huge pride in being the parade commander in front of the RAF College at Cranwell but as I say at the same time very, very busy concentrating on what you were doing and then again when it all finished and hopefully went successfully, huge sigh of relief and just realised what you’d just done, what you’d just achieved, anyway. Having finished officer training then went off to do pilot training, going to back step a little bit now because I finished university at the end of the academic year, sort of July time and then my entry at Cranwell wasn’t until, I think, quite late in the following year. So, I had about nine months, I had nine months holding before I started at Cranwell and that nine months was great fun because I just went and held on various different RAF stations. I went out to RAF Germany for a while and held at Gutersloh and were flying, associated with the Pembroke squadron there. The Pembroke’s used to fly all over Germany a sort of communications aircraft and then at the back of the hangar was a Pembroke with curtains over the windows, never used to move, I never used to see it move, anyway occasionally it wasn’t there, and then it was there, we never used to see it going in and out and that was the one that used to go off to Berlin and recce the corridors and things like that, but whenever I used to ask about it people just denied it was there so I found it very strange, rather than telling me what the truth they just denied its existence altogether. Anyway, that was one posting and that was very interesting going to Berlin for the first time and being given a guided tour of all the various parts of Berlin that had been affected by the Cold War and my Father’s war, imaging Father up there in the air above. Another holding post I think was at Farnborough where I was used as a guinea pig basically. So, Farnborough is the Institute of Aviation Medicine and so some days we’d be boiled in hot water and see what reaction we had, sometimes we’d be frozen, sometimes we’d be squashed, sometimes we’d be stretched. Spatially our average human bodies were trying out different, to see what the reactions were as far as various protective clothing and escape equipment and things like that were, so that was painful but interesting. Yes, so go back now, went and joined Cranwell, did pilot training that was on the Jet Provost and I found most of the way through training it was quite hard work for me. I never, ever sort of aced anything, I was always very middle of the road on all the things but we were quite aware that each flight it was quite high pressured because if you sort of failed one particular exercise then you’d be given another chance but after that they’d be looking at you quite closely so there was always quite a lot of pressure I remember about that and I always used to have in the back of my mind what would I do if I didn’t get through pilot training? And along the way we’d lose colleagues through getting washed out so you were always very much aware that the fact that it was possible that you wouldn’t be fulfilling your career or aim of flying. But I got through Cranwell alright and then we were going to go to the next stage which was the work up for what is called group one, phase one, which is basically you were working up to go onto the world of fast jets because at that stage of the air force, of the RAF, and this is talking mid-seventies there were no more people going to the multi-engine world they didn’t require any pilots, it was all cut backs and so there wasn’t any requirement for multi-engine pilots anymore and so the only option was either fast jet which I didn’t have much faith in me surviving the course or helicopters. So I opted to go helicopters, so I went up towards helicopters, and initially it was on very old helicopters like Whirlwinds which were quite nice and straightforward to fly and then progressed onto things like the Puma which was quite a difficult aeroplane to fly, very unstable, I never got on particularly well with that and after a while progressed through to the conversion unit but never feeling particularly comfortable with it and eventually had a mutual agreement that I wasn’t going to progress any further on the helicopter world and fortunately, for me, the multi-engine world had started up again at that point so there were positions available. So I remember going for an interview with the station commander at Odiham where I had been doing my helicopter training and saying that I’d like to go on to be a multi-engine pilot and he said ‘Well what are you going to do if you don’t get to be a multi-engine pilot?’ and I said ‘I’ll try to be an airline pilot then, I’m going to fly’ he said ‘Well I’ll cautiously recommend you for multi-engine on the grounds that I don’t think much of your loyalty, because you’d rather go and join the airlines rather than stay in the air force as an engineer or something.’ So, I thought, weird, anyway, for me that was perfect because that was what I’d always wanted to do multi-engine. So, I went and did multi-engine training on the Jet Stream it was in those days at Leeming and this was quite fun now because it was an aeroplane where you were doing , wasn’t doing wacky aerobatic stuff, you were doing procedural flying which was flying on instruments, going places so you were working out how to get from A to B and stuff which seemed far more applicable to my sort of way of life and abilities. And so it came towards the end of the Jet Stream course and they said ‘Right you can put down what you want to go onto next’ and in those days the options were Vulcans, Victors, Hercules, VC10’s, flight check Andover’s and Shackleton’s, and nobody wanted to go Shackleton’s because you were going back in time about two decades but I knew of course, dear old Dad and his Lancaster, my best chance of getting anything like a Lancaster was to go and fly a Shackleton which is the grand-daughter of the Lancaster.
DE: Sure.
MC: So I thought well I’ll go and volunteer for that ‘cause it would give me a chance to know what Father’s flying was like. So, I volunteered for Shackleton, they said ‘Are you sure?’ Not many people did that so I got my choice and went to Lossiemouth to convert to the Shackleton which was, it was quite a step back in time, because the Jet Stream I had been flying was the most newest aircraft in the Royal Air Force inventory, and the Shackleton was the longest, oldest one I think. It was a step back in time as far as the technology of the aeroplane and the procedures and things but an interesting job. We used to have an airborne early warning radar under the nose of the Shackleton so we’d go off north and try and chase, well not chase, but go and spot the Russian aircraft coming down from the north, most of the Russian aircraft went a lot faster than we did so we had to get sent out in good time in order to try and spot them before they cleared off and went back again. But interesting job, flew out as a co-pilot for about two years and then they said ‘Right time to move on‘ so we’re going to replace the AW the airborne early warning Shackleton with an airborne early warning Nimrod, we’re going to get a Nimrod, we’re going to put a radar on the front of it and another one on the back of it, it’s going to be very high tech and it’s going to do the same sort of job as a Shackleton but much better. So, go and get some Nimrod time first and you’ll be able to come back onto the AW Nimrod. So I went off into the maritime world, so I was only just moving down the road to Kinloss and did a conversion unit at St Mawgan onto the Nimrod and those six months at St Mawgan were basically, as I recall, forty knot fogs, because that was what the weather was like down in that part of the world over winter, often foggy and the fog moved very rapidly which was unusual so quite a lot of frustrations with the weather but got through the Nimrod conversion and then got posted back up to Kinloss as expected ‘cause I had a house up in that part of the world and then went onto the Nimrod, arrived in quite an exciting time ‘cause I arrived at Kinloss in 1982 which was the Falklands War time. So, Nimrods were heavily involved in that and what was supposed to be a about two-month conversion onto a slightly better version of the Nimrod, a mark two Nimrod, which had more modern equipment was a bit more capable, instead of it being two months it was two weeks. So, we very rapidly rushed through this course and then went straight onto a squadron where the squadron were preparing to get sent down to Ascension Island where they were going to provide cover for all the aircraft carrying on all the way down to the Falklands themselves. So all these new equipment they brought in was quite interesting they, for the Nimrod which as I say had just been basically a converted Comet with regular engines and a bomb bay, all of a sudden because they realised the capacity or the capability of this aircraft could have, we were given air-to-air refuelling so we could extend the range of the aircraft hugely, we were given the ability to drop one thousand pounds bombs from a Nimrod which was fairly unusual, and the idea of that was we were to tax some hopefully defenceless shipping, some Argentinian shipping, wouldn’t send us against anything to shoot back I don’t think but the idea was that we would be able to do that, so we hadn’t actually had a go at bombing and when we saw the bombs in the hangar beforehand I’m sure they had 1945 written on them, so I think there were some of Father’s leftovers that were still kept airworthy, or whatever the word is condition. So, I was very proud of the fact that I went and dropped one single thousand-pound bomb and then a stick of three, I thought wow this is certainly following in Father’s footsteps, that was up at the ranges at the north of Scotland, and I think I actually hit the target as well which is quite nice, ‘cause the co-pilot had to actually release the bomb whilst the pilot was busy flying. And also we got air-to-air anti-aircraft missiles so we actually had anti-aircraft missiles fitted under the wings of the Nimrod which was pretty wacky and because it was war time ish so all these things just got put in and put on without too much paperwork and bureaucracy. The idea of that again was that we were going to try and shoot down the Argentinians 707’s ‘cause there’s no chance of us ever going against a fighter or anything like that but all these modern toys and clever bits were put on and then I was really miffed because our crew had a date to go down to Ascension Island and start flying that area between the Falklands and Ascension Island and then we had a crew farewell party, so we all got together to have a party to say ‘We’re going to be off now for a few months’ and I was really miffed because the bliming Argentinians went and surrendered that weekend. So, we never got to go, it was really frustrating, we’d done all the training, all the work-up for it and then a huge let down. I think, people said ‘Were you not worried about the fact that you could have been shot down or hurt or damaged?’ and it’s interesting reflecting on that because having done so much training we all wanted to get on with the job. There was one guy, I think he was a bit older, who sort of thought I’m not sure about this it could be a bit dangerous, but generally we all wanted to go down there so it was all a bit embarrassing when we didn’t go, quite miffed. So anyway carrying on with the Nimrod world, and I think by this stage the Nimrod AW had been attempted and they’d realised that it wasn’t going to work, they had too many problems with the technical side of getting the radar at the front to talk to the radar at the back, and so it was shelved and so basically I was on Nimrods I was going to stay on Nimrods, so I carried on and at Kinloss the idea was that you’d do a ground tour so you’d maybe be in a simulator as an instructor checking the guys going through and then you’d go on a flying tour and having done it for a while you’d go onto another ground tour so I was in ops doing plans, planning future flying, and that’s the way it used to work generally you’d alternate between the two between a flying tour and a ground tour and then I think around about ’89 ish I got a ‘phone call, I used to talk to the posting man every so often, he would sort of discuss what we wanted to do and what he wanted us to do and the posting man said ‘Would you like to go and fly the Lancaster?’ Stunned silence, ‘What?’ he said ‘The pilot of the Lancaster at the moment is finding the extra workload a bit much for him and he wants to get another pilot.’ So absolutely astounded said ‘Oh yes please, rather!’ So got all set up for leaving Kinloss and going down to join BBMF and whilst all this was happening the paperwork was all going through I discovered slowly but surely that actually you can’t get a posting to BBMF, ‘cause all the jobs on BBMF are done by people who have a job in the local area who then volunteer to go on BBMF, so I found myself going down towards a ground job at Coningsby I was going to work in ops at Coningsby, and then I’d have to apply to join BBMF so I felt a bit miffed at that I’d been sort of tricked into it almost to go down to do this ground job without the certainty of BBMF but I knew Paul Day who was on BBMF who used to come shooting on the farm with father and so got down to Coningsby, got established in my ground job in ops and went and kept on battering on the door of BBMF until they let me in. So the situation was it didn’t quite turn out as expected, they had the captain and then they had two co-pilots flying the Lanc and they’d never been the idea that there was going to be another captain flying the Lanc just the one and that was OC BBMF so the chap in charge was the one who flew the Lancaster and he was the only full time member of the aircrew on BBMF, all the other aircrew members were, had jobs elsewhere so the fighter pilots would be instructors flying the Tornado, the navigators on the Lancaster would be probably in a ground job either at Finningley where they were training navigators or at Coningsby itself, the flight engineers would all come from Finningley where they would be training other flight engineers and I was there in ops so I got to fly as co-pilot although it was a pretty big secondary duty as we called it and it would be every weekend and it would be during the week as well. So, we then had the sort of battle between my primary job which was in ops and the fairly high profile requirement to be on BBMF and I had a squadron leader boss in ops but his boss was OC Ops and OC Ops was also in charge of BBMF so if it ever came to a battle between my normal day job and BBMF then BBMF used to win fortunately which I was very pleased about and my ops squadron leader was a bit miffed. So, onto BBMF. So that was in ’89 I joined BBMF and of course that was the 50th anniversary of the start of the second world war so my time on BBMF was highlighted by all these anniversaries of events of the fiftieth anniversary various events throughout the second world war. Initially, as I say, as co-pilot on the Lanc, so simply flying the Lanc was brilliant, absolutely fantastic then as time went by the army decided they wanted to fly, or jump out of a Dakota. The army wanted to jump out of a Dakota to celebrate D Day plus fifty and Arnhem plus fifty and all those sorts of things so they’d heard about this Dakota which could be made airworthy or brought back to be being airworthy, the powers that be in the RAF said ‘There’s no way the army are going to fly that, we’ll let the RAF fly and if it’s going to be flown by the RAF it will have to go to BBMF’. So the Dakota arrived on BBMF, they didn’t give us anymore ground crew to cater with the extra aircraft type so the support aircraft we’d had before that a Devon, which is a lovely little aeroplane a two engine forties type design aeroplane a transport design aircraft, it only carried about seven or eight people, but ours was a VIP fit so it was a very comfortable aeroplane to fly around, so the Devon which the multi-engine pilots used to fly was taken out of service because there weren’t enough ground crew to look after all these aircraft and the Dakota came in. And the boss, so we had to have a captain for the Dakota and so the boss of the flight who had been the Lanc co-pilot decided he was going to fly the Dakota as captain therefore we needed another Lancaster captain, wee hee, there I was volunteering. So ’92 I got to fly as captain, then initially just as sort of transit and doing odd fly pasts and then fairly quickly I got display authorisation. To display an aircraft you’ve got to go through an extra sort of set of hoops, it’s got to be approved at a fairly high level, so we had to work up to that and then get approved to do that, it’s a thing that happens at the beginning of every year, so there I was fully fledged Lancaster captain display pilot and that’s when I started, managed to get Father flying and taking Father off to various events. So, I could talk about BBMF for hours and hours and hours but basically say all the fiftieth anniversaries you get to do things with that aircraft that you wouldn’t be allowed to do with another aircraft so if I fly down the Mall at five hundred feet, dropping poppies on the Queen’s head everyone cheers, if I’d have done that in a Nimrod I’d have been out of the air force very quickly. So, it’s not only a wonderful aeroplane to fly it’s the stuff we were allowed to do and also the way you got treated you were a celebrity as far as the airshow fans were concerned, equivalent to popstars and royalty and all that sort of stuff so you got treated really, really well. Life was quite good in those days, the air force had a bit of money I suppose so whenever we used to go away at weekends we were normally staying in hotels and on allowances and things like that which was all quite generous, it’s all slowly cut back over the years but even so it was very good at the time. And then initially I was sent to BBMF for two years, or to Coningsby for two years, to fly. After two years it was review time I was having a great time I could see that the captaincy was going to come up after two years, I was captain of the Devon, so I said to them ‘Can I possibly, you know, stay another year?’ so they said ‘Oh OK, it’s not doing your career any good to stay on a ground tour’ I said ‘I don’t care about that I want to carry on flying’. So did that and I think that might have happened about another year later on so reviewed again and stayed on BBMF again and interestingly I got to captain then and that was a point actually as well where as far as my RAF overall career came to a decision point whether I wanted to leave at that point or stay on, that’s one of the option points, most of my old Nimrod and Shackleton colleagues were all leaving to go off to the airlines so that was the obvious option for me but decided well here I am, I’ve got you know, the likelihood of flying the Lancaster for a few more years as opposed to going off and being air airline pilot, so there was never any battle, never any decision for me I was going to stay where I was so I lost that opportunity to go out there really but with no regrets at all. So, carried on flying the Lanc, so after a couple of years say they asked me and I said ‘I’ll stay on’ after a couple of more years I think I probably said the same thing again and interestingly then after about four or five years they said ‘Would you mind staying on because we can’t find anyone to replace you?’ so they actually started asking me to stay on flying BBMF so that was even nicer. Because I think the reason was that the job of a BBMF pilot then you had your own normal Monday to Friday, eight to five routine, and then BBMF in theory was in the bits that were left. So normally on a Friday from say March through to October time November, yeah October, you’d either get airborne on a Friday afternoon, go away or get airborne early Saturday morning and you’d be away all weekend and then landing back on the Sunday evening, possibly Monday, so with all that the family didn’t get to see a great deal of you, and I’d got young daughters growing up and they weren’t seeing very much of me either so it was an interesting contrast from being away at the weekend where you were a celebrity and treated with all this pomp and circumstance and then you’d get back you’d land the Lancaster, maybe the kids would be there to meet you, the wife would sort of hand over a child, say ‘Right, these are yours, the grass needs cutting and the decorating needs doing’ it was down to earth, literally as well as physically so it was an interesting comparison. But it was a lot of time away so I think that was why they had a job finding people, people of the right sort of background ‘cause there were no Shackleton’s flying anymore so they hadn’t got people of a Shackleton background, Hastings was the other aircraft type they used to like people with background of and there were none of them around so they were a bit short of supply for Lancaster crew pilots and so they couldn’t actually find anybody for a year or so they couldn’t find anybody to come and replace us and so they eventually found one guy who came along quite happily, another Shackleton experience, and he was also senior to me as well so I could see my nose being a little bit out of joint now, he was senior he was qualified as an instructor so he was going to have a higher training position but then curiously he was crook almost for about two years with various family problems and injuries and things like that so it actually meant that rather than getting pushed to one side I actually got all the Lancaster flying, so for two years it was my Lancaster which used to annoy Paul Day no end. So, all the high profile and low profile stuff I got to do. I think the Lanc used to fly about ninety-four hours a year and I used to get about ninety of those ninety four hours so life was very good. But then the chap came back in fully trained up senior to me, so the writing was sort of on the wall for me. You can either stay on for a little bit longer as a junior or time to move and I reckoned after nine years I maintain that I’d achieved everything I’d wanted to do in a Lancaster, legally and illegally, one way or another so it was probably time to move on and the air force by now was sort of saying ‘Time to get back to a proper job’. So in ’97 sadly I left BBMF and I expected to go back to Kinloss to the maritime world up there to fly the Nimrods again with all the associated problems of being so far away and having a fairly detailed time that they told you when you were going to have your leave and not have your leave and fortunately I think in rather a strange way that happens with the air force there’d been an accident with a Bulldog, where a chap had been killed, so they needed to replace him and the chap who replaced him had to have a Nimrod background so he was taken from 51 Squadron, who were flying Nimrod’s at Waddington, so a slot appeared on 51 Squadron at Waddington and with me at Coningsby obviously it was ideal. I knew a few people on the squadron, they said ‘It was a pretty good way of life, what they do’ so managed to get a posting to Waddington. So, in ’98 I had to go on a quick refresher back at Kinloss on the Nimrod and then to Waddington, and the aircraft there was a Nimrod again but an electronic reconnaissance version, so a very different aircraft to the one at Kinloss, not maritime at all. Basically aircraft used to go up high level and listen to all the electronic transmissions, whether they be verbal or whether they be radars and things like that radio emissions, and again interestingly from a sort of medals point of view I think I think about that, I used to go along to all the Remembrance Day services and having been in the air force all those years had a very bare chest compared to all the old boys who had lots of jangling medals, and because of the role of the reconnaissance Nimrod we were over the Balkans, we were over later on we were over Iraq and Afghanistan and so I seemed to collect medals almost once every six months or so, so I thought ‘Hurrah’ now I’ve got all my medals I can go to these Remembrance Day parades and bravely wear my medals proudly, and then you think about it and actually most of my medals were awarded for being in the right place at the right time and with the aircraft we flew if ever there was any hint of danger we’d run away very quickly, so most of the people we used to fly against there wasn’t much of a threat to us but if ever there was a significant threat then having a high profile aircraft like ours we were just told to run in the opposite direction.
DE: Um.
MC: So I used to think then, well these guys got their medals for getting airborne knowing they were going to fly against fighters and flak and all the problems of darkness, and a lot of them wouldn’t even get any medals for doing that, whereas I was getting airborne and you know my medals were for drinking excess red wine and pizza’s in Italy and things like that so it used to sort of bring it home the value of them all but anyway Father liked to see all these medals. Obviously, Father was quite disappointed I think when I left BBMF but there was nothing we could do about that because he’d been very much involved in watching me go along and towards the end he was involved in lots of press interviews and things like that and so went to the reconnaissance Nimrod and then did that job, very enjoyable job, again flying lots of interesting places we went to, the flying itself wasn’t that exciting because we were just sort of flying around in big orbits at thirty thousand feet but the job we were doing was pretty interesting, and then we heard that the Nimrod was going to be taken out of service, and I think just before that in fact, again a lot of the multi-engine guys were going off to the airlines and they were concerned they were going to run out of Nimrod pilots so I was approaching my fifty five year point which is where you normally leave, and wondering what to do at fifty five because it was quite a strange age to start a new career, hoping maybe you know the airlines again because I thought maybe I’d get an airline job at fifty five but wasn’t sure and then the air force surprised me by, I was called into the boss’s office and said ‘Would you like a five year extension beyond fifty five?’ I thought what another five years of living in Portakabins overseas in the desert, not sure about that. But when I actually sat down and worked out all the financial side of it as opposed to the unknown of going off to the airlines it seemed like an easy decision so decided to stay on up to the age of sixty in the RAF flying the Nimrod, and then not long after I’d made that decision we then heard that the Nimrod was going to be taken out of service. So we were all very concerned about that ‘cause we thought we were doing a pretty good job with the Nimrod and it was being very much appreciated around Libya and Afghanistan by the army guys on the ground who we were helping but I think when Libya kicked off all of a sudden we got an extension of about three or four months with the aircraft otherwise we were all expecting to go off to other jobs, and on the Nimrod squadron, 51 Squadron if you had more than five years to go in the RAF then they were going to retrain you onto the American equivalent which we were going to get ourselves eventually but if you had less than five years they went off any other sort of job and because I didn’t have long left, I only had about two and a half years left in the RAF, they decided that they weren’t going to give me a flying job it would be a ground job, so I ended up working behind a desk as flight safety at Waddington which I can’t say I enjoyed at all with all the frustrations of a ground job. And then the age of sixty arrived and I left the air force and have had a wonderful time in retirement ever since.
DE: Ah ha.
MC: Now, I’ve not given up flying totally, I now I’ve joined the AEF, Air Experience Flight at Cranwell, so I fly cadets every weekend or whenever I want to basically. We fly cadets in a little single-engine training aeroplane so that’s great fun. I also fly, got a PPL, so I just fly friends around in a little four seater and the best thing for me just recently is I’ve taken, starting flying a Tiger Moth, which is an old pre-second world war training bi-plane and I do my presentation about my time in the air force I like to finish it off by showing pictures of the Tiger Moth because my Father, the first aircraft he flew in the RAF was a Tiger Moth and he went on eventually to Lancaster’s and then he ended up flying Chipmunks with the university air squadron at Nottingham and when I first joined the RAF, the first RAF aircraft I flew was a Chipmunk, then went onto Lancaster’s and ended with a Tiger Moth. So, the whole sort of circles gone all around together, that’s me.
DE: And you also do taxy runs in ‘Just Jane’?
MC: Yeah, so when I was flying on BBMF Lanc I’d always known about the Panton brothers at East Kirkby, Panton’s and the Chatterton’s, so my father and the Panton’s had known each other for quite a few generations. My father had been born on the site of where East Kirkby airfield was later made so he also had a sort of family connection with the area but the Panton’s and Chatterton’s have known each other for years so long before I got involved with the Lanc the families had known each other and we’d known that the Panton family, Fred and Harold Panton they’d had an older brother called Christopher and he had been a flight engineer on Halifax and he was lost on the Nuremberg raid which was one of the worst of the war and that had always been a very sore point to the family, the Panton family yet Father Panton found that his best way of dealing with this was to sort of black it out, blank it out. So, he’d never allowed, the boys were never allowed to go across to Germany to look at the grave, never allowed to not quite talk about him but never allowed to get involved or anything with what actually happened to him. So, it wasn’t until the father died that Fred and Harold could then do some exploration and find out a bit more about their brother and what had happened to him. They went over to Germany, Durnbach cemetery, where they found his grave and they sort of wanted to do something back home rather than sort of just a gravestone. They wanted to something rather more vibrant and so they started a museum at East Kirkby just basically in his memory and they wanted to get hold of an aeroplane. They couldn’t get hold of any Halifax’s ‘cause they weren’t any Halifaxes around and so they’d heard about a Lancaster for sale up at Blackpool so they acquired the Lanc, well they didn’t acquire it initially, when they were first interested in ’72 it had been bought by somebody else and it went to the main gate at Scampton this aircraft, NX611, and it had spent quite a few years there and whilst it was there the owner who’d bought it decided he didn’t want it anymore so put it up for sale again. So in ’83 the Panton’s successfully bought the Lancaster but had nowhere to put it so left it at the main gate at Scampton, but slowly but surely got their plans together and on part of the old airfield at East Kirkby which they’d acquired for chicken farming, they acquired the area around the control tower, they had half a hangar built on one of the old hard standings where the hangars had been, they had half a hangar built just big enough for a Lancaster and in ’88 the Lanc was dismantled at Scampton again, because it had been dismantled at Blackpool and moved to Scampton, then it was dismantled again moved by road with the help of the RAF to East Kirkby and reassembled. So, it arrived there and was reassembled in ’88 and looked magnificent and of course we all went along there and admired it tremendously and they had quite a few events there, reunions and things and it all looked very good. We could see that Fred and Harold were not satisfied with this and I think when I was on BBMF at the time they’d said ‘Do you think, do you know of anybody who could you know have a look at the engines, see if there was any chance of getting one of the engines running?’ There were a couple of guys, or one guy in particular who had been an engine man on BBMF who I knew called Ian Hickling and he had left the RAF at his due point and had gone off to do various jobs involved with aviation companies but I knew he wasn’t particularly happy with it so I said to Ian ‘You ought to speak to the Pantons ‘cause they’re interested in getting one of these engines running. He said ‘Yeah, yeah I will do, I will do, yeah’ and whenever the Panton’s spoke about it I said ‘There’s a chap called Ian Hickling, he’s very interested in getting involved, you ought to give him a call’, they said ‘Oh yeah, we will do, we will do’. Used to get really frustrated, for goodness sake, so eventually I got them speaking to each other, so Ian was taken on and within about seven months of starting on the Lanc he actually got one of the engines running so ’94 they got the first engine running at East Kirkby and before long they thought about starting another engine and then they approached me, I’d never been very far away, I was still flying the Lanc at Coningsby and said ‘Would you consider coming and taxying the aeroplane for us?’ So yes, certainly very happy to. It was all very tentative to start with but they made sure the hyd, the pneumatic brakes were working, the basic flying controls were working, the hydraulics were working and then in ’95 we struck the inboard engines up and released the brakes the aircraft just moved forward a little bit, the user brake stopped it again, so for the first time in many years anyway a Lanc was operating at East Kirkby again. Having got the first two engines going it wasn’t long before they got the third engine and then the fourth engine going and then they started offering taxy rides to people.
DE: Ah ha.
MC: So they started charging people for a ride around the airfield, or a little bit of the airfield. Things then moved on, sort of developed all the time. They then started doing night runs which I thought were the best of all because it’s atmospheric to have a night Lancaster night bomber operating in the night in the dark on a Lancaster airfield. Very, very, very, very moving I think that was and quite difficult as well, it used to give me, it was alright to taxy the Lanc in the daylight, but we operated in a fairly confined area but then when we first started doing the night runs it was also in a confined area, and it was, I was amazed how difficult it was because you’d lost sort of sight of the ground, all you had were peripheral views of lights and people with marshalling wands and things like that and again it gave me great respect and admiration for the people that had done this throughout the war in all weathers, very impressive from that point of view. Took people, so we took people for rides in it, I think the next sort of stage of development there was the BBC approached the museum with a view to doing a drama documentary. It was going to be a story about a wartime crew, present day, this was in 2000 but with flashbacks. They wanted to do some Lancaster filming, they couldn’t use the one at Coningsby because the RAF aren’t particularly enamoured with film companies and things like that and they won’t spend any excess time with film companies, so the film company came to East Kirkby instead and said ‘Is there any chance we could get the tail airborne?’ which is quite a major ask [acknowledging laug]) so the engineers again went down the back and tightened up a few of the bolts and put a few extra cables and fasteners in, and we took it out to an extension area. East Kirkby had been a standard three runway airfield, with a six thousand and two four thousand foot runways but after the war the Americans had moved into the airfield and extended one of the four thousand foot runways, east/west runway by an extra four thousand feet and so you had this eight-thousand-foot runway that they’d used. The old airfield had been reduced back to taxy ways and agriculture but that four thousand foot extension the Americans built was still there. And so, it was quite an adventure getting the Lanc from the hangar onto this four thousand foot extension. It involved some ingenuity in putting metal temporary runway covers down into the grass, it was an area where there just wasn’t enough space between some chicken hutches to actually get the wing span through so someone came up with a very clever idea I thought, they actually put a pile of sand by one of the chicken hutches so that as the Lanc was moved the wheel went over the sand, the wing went up over the chicken hutch and down on the far side. Very, very clever. Got it out there, got it onto this extension and very cautious to start with, so without any film cameras around, we just ran the aircraft down the runway, checked the brakes out ‘cause we’d never done more than walking speed before, so went a bit faster, checked the brakes out and next time went faster, checked the brakes out again, we found some fluids coming out of various places, I think it was just corroded water, and things like that, but we assured everything was alright, the brakes seemed to work, they seemed to work evenly so we got quite brave, said ‘Right we’ll go for it’ so this time at the end of the runway, put the power on, this time I put the stick forward and the tail came up quite beautifully within just a few yards of gathering low speed we roared off down the runway. The battle then of course was to keep the speed on enough to be able to keep the tail up but not go so fast that there was any chance of getting airborne, that was the last thing we wanted. We played about with the power and found that out, did it a second time and then a third time I think and then happy that we could do it the film cameras arrived a few, about a week later on the base, with all the paraphernalia that a film crew involves, the thing I remember the most is the catering wagon which was a converted double decker bus, it served wonderful food, anyway. We did all the film work and again got the tail airborne, sometimes with actors on board, sometimes with actors on the outside and it all worked really well, and so a great success. The BBC had kept the public at a sort of distance really, they didn’t want too much publicity about all this, I suppose it made a bigger impact in the film or TV programme when it came out and so having known this had all gone on there was quite a lot of clamouring from the public saying ‘Can we you know do it as a regular event? Can you get the tail up again?’ Well by this time they’d lost access to that runway extension and anyway it was a long way from the museum, so the thought was to acquire a bit of grass not very far from the museum area and get it well flattened down and rolled a few times and then look at the possibility of actually getting the tail airborne on that. And so, we did, we tried it a few times, it was much shorter distance so the tail only went up for a few seconds and then down again but there are some very nice pictures around of the Lanc on the grass with the tail airborne as we roared off across the grass. I think the family sort of thought about the risks involved and decided not to do that as a regular basis, ‘ cause if they’d have been a problem then it could have ruined the whole of the Lanc. So, we didn’t do that very, we didn’t do that many times, a few times and it was very spectacular. And then so the Lanc just went back to the regular routine now of providing passenger runs and they do it on a very regular basis, I think two days a week and bank holidays as well, and they take about ten people on board for not a small fee but I know it’s very, very popular and they’re booked up for about a year in advance so it’s a very popular pastime. If you think about it it’s the only way, only place in the world you can get a ride in a real live Lancaster on a real live Lancaster airfield, it’s the only place in the world you can do that so it’s very special, so no shortage of people queueing up to do it. Whenever I talk about the Lanc people always ask me ‘Well will it fly, is it ever going to fly again?’ So I knew that the public, the family, the Panton family have declared in the press that they do intend to get the aircraft airworthy again, it’s all very exciting. You don’t see a lot of evidence of it at the museum but in the background there’s quite a lot of work going on. They’ve got um, they’ve paid for, acquired airworthy engines, a lot of the work they’re doing now is up to an airworthy standard so any bits they change [unclear] airworthy but still a long way to go. Obviously, they’ve got to have money, it’s going to cost a lot of money, it’s going to be a technical problem although I’m sure it is feasible and the other thing is it’s a decision they have to make. If that aircraft becomes airworthy then the museum loses their centrepiece for a lot of the time when the aircraft’s away earning its living, it’s not going to cost money just to get it airworthy, it’s going to cost money to keep it airworthy so the aircraft will be away displaying and things so a lot of the time it won’t be at the actual museum itself. There’s always a risk of course of losing the aircraft as well so that’s another thing to consider, so there’s sort of three decisions; one is the finance if they can do that, one is the technical side of it and they reckon they can overcome that, so the big one is the decision, do we really want to do this? You know and I think to my mind while we can get actually get people in the aircraft doing these taxy runs, they probably wouldn’t be able to do that when it’s airworthy, to my mind whilst the one at Coningsby is flying and that obviously must come to an end at some point, when the great British tax payer decides it’s not going to pay for it anymore or whatever then that might be a cue for the East Kirkby Lanc to get airborne, don’t know, we’ll see.
DE: Do you think, do you think that they should then?
MC: I’m in two minds. I think I would love that idea of flying that aeroplane although it might be beyond my age scale now, and it would be great to see it flying, but it is very nice for people to be able to clamber over it now and actually get first-hand experience of what it was like to be in a Lanc so I like the idea of keeping it on the ground for now yeah.
DE: Ok, when we were talking earlier you spoke about flying on three. Could you tell me a bit about that?
MC: Yeah, OK. Often see pictures of, looking out over the wing of a Lancaster with the propellers feathered or one or two propellers feathered. One of my Father’s stories which I’ll recount is, as an instructor ‘cause he did his ops survived his tour of ops with 44 he went to be an instructor with 5LFS, 5 Lanc Finishing School at Syston where it was then. He spent quite a lot of time there about a year I think, and he says that’s when he really got to know the Lanc and love it even more so than the operations he was doing so he actually got to be an instructor officer there and he was very keen to pass on that confidence in the Lanc to other people so when he was doing the conversion with them, he didn’t have many flights only about seven or eight flights to convert people on the Lanc, but on one of the early ones he would get airborne, a nice good height, and he would show how capable the aeroplane is. So, he would shut one of the engines down and show the crew you just need a bit of extra power on the others, you can trim the aircraft out and it will fly quite happily on three, as we know people carried on with bombing missions on three engines all the way there and all the way back. He’d then shut the other engine down on the same side, so you’d have two engines on one side, two on the other, so that gives you quite a lot of yaw so you’d have quite a lot of trim on you’d probably have a bit of boot of rudder as well to keep the aircraft straight, but the aircraft would maintain height, you’d get rid of the bomb load if that was the case but the aircraft could still maintain height on two engines. Interesting to land but it could be done, he’d then shut another engine down and so you now had one engine running and where he was, at fairly high level at fairly light weight, then he’d sort of say ‘Yep the aircraft will still just about maintain a slow rate descent so you could probably get the aircraft back’ and then he used to surprise them, he tells me he’d surprise them, by shutting that engine down as well. So, it would be very quiet, have no engines running at all and the aircraft would glide and he’d show mid glide at a fairly good rate. And then he’d just think of the consequences he’d just punch the feathering button to restart the engine and they’d start up straight away and you’d put the power on and the aircraft would climb away. So that was always in my mind, not that I was ever going to do that in my case, but it was always a thought about four engines and there was a healthy rivalry on BBMF between fighter pilots and bomber pilots, a good little bit of rivalry, and we always used to maintain that we had nice, four nice reliable engines and they only had one so whenever we went over any water or built up areas then they would be quite nervous, you could see them trying to get higher and higher to give them a chance to either find a suitable field or parachute out, whereas we had a good solid four Merlin engines. But of course when you’ve got four engines you’ve got more chance of possibly having problems with them and my, when I first started flying on BBMF the chap who was in the charge at the time, the captain, was quite a nervous individual and he didn’t really like practising problems, practising emergencies on the grounds that if they had more problems with aircraft like Canberras, they had more problems practising emergencies than they actually had dealing with emergencies, so we never used to do any emergency training with him. Then he was replaced by a chap called Andy Tomlin who had come from a training background so he was far more used to the risks of training and practising and so he regularly used to teach us the co-pilot, me and the other co-pilot, he’d show us and we’d practise engine failures, shutting an engine down and then dealing with the remaining three engines and then bring the aircraft back into land and the various yaw problems associated with it. Then it turned out that on my very first flight as a captain, we went off down to Boston to do a quick fly past and come back and we had a problem with one of the superchargers to I actually had to shut the engine down so my very first trip as captain I came back on three engines. And then you look out over the engine, over the wing, and you see that stationary propeller and think that’s not right at all but again you concentrate on what you’re doing, so you concentrate on getting it done properly and then when you land you think whew, a sigh of relief. Curiously the next time it happened to me was when I took my Father flying with his crew. Managed to get him airborne and some of his wartime crew and again we got airborne we went off down south and came back again, and I thought a special treat then we’ll do a touch and go, so we landed the aircraft, put the power back on and take off again. And this was with Father’s rear gunner in the rear turret, a dour Scotsman, we’d landed and put the power on to go off again and he couldn’t understand this. A perfectly good landing, Father’s landings weren’t that good all the time, so perfectly good landing so why have we gone off again? I explained we were just going to do it for practice and then just, he said ‘There’s a great pillar of smoke coming out of number four engine’ and the crew looked at the engine and it was, there was no fire but it was just smoke, I think one of the cogs had broken up inside which was pushing out oil. So again, we went through our rehearsed drill, shut the engine down and feathered it so we’d got a stationary propeller which looks very odd and Father who’d now been moved back to sort of the operators’ area, he just couldn’t help himself but came out with a few sort of comments, because when you take the power back, you’ve got the aircraft trimmed down with power on three but not on one so when you bring the power back it has the effect of sort of turning the aircraft the other way. So, Father from down in the depths was saying ‘Don’t, you know remember about the trip you’re on power off’ ‘Yes thanks Dad, thank you very much’. You could see his years of training as an instructor and also the fact that he was my Dad he wanted to sort of help out as much as he could. So, I think I wasn’t too curt with him but I think I said ‘Yeah thanks Dad OK, let me get on with it’. We landed safely and took the aircraft back in again. So, the crew photographs we had afterwards were with one engine feathered, that was quite interesting.
DE: How did that make you feel having that experience with your Father?
MC: Delightful. Very, very proud after all those years where we’d been to the airshows together, seen the Lancaster flying and paid due reverence to it and all that sort of thing to actually go flying in the Lanc with him well there’s nothing better really, with all the various things I did in the Lancaster, legal and illegal, most definitely the best was to take Father flying in it as well.
DE: What illegal things did you do?
MC: [Laughs] Could talk about it now I suppose. It was just [high jinks?] generally. Whenever I used to, if there were any events on at East Kirkby on a Sunday afternoon wherever I was coming from I used to sort of manage to get the aircraft over East Kirkby somehow. And in the Monday morning I’d normally be summoned to OC Ops office to explain why I’d been wasting Lancaster hours. And then various heights, there was one time, I’d always wanted to fly down the Derwent Dam because everyone knows about the Dambusters and all that stuff and they’d flown in their rehearsals, the Dambusters themselves when they were rehearsing had flown over the Derwent Dam, and when they’d done the film they’d spent a lot of time flying over the Derwent Dam so it was always something I wanted to do. I was co-pilot for the fiftieth anniversary which was very highly publicised and lots of press but wasn’t allowed to touch the controls because again the guy was a bit nervous about the height we were going to go down to. He kept far too high as far as I was concerned, so when I got my captaincy it was something I always wanted to do is fly over the Derwent, always, always, always. But every time I’d asked because everything a Lanc does is approved at fairly high level and every time I asked they’d said ‘No, no it’s too high profile to do that sort of thing’. Eventually it was a rather sad occasion that one of the ground crew who been a great friend and a great help of mine had left BBMF and then died very suddenly of a heart attack not long afterwards and his family had always been associated with the Derbyshire area and they had permission to put a little plaque on the Derwent Dam just in memory of Terry Shaw. So, the family had got in touch with me and said you know ‘Is there any chance of giving us a flypast?’ I thought this sounds good, so approached the powers that be and put it in all the right phrases and good public relations and stuff like that and I think the response I got was ‘OK but one pass and no publicity’ and so that one pass actually because of where we were we got there a little bit on the early side and we weren’t too sure if the family were there going to be all ready for us so I went round twice anyway so that was slightly illegal, and the height we came down to was definitely illegal. [Laughs]
DE: Wonderful, OK thank you. Again, before we started the interview you told me a little bit about Peter Lees and a little bit about your Father’s book, do you?
MC: Yeah, when Father’s crew were assembled in the usual ramshackle way of who knew who and what friends got on with who they ended up with seven bods obviously and the bomb aimer had, called Pete Lees, the bomber aimer had come from an RAF background where the rest of the guys had just sort of come in for the war, Pete Lees had been in a little bit longer and so he had a bit more experience and therefore was a little bit I think miffed with the casual attitude of these brand new shiny sergeants who only, hadn’t got anytime time in so to speak. But he was a very conscientious bomb aimer and at times when they were over the target and he wasn’t actually happy with the set-up he told the crew to go around again which they weren’t obviously too happy about the idea of in the middle of a target, but he had the, he was a perfectionist, he wanted to get the job done properly if you were going to go all that way. And one night quite early on in Father’s tour after he’d been on ops for about a month they were selected to be a standby crew, and a standby crew on a squadron on 44 as all the other stations they were the crew that would provide any spare bods if somebody was needed for another crew. So if any one member of a crew that was going to fly that night went sick then a standby crew would provide the spare, unless I think if it was a pilot. If it was a pilot that went sick then the whole crew were replaced. But on this occasion, I think it was 23rd November ‘44, chap called Buckle was captain and his bomb aimer called Mantle-Scott was sick and I’m not too sure why but I do think that it must have been very late notice because I believe that Mantle-Scott’s equipment was all on the aeroplane at that point because it was subsequently lost and he had to claim for it, so it must have been quite a last-minute call he went sick. So, my Father’s bomb aimer Pete Lees was called and he had to go in his place with Buckle and as often happens on these occasions the crew didn’t come back. It was a trip to Berlin I think as well, crew didn’t come back and so quite a blow for Father and the crew having just sort of started off on ops for that to happen and there are some quite poignant little ideas that Father wrote to the parents of Pete Lees to explain, well you couldn’t explain, but to just give their sympathies and hold out hope and it’s interesting that in Father’s letter he says you know ‘From the number of people shot down there’s quite a large percentage alive as prisoners of war’ which I think is twisting the truth a little bit unless that is what Father genuinely believed but he was trying to keep the spirits up. And so, for a little while they flew with odd other bomber aimers, whoever was spare at the time, and eventually the sick bomb aimer joined Father’s crew and they were delighted with him he was very much more of sort of in their ilk and fitted in with the crew very well so they were very pleased with him, Mantle-Scott. So, they all finished the tour and they all went off and went off to be training instructors and things like that later on. But much, many years later, when I was involved with East Kirkby I had a call I think initially it was from the relations of the family of Pete Lees who were, were getting in touch and met up with them, met them at East Kirkby and they brought the memorabilia they had of Pete and it was in a brown suitcase, an old brown suitcase, and it turned out that this was the old brown suitcase that my Father had posted and gone through all Pete’s stuff when he was lost, had actually posted it back down to his parents along with the letter that he written to him and they’d bought all this stuff back to show me. So, the brown case, the letter that Father had written, I’d never seen before but had heard of and various other memorabilia that Pete had had. And we took the families, took the family, and showed them round the Lancaster at East Kirkby and then we showed them the spot at Dunholme Lodge where we think Pete would probably have flown from, where the last time he’d been on the ground so to speak alive so obviously it was very important for the family and quite moving for them and not long after that I had another ‘phone call again from East Kirkby by another person who had approached the museum trying to get hold of me and it was a lady called Jen Scott, Jennifer Scott. Jen Scott was the grand-daughter of Mantle-Scott the bomb aimer who’d joined Father’s crew and it turns out she was at Newcastle University doing a history degree and she’d decided to do her dissertation on Bomber Command and I think the media, how the media reported Bomber Command, and she just wondered if I could help her a bit with some of the research she needed to do. So of course, we got her down to East Kirkby, took some photographs in the nose of the Lanc where her grandfather had been and took them to also look round the Lancaster at Coningsby and also out to Dunholme Lodge again to the spot there. So this is quite moving for us and the family of course and I just kept remembering the fact that if her grandfather hadn’t gone ill that night then she probably wouldn’t exist ‘cause he’d probably have gone down with the Buckle crew, so quite poignant and she was very grateful for all the help she got and we kept in touch and she knew about the family of the bomb aimer that had been lost and on one occasion she went to visit Berlin for something else and was going to go and visit the grave of the chap who was lost and contacted, through me contacted the family and we came up with a nice little plaque which they produced and she went and laid it at Peter’s grave. I thought this was very, very poignant that the grand-daughter of the chap who survived, because he had a cold that night, went and put a little plaque by the grave of the chap who hadn’t survived. All down to a cold.
DE: Are you still OK?
MC: Yeah, [laughs].
DE: Can you, can you tell me a bit about your Father’s book? You said earlier that he wouldn’t talk about it, how did he come to write it all down?
MC: Yeah, so Father didn’t speak much about the horrors of the war he used to talk about the flying and he’d talk about his love of the Lancaster and that sort of thing and obviously, there was a lot of other parts of his life, when he’d been a student beforehand and growing up as a kid and then after the war when he went off to be initially a lecturer and then a farm manager. Lots of little stories he’d tell us, he was great at telling stories but he was no, and they used to get bigger each time of course like the length of the fish, but they got bigger and better each time. And I knew that with my memory and the family’s memories etc., etc we’d lose all these unless we wrote them down so we used to say to him ‘Will you write them down?’ He said ‘Yes I will when I retire I’ll write these little stories down’ and we knew that was never going to happen ‘cause you never retire as a farmer. And it sort of came by chance that often you used to get sort of fan mail and things like that into BBMF and one letter was written by a chap called Richard Underwood who worked for the Council down in Bourne, I think he was a planning officer or something, and he was going to write a little article about Father and I for the Parish magazine or the Council magazine I think it was. I think he was going to plan about two sides of A4 in this and so he asked if it was OK, he asked our permission to do that. And as always with these things we used to pass them onto Father and he’d replied ‘Yes sure that’s fine’ so Richard wrote down a couple of notes, or a couple of pages of notes that he’d gained from Internet and magazines and things and gave them to Father and Father had changed a few bits, corrected a few bits, added a few little notes and added a couple of interesting stories and sent it back to Richard said ‘There you go ’and Richard was so impressed by this, said ‘Oh that’s really good, if I incorporate those can you have look at that again and if you’ve got any other little stories ‘ and he used to go to and fro for about two or three years getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until he got the whole story covered and there was a lot of discussion about the name of the book but eventually they decided to call it ‘ Ploughshare and Shining Sword’ based on Harris’ opinion that the Lancaster was his shining sword, and that ploughshares were converted into Lancaster’s and after the war converted back to ploughshares I suppose. Anyway so the book was slowly, and it was a slow process getting it together, and then I think they had quite a while trying to find someone to publish it as well, and eventually it went through all the publishing and corrections, etc., etc. and illustrations and things and then came the day of the, we knew the date of the publication was getting close, but father was getting iller and iller with various heart disease and things like that and it turned out that father had actually seen everything of the book but had actually passed, had died six days before it was actually published so never got to saw the final finished version but as far as I was concerned I think they had about a thousand copies made and the proceeds went off to the Linc’s and Lancashire Association, but as far as I was concerned I just wanted one copy with all those stories recorded forever which is what I’ve now got so very happy with it.
DE: Smashing. How, it’s another big question, but how do you, what are your thoughts on the way Bomber Command has been remembered?
MC: Yeah, I guess I have been in an environment of Bomber Command for quite a few years now and obviously everyone in the environment I’ve been has been very pro Bomber Command and everyone I’ve met has been very pro and you do realise obviously there’s the other side of the story as well and every so often I just sort of quietly reflect on the fact that the Lancaster was designed to destroy and wonder why it’s got such a wonderful following everywhere, because wherever I go everyone raves about how wonderful the Lancaster is and sometimes depending on the environment you sort of say ‘Well the aircraft was designed as a machine of destruction’ and then see what sort of a reaction you get but most people say ‘Yeah but it was necessary at the time’ that sort of thing so I suppose you’re testing the water a little bit. I follow the general line that the guys at the time were all doing their job and I know sort of from personal experience if you’re trying to put together an operation where you’re trying to have one particular aim of getting an aircraft whether its bombing or whatever over a particular place at a particular time there’s so many different factors involved that there’s nearly always something that goes wrong. So, you have to sort of try and allow for all these things that are going to go wrong and achieve what you can at the end of it, occasionally everything goes wrong like the Nuremburg? raid and very little is achieved and they lose a huge amount of aeroplanes and then on the other occasions very few things go wrong and the target gets devastated like Dresden. And so that’s my sort of form of explanation as to why things like Dresden happened. It wasn’t that they, it was just [unclear] made a special effort to kill as many people as possible, just that all these factors were involved every night and occasionally it all came together and occasionally it didn’t. But for the crews themselves I think because of all the armchair experts after the war and the fact that they never got a sort of campaign medal and things like that, an awful lot of people did just withdraw into themselves and didn’t keep quiet about the war but I think they were reluctant to talk about what they did. So probably again with my Father he’d tell me about the Lancaster but didn’t tell me much about the actual raids or the things he saw and went on. So yeah you feel a bit mad really that they were cheated out of it in a way, everyone else got the recognition for it and yet what they did they should have been recognised for it as well. So, I suppose I, fairly standard sort of line that you maintain and yes there’s recognition nowadays but it’s just annoying it’s too late for so many people.
DE: Do you think that lack of recognition is somehow led into the way the squadron associations were created in their little individual memorials on stations and things?
MC: Yeah, I guess that’s a good point, and I think the associations seemed to sort of blossom, I guess it tied in with most peoples’ retirement so when they were busy working they didn’t really have time for things like that and when they’d stopped working they had a bit more time for reflection and thinking about it. They’d think about the characters they’d worked with and the friendships they’d made and sort of try and re-live some of that and when they did get back together again they’d talk about what they’d done and they’d find that this feeling of reluctance to talk about what they’d done in the war was a mutual thing and sort of because they were in the environment they were in they could talk about it, they could talk about the bad times as well as good times. And therefore I think the associations were a good thing because it got all these individuals who had their own private thoughts together to realise they shouldn’t be ashamed of what they did, it was, they were doing their job etc. and stuff like that. So, I think the associations are a good. Sadly now we’re at the point where most of the old boys, the veterans, are either not with us any more or at a point where they can’t sort of get together so the associations are slowly dwindling away.
DE: Do you feel that your job flying the Lanc gives you any special insight too?
MC: I think it gives you responsibilities almost in a way. I think flying the Lanc and taxying the Lanc at East Kirkby is sort of representing all the guys that flew the aircraft as I say for real so I think it’s important that we do tell the story of them and keep the memories alive and I’ve got a little presentation that I give called ‘The Tale of Two Lancs’ it’s normally to sort of Womens’ Institute and groups like that in the back of the village hall, and I finish that presentation having spoken of all my Lancaster experiences and the fantastic opportunities I’ve had by just putting up the badge of the Lancaster and the badge of BBMF, the Lancaster is to remember the many and then the BBMF is lest we forget and I think that is an idea that when I do my talk I just want to bring back and bring and highlight the memory of all these guys who were lost or carried on and sort of died naturally but with the, that sort of sometimes that idea haunting them all the time behind, but just like to make sure that the memory of what they did stays alive.
DE: Smashing. I think I’ve gone through all the questions I’d jotted down. Is there anything else that you can think of that you’d like to?
MC: Just talk a little bit about the Lanc at Waddington.
DE: Ah ha. Sure.
MC: When I was at Waddington flying my Nimrods I was surprised to find one time that I was asked to go and taxy a group at East Kirkby that were all from Waddington which is where I was based and I was quite surprised, why am I, do not know about this group? And it turned out that this was a project, force development project, force development was an idea the air force developed about ten, fifteen years ago, they realised that some of the young airmen in the RAF actually had no idea about the history of the air force or what the air force had achieved. So, there was a certain amount of resources and energy put into educating the young folks about the history of the RAF, and also encouraging them to develop their own personal abilities as well. So, a project started up at Waddington which was to research an aircraft that had crashed in Scotland and I got involved with this. This group that I had offered to do a taxy ride for were the group that were involved in this project, and it turned out that a Lancaster Mark I which had the registration PD259, which had got airborne from Waddington on 31st August ’44 on a training flight and the crew on board were Australians ‘cause it was 463 Squadron and they were an Australian squadron although they had a Scottish engineer flight engineer. And we’d heard that the aircraft had crashed up in the highlands of Scotland not very far from Aviemore and nobody really knew why, but I was surprised that I didn’t know anything about this because I thought I knew quite a lot about Lancs and the ones that were left, but I didn’t know anything about this one at all. So, did some investigating and joined this little group at Waddington and in 2008 there was an expedition organised to go and visit the crash site, and I wasn’t too sure about it because it involved four hours of walking from the nearest bit of road on the A9 up to the crash site, and the nearest town I think is Kingussie and the crash site as I say was up in the peat bog highlands and was about a four hour walk from the nearest bit of civilisation. So was very much looking forward to it, got out there, had seen some photographs of what was out there, got out there and was amazed to find the state of the bits that were there, the wreckage still perfectly good markings, you could see the squadron letters on the side of it J, O, G, you could see bits of the roundels and lots of the markings on the aircraft that had been sat out there in this environment of plus 20 in the summer to sort of minus 30 in the winter of snow and ice and hail and survived over sixty cycles of this was still in such good condition, amazing. So obviously very fascinated and also very daunting to wander round the crash site of where these seven young men had been killed thinking that’s the spot where these guys were killed, and that was just sort of a visit to the site initially. Got back absolutely full of enthusiasm thought it would be really nice to get some of those bits back to Waddington. The land owner had been a very good chap, he’d been very protective of the site because it wasn’t a burial site because the guys had all been returned to, or been recovered, bodies had been recovered and buried in Cambridge War Graves Cemetery, apart from the engineer who was buried in Scotland. But he was very protective of the site, didn’t want sort of pilferers and people pinching stuff ‘cause it was quite significant to him but he when we explained what we were trying to do he was very pro very much onside and with a bit of wrangling managed to get hold of a helicopter on a training flight in the local area and with a specialist team that were involved in under-slung loads you have to be quite careful about what you put under a helicopter of course, all these experts came along, all of this came together and I was very impressed about how it came together and we actually managed to recover some of the parts of the aircraft in the under-slung load down to by the main road, by the A9, and then back to, ferried back to Waddington. We did two events like that one in 2009 and one in 2010. So, we’d now got some very significant parts of this aircraft recovered back at Waddington and with the help of the Lanc at Coningsby some engineers have made an internal frame just the same size as the inside of a Lancaster so we’ve actually managed to attach some of these sections that we’ve recovered onto this frame sort of almost like a reconstruction of a Lancaster although we haven’t actually got enough room to make a full-size Lancaster. So, it’s quite significant now and it achieved the aim of the people at Waddington who can now actually put the hands on something that if they’re ground crew their forebears did, were involved in seventy years ago. So, it’s quite tangible to see something of a real live Lancaster and we were very impressed, this aircraft was only three weeks old when it crashed, so I call it a brand new Lancaster which amuses people when you see the state of it now. It was a brand new Lancaster, three weeks old, it had still achieved seven, carried out seven operations in that time, six or seven operations and one of the pilots who’d done three of those operations, a chap called Bill Purdy had heard about our project even though he was in Australia and he’d come over to see his old Lancaster and gave us some wonderful tales about the stories of how it had been involved in his general life as well and so we thought as a nice idea we’d present him with part of the Lancaster to take home. So, we found one of the exhaust stubs, there were quite a few of those scattered over the hillside, we found an exhaust stub, rather bent, but we gave it to him to take back. On the grounds that we thought it might look rather suspicious going through the scanner at the airport security we gave him a sort of signed certificate to confirm it was his property and that we’d presented it to him and the significance of it. So, he went back very happy with that. Didn’t expect to see him again but he’s a very adventurous chap and he’s been back to the UK several times since then and come to visit and see the progress in our project. But because when you take bits off a crash site you have to have a licence to take bits off it when you, the licence has to be in somebody’s name so it’s in my name, and so when I recover bits I have to send a full report of all the bits I’ve taken off the crash site and then the MOD come back with a letter, a standard format letter, saying the RAF and the MOD have no longer any interest in these parts, they now belong to you. So, all these Lancaster bits belong to me so I’ve got my own bits of a Lancaster which I’m very proud of, and the visitors centre is open to members of the public by prior arrangement.
DE: Smashing. Well thank you very much again.
MC: Good stuff.
DE: Unless you can think of something else you want to add that will.
MC: I’ll check my notes, things I thought about. Covered it all really. Pete Lees, PD259, my Father’s stories and the two Lancs presentation I do, yeah, brilliant. Yep, so do you, would you want copies of Father’s stories?
DE: I’d love to yes.
MC: Yeah, electronically on there if you wish.
DE: Oh brilliant, that’s fantastic I’ll get those sorted.
MC: Yeah.
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AChattertonM160331
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Interview with Mike Chatterton
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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01:24:28 audio recording
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Pending review
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Dan Ellin
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2016-03-31
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Royal Air Force
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Mike Chatterton grew up on a farm. His father, John Chatterton was a Lancaster pilot during the war, before returning to university and becoming a lecturer, then later becoming a farmer. Mike joined the Royal Air Force from university in the 1970’s and flew Jet Provost, helicopters, Shackletons and Nimrods. On posting to RAF Coningsby he joined the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight where he progressed to Captain the Lancaster. He was able to fly his father and some of his crew. Mike also carried out taxy runs on ‘Just Jane’ at East Kirkby and assisted in the recovery of parts of Lancaster PD259 from a crash site in Scotland to RAF Waddington.
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
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Dawn Studd
44 Squadron
aircrew
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
final resting place
Halifax
killed in action
Lancaster
memorial
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Coningsby
RAF Cranwell
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Waddington
rivalry
Shackleton
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/295/3615/AWallerT151027.2.mp3
fabda2f9ca0e4a33deecf28b4415ef22
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Waller, Tom
Tom Waller
T Waller
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Corporal Thomas Waller (- 2018, 1096366 Royal Air Force) a memoir and photographs. Tom Waller was a fitter/armourer with 138, 109 and 156 Squadrons and served at RAF Stradisall, RAF Wyton, RAF Warboys, and RAF Upward.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Thomas Waller and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-27
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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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Waller, T
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DE: So this is an interview with Thomas Waller. It’s at his house in Swanland. It’s the 27th of the 10th 2015. Approximately 10 past 10. My name is Dan Ellin and this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. So Mr Waller could you please tell me what you did before the war and before you joined the RAF?
TW: I left school when I was fourteen. Worked on the fish docks. I left there when we came to Swanland in 1936. I went to work at the Blackburn’s which is now British Aerospace at Brough. I couldn’t stand being penned in there so I came and worked in the local village grocery shop. Wednesday was our half day so when I was in town one Wednesday I went in to the recruiting office and joined the RAF. I came home. Mother said, ‘Why did you do that for? You’ll not pass your medical.’ So I said, ‘Ah. Let’s see.’ So I went for my medical and passed A1. And she said, ‘Well you couldn’t have done.’ But I never found out why. So I joined up. Went in for MT driver but I’d joined up just at Dunkirk and they’d lost a lot of armourers in Fairey Battles so I became an armourer. Hadn’t the vaguest idea what it was – came home on leave, home and my brother he was a flight engineer. Ground crew. I said, ‘What’s an armourer?’ He said, ‘Oh guns and bombs.’ ‘Oh I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing that.’ He said, ‘It’s good pay. Good promotion.’ I said, ‘Money’s not everything.’ Anyhow, I went. Got on the course. And the lad next to me said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do this.’ So we filed up and down. Up and down. The tutor came around and said, ‘You two can stop messing about. Get on with it because we know you can do it.’ So we did. So we passed out flying colours so went out there in the armoury after it had finished. An officer come along and says, ‘Those whose names I call out please step forward.’ My name was called out. Go for fitter armourer to Credenhill in Hereford. So my mate said, ‘We didn’t want to do that, did we?’ I said, ‘No. But we’ll have to go won’t we?’ So we went and we enjoyed it and we got through that course alright and then I was posted to Stradishall. 138 Squadron. SOE Squadron. I wasn’t there very long because Tempsford was its main base and they decided to put all the SOE section together. So they transferred me to Wyton. But instead of Stradishall sending me to Wyton they sent me to Upper Heyford. So, when I got there they said, ‘Where have you come from?’ I said, ‘Stradishall.’ ‘Well you’re not supposed to be here mate.’ I said, ‘Well I have a railway warrant for here.’ ‘Well, we’ll fetch you up a bed for the night and feed you and see.’ I was there for a week and then they said, ‘We’ve found out where you should have been. You should be at Wyton.’ So they said, ‘Get your kit ready and come down to the orderly room tomorrow morning. Half past eight. We’re flying you over in an Anson.’ Oh, I thought lovely. My first flight. Here I go. I got to the orderly room. ‘You’re going by train.’ It’s got a snag. They took me to the station. Stood there. Thought got to get rid of him and make sure he gets on the train. So when I got to Wyton they said, ‘Where have you been?’ I said, ‘I’ve been at Upper Heyford.’ ‘Well what did you go there for?’ I said, ‘Well that’s my railway warrant.’ You know. So he said, ‘Well have you come through King’s Cross?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said. ‘Have you been stopped by the police?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’ve got them at your house looking for you.’ So I said, ‘No wonder my mother was agitated.’ So I settled down there and then, you know [pause] I eventually got to Wyton and the lads said, ‘Oh you’re our new armourer are you?’ So, I said, ‘Yes sir.’ They said, ‘Right.’ So we got settled in. Got working on the aircraft and then came home on leave. Got back off leave. Just got to the guard room and there was a terrific explosion. All the people came out the guardroom, the guard chaps. There’d been an explosion there, hadn’t there. Now had I been, not been on leave I wouldn’t be here now. So I’m one of the lucky ones and the billets at night with all the empty beds. It was really horrible to see it, you know. So we plodded on. Carried on. And then I was transferred from Wyton to [pause] from Stradishall. I went to Wyton and from Wyton I went to Warboys. To 156 Squadron. Start of Pathfinder force. And then they transferred over to Upwood and I went over to Upwood. And then I was there till 1946 and I was sent to a satellite drome near Stratford on Avon. With a dummy four pounder in the bomb dump, fifty rifles in the armoury. I was a corporal and there was me and another lad there with nothing to do. So when demob come I was glad to get out. But if I’d been on a proper station I would have stopped in because I really enjoyed the life. So I came home. Went back to my job in the village. And then at that time I was engaged to a WAAF in London so I got a job with Barclays Baking Machines. Went down to their factory in London and trained to be a mechanic. Service mechanic for the area. So we came back home again. But my lady friend said, ‘I’m not going to Swanland to live.’ So that brought that up. So I did it but I had to give it up because I didn’t have the money to buy a car or a motorbike and doing all the villages. And I walked from Holme on Spalding Moor to Easingwould carrying a wooden box with all my kit in. And I were going, and I went to one place, Newbold. And you’re allowed an hour and a half to service a machine and when I got there I had a new blade to put on. There were only a bus in the morning and one at night [laughs] so I panicked. I got it on. So I gave the manager my address. I said, ‘If anything happens send me a telegram and,’ I said, ‘I’ll come over,’ you know. Anyhow, everything was alright, thank goodness. So, but it was having walking from one village to another and buses it was that awkward so I gave it up. And I came back to the local shop again. Met a local girl and got married. And then I went to work for a local multiple store. Cousins. Down in Ferriby. And I used to go into the shop on the corner, a big shop on the corner where, down where we lived on a Sunday morning to do the bale machine for him and sort his yard out for him. So one day he said, ‘Would you like to come and work for me? I’ll give you a pound more than what you’d do down there.’ A pound in them days was a lot of money. And I had four children then. So I said, ‘Oh yes. Yeah.’ So I came and I was there for nineteen years. And then he brought his nephew into the business and of course he fell out with everybody. Fell out with me. It was horrible to work in. I was fifty five then and I thought where I go from here. Anyhow, Everthorpe Prison was advertising for a canteen manager’s assistant storeman. So I applied for the job. Went for the interview and then I got a letter saying no. The other man was there. He’d been a manager but I’d never been a manager. Anyhow, on the Monday they rang me up. Was I still interested in the job? I said why. Well the manager walked into the canteen on the Friday dinnertime and walked out. He said, ‘I’m not doing this.’ So he said, ‘The job is yours if you want.’ So I did nine and a half years there and took early retirement. So then my hobby was decorating. So I had a little business decorating.
DE: Right. I see. So you, going back to when you were working in, in the grocer’s shop and you had your early day off on Wednesday afternoon.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Why did you decide to join the RAF?
TW: I just did it on impulse. No real reason. I just, I just thought I’d go, you know. My brother was in the RAF so maybe that was one of the things as well, like, you know.
DE: Did you consider any of the other services?
TW: No. Never. If anything it was always going to be the RAF. So I got what I wanted but I didn’t get the job wanted.
DE: No. Because you wanted to drive.
TW: I wanted to drive. Yeah.
DE: Why. Why did you want to drive?
TW: I was always interested in driving and I learned to drive when I was at the village shop so. But I never passed a driving test. Because when the war came in 1939 just, just as I was taking mine and I’d only done driving down country roads and I did my test in the town. And I’d never been in front of a policeman before. And in Hull, there was a street in Hull where it was just a snake of people because when we had the ferry you’d see people going down , down the outside to the ferry. The policeman was waving me on you see and saying, ‘You’ve got to go hadn’t you?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, They’ve got to move for you,’ you know. He said, ‘Well, your driving’s alright but you need more experience in the town.’ Well the war came so I kept my licence going and it became a full licence after the war so –
DE: I see.
TW: So me being a clever man, I taught my eldest son to drive. So I said to him, ‘Well we’ll finish you off at a driving school because I’ve never passed a driving test.’ So I got these people to come. So I said, ‘No. I’ve never passed a driving test. But,’ I said, ‘I’ve done my best so will you take him and finish him off.’ So they went and they came back and they both got out the car and folded their arms. He said, ‘You taught him to drive.’ I thought – here it comes. He says, ‘We can’t fault him anywhere. We don’t know how he didn’t pass the test. He said, ‘We’re putting him for his test straight away because he’s brilliant.’
DE: Wonderful.
TW: I always say to him now, ‘Now you didn’t listen to what I said to you? Did you?’ He borrowed my car once. He said he wanted to follow the RAC rally. I said yes. It was in November and it was snowy and icy. I said, ‘Go to Harrogate and Howard House but whatever you do do no go on the moors.’ ‘Ok dad.’ 3 o’clock in the morning a neighbour came down, ‘They’ve had an accident.’ ‘I’ll kill him,’ I said, ‘I’ll kill him when he gets home.’ Looked out the window when I heard this wagon outside a few hours later. Looked out. I said, ‘Look at my car. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.’ ‘Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.’ I said, ‘What did I tell you?’ ‘Well.’ ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘But when you was driving the car you were in charge of the car. You should have done what I told you.’ So every time we go up on to the moors there’s an archway. ‘That’s where I had my crash dad.’ I said, ‘Don’t keep reminding me.’
DE: Oh dear. So the RAF didn’t want you to be a driver. They sent you on the armourer’s course.
TW: Sent me on the armoury course because at that time – Dunkirk and we’d lost a lot of armourers on Fairey Battles apparently. So, and they were short of armourers so that was it.
DE: So what did the course entail?
TW: Well, it entailed making little parts for guns and that and then you sort of went on to turrets and how to look after guns and how to sort the turrets out and that, then finished that armourers course, called out outside. Then this officer calls through, ‘These names please come forward.’ So we stepped forward. We all went to be fitter armourers. I went to be fitter armourer. Should have been general if I wanted to go on bombs but I was just fitter armourer but I ended up doing everything. You know. Bombing up and everything. So [pause]
DE: And what was it like on an, on an operational station?
TW: Oh it was fantastic. The spirit amongst the lads and that. Yeah. They were brilliant. And the aircrew were brilliant as well. Especially if they’d been in a hangar for a service. You saw the pilot, ‘Are you going up for a flight? Can I come with you?’ ‘Yeah.’ So, the first time I went up it was in a Wellington. Well that was by mistake because it had been in the hangar for a service and they took it out on to the airfield and revved the engines up and then they usually took the crew down to the dispersal points. So I thought well I can go down. Get a lift back. So I went and I thought he’s revving his engines up. Well it was running up. ‘I haven’t got a parachute.’ ‘Don’t worry. None of us,’ there were two other bods there, ‘None of us have parachutes. Don’t worry.’ So any chance after that I got. So the Lancaster was next. So I said to the pilot, ‘Are you going up?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ So I went with him. So I was felt real happy and light headed. I thought oh this is lovely you know. I got a tug on my leg and this chap said, ‘How long have you been up there mate?’ I said to ten. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘Plug this into the intercom. Plug this in to the oxygen because if we come down quickly it’ll blow your ears out.’ Got on to the pilot, this, told him I was up there. So, anyway and then we got out over The Wash. I thought – panic. Only one engine. I thought, what’s happening? What’s happening? So when we got back I said, I said to the pilot, ‘How did you manage to fly on one engine?’ ‘Oh don’t worry.’ He said, ‘That Lancaster can fly on one engine.’ He said, ‘Guy Gibson’s done it.’ I thought, I said, ‘Thank God for that.’ I said. But he said, ‘I’d forgotten you was up there mate. It’s a good job the chappie saw. Saw your legs hanging down. Because,’ he said, ‘It put me in a spin because I could have damaged your ears if I’d come down too quick.’
DE: Where were you? In the mid-upper turret?
TW: In the mid-upper turret. Yeah. Lovely. Lovely sight from out there. And then when D-day started we was called out because previous to D-day – well about six months before we took all the front turrets out of the Lancasters because it gave them twenty five miles an hour more speed. So when D- day started we was all called out of the aerodrome to put these turrets back in again. Drizzling with rain. Just getting, it was just getting light. So I was out of the nose of the Lancaster guiding this turret in and the sky turned black. And all these aircraft come over with the white markings on and I shouted, ‘D-day’s started, D-day’s started.’ The most fantastic sight. So, we got, we got all the turrets put back in again. We had to – the time I was in the pilot’s cockpit. No scaffolding. Health and safety today would go up the wall because the only scaffolding they had was for the engine people. So you had to climb out over the and crawl along a little but to the turret to guide it in and check if you wanted. If anything had happened inside. Check nothing loose. It was moving slow. Check that there were no oil leaks. So you had to take the cover off and check the oil pipes and that and put it back on. They’d grab you by your collar and turn you around and you’d go back in head first.
DE: That sounds like a really interesting job that.
TW: It was. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. As I say had I been on a proper ‘drome when the war finished I would have stopped in. I did really enjoy it.
DE: What other sort of things did they have you doing then?
TW: Being a gunner armourer I should never have been on bombs. But I was put on to a bombing up crew. I mean I didn’t know anything about the fuses or anything but I was putting fuses in and then we got – when we got Mosquitoes they couldn’t get four target indicator bombs on. So I had to shorten the tails till we could get four target indicator bombs on. So we got that sorted out.
DE: What were target indicator bombs like then?
TW: They were, well I think they were about two hundred and fifty pounds and that and they had about a hundred candles in. So when it dropped all the candles came out and should have burned but they didn’t. But we’d be, we got pressed for – Professor Cox came down and we helped him to perfect this so that when they dropped if they snapped everything burned. So we used to go to Thetford Forest. Got it on to a Lancaster. Go to Thetford Forest. Wait for it to be dropped. Go and see. Our fourth attempt was a successful attempt so we achieved something.
DE: So did you have four different prototypes then? Is that how it, how it worked?
TW: Yeah. You did one and put it to one side. Then marked it number one. Then number two, number three, number four. And of course when number four dropped it cracked but with having the metal rods down the cap it didn’t – it didn’t snap the rods. So it all burned when it fell.
DE: I see.
TW: Yeah. So, so we was coming back from Thetford when the war finished, one time, we said, ‘What’s everybody cheering for?’ You know. We stopped and asked somebody. ‘Well the war’s over.’ So that was nice surprise for us coming back again.
DE: So what were the conditions like on the stations that you were working on?
TW: The worst one was Stradishall because it wasn’t a proper ablutions. It was more open than that. Very basic. But the rest of them were fantastic. Beautiful toilets and showers and everything. And the barracks were good as well. There was, you used to get each station I’d been on after that there were the parade ground and then there was four blocks at each corner of the parade ground. Four blocks of houses. For people, for the crews. The airmen to be in. So then you went off to your, on to the ‘drome and then you went on to your armoury and did your business.
DE: Right. So could you describe a typical working day then for me?
TW: We’d have breakfast and then start about 8 o’clock and you’d sort of check your turrets over and then go and have your dinner and then come back. And if there ops on you would, I would be bombing up which I shouldn’t have been and then you stood there for them to go off and if you was conscientious you were there for when they came back again. But that was the worst part. Waiting for them to come back again. ‘Cause you would think if yours was the last one in and it hadn’t arrived. You’d say, well there was another one to come in yet? Another one to come in yet? And he’d come limping in. Probably be shot up a bit and a bit of damage on the wings and that. Our aircrew were good. They never made any bones or anything if they were hurt or anything. Because one day we had the Americans come in. The fighters shot the ‘drome up right down the runway. Then the B17 came in. Got out, ‘Where’s the blood wagon? Where’s the blood wagon?’ Kissing the ground. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. My brother, my brother was all for, all for the Americans. I said, ‘Well, you can have them. You can go over there and live with them.’ I said, ‘From what I’ve seen of them I think they’re pathetic.’ Then we used to go to the pictures in Huntingdon. We was coming out one day and Clark Gable, the film star, was walking in. Oh there’s Clark Gable there. With it being Americans there you see. Huntingdon was the nearest with a cinema so they used to come there.
DE: So what other things did you do when you had an evening off then?
TW: Well, when I had an evening off we, sometimes my mate and I would go right around the villages and then we got to this little village of Benwick. So we stopped and went in to the pub and got a drink and went outside at the back because they had a lovely bowling green at the back. And we sat and there was a couple sat next to us. So they asked, ‘Are you from the local ‘drome?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Would you like a game of bowls?’ So I said, ‘Oh I’ve never played bowls.’ My mate said, ‘Oh come.’ We won them [laughs] and so they said, ‘Are you sure you’ve never played before?’ So I said, ‘No.’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’ve managed to get the right bias on the bowls because you managed to get them through, you know.’ So, anyhow they invited us over to, for supper. And we used to go over regular and they had two boys and a girl. Now, the girl she’s what, she’ll be in her seventies now. We’re still in contact with one another. I made her a doll’s bed. She had two boys. Her boys had boys but she’s still got the bed. She said, ‘I might get a great granddaughter one day so I’ll pass it on to her.’ So we were regularly in contact with her because the family were fantastic to go to. You come home on leave, ‘Are you going on leave?’ He said. ‘I’ll come around night before and we’ll give you some eggs.’ Come home with some eggs. And sometimes you’d come home with a chicken. My mother didn’t know she were born. When I was going with a WAAF in the telephone exchange and they used to cook for themselves so if they got kidneys and I was coming home on leave they‘d give me the kidneys because they never ate them.
DE: Right.
TW: So mother would have my kidneys which was a luxury in them days. Couldn’t get them from the butcher and that. So she did well did my mother with eggs and that. But my brother was a rogue. I came, on the first leave I came home on leave he was home on leave. So, I gave my mother my ration card and the money. She said, ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘Well, my ration money.’ So she said, ‘Well Maurice never give me it.’ Give it me back. And do you know what he said? ‘It’s something that’s just started.’
DE: Oh. I see.
TW: I said, ‘No. It’s been going on since you’ve been in the forces so don’t talk daft.’ But her blue eyed boy could do no wrong could my eldest brother.
DE: And what was – what was he? Did you say he was –?
TW: He was an engineer but he had a painting and decorating business before the war.
DE: Right.
TW: But he was stupid. Get a lad to. Employed a lad to work when he should be working himself. And of course when the war started his business flopped because he had a load of credit. So after the war my mother said, ‘If anybody asks where Maurice is you don’t know.’ He went into partnership with a chap and I used to work with a chap at the bottom of the road here and his partner used to come to me for a box of matches and look at me because before the war I didn’t wear glasses. After the war I were wearing glasses. He’d look at me and he’d go outside and he’d be pondering. And he came every week. I thought well I know who you are mate but I’m not going to make myself known to you [laughs] Oh dear. So those were the days.
DE: You, you mentioned a bit earlier on about an, about an explosion.
TW: Yeah. That must, must have been when they were bombing up. Because I was coming back off leave so it had to be an evening one. And I just got through the gate and there was this terrific explosion. And the chap said, ‘By. Something’s gone up there.’ You know. So the next day we had to go out on to the drome. Looking in the crater. See if we could find anything. And three Lancasters looked like they’d been made of corrugated iron. All, every bit of them but I don’t know, as far as I can remember I don’t think the tyres had gone down. In the crater you couldn’t find a thing. And the only funeral from there was a WAAF driver. And she was stood at one of the Lancasters with a crew wagon and she was the only one that was killed. She was buried in Bransby churchyard.
DE: I see. And what had happened? Did you ever find out?
TW: All I can think of – it was a barometric fuse. ‘Cause they were very delicate and if they got knocked they could have gone off. And we had a lad from London and I don’t know how he became an armourer because he was thick. And he wasn’t in the billet at night so two of us said, ‘I wonder if it’s him.’ Tried to tighten it up and hit it with a hammer. ‘Cause if he had have done it would have gone off, you know. Because it was the only explanation we could think of ‘cause it couldn’t have gone up otherwise. But never did find out really. There was nothing to piece together to sort things out.
DE: Right. How did that make you feel when you were loading up the bombs?
TW: It didn’t bother me. You don’t. You don’t feel fear. I mean when you’re sat on top of the Lancaster you don’t think about falling off. In them days you didn’t have any fear in you. You was, you was bravado, you know. Fearless. No. It was a good job. I enjoyed it.
DE: How many people worked in the team that were bombing up these aircraft?
TW: It would be about four. It would be one upstairs winding the winch. Two or three downstairs. Especially if it’s putting the four thousand pounder on. To guide it so that it didn’t swing. Otherwise three could have done it because one upstairs doing the and the other two just guiding the bomb up till it got in to, as far as it could get. Until it go into its – I forget what they call it now. It’s anchorage.
DE: Right.
TW: Yeah. But Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do. Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do because you had to get in the back and wind the winch. Nearly crippled you.
DE: This was, this was by hand.
TW: All by hand. Yeah.
DE: Right.
TW: Everything was done by hand. Even the winches in the, winching them up in to the Lancasters. All hand winches. We weren’t modernised technically in them days.
DE: So it was quite hard physical work as well.
TW: It was. Yeah. But it didn’t bother you. You just took it as part of your – what you had to do and you just, you didn’t think about it. It was a job to do and you did it and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it anyhow so.
DE: Did you have any particular friends on any of the stations?
TW: One friend. But we lost contact after the war but we used to go out when we had time off on night time. We used to go out and cycle around the villages and as I say, going to Benwick. This couple. But that was the only one I had. But, I mean, in the group, the armourers, we were all friends and that. But you see you all go your separate ways and your lives change when you go into Civvy Street.
DE: Sure. Yeah.
TW: So you’ve got to adapt.
DE: What about the WAAF? Did you have anything to do with, with them?
TW: Well we’re still, we got engaged. We were still engaged when the war finished. And she came down for a holiday and she said [pause] I’d arranged for take her to see Richard Tauber in Old Chelsea. At the theatre. So we went there and when we came back there used to be an old man sat outside the Station Hotel. And I used to always give him a coin when I passed through. He was a really nice fella. And when, getting off the bus I wanted a halfpenny change but she wouldn’t get off the bus until the conductor come downstairs and give me a halfpenny. Then when we got home she said, ‘What did you waste money for? Going to the theatre.’ I said, ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘I didn’t waste money.’ I said, ‘I treated you.’ I said, ‘I haven’t seen you for months,’ you know. I said, ‘Well what about you? I didn’t complain about you when you said you’d been here, there and everywhere.’ I said, ‘I’ve sat at home knitting a rug. I haven’t been wasting my time. But you’ve been gallivanting. You blamed me because you lost a pen because you had to write to me.’ I said, I’ve stood in – the girl’s on the phone, ‘Ringing you and you weren’t there.’ ‘I was.’ I said, ‘No you weren’t,’ I said. On Edmonton Green apparently there were four telephones and the girls on the exchange used to know me. ‘I’m sorry Mr Waller but there’s nobody there. We’re trying them all.’
DE: Oh dear.
TW: So I said I’m wasting my time. So it fell through. So we had a friend who’d been engaged and she’d packed in so she had, when you got engaged you could get dockets and units if you were going to get married. So we got our dockets and units so I managed to get a bedroom suite and two fireside chairs. I bought them. So it’s just before I went down to Edmonton. So I went down to Edmonton. She stood outside the gates of the factory, followed me home to my lodgings and then knocked on my door. And then they said, ‘There’s a lady at the door for you.’ I said, ‘There can’t be.’ She said, ‘Well she’s asking for you.’ ‘What the devil do you want?’ ‘I wondered if you’d like to take me to the pictures tonight.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Clear off.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking you anywhere.’ She sent a great big Pickford’s van down to my, our house to pick some stuff up. I mean the fool. She must have been a fool because I mean, she didn’t know what she was going to send for. And my mother didn’t know anything about it. When this chap got to the front door. ‘What do you mean you –?’ He said, ‘You mean to tell me I’ve come all this way for nothing.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re supposed to be collecting like.’ Anyhow, I wrote to her and said, “Why did you send a Pickford’s van down to our house for?” I said, “You didn’t want a Pickford van. A little pickup would have been done.” So she wrote back, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, don’t forget I paid for the bedroom suite. I paid for two fireside chairs. I paid for the tea set we had.” I said the rest of the stuff will just go in a cardboard box.” I said, ‘Just send for a little pickup.’ But you see her father was a police inspector and she thought it might frighten me a bit but it didn’t. So the Pickford van come. He said, ‘This is all I’ve got to pick up is it?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ It was the same man that came before.
DE: Right.
TW: So he said my God. I thought I was coming to fetch a great big mansion box but a little portmanteau thing, you know. But she was [pause] I don’t think I’d have ever married her if it had gone on. She was a bit a one for herself. You know. Yeah.
DE: Sounds like it.
TW: And I was always wrong. And there was me. I had sore fingers from knitting. ‘Cause you couldn’t get canvas in them days so you used to wrap wool around a wooden ruler. Cut it. And then you got the right set. So you knit, put it in, knit a stitch and turn it around. Made some lovely rugs. I was very good at knitting. I knitted my first son’s christening shawl when he was born. Yeah. My sister was useless but I’ve got, I’ve got my mother’s genes because she was court dressmaker was my mother. But she would never help me because when I was growing up I wanted to be a dress designer. Oh no. No. No. No. I’ve dressed dolls as brides and they’re all over the world. I can make them ever week. People wanting them but my mother wouldn’t help me one little bit.
DE: Oh.
TW: And my sister couldn’t even, couldn’t even knit. It took her all her time to sew a button on. I could do the lot. In fact up until my children starting school I made all their clothes for them.
DE: Ok.
TW: Yeah. I was an industrious little lad. Used to have a nice decorating business. Go out at night decorating. And then when I retired I was with the prison service. They said, ‘Are you going down to London for a retirement course? They’ll explain all the things to do for getting a job and that.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘No. No. I’m not going.’ I said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ ‘What do you mean?’ they said. ‘Well I’m going to do my decorating.’ ‘Oh, you’re going on this course.’ I said, ‘I’m not going on a course.’ I went on the course and I made twenty seven quid. I said, ‘What?’ Because I went to the cashiers. They said, ‘How did you get the tools?’ So I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ They said, ‘No. You went by taxi.’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ ‘No. Taxi. You got a taxi back as well. When you go to London where do you get a taxi to?’ I said, ‘I didn’t. I walked.’ ‘No you didn’t.’ I said, ‘I walked.’ He said, ‘What hotel did you stay at?’ I said, ‘I didn’t stay at a hotel.’ I said, ‘My brother lived at Hatfield so,’ I said, ‘I commuted each day from there.’ ‘Oh no. You stayed at a hotel. Now that looks a good one. You stayed there’ And I thought, afterwards I thought well that’s all over the country happening. It’s an eye opener sometimes. And that was in the prison service. No. I don’t know.
DE: Strange.
[pause]
DE: I’m just having a look at my notes.
[pause]
DE: Was the, did the different stations feel particularly different? I mean you say you worked with an SOE squadron and you worked for Pathfinders.
TW: No. They’re all types sort of thing, you know. There was no sort of difference in it. The only difference was Wyton. The bomb dump was at the other side the main road.
DE: Right.
TW: But the rest of them were all on the ‘dromes.
DE: I see.
TW: No. But they were all the same, there was no difference in them. Just because they were different squadrons. There were no, the routine was more or less the same all the way through.
DE: Ok. And the target indicator bombs that you were experimenting with in Thetford. Were these the sky markers? Or the –
TW: The sky markers. Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
TW: Some some used to drop them in the cloud. A break in the clouds. And others used to drop down on the ground. And they were in different colours so there was a Master Bomber up above directing so if Jerry lit a decoy they’d change the colour. ‘Don’t bomb on red. Bomb on green.’ ‘Don’t bomb on green. Bomb on yellow.’ I wouldn’t like the Master Bombers job. To be up there all the time when the raid was on. Circling around.
DE: Yeah.
TW: No. I enjoyed it though.
[pause]
DE: And you say you, you chose to be demobbed because –
TW: I chose demob because I was on a satellite ‘drome. I had nothing to do and you just got bored. There was nothing you could do about it so you were glad to get out of it in the end. But that’s to say if I’d been on a proper ‘drome I would have stopped in.
DE: Right. I see.
TW: But I wasn’t so –
DE: What was the demob process like?
TW: Dead easy. Mind you I’ve always had a query with it. My demob. Because the medical officer examined me. Went and fetched another doctor. And I wondered why. So I’ve now developed an irregular heart beat so whether that was coming on then I don’t know but I’ve had this sepsis into regular rhythm.
DE: Right.
TW: When I was ninety two. Put me in the cubicle. ‘My God. We’re sorry. We shouldn’t have done that to you at your age.’ The cut off point’s ninety. I said, ‘Well it’s too late now isn’t it?’ He said, ‘Well you won’t get it done again. It’s back to normal. Its back to its regular beat again.’ Yeah. So they can’t do anything about it.
DE: Did you have much to do with the RAF medical services?
TW: No. Never.
DE: No.
TW: I’ve never bothered anybody. British Legion or anybody. I’ve bought my own wheelchair. Bought my own mobility scooter. I’ve a step son won’t part with a thing. He had a leg off. We’ve a wheelchair in there. We’ve a zimmer outside. We’ve two stools. I said, ‘You want to send those back.’ ‘Oh I might need them.’ I said, ‘You won’t need them.’ He won’t part with a thing.
DE: I see.
TW: They’re stood there. Brand new.
DE: Some people are like that though aren’t they?
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. You were showing me before we started the interview this research that you’ve been doing.
TW: Yeah.
DE: About the Halifax bomber crash. Could you tell me a little about that?
TW: Well it happened. We lived in Swanland. We came to Swanland in 1936. My parents left in March 1944. So I came back and knew nothing about it and then and a guy in the village wrote a book and there was a bit about it in there. And we were out one day with the church on an outing and yon side of Gilberdyke there was this model of where Halifaxes had crashed and there was two sort of intertwined. So I said, ‘Something should have been done about those two chaps who were killed in our village. Anyhow, a week or two went by and nothing happened so I thought I’ll take it on myself you see. So I thought he’s buried in Bury so he’s got to be a local lad. Got on to the paper and that. No. Couldn’t find anything about him. There was nothing about him at the cemetery and nothing about him at the War Graves Commission. No address or anything. So I got on to the records office and they rang me up and said, ‘He comes from Nottingham.’ I said, ‘Well, its seventy years since it happened. Can you tell me where?’ ‘Oh no. He came from Nottingham.’ So I wrote to tourist the board in Nottingham and they gave me the address of the radio station and the paper. The local paper were like the Daily Mail in Hull. They were useless. Two little pieces at the bottom. One, the modern Nottingham paper was in the Bygones letters in back of the paper. Two lines at the bottom. And the radio station at Nottingham were brilliant. They did a magnificent programme. But they rang me up to say would I go on the station but I was away on holiday and my son took the call. They said, ‘Well, tell your dad we’ll read out his letter out he sent us. We’d have liked to have him on it but we can’t change a programme now.’ So they wrote to me to tell me what they’d done and then [pause] I’ve got a blockage [pause] So, I got on to the tourist board and they said he’d come from Nottingham. So Radio Nottingham put a programme out and I heard nothing. Now, the other pilot, he came from Tottenham and he’s buried and I knew he was buried near his parents. Now, the War Graves just had the address of the church where he was buried so London University took it over from me but they couldn’t trace any relatives at all then. And then about four months after I started investigating I got a telephone call one night. ‘When are you having the service? I said, ‘What service?’ ‘For the airmen you found.’ I said, ‘I’m not because I haven’t found anybody.’ ‘He said, ‘I’m a nephew.’ He said, ‘We’ve just found out from Australia.’ I said, ‘Australia?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Eastern Australia.’ So how it got over there. Whether he’d been on the internet and that I don’t know. So he said can you arrange it. So I arranged a new service and about fifteen came down. They said, ‘Oh we owe everything to you. We thought he’d been killed over Germany.’ And they said, ‘But we’re grateful to you for what you’ve done. We’ll keep in contact.’ So Christmas come. I got a Christmas card. I’ve written letters. I’ve never heard a thing from them. Now, on the Monday night after it was on television a cousin who knew him – she rang me up. She said, ‘Oh I wish I’d known. I would have been there. Can I come over and see you?’ So she came over and we took her over to show where it crashed and the plaque in the church. And we took her to the cemetery to his grave. And then she said, ‘When was you born? And we found out we were born on the same day so it seems as though fate decreed that I should find him you know. His relatives. And we were keeping in regular contact with her. And we found out that he was with the 1160 Heavy Conversion Unit from Blyton near Gainsborough where he was killed. And so he was killed just up the road from where we live now.
DE: I see. And what, what was it that made you think it was important to tell this story?
TW: Well I think everybody who was in the air force should be recognised if it can be. And being out on this car ride and seeing that I thought well something ought to be done so that’s when I set about doing it. But I didn’t think I’d come against so many brick walls. But you do but you get through in the end you know. But the point I can never understand why his wife had him buried in Beverley. Why she told his family he’d been killed over Germany. There’s something funny there.
DE: Yeah.
TW: And you see all those there was about fifteen came. None of them knew him. There was his sister in law and his brother. Well not his brother because his brother had been killed. But his sister in law there and his nephews and that. But none of them knew him. Even his sister in law didn’t know him. But this cousin she’s brilliant. She keeps in, there’s a photograph in there of her and she always readily comes. What I want now when this gets seed I don’t know how they’re going to work it at the spire. In the plaques. But he’s Cumberworth and so whether they’ll put 1160 Conversion Unit in or not or whether it will just be a plaque with C’s on. Names of C’s.
DE: It’s alphabetical. Yes. I mean –
TW: Yeah. Cause I know a lady in the village she’s been down and she’s found her father’s name. And hers is J so I thought C must be up if J’s. J’s there.
DE: What’s there at the moment is 1 Group and 5 Group.
TW: Oh he must have been in one of them. She’s got – they gave me their memory card to put on the computer and there’s a picture of her pointing to her dad’s name.
DE: Yeah.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. So I think this gentleman will be on –
TW: Cumberworth.
DE: Cumberworth will be on the next lot of names that go up. Yeah. Yeah. Leslie Cumberworth.
TW: So if I can manage to get a photograph sometime I’ll get one.
DE: Yeah.
TW: I can get and get a photograph and send it to his cousin. She’d be really grateful.
DE: Yeah. I’m sure we can arrange that when the names are up.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. So you said earlier you’ve never joined any squadron associations or any, any groups.
TW: I’ve joined the RAF Association.
DE: Right.
TW: Yeah. But Hull’s useless. Right from the very start, useless. They said they were short of money. So I did a mini market for them and I raised five hundred pound. And the lady who did the catering she did everything. Paid all her expenses like I do. Pay all expenses so everything you get is profits. I handed that money over to a flight lieutenant in cash and I’ve got a letter of thanks for a receipt. Where did that money go? I’m sure they’d have sent me a receipt if they’d got the money –
DE: Yeah.
TW: But I didn’t realise it at the time. It was afterwards I thought about it you know. And then I went down and I said I’d organise a competition. They said, ‘Oh you can’t do it because you’re not on the committee.’ I said, ‘I’m not joining the committee because I know what would happen. I’d end up doing everything.’ I said I like to everything. So, I said so I was working at Everthorpe then so I got a thousand copies done. So I said if you give every member ten copies you get a pound from every member. That’s a tenner each. If I give you a prize for the winner. So I gave them a lovely Parker, Parker pen and pencil set. That got pinched. ‘Cause they said I said to them when I went down I said, ‘Well you’ve got a prize to go with it so,’ I said, ‘Parker pen and pencil set.’ But it wasn’t there upstairs in the office.
DE: Oh dear.
TW: So I said, ‘Well have you started yet?’ So they said, ‘No. No. They said, so I started, ‘Oh you can’t start it. You’re not on the committee.’ So I said, ‘Have you started that?’ So she said, ‘No, not yet but,’ she said, ‘We’ll buy a prize out of what we make.’ I said, ‘No. I’ll give you another prize.’ When I do a thing I stand the expenses myself. I always have done. So I saw her a fortnight after. Four pound. I said, ‘You what? Four pound?’ I said, ‘I’ve done it twice and I’ve made over fifty pound each time.’ Then in 19 what 60s 70s fifty pound was a lot of money in them days. So I stopped going then ‘cause my son has joined as associate members.
DE: Yeah.
TW: And my daughter in law. Well the third time I went my daughter in law won the jackpot. You should have heard them. ‘You’ve only been here three weeks.’ I said, I went to the bar, I said, ‘Is this the way they go on?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, I said we’re supposed to be an air force group,’ I said esprit de corps, where is it?’
DE: Yeah.
TW: I said we’ve joined and paid our money. So I went in one night and I sat in this chair and this woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, she said, ‘That’s my chair.’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ She said, ‘That’s my chair.’ So I got up. ‘Well it hasn’t got your name on it.’ So I said, ‘I’m not moving.’ And this was how good our club was. We had a trip to [pause] the memorial down in London. Castleford invited us back for supper. And they did a fantastic spread. Absolutely brilliant. So we invited them down to our club. I went down on the Wednesday night when it was due. There was only me and another fella in the club. The chap behind the bar, he said ‘We don’t usually see you here on a Wednesday night Tom.’ So I said, ‘Well, where is everybody?’ ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Castleford are coming tonight.’ ‘No they’re not.’ ‘Yes they are.’ With that the door opened. They all walked in. So I said, ‘I do apologise but I said, ‘You’ve picked the wrong club to come to because this is useless. This club.’
DE: Oh dear.
TW: I said, ‘I’ve just come in,’ I said, ‘And it’s obvious they’ve forgotten.’ So they had to dash out and buy pie, pea and chips. No. I wouldn’t join no committee. I used to run a coffee morning every Wings week. We raised quite a lot of money. Got some good, one prize we had was a Hornby Double O train set. Folks said, ‘We like your coffee mornings because you always have a good raffle.’ I said it’s the people that you know they can get something from me. Where you go to you know.
DE: Yes.
TW: Very generous. You know.
DE: So apart from that Association what do you think about the way Bomber Command’s been remembered over the last.
TW: Very poor. Very poor. I mean the spire when it was opened. Did BBC do anything about it?
DE: I think –
TW: No. Only local stations. But BBC, I mean there’s all the people around the country in bomber command. BBC should have been doing that as well. I think their biased.
DE: Why do you think that is?
TW: Well, why weren’t they there? I mean you don’t seem to get much about the RAF or anything like that on the BBC.
[pause]
TW: I’m an old man. I do things differently. If I get a letter I answer it straight away. Anything that I’ve done I do it straight away but today it’s so lackadaisical. I mean this cousin of the airman. I sent some things about the Association and some photographs. A month ago. I’ve never had, I rang her up and said I’m sending you this parcel. I’ve never had a telephone call, an email or anything to say she’s got it. I just can’t understand folks.
[pause]
DE: Hello. I’ll just pause it there a moment.
[recording paused]
DE: That’s fine I’ve just started it recording again. Sorry about the interruption. Is there anything else? Any other stories that you think you’d like to tell us?
TW: I don’t think so because we covered it pretty well cause my memory is not as good as it was and I get, I’m talking and I go blank.
DE: I think you’ve done very very well.
TW: Yeah. So but I think no I think we’ve covered it really well.
DE: Just one other thing I think you covered it in the phone conversation when we were arranging this. What do you think about the stories of people like yourself and ground personnel have to tell?
TW: Pardon?
DE: What do you think about the stories of ground personnel? How well do you think they’ve been remembered?
TW: They haven’t. Because somebody was saying if it wasn’t for ground crew the bombs wouldn’t have gone off. But we haven’t been remembered. You never hear anybody talk about us. We’re just a forgotten crew. But I’m not worried because I did my best so. They rewarded me with a mention in dispatches so I can’t complain.
DE: Oh. How. What was the story behind that?
TW: I’ve no idea.
DE: No.
TW: All I can think it was because we helped Professor Cox design his target indicator bomb and alter the tail fins for [pause] to get the bombs on to Mosquitoes. I can’t think of anything else that I’ve done that’s deserving of it. Because getting out on D-day I mean that was just part of the job I think.
DE: Yeah.
TW: So [pause] and my grandson has my medals and my certificate because he’s a keen, very keen on what his granddad’s done. So he said, ‘Can I have your medals granddad.’ So I said, ‘Yeah. You can have that as well.’
DE: That’s wonderful.
TW: Because I know you’ll look after them.
DE: Yeah.
TW: So this is I’ll be able to tell my son. Show his photograph of his granddad and what he’s done. And he’s got my war memoir so he’s got that so. So I’ve got something to show him when he grows up.
DE: Wonderful. Right. So I’ll press pause there and thank you very very much.
TW: 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 Thomas Waller
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-25
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWallerT151027
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Dan Ellin
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.hh:mm:ss
Format
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00:56:09 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
Thomas Waller volunteered for the Royal Air Force and hoped to be a driver. However, he undertook training as an armourer and was based initially at the Special Operations Executive 138 Squadron. He was posted to RAF Stradishall, RAF Wyton and RAF Warboys. He returned from leave on one occasion and had just arrived back on the station when a massive explosion occured. He helped to develop and test target indicators with Professor Cox. He recently undertook research into the details of a Halifax crash to make sure the airmen were remembered.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Suffolk
England--Cambridgeshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
138 Squadron
156 Squadron
bombing
bombing up
crash
final resting place
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Lancaster
memorial
military living conditions
Mosquito
Pathfinders
RAF Stradishall
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Wyton
sanitation
Special Operations Executive
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/549/8812/AKirkDJB151130.1.mp3
c049e4214c8ef271b87110e8d887eb23
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
Kirk, Dennis
Dennis John Bonser Kirk
D J B Kirk
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Kirk, DJB
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Dennis Kirk. He served in a reserved occupation but also in the Home Guard and as an air raid warden. On 5 March 1943, Lancaster ED549 crashed attempting to land at RAF Langar. Denis Kirk was first on the scene and helped the only survivor.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-11-15
2015-06-10
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Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DE: So this is an interview with Dennis Kirk for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin, we are in Plungar and it is the 30th of November 2015, and also in the room are –
ET: Ernest Twells from Barkestone-le-Vale who’s a friend of Dennis Kirk.
DE: Thank you.
AT: Anne Twells, also from Barkston.
JK: Joan Kirk, Dennis’s wife.
DE: Thank you very much. Dennis could you tell me a little bit about your early life and where you grew up?
DK: I was born at Barkston in 1920, 25th of April and went to Barkston school ‘til I was, ‘til, ‘til I left and came to Plungar in twenty – we came to live in Plungar in twenty nine. But in those it was a lovely village and everybody joined in and you played your games and you know, really, really nice living there. And a few very nice school teachers at the time, a Mrs Gulliver, a Miss Whittaker and a Miss Thorpe, they were the teachers in those days. Then we came to Plungar, but you see, then when we got to Plungar we had to walk everyday from Plungar to Barkston school to get there eight o’clock in the morning [laughs] and sometimes we came home for dinner and sometimes we stayed there full, full time. And then, then where we came, when I became eleven, you were moved to Battersby school. I was at Battersby school ‘til, ‘til I was fourteen, then left school and stayed to work on the farm.
DE: Mhm.
DK: Which I didn’t, I didn’t want to be farmer [laughs] I wanted to be a joiner [emphasis] or, or a joiner or a blacksmith you see –
JK: What?
DK: In those days your parents said what you were going to do –
DE: Mhm.
DK: Not like [laughs] it is today. So I had a good life, and of course I stayed, stayed on the farm and, and helped for a long time, and then when the war came we, it became very busy, and – so when they want someone to join the Home Guard, or join the Home Guard or the fire watch and this night in nineteen forty, forty –
JK: Three [emphasis].
DK: Forty –
JK: Three.
DK: Forty-three was it? Yep in 1943, we just been round the village to check if there was any lights on, Tom Moles and myself, and on our way back we heard this aircraft coming, and suddenly it went dead and we thought it had crashed on the railway line below the village. So we went down to see what had happened and getting onto the rail track we bumped into this young man, and I said to him ‘are there any bombs on the plane?’ He said ‘no we’ve dropped all the bombs.’ And then we got him off the railway line, which is next to the canal, and we took him to Grange farm where Mr and Mrs Bell lived, and they’d been in the seventies and he took care of him. I don’t know how long for but we went down to see where the plane had crashed. We found it – wasn’t on the railway line it was just below [emphasis] the railway line, and never seen anything like it before. And there was three, three thrown out at the front, there was a Barbados man in the centre and there was another two each side, and then we walked to the rear end and the rear gunner, he was dead inside the, in his turret, but we never saw the other couple. So we started moving away then then the fire engine came, but it, they had a look and said [unclear] ‘cause nothing they could do, and without, the ground [unclear] aircrew, well ground staff from Langar Airfield, it was only about half a mile away.
DE: Mhm.
DK: So, so we left it and went back to our Home Guard hut ‘til – now you see, when you did Home Guard in the winter time, you signed on at seven ‘til half past five in the morning, but in the summer time you weren’t on ‘til ten to half past five [laughs] in the morning, and we finished half an hour – but that was it, nothing more was heard of it and then it would be about, what was it, sixty years ago –
JK: Sixty years ago.
DK: Did you say? Pardon?
JK: Mm. Pardon?
DK: Sixty years after when he found it –
JK: Well yes, yeah –
DK: Bolton [emphasis].
JK: It would be, hmm.
DK: And they said that John Bolton found this part, kept it in his garden shed, and then someone said ‘see Dennis’ and he said ‘what would it be’ and we found it was a piece of metal from a bomber [emphasis]. Then I contacted Jim Chamberlain who had associations with Bomber Command and he sorted that booklet out [emphasis].
DE: Mhm.
DK: But other than that I – it was a shock to see three people lying dead there you see, something you’d never seen before [laughs].
ET: Didn’t you say though they looked as though they were asleep Dennis?
DK: Pardon?
ET: You said they looked as though they were asleep.
DK: They were lying there -
ET: When?
DK: They were lying just like this here, so much apart, I can see, can see, see ‘em to this day, I can see the Barbados man in the centre now but –
DK: Yeah. But, you see but all, from then on, every book which was produced said the plane burned out.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But there wasn’t a spark at all. You could just hear the engines flip, cooling off there, but that was it so. But then my wife contacted Alan [?] didn’t he, and she said they were diverted to Scampton [emphasis] where it wasn’t safe to land, then they sent them to Normanton, Bottesford, but they came round here -
DE: Mhm.
DK: Some years ago –
JK: It was misty at the time –
DE: I see.
JK: And that’s why they were diverted.
DE: Hmm.
JK: [Unclear] aircraft, airfield.
DK: And some years ago I bumped into a chappy from Harby who’s father’s on the, their look out post you see, and they saw this plane go down he said he did two circles then went down but he wasn’t in the right direction to for Langar Airfield. But it, well [unclear] it could have been on Langar Airfield, but he was going straight down instead of to airfield that was the sad [emphasis] part about it, yeah.
DE: I see so it was, so they were close but –
DK: Yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: Mm.
JK: And with it not burning out [emphasis] we think that they had just run out of fuel –
DK: They’d been, burning –
JK: Because they’d been diverted to two or three airfields before they arrived here.
DK: See where the three lads are buried in Bennington – report there said ‘it had burned out’ –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But we said ‘no,’ there wasn’t a spark you see, no – it had just gone, yeah.
DE: So was it, was the aircraft all pretty much all there then?
DK: All [emphasis] there, I suppose the undercarriage would still be up would it Ernest?
ET: He might have actually put it down –
DK:‘Cause it seemed level you see.
DE: Mm.
DK: The thing was, where the railway head was, it was here, the rear to it was almost – so how [emphasis] they’d missed the rail track I do not [emphasis] know.
DE: Mm. Is the railway on an embankment there then?
DK: It’s, it’s still there –
DE: Mm.
DK: It was, it was a fair [unclear]. In my days all the hedgerows on the railway were cut, nicely trimmed so, you couldn’t of got through the hedge so I often wondered how, how he landed on the, on the, on the rail track –
DE: Mm.
DK: When he was thrown out the plane, he was a mid upper. What was he, a mid upper?
JK: Was he – I can’t remember. It’s in the book.
ET: Didn’t you also say Dennis –
DK: So if he was thrown out there, but you see the rail track would be as high as this bungalow [emphasis] so.
DE: Mm.
DK: No one seems to answer that – how he was thrown [emphasis] out.
DE: Quite, yeah.
JK: [Unclear].
DK: But the thing was, when we met, when we met his son, who came from, doctor from [unclear], he never talked about his air mates, you see.
DE: Mm.
DK: We been round the council –
JK: The thing was though –
DK: After he’d left the Grange Farm with the Bell, Bell family, he was staying at Normanton I think then they took him to Wrawkby [?] –
JK: Wrawkby –
DK: Where they took most of the crashed people –
DE: I see.
DK: That’s all I know about it [laughs].
JK: But you didn’t know at the time that he was injured because –
DK: No.
JK: He walked onto the Bell’s with you didn’t he?
DE: Mm.
JK: But the son [emphasis] said that he obviously had quite a severe head [emphasis] injury.
ET: Mm.
DK: So whether he’d been through a –
JK: But it wasn’t an obvious [emphasis] –
DE: Right.
JK: To Dennis on the railway line.
ET: The actual railway line now is disused, it’s when BT [?] came and shut them down [JK laughs] but when Dennis say at the time it was a good job it was three in the morning because it could probably have been hit by a train, you don’t know –
DE: Mm. Do you think it’s – do you think the three men were [emphasis] thrown out or do you think it’s, he, he dragged [emphasis] them out of the aircraft?
DK: No, he, he was nowhere near them you see. No, no, they must have been thrown. But they were, they were laying so neatly, one here, one there, yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: And there’s any – I don’t suppose there’s anyone left on at Langar who remembers it because [laughs] there’s not many around like me.
DE: Mm, quite.
DK: No, no –
ET: Dan did say, if he, if he dragged them out and then he thought if he went on the railway line he’d, he’d actually end up somewhere.
DE: I, I don’t know.
ET: You don’t know do you?
DK: No it’s a, it’s a – at the time of the crash it was a grass field, but now the farmer’s planted trees now but, I could take you – when, when Tom Moles and myself walked up there, I can see the fence which we got over to get into the field and saw these, these men there.
DE and ET: Mm.
JK: But the mystery is how that man got on the railway line isn’t it?
DK: Yes that’s what, that’s what [laughs].
JK: The survivor, how he got onto it.
DE: Mm.
DK: Could he have been thrown out?
DE: Who knows? Who knows? No.
DK: No. But they certainly wouldn’t have got through the hedgerow, see in those days railway hedges were neat and tidy, and weren’t, where the bridge is, there’s no bridge now you see, and he wouldn’t have got it up, up the bridge because the bridge was over the railway as well.
DE and ET: Mm.
DK: But no it –
DE: And then what happened to the aircraft then?
DK: Well we never went back you see, we were farmers weren’t we, had to work. They must have moved it away the following day. There’s a lad in our, who’s, who rarely got, didn’t go on the computer [unclear], but he – my wife catered for it but it, and his family, put in – for thirty years, and then, then one day I was doing the garden, doing the garden, and he came up the drive, I was just inside the garden there doing it, and he said ‘you’re bloody selfish, you want all the limelight.’ I said ‘what?’ to him. In fact his [unclear] started shouting to me again, said ‘you’re bloody selfish, you want all the limelight.’ He said, he said ‘you never went anywhere near that crash.’
DE: Oh [JK laughs].
DK: So, so I mean, he’s my age, he’s been a pal all my life but it really grieved me for thinking that –
DE and TE: Mm.
DK: I’d seen enough of the [laughs]. So we haven’t had anything else to do with one another since.
DE: Oh dear.
DK: But no [laughs].
JK: Well he went down to the crash later [emphasis] didn’t he?
DK: Yeah, yeah. You see after we got the laddy off the railway line which is just down here you see, we walked down this, and across the field, and that’s when we went to see – but as soon as the RAF lot were down we thought it wasn’t our business to be – we were in Home Guard uniform but we moved away so as there no hassle you see.
DE: Oh I see, yeah.
DK: But the two must have been – but I’ve often thought to myself [laughs] I’d ought to have gone and touched one of those men to see if he was still –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But at that mo – you’re so taken aback with something like that [laughs] hmm.
DE: Mm.
DK: But no, I’m pleased they did a memorial to them and, hmm.
DE: And the memorial, there was nothing until sixty years afterward so –
DK: Pardon?
DE: There was nothing until sixty years afterwards, quite recently –
DK: No, no, no. No one ever mentioned it you see. There were planes crashing all around, no one ever mentioned it, the crash at Plungar, but –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But tell you, there’s crashes all the way around here.
DE: Can you tell me a bit about some of the other crashes then?
DK: Pardon?
DE: Can you tell me about some of the other crashes?
DK: Well. The, the first crash I came across was in, in, at the top of the Wood Hill at Barkston, what, a plane from Syerston crashed through there, and then, then later on there was another one crashed at Belvoir. And by all accounts the one at Belvoir – if this is true, all accounts – the only survivor he got a – but he could hear a clock striking at Belvoir Castle, and he crawled to Belvoir Castle [DE makes noise of disbelief]. And then the nanny there cared for him and got him into the Grantham Hospital.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But the one at Brampton [?], I mean you read that one, that’s what happened at Brampton you see, then there was one crashed in Heaton [?]. I don’t know where it was from but there’s a laddy in the village who saw the crash when it had happened and then there was one crashed at Barnston, the church is here it crashed in the field below [laughs], but the one which blew up, on the Saturday night they were taking off to bomb somewhere, and I was, I was cutting the lawn at the farm there, and all of a sudden whoosh, and smoke went out every chimney and the lot blew up. And then nothing more ‘til I read it in a book after it.
DE: Mhm.
DK: Hmm. Then that’s that one lady [unclear], you’ve read about [unclear], and that’s about it [laughs]. ‘Cause yeah, they were crashing all around [emphasis].
ET: Hmm.
DK: ‘Cause after, after, after we’d opened the war memorial that day, the corporal came from Melton didn’t he? When they came and had a cup of tea here where they, with the lady.
JK: Which was that? I don’t know – there was so many people [JK and DK laugh].
DK: And he was involved in a Wellington in Melton Mowbray at the time, but there’s perhaps more details in some of these places – sort it out really.
DE: Mm.
DK: Yeah.
DE: Mm [DK laughs]. The, the one that exploded on takeoff –
DK: Yeah.
DE: How close was that to houses?
JK: Very near.
DK: Well my first wife – and the runway was almost, you know where you come behind the point – it wasn’t far away.
DE: About fifteen hundred yards or something like that.
DK: Yeah. And she said at the time, it blew all the windows out.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And fired the petrol out of the plane, fired the hedgerow, but it didn’t do any damage, only the windows, yeah, mm.
DE: I see.
DK: Mm. But we loved to see those [unclear] you see them taking off because [laughs]. Yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: Mm. So it’s any good to you, what I’ve told you [laughs].
DE: No [emphasis] it’s wonderful stuff, yeah.
ET: [Unclear].
DE: Erm, I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about what it was like in the village during the war?
DK: Well [laughs] people just carried on doing their jobs and only that night when we were bombed very heavily, but, but no one was injured [emphasis] –
DE: Mhm.
DK: It just, they’d just dropped all their bombs all around [emphasis] they’d just – what did it say on that book?
JK: Oh we, we read the ‘Bletchley Park’ book, and apparently they knew this plane was coming over to bomb Derby from the information at Bletchley, and they diverted it from Derby, they were able to divert the route from Derby to Nottingham. And then they must have had another diversion to bring it back. And they bombed, they put some bombs, dropped some bombs on Nottingham, and then they – I don’t know how they did it. I mean the Bletchley Park –
DK: Just going for a wee [laughs].
JK: They were code breaking, it was quite beyond me in the book [laughs] but they, they diverted eventually from Nottingham and they just dropped the bombs over Plungar [emphasis], and one or two other villages –
DE: Mhm.
JK: On the way back. But it was interesting in the ‘Bletchley Park’ book because it said they knew [emphasis] they were coming to Derby and they shot twenty odd planes down before they reached the country – well, just off the coast, crossing the coast.
DE: I see.
JK: Have you read that book?
DE: I haven’t no.
JK: It’s worth reading.
DE: Okay, I’ll put it on my list.
JK: Yes, do [emphasis]. I was fascinated by it. I didn’t understand the computer business about it [laughs] in it, but the stories. And – this is nothing to do with Plungar but, it said that they knew [emphasis] they were going to bomb Coventry, and they didn’t know what to do, but Churchill said ‘it will have to go ahead, because if the Germans, if they know that they’ve been diverted or it’s been stopped, they’ll know we’ve cracked the Enig – er, cracked the code’ –
DE: Mm.
JK: That will put the end to the Enigma code.
DE: I see, yes. I have heard that, yes.
JK: Mm.
DE: And you were at university in Leicester at the time?
JK: Yes, yes.
DE: What was that like?
JK: Well it was just like a normal little town, they didn’t get that much bombing at all [laughs]. I mean I lived in Leeds [emphasis], but we got very little – I think we had one big raid in Leeds and that was it. I was ill at the time because I was in bed and we were watching it through the bedroom window [laughs].
DE: You didn’t feel the need to go to a shelter then?
JK: No, we didn’t realise it was so near [DE laughs]. We could see all the flashes and hear the noise but – I was in a suburb of Leeds so we didn’t get bombed in the suburb. They were the other side of the river. But it was the doctor that came in the morning to say that the south of the river had been bombed, and I think they’d had a bomb at the hospital too. Leeds General Infirmary.
DE: What did your parents say to you?
JK: Go on?
DE: What did your mum and dad say to you?
JK: I don’t think they said –
DE: No.
JK: In the war, you accepted [emphasis] things –
DE: Hmm.
JK: It was most peculiar really.
DE: Mm.
JK: I mean it was happening so many times and to so many places –
DE: Mhm.
JK: You just accepted what had happened.
DE: Ooh what’s that?
DK: Incendiary bombs.
DE: That’s what I thought it was, yeah [DK laughs].
ET: Don’t put it on the fire [JK, DK and AT laugh].
DK: Oh no, we put one on the fire, and it used to [unclear] we used to throw them on the fire. That’s gone off you see. When they dropped, you see, the striker was in there, and that was sealed off with insulation tape, and that came. And they just used to burn away [laughs].
DE: Mhm.
DK: I’ve had two or three at one time with the fins on still.
DE: Wow.
DK: But all around they kept [laughs]. Are you wanting it?
DE: Oh I don’t know.
DK: You can have it if you like [DE and DK laugh].
DE: Thank you very much. For the tape, I’ve been given a used incendiary bomb, wonderful.
DK: Have you seen one of those Ernest?
ET: Well, I’m worried about Dan having it in his boot and then we’ll see on the news later on that –
DE: Yes [all laugh].
ET: Can I take a picture?
AT: [Unclear].
ET: Do you want to hold it Dennis, with Dan?
DK: Pardon?
ET: Do you want to hold it with Dan?
DE: He wants to take a photograph.
AT [?]: It’s like a Christmas cracker [laughs].
DE: I’ll just pause the tape for a second.
[Tape paused and restarted.]
DE: Start the tape. So where did you find an incendiary bomb Dennis?
DK: In the field.
DE: Uh huh.
DK: See we had two time bombs dug out on the farm –
DE: Mhm.
DK: And [laughs] I remember the last one being dug out. It dropped down, and I was collecting the cows to milk them, and they wouldn’t let me move the cows because this bit of disturbance [laughs]. And this – during the war, the road from Plungar to Barkston was blocked, the road from Stallone to Plungar was blocked, the road from [unclear] was only open road for about a week or more, you see ‘cause there was bombs everywhere [emphasis]. Yeah, mm. Bombs had gone off [laughs] but on the Barkston Lane where you go to where Ernest lives, there was five council houses there, and that had to be brought out ‘cause there was a time bomb dropped in the field opposite where they were. They dropped a time bomb there and two in our field, yeah, mm.
DE: So did someone diffuse those or did they just wait for them to go off?
DK: No they diffused them all, yeah.
DE: Mm.
DK: They don’t [unclear] long time, yeah. Mm. They brought the soldier down from Yorkshire light infantry, they lived in the old school room while they guarded the road ways.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And, at night my mother used to take these soldiers on guard, either some sandwiches or something, to eat.
DE: I see.
DK: We were grateful for what they did, yeah. Mm.
DE: You were, you were saying earlier that you weren’t really short of food here.
DK: Oh no, no. We’d have been better off as we are today if we’d had the same amount of rations [DK and DE laugh]. [Unclear] no, everybody was helpful [emphasis], you see, helped one another same with the probably [unclear] in the garden, everybody shared things. There was never any –
JK: Mm.
DK: Were they? No. And with us having a farm you see there was plenty of milk anybody wanted milk.
DE: Mhm.
DK: I know we were rationed but really not being a – we didn’t know there was a war on in a way [laughs]. Mm, mm.
DE: But it must have been fairly hard work for you if you were keeping watch at night and then working on the farm in the day?
DK: [Laughs] well you got used to it.
JK: Yes, you were at watch at night and when you came off you went and milked – did a five o’clock milking didn’t you [laughs].
DK: Oh yes, that’s what had happened, go and round the cows up and milk the cows. This chappy who was with me, Tom Moles, he was a pal of mine, he was on one of the little engines on the iron horse like up at Belvoir there, he’d all of that but, yeah [laughs] had a good time.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And during the war you see, you met up with so many lovely people – Air Force men and Army lads and you even got the Yanks [emphasis] down here at times.
DE: Did you?
DK: Yeah [laughs]. One night – I must tell you this, one night the Yanks came down here –
JK: [Unclear].
DK: And they came into the pub and had a lot of ale, and then they got the horse out and was riding the horse [laughs] around the village in the morning [DK and DE laugh].
ET: And what about the Land Army?
DK: Pardon?
ET: The Land Girls?
DK: About land – well they associated with the air men, you know. They really enjoyed, they were very pally with them at the, at the Plough at Stallone.
ET: Mhm.
DK: But during the war, you helped out with a Land Girl they did a wonderful job which had never been – well they’ve got a medal now, but for what they did and the type of work they did on the farm, it’d be a dirty job, threshing machines and digging and going to – it wasn’t the best life but they stood up to it well, yeah.
DE: Mhm. And where were they from, the Land Girls?
DK: Well there was one from where [laughs] near where Ernest – I’ll show you a photograph [laughs]. I’ll put some eggs [?] on and [unclear] –
JK: Oh –
DE: I’ll just pause the tape again.
[Tape paused and restarted.]
DE: So you’ve got a – the tape’s started again and you’ve got a newspaper article.
JK: These are made of sawdust –
DE: It’s so nice to be remembered. And these are all Land Girls are they?
DK: Yeah [laughs].
JK: Well it’s alright there, yes.
ET: One of these?
JK: Yes.
DE: So where did the Land Girls live?
DK: In the old Wretch [?] at Stallone –
JK: [Unclear].
ET: It will.
DE: And did you, did you have anything to do with them then?
DK: I fancied them [DK, AT and JK laugh]. I have to tell Ernest – what have you got there?
JK: But you fancied ginger haired ones –
ET: I’ve heard, I’ve heard the ginger haired ones –
DE: Oh right, I see.
DK: Just a second.
DE: But were they more interested in fliers and aircrew then were there?
DK: Oh no they were very [unclear] – that was Bottesford Air Field at the time [papers shuffle]. That was when they drilled for oil in the village –
DE: Mhm.
DK:For ten years. That was a Lancaster which crashed in the Trent near Newark.
DE: Oh, I see. [Papers shuffle] did you ever want to volunteer and serve in one of the armed forces?
DK: I would have liked the opportunity, but you see, you were stuck with the farm with the workers gone.
JK: You weren’t allowed to, were you?
ET: No.
DK: Where’s she gone [papers shuffle].
DE: So the, the station just down the road –
DK: There’s a station at Red Mile.
DE: Mm.
DK: There’s one at Stallone. But they never put a station near to the village, that was the sad thing, quite a way away, hmm. I don’t know where that photograph’s gone.
DE: Did they open during the war, or were they –
DK: Yes, yes, no they, that was one I fancied.
DE: Oh.
DK: But, but she was ginger headed but it didn’t suit my [unclear, laughs].
DE: So that was Amy Tapplin.
DK: She came from Kimberly, Nottingham [laughs]. And they were, they – and that’s after the golden year [unclear].
DE: Oh I see.
DK: I don’t know if you’ll want any of these.
DE: I might take a photo of that page later on I think.
DK: Pardon?
DE: I might take a photo of that page later on if that’s okay.
DK: Yeah.
DE: So the stations that were opened, were they on farmland before, what was farmland before the war?
DK: Yeah, yeah, the stations –
ET: I think Dennis might think you meant railway stations –
DE: No I mean, oh sorry, I mean the RAF stations, the bases.
DK: The Langar one –
DE: Langar.
DK: There was a lot of parachuting from there, and some private planes go. But the Normanton one is quite an industrial station it is, yes.
DE: Now it is, yeah.
DK: Mm.
DE: Before the war was it farmland?
DK: Langar, at Langar before was farmland. But down here, there’s a hundred acre round here –
JK: Round here.
DK: That belonged to the Duke of Rutland, it was air field in the First World War.
DE: Oh I see, wow.
DK: I don’t know of sort of planes it was, but it was made as an airbase – because you can pick maps [unclear] little book there, and it tells you where the air fields were in the First World War, yeah.
DE: Mm. What did the farmers think to losing all the land?
DK: Well [laughs] I think they were compensated well, you see. You see the one at Langar there, think it belonged to two or three farmers, but one man bought it off since then and he’s just passed away, yeah. But it was a wonderful thing to take the land, yeah. But to help the losses [?] out, war out, yeah.
DE: Right. So there wasn’t any resentment, they thought it was a good way of making a few quid then?
DK: Pardon?
DE: It was a good way of making some money was it then, selling your land [AT, JK and ET laugh].
DK: Yes, but the worse thing actually – you were ruled by the War Ag Executive Committee during the war.
DE: Mhm.
DK: And they came round these, to tell you what to do and what not to do. Well they didn’t know a lot about what they were talking about [laughs], they offended a lot of old farmers [laughs].
DE: Because they were telling them what crops to –
JK: Mm.
DK: Mm. With us they said ‘grow potatoes’ Well no way could you grow potatoes ‘cause it was too heavy clay [emphasis] land.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But they wouldn’t listen to you, you just did what they told you [laughs]. Oh dear.
DE: But you were okay because you were a dairy, dairy farmer?
DK: We, we got everything, we got dairy cows and chickens and sheep and fat peas [?] and we worked with horses in those, it wasn’t tractors at that time.
DE: Mm.
JK: You bred –
DK: Pardon?
JK: You bred shire horses didn’t you?
DK: Yeah, mm, mm. We’ve been around since about the 1790s [laughs].
DE: Yeah. Erm, so that’s what it was like working on a farm. What was it like being in the, in the Home Guard?
DK: Well you did a parade every Sunday morning, but we did, we had to do a keep fit in the village [unclear] whether it meant much I don’t know. But in – where the property is built now, we dug a big trench, used to dive into the trench and climb up the [laughs] –
DE: Mhm.
DK: But whether it meant anything I don’t know [laughs].
JK: Dad’s Army [laughs].
DK: But no, we had to have these lessons, and we [phone rings].
JK: Oh.
DK: I was going to say –
JK: Oh it might be the dress makers –
DK: We were taught how to shoot with a Lewis gun, and we had a Stanley gun as well.
DE: Oh really?
DK: Terrible [laughs]. We went to an old disused iron ore pit with a Stanley you see, and this laddy, he – and it wasn’t ejecting the rounds, it kept [laughs].
DE: Wow.
DK: I think the people telling you what to do didn’t know much about it themselves.
ET: Mm.
DK: It was good fun though, yeah.
DE: And was it a mixture of people from the village of all ages –
DK: Yeah, all who wanted to join. Some never joined you see, but no, some of them, my father did with his friend, some were elderly people, but the young was right down to my age, at that age, we were pleased to do something for it.
DE: Mm.
DK: But for the first twelve months, where the canal’s down here, and then the railway – and we were on the railway bridge for twelve, without any cover at all from clocking on at night in the morning. And then we managed to get an old chicken hut and that’s where the Home Guard were [laughs].
DE: Right. And that was your duty, was fire watch basically was it?
DK: Yes, yes. It went around you see, yeah.
DE: Yeah.
DK: No, no I had a good life and I’m still here [laughs].
DE: Indeed, yeah. So what, what happened at the end of the war? What did you do after the war?
DK: Still farming, yeah. But after the war ended, they came round in nineteen, 1953 –
JK: It was my German friend Giezla [?] from Grantham, so I said I’d ring him back [laughs].
DK: Looking for oil.
DE: Mm.
JK: She comes on and she talks and talks and talks for half an hour [laughs].
DK: And then they came to the farm and they drilled at Barkston before the war, the Texans, they drilled at Barkston,
JK: She never stops talking.
DK: They didn’t find any oil, so they came to the farm, and they said to my father want to drill in the stack yard, that was near to the – he said ‘you can go anywhere else other than in the stack yard, and they moved a field up from the stack yard and they found oil straight away at three thousand feet down.
DE: Crikey.
DK: And then we had one there, we had one, two, three, four – we had had five pumps going, but the thing, we didn’t get any for the oil you see –
DE: So how did they –
DK: It belonged to BP and the government.
DE: Mhm.
DK: You were just compensated for the road way to the, where the oil pumps were, and, and they help you out in some way but you didn’t get any for the oil they took, they were very good. I was talking to a chappy, I was talking to a chap who lives in, he’s in Mansfield now but he was a rear gunner in the Lancaster, and he was shot, he crashed somewhere in the East Coast, and he was in hospital for six month, and then he got out and he got a job with a, with a [unclear] electric board, but about two years ago he got a phone call from someone, and it was the pilot [emphasis] off the plane, they were the only two, both thought they were dead –
DE: Oh I see.
DK: They were still alive. He, I’d got a little poem somewhere what he gave me about a rear gunner, I can’t find it, I’d like to find it sometime. But it was a lovely poem, this old chappy put together [laughs] mm.
DE: Mhm.
DK: No it was – everybody were content, they weren’t moaning [emphasis] during the war.
DE: Mm. So how do you feel about the, the crash site, you know, being remembered after so many years, ‘cause I mean it was forgotten about wasn’t it?
DK: Yeah, yeah, could be – no ‘til, what, until this chappy found this bit of metal – I was in the garden one day and he came by and he said, John Bowman [?], he said ‘you know something about the aircraft which crashed do you?’ and so I said ‘yes,’ and then he brought this piece of metal, it’s about this length –
DE: About three foot.
JK: [Unclear] yes.
DK: Mm. And then we contacted Tim Chamberlain, who he had connections with Bomber Command all the time, he does a wonderful job, he’d put two or three talks on at a time, he soon found out that the three are buried in Bennington Churchyard. The three, three that were killed here –
DE: Yes.
DK: And then there are three others Bennington Churchyard.
DE: So how do you know Tim Chamberlain is it, who wrote –
DK: Pardon?
DE: How do you know Tim?
JK: We didn’t really did we?
DK: No not really [laughs] –
JK: He must have heard about this and came to see us.
DK: Mm.
JK: He did the memorial, there’s a memorial at Langar Air Field –
DE: Mhm.
JK: And he was responsible for that, doing that.
DE: I see.
JK: Mm.
DK: No he did a lot. And when it happened, this is between us, when Tim planned all that the village didn’t want – we were gonna have a thousand people [emphasis] here you seen, but the, our locals –
JK: They wanted to keep it –
DK: Who run the village wanted to keep it quiet [emphasis].
DE: Oh I see.
ET: Mm. I remember that yeah, mm.
DE: But there’s, there’s now a stone there isn’t there?
DK: Pardon?
DE: There’s now a stone, a stone, a memorial there?
JK: A memorial.
DK: It’s a lovely one, all the –
JK: Actually [emphasis] –
DK: All the village people contributed to this here. It’s a lovely stone isn’t it dear?
JK: I don’t know whether you can get it still, but a Barbadian came up from London and recorded the whole service [emphasis] and the flypast –
DE: I see.
JK: And he put it on Youtube.
DE: I’ll have a look.
JK: And it’s under Plungar –
DK: Lancaster –
JK: Lancaster memorial, on Youtube.
DK: It’s worth listening to, to see me ringing them out [laughs].
JK: Have you seen it?
ET: I’ve seen it, I’ve forgot all about it Joan.
JK: Is it still there?
ET: Yeah, it will be.
JK: Do they delete them after so long?
DE: No it’ll still be there probably we’ll have a look.
JK: It’s about an hour and five minutes.
DK: And then we had the Lancaster and two Spitfires fly over you see.
DE: And this was two or three years ago?
JK: This was on the day that – is, is the date in that book?
DK: Is it on, on that book there wasn’t it?
JK: It’s September nineteen, two thousand, oh I can’t remember. It must be three years ago.
DE: 2012 I think.
JK: Yeah, three years ago, it was September. But he, he filmed it from the rear of the church and unfortunately, you know, it’s only a tiny church and they were all these heads [laughs] in front of him so some of it you can’t see. But the opera singer sang –
DE: Mhm.
JK: A, a song he’d composed himself, so you get all that.
DE: I see.
JK: And then Dennis rang the bells afterwards and you see him in the belfry ringing the bells.
ET: And how did you ring the bells Dennis?
DK: Pardon?
ET: How did you ring the bell?
DK: Ding dong [laughs].
JK: There were two of them.
DK: But the thing was – we were, my son and I were in the belfry there, and then there was a laddy there who’s father, in this book [pause].
ET: When I saw you Dennis you were using your foot.
JK: Yes I think he –
ET: Like that.
JK: I think he rings two bells you see.
DE: Oh right.
JK: Hand and foot [laughs].
DK: This chappy was prisoner of war you see.
DE: Mhm.
DK: He was shot down, and his son came to sit with us. This lad, he went to see the prisoner of war camp that his father was in, but [laughs] in front of me – there was two rows of seats there, there was this chappy and he’s moving his bloody head the whole time [laughs].
JK: [Laughs] you see his head moving in front of the camera [DK laughing].
DE: Oh I’ll have a look at the video.
JK: I mean it was such a tiny church that it was cramped.
DK: No, it was a lovely service, and the thing was, what was the man who took the service, he’s on there.
JK: Er Robin, Robin –
DK: It was a, was a –
JK: He was an air vice marshal.
DK: To do with the Air Force, you know.
DE: Mm.
JK: He’s a retired air vice marshal, he lives in Southwell. He sings in the choir in Southwell Minster.
DK: No it was a really [emphasis] lovely day, and I remember, we stood on the lawn here and saw the Lancaster fly over and the two spit – we were very lucky.
DE: Mhm.
JK: They did four circuits round the village.
DE: Oh smashing.
ET: It was amazing.
JK: It was lovely.
DK: Then, then was it last year sometime? My nephew who lives on the farm – his son in law works at Coningsby [emphasis].
DE: Mhm.
DK: On the plane there. And we had a day there didn’t we [laughs].
JK: Yes he got, he got permission to take us to Coningsby and we saw them repairing or doing some maintenance on the Lancaster.
DE: Yes, yes.
DK: During the war, better just tell you, during the war, they decided to take us to Melton Air Field to have a ride round in a Dakota [emphasis]. And they loaded us all up on the Dakota and then the mist came –
JK: Mist came down [laughs].
DK: So I never had a ride [laughs] so I’ve never been in a plane [laughs].
DE: Oh dear.
ET: Oh Dennis.
DE: Who was it that was trying to arrange that for you then?
DK: Pardon?
DE: Who was it that was trying to arrange that for you?
DK: The Home Guard like to get us onto the air field – it was only a small air field at Melton – but there was about lads from this village and then [unclear, laughs].
DE: Right.
DK: We got lined up and sitting down laughs]. That was the wonderful thing so when we went to Coningsby we saw the old Dakota there.
DE: Mm.
DK: It’s a wonderful plane isn’t it, the Dakota.
DE: Yes [emphasis], [DK laughing].
DK: So we’d better go and see the site had we?
DE: I think we’d better had, yeah.
DK: If you want – you want to go, do you?
DE: Yes please, yeah if it’s well, it’s not raining is it? No.
JK: I don’t think it is.
DK: We’re not bad, we’re not bad to get out here, but you and Ernest –
JK: Well you can get out, it’s not very far from the road is it?
DK: Can walk and see the memorial, but we’re not – we can take you to the plane crash and show you where it crashed then.
DE: Mhm.
DK: Is that alright?
ET: That’s fine.
DK: Have you got a good vehicle?
DE: Erm, yes.
JK: The road to where it crashed can get a bit bumpy, isn’t it?
DK: Yes [laughs].
DE: That would be great, yeah. So you’ve always, always sort of followed, I’ve noticed with your book of clippings, you’ve always followed the history of the RAF.
DK: Yes [laughs]. Anything else going. I was looking today, when Belvoir sold all the property in 1921, I’ll let you have a page you can see what they all made then [emphasis] [laughs].
DE: Oh yes.
DK: So I don’t know what’s going to happen, they’ll perhaps go on the skip when I’m gone [laughs].
DE: Oh dear, no, no.
ET: Oh Dennis no, no.
DK: Unless Ernest wants them.
ET: You must put on them ‘do not throw away.’ [JK laughs].
DK: Pardon?
ET: Put on them ‘do not throw away,’ ‘retain’ [DK laughs] or send them to an archive somewhere.
DK: Yeah, they’re not interested in old things –
DE: No sometimes, yeah, you do get that unfortunately [DK laughs].
JK: We remember too much Dennis don’t we?
DK: Pardon?
JK: We remember too much of the past [DK and JK laugh].
DK: Now when they talk about things, the price she says [unclear] years ago [laughs].
JK: Prices, prices get Dennis. ‘That cost so and so,’ I said ‘Dennis you don’t live in this world.’
DK: I’ll not be [?] –
DE: Mm. It is –
JK: ‘You can’t buy that it’s a waste of money,’ well it’s either that or nothing.
DE: Oh dear.
DK: I’ve had two hearing aids [?]. I’ve had two lots, I’ve had the national health one and then I’ve had the, what are they?
JK: Specsavers.
DK: So now I can hear a bit more ‘cause she can’t hear what I’m saying [laughs] or I can’t hear what Joan’s –
DE: Right.
JK: No you can’t hear what I say. I can hear what you [emphasis] say because you shout [JK and DK laugh]. Deaf people do shout, don’t they?
DE: They do.
DK: No you see, I’m not [unclear]. But people don’t realise – and it was a lovely life years ago you see, everyone helped one another and you lived with your – didn’t sit your parents in an old home to end their days, you looked after your parents didn’t you in those days? And you lived well and fed well and [laughs], mm.
JK: Well you did on the farm.
DK: Pardon?
JK: You did feed [emphasis] well on the farm.
DK: No, I’d have liked to be a wheelwright and join or a butcher you see.
DE: Mhm.
DK: But you see, I was saying in my day they had the say –
JK: Your parents told you what to do –
DE: Mm.
DK: So what do you think, ‘why do you think we’ve got the farm?’ Because, we worked from scratch to get the farm you see [laughs].
JK: And you owned [emphasis] it.
DK: There’s a tree up there, and you go up there – it was planted in 1852 with my relations.
DE: Really?
DK: It’s an old chestnut tree, yeah. Right at the top there [laughs].
DE: That’s smashing.
DK: And I’ve got some books, Ernest is going to take them to the archive. The, when he was an auctioneer in Valier [?] in 1852 [laughs].
DE: They would be interested in that yeah, definitely. Well thank you very much, I think I shall –
DK: Well [unclear] you [laughs].
JK: Yes.
DE: I shall press stop on there, unless there’s anything else that you can think of that you’d like to tell me [pause].
DK: No I tell the people a lot about the, this, this was gardens [emphasis] years ago – well it belonged, well the church, it was supposed to belong to the church, but it belonged to his lordship up at Belvoir.
DE: Mhm.
DK: They were very good landlord, different to what we’ve got, we’ve got now [laughs].
JK: When I bought the plot it was glebe [emphasis] land, it belonged to the church. And then a man in the village was doing research up at Belvoir for the old duke –
DE: Mhm.
JK: Last, the previous duke. And he found that this land belonged to Belvoir in 1792, and it was called Hive [?] Close. And, but nobody can find out how the church acquired it [laughs]. So whether it still really was the duke’s and he missed out on the sale – not that he got a lot for it, he didn’t ‘cause it sold just before prices went up, but –
DK: Shall we get off Ernest.
JK: Got no idea [emphasis].
DE: Yep –
DK: Get your gear on and I’ll get mine.
DE: I’ll press stop on there, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Dennis Kirk. Two
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-30
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKirkDJB151130
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Format
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00:45:06 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Dennis Kirk was born in Barkston 1920, and lived on a farm near Plungar. Recalls when the war started and the War Executive Committee told farmers what to produce; talks about the Land Army. Being in a reserved occupation, he joined the Home Guard with military training; while on duty he responded to a crashed aircraft accident dealing with casualties before the Royal Air Force arrived at the scene. Dennis dealt with unexploded ordinance carrying out defusing. He also talks about civilian life in wartime, land use for airfields with compensation for the land owners, and BP post war drilling for oil, reunions, and the RAF Langar memorial.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Plungar
England--Nottinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carolyn Emery
bomb disposal
bombing
civil defence
crash
final resting place
home front
Home Guard
incendiary device
memorial
RAF Langar
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/895/11135/AIndgeRC180131.1.mp3
0f432d9f2b49c42322b8456882eab8c6
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
Indge, Ronald
Ronald Charles Indge
R C Indge
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ron Indge (b. 1924, 2203016 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 578 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-31
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Indge, RC
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 Ron Indge. My name is Dan Ellin. The interview is for the International Bomber Command Centre. It is the 31st of January 2018 and we are in Mr Indge’s home in Woodhall Spa. So, Mr Indge could you start by telling us a little bit about where you were born and your early life, please?
RI: Yes. Well, well, I was born in Worksop and my early life was spent very happily I believe. A small family. My father had a business and life was very good to be very honest. I became very active in sports, particularly tennis and I met all sorts of people that all bore relevance later in life into the RAF. I perhaps ought to start by the end of the school time was Grammar School and I was in a mixed form in a Grammar School in Worksop. There were three forms in every, there was a male, female and a mixed form. I was lucky enough to be in the mixed form. And I think in 1939 which is when I left the school, the grammar school employment was very, very difficult to find or at the least employment I was looking for and, however I’ll now refer to a book that was written by a friend of mine. This chapter is called, “Early life.” It gives you the date of birth, and it reads as follows. “There was no work available. He wanted to work in a solicitor’s office or something similar. After he had not found work after two or three weeks his father found him a job as an apprentice joiner. He became a bound apprentice. The only way he could escape the apprenticeship was by becoming a sub mariner or by flying.” You could only break, that was a static thing. “Ron’s friend — ” now, I had a friend who, we used to tennis together most nights when it was suitable. He decided to volunteer for the Royal Air Force so I went with him to Sheffield on a Saturday and we both joined up at the same time. Neither of our parents knew until the Monday what we had done. “Ron was seventeen and three quarters years old at the time and felt some guilt but it was going to become more important as it got later. Ron says he joined,’ I think this is on one of the one in your, anyway, “Ron says that he joined the RAF for the glamour.”
DE: Right.
RI: Which I’m sure you’ve already got on one of your —
DE: A lot of people did. Yeah.
RI: I think that. Yeah. An important thing in early life which affected my life particularly was it was decided that I should learn to play a musical instrument. This was my parents. After, after a year of piano lessons my father decided that enough was enough and a waste of time and money so that was the standing. However, going up Gateford Road in Worksop which you know there was a furniture shop called Baldry’s , and in the window was a piano accordion and up there I saw this and it was fourteen pounds. What on earth made me so keen it was so I went in and a had twelve pounds in the bank at that stage. In the Yorkshire Penny Bank as it was then. And I withdrew the twelve quid. I went up and I got Arthur Baldry who owned the store and had a long talk to him and in the finish he agreed to sell me the thing for twelve quid. So that was how, that’s how the piano accordion business started. I got a fella to come and give me a few lessons to start with and it was sort of a, I don’t know I think to be one of my grandchildren is in the musical industry but I think to be in the music you’ve got to be keen anyway. I think it’s got to be. So it became for me and there are letters here which I’ll let you see that relates. I’d better not show you right now but I will. There is a letter that relates to one of the concert parties I was in anyway. But I’ll show you that that’s a letter of thanks as regards that. The thing’s falling to pieces. Right. That more or less covers the entrance in to the RAF and and to why I went and —
DE: So was, was —
RI: One can only imagine what my parents and my employer at the time thought when they found I’d volunteered to fly.
DE: Yeah. Was it, was it deferred entrance or did you go in straight away?
RI: That was a deferred entrance. Yes. I went into the ATC. Just for a few months.
DE: Right.
RI: And then of course we all went to an Aircrew Receiving Centre in London. That’s where we all joined in the eventuality.
DE: What was that like?
RI: Well, it was, it was good really because we used to eat in the London Zoo. They marched us from about 6 o’clock in the morning out of the billets and they were massive blocks of flats we were in. What they would be like now I’m not quite sure but they were beautiful places and I don’t know where all the people had been moved from but the Aircrew Receiving Centre was full of people of course. And London was being bombed at the time but however as I said we used to march to the, what was the old London Zoo and still is and we ate in their restaurant. They catered for us down there. There’s, I’ve got quite a lot of details about the Halifax which —
DE: Can we, yeah, can we talk a little more about reception and training before we move on to, to Halifaxes?
RI: Well, yes but I think probably that’s very commonplace for, that was, the training was universal really, was it not? And —
DE: Where did you train?
RI: I got drifted all over the place. I had eyesight trouble. I wasn’t, like everybody else I was going to be a pilot and all this carry on, and that. However, when I was examined I have and funnily enough my son’s got the same problem when I try and put my, I don’t know if it still does but when I put one finger to my nose the eyes, the eyes go in but one won’t stay there. It goes back. So they wanted all sorts and so I agreed then to change the entry into being a wireless op which is what I did at Yatesbury. The wireless school was at Yatesbury in those days. Near Calne in Wiltshire. So that’s, that went on there and I came out of that quite successfully and then the question came of where we got sent. I got sent all over the place funnily enough. I was, I even got up to Stranraer and then further up into Elgin in Scotland. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what that’s like there. And so that initial training was really in some ways it was I suppose was pleasurable because we got a fair amount of liberty and the hours in the rooms were fairly long but you have to try and remember that our ages at eighteen, life was very different now to looking at age of ninety plus. So the values are entirely different at that age rather than the values that we have now. There was no thought of long livity in those days where there is now. We all think about trying to live longer now but that didn’t happen in those days. We, we just took things as it was and made the best of a bad job and from becoming boys just having not long left school we became men very, very quickly. Going down to the boozer and fraternizing and things that we probably hadn’t done at home. I certainly hadn’t. But that’s the sort of thing we did at Yatesbury. We used to go down the pub in Calne where, famous for sausages of course. So that was the training really. And you passed out there with three stripes. Then of course you immediately it tended to go to our heads a bit I think [laughs] because I remember we threatened that if we could find any of the corporals that had given us big stick we would make sure that they had to suffer. But the night we went away from Yatesbury we went down to Calne and we couldn’t find a corporal anywhere. So the PTIs got away with that very fortunately I think.
DE: I think they probably were expecting it. Yeah.
RI: That had happened before obviously. That wasn’t new to them. So that was training over really.
DE: Did you —
RI: Then the next thing really is crewing up I suppose. I suppose that’s, I can’t just remember where the hell I crewed up now. I can’t just remember. And I’ve no mark on that so I can’t remember.
DE: Did you, did you do Morse when you were at Yatesbury?
RI: Yes. Oh yes. Yes.
DE: How many words a minute?
RI: I can’t remember now [laughs] It becomes a, I just, I just cannot remember now. I really can’t.
DE: I’ve read about something called Morse headache.
RI: I never suffered with that. Some did get some Morse Madness I heard of. I think one or two did fall by the wayside. But of course that was commonplace I think, wasn’t it, during RAF training? Some people took to madness or near madness and things because there was a place near Sheffield where some aircrew bods used to get sent that they couldn’t deal with otherwise and, but that’s sort of in the memory I think to be very honest. So then the crewing up came and which I can’t just remember where the hell it was now. But I sort of then was going to be crewed up on Halifax which now seems to be, it’s very little heard of. When we talk to people these days about the Halifax some of them have never heard of it. They’ve only heard of a Lancaster. Or in the case of a fighter a Spitfire in the case of a Hurricane. But that’s life. So that really was the training and then the commencement, that was the commencement of, we did a lot of when we were crewed up we then did a lot of cross countries and a few, I think we did a few leaflet raids as well. I think, while we were, while we were still in the u/t, under training but we certainly did a lot of cross countries and long ones to Ireland and right back down into Yorkshire. Yeah. I think we were. I know we were now. The thought has come back. It was at Riccall. At Riccall where, where we crewed up, because there was a runway at Riccall just between some trees because we pranged an aircraft down there. In fact, I’ve still got part of it in one of the drawers in there because I pinched the clock out of it at the time which lead to a big inquest from the, they had the coppers came around to us in our billets at night trying to find who’d stolen it. Who’d stolen the clock out of the aircraft. So, they won’t prosecute me now. It’s too late [laughs]
DE: I think you’ll be alright now. Yeah. I hope so anyway.
RI: Yeah. But there’s bits of it in there. Yes. So that, that was training at Riccall and then we eventually got posted along to 578 Squadron and which is where it all started and all the RAF career really ended. Or at least that part of it did. So probably the flight that involved the crash isn’t really relevant at this stage is it?
DE: Oh, I think. Yes.
RI: Is it?
DE: If you want to tell us about it then, yeah.
RI: Is it?
DE: Yeah.
RI: Well, the flight was to Gelsenkirchen which was an oil refinery. By this stage then in ’44 they had, much to a lot of people’s disgust Bomber Harris had then thrown everything to the wind really. A lot of the raids that we took part in I think into the Ruhr particularly were done in daylight where they actually could have been done in the dark with a lot less loss of life I think. However, we pranged in in Gelsenkirchen but we were hit at the rear of the aircraft and the rear gunner was killed. We were going to, when we found out he was, he was dead we left him there but the idea originally was to get him out, put a ‘chute on him and chuck him down because we were only minorly damaged really but enough that we lost some control of the aircraft. So when we found out he was dead he was left in there and went down with the aircraft. Now, I landed. On my way down I heard a big tear and the parachute, obviously they’d been aiming at me and they’d hit the parachute. This was broad daylight of course. They’d hit the parachute and just torn one panel. I’d forgotten that they weren’t in, they were only in panels which of course was the safest. So I probably descended a little bit quicker than normal but I got down quite safely and landed about, I don’t know about as far as from here to the, to that hedge. I don’t know how far that is. Down at the bottom. And about that far away from that ack ack site.
DE: Just a matter of yards then.
RI: Yards really.
DE: Yeah.
RI: And they were, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were all young kids. Or they seemed to me to be young kids on there and just two who, who were officers. And eventually [pause] this is not in here I don’t think. It’s just coming back to me now. Eventually they handed me over to the civilian police who along came a German copper, handcuffed me to a bike, took me down to the local village and locked me in a cell and came, and through the bars of the cell said, ‘Essen?’ Now I thought when he said, ‘essen’ I thought he was asking me if I’d flown on a trip to Essen and my imagination running wild I thought he must think we’d dropped bombs on Essen. Perhaps killed some of his family. So I shook my head and said, ‘No.’ Of course later on when I learned what essen was [laughs] I’d then refused all the forms of food so of course they didn’t give me any. So, so that was that. And then of course we all were sent then to this aircrew, I forget the name of that. That’s in here somewhere I think. But there was a centre. There’s a picture of the, of the bod in there I think somewhere, however we’ll find that.
DE: Dulag was it?
RI: Yes. No. No. That’s dulag. No. There was a reception centre for all aircrew where you were put in small cells and questioned at all hours of the sort of nights and things. But by 1944, in September ’44 there was a great, a lot of the Germans were beginning to think that they weren’t going to win the war and so perhaps the interrogation wasn’t as bad as it had been previously. I spent, I think I spent three weeks in there I think, and then we were transported by rail out of there to various camps. And in my case of course some of the, it was due to German guards really that I think we would have all lost our lives I think. Because in some of the, some of the major stations we went through on the line back to Stalag Luft 7 the lines were broken and so we ended up walking through one bit, some bits of some of the Ruhr towns and then re-trained and went further on down the line. But the, the Germans if it hadn’t have been for the guards I’m sure we would probably have been executed. I’m sure we would have been executed anyway. The bitterness was, from the, in the cities was terrible of course. So that was the story. And then I’m now then in in Stalag Luft 7. And in there this is where the piano accordion business all came to fruition on my part really. What happened was two or three days after I’d been in there I heard a chap playing the piano accordion so I made my way around. I found him. And there was also a bod there had bagpipes funnily enough [laughs] God above. However, I got [Leo Mackie] I remember the man’s name now. [Leo Mackie], I think. I don’t know what nationality he was, however he played the squeezebox so I had a word with him and he gave it me and I had a play on it. So he said, ‘What about we try and get some more squeezeboxes?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Let’s have a — ’ So we asked some of the Germans and they wouldn’t play ball with us. However, we got through to the Red Cross and eventually we got sent six brand new piano accordions which, which was brilliant for us and a drum kit and a double bass and a guitar I think. Yeah. That’s right. I think they’re all, and there’s a picture involved which I’ll come to shortly because how we got that picture was later on. So, it bore fruition in many ways in that we started it. We got together. We used to play every day all day of course. Nothing else to do really. Or walk around the camp which so that was really a saviour for me because whilst I’m loathe to admit it now we went out on several nights under supervision to the German officer’s headquarters and played for them to dance and [emphasis] they gave us a meal which of course was a big thing. I’m a bit ashamed to say that now but however it is part of the truth of the thing and of course as we said at eighteen, nineteen things look very different and self-preservation is, becomes very important. So that was that of which we’ve got a photograph which we’ve only recently acquired. It was sent to, it was sent to Hollis. This photograph on there of course there’s a conductor. He was a professional musician and the lady at the end of course was just another bod all dressed up in lady’s attire [laughs]. So we used to give concerts both in the camp and we occasionally went out to give the Germans, so that really was a really big help for my part in the prison camp. A big help. And then of course eventually 1945 arrived. We spent Christmas in the camp of course which really wasn’t to be [laughs] However, 1945 arrived and eventually we could hear gunfire at nights which was of course the Russians advancing. Well, there wasn’t, Stalag Luft 7 was a virtual new camp when I went in it because when I first went in it was hen huts. Really hen huts. That’s what it was. But it was rebuilt not long after I got there so it was very tolerable living conditions really. Nothing like as bad as some of the other people had suffered I think, because of course the SS had tried very hard to take over Luftwaffe camps but the, but their Air Force wouldn’t let them. So their camps were run naturally by, by Air Force personnel, or their Air Force personnel which was a lot easier I think to what I’ve been told from the SS run camps. The SS tried to run them but couldn’t. However, they marched out by being turfed out which I can refer to later on and it’s all detailed down in some of these books anyway. After, I think there was about fifteen hundred of us in Luft 7, and but when we got to a thousand we got a doctor. Our own doctor then who was an ex-kriegsgefangene, he was a prisoner as well. He was, he was in the army actually. And as we, as we assembled out to march away we didn’t know what we were going to be doing but that’s, obviously we’d heard the gunfire at night and particularly, and so the doctor addressed us and said, ‘Now, unless you’ve got adequate provision stacked by and or can speak fluent German don’t try and escape and don’t carry anything that you don’t really need. And I mean anything.’ Well, this part you won’t believe anyway but I’ll tell you. I had a piano accordion and I read through the line and I thought that’s out definitely. And it was snowing now, down to about, well the temperature on that part of the march was between minus twenty and minus forty. It did get to minus forty once. Minus thirty most of the time. So I tried to flog this piano accordion for anything I could get hold of and eventually I couldn’t sell it at all. I could not get, you are not going to believe this. It’s gospel truth. I couldn’t get one cigarette for it. So why we hated the Russians so much I don’t quite know. So I kicked it to pieces and so did several others as well. So, these were brand new squeeze boxes and so that was, that was the end of that part of the story really. And from then of course they marched us on the Long March which there’s been much reference made about and there’s all sort of information in these books which I’m sure some time you’d like to have a copy of or whatever. It was, we straggled, but we were told really not to escape because if you got tired and laid down you certainly wouldn’t, that would be the end of the story. How many [pause] quite a lot did escape or did elect to leave the, the throng. So how many actually died on that march I haven’t the faintest of ideas. All I know is that there were at least half were sort of in Stalag 3a at the end. But whether or not they’d lost their lost their lives or gone elsewhere I was never quite sure. The only thing that happened in Stalag 3a was that the Russians liberated us and the Americans came with transport to take us over the river and take us back home. But the Russians wanted an exchange of prisoners over the river. They wanted some of their prisoners bringing back in to their land and then they were going to exchange and let us go. So we were held five weeks in which time they never, they never gave us any rations. Nothing. We had to go down the village and so we went down there. And another story, down the village which is only just coming to light now. I used to go down with John Tregoning down the village to steal food and if you couldn’t get into the houses you just, the Russians were up and down there on motorbikes and things. Riding about like children they were actually. They hadn’t seen such things and they used to ride down there firing guns through the windows and all. It’s unbelievable really. But John and I, walking down the street in the local village could hear either ducks, geese or some form of livestock and we knocked on the door of this property and they wouldn’t let us in. So we got hold of a Russian eventually who came past on a motorbike. We waved him down and pointed to this noise and pointed to the [laughs] that we wanted, and so he broke the door down and got us I think it was a duck. I think. Certainly, yes I’m sure it was a duck and so then he chopped it’s head off and gave us the body. So we took that back. John and I took that back to the camp and had a feast. But that’s how we lived for those, for those few weeks and eventually it became a bit more liberal and so John and I whilst we were still waiting for transport we decided to make our own way and we eventually made our own way from 3a as far as Brussels from where we flew home. So that was the end of that story really.
DE: Yeah. You mentioned before we started the recording about a crew member and a sledge. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
RI: Well, that’s Johnny. It’s in that book. It’s in the story that John’s written isn’t it?
DE: Yeah.
RI: That was done because John Tregoning had gone on the march. John had gone off his legs and, but that’s all been, he wrote that of course actually when we were on the march. This is a copy that he wrote afterwards. John. John did. He’d gone off his legs and found it very difficult to walk and we were terrified we were going to lose him and he thought he was going to die as well. So we fabricated some form of sledge by like two lengths of timber. I think John got them somewhere one night when we were locked in a farm I think. We then lashed a sort of a sledge if you like. Whether you’d call it a sledge or, I really don’t know. All it was two lengths of timber lashed together with a space between. And we took, one of us, it took two of us we took one end of each length of timber if you like and walked, and John laid in that and then the back two ends we dragged because of course it was, it was snow laden so it was very slippery anyway. It wasn’t hard to pull in any case. It would have been had there been no snow but with it being snow and ice it was reasonably easy to pull. So we did that for several days for which John, I’ve visited him in Plymouth many times since, he’s dead now but he thanked me very much because he said, ‘I’d certainly would have died, Ron if you hadn’t have given me that, if you hadn’t dragged me on that sledge down there.’ So that was that bit really on the march. Really. Yeah. But as I said you have to remember how old we were. You know the thought nowadays was you can’t even imagine it now at forty let alone ninety but it was relatively easy speaking I suppose at that age because I was back home for my twenty first birthday, of course.
DE: Ok. What was, what was the journey to Brussels like?
RI: Alright. It was great really because we, we, I saw Glenn Miller’s band. We used to stay in various camps. They made us very welcome. It was funny really. They never sort of thought that we were traitors or anything. Or anything of that sort. Coming to traitors. That’s another thing I’ve completely forgotten about, which is also in these books anyway and in the official book as well. I might retrace my steps a minute then.
DE: Ok.
RI: In the prison camp when I first went in the senior NCO, there were no officers in that camp, I was in Stalag Luft 7. At that stage there were no officers. They were all NCOs and the senior NCO he’d, he’d sort of taken charge of the whole thing, and you were told to go and have a word with him. And so going and having a word with this, this body we were warned that there was a traitor among us and that, he told us who he was, what his name was and all the rest of it and to beware of this because he was going around with bogus Red Cross forms. Wanting you to know and all the rest of it. However, I did see this bod and one night. This was in the early, this was before the camp was, before the new camp was built. This was in the old camp we used to sit around at night and play cards or whatever we did. I think some form of game. We got hold of some game. We used to sit around in candle light. There was no electricity of course. In candle light. We’d made our own candles out of whatever you could. Anyway, we got made, made up candles. And this bod came in. Now, I think there was about six of us in this and so he tried to enter conversation and nobody would speak. None of us would speak to him. This sounds impossible but its gospel. So this bod came in and, and then he said, ‘I’ve got a photograph of my lady friend here.’ Now this is unbelievable. So he passed this photograph around and when he got to me I said, ‘Oh, I know that girl.’ He said, ‘I don’t think you do.’ I said, I said, ‘She’s one of a twin in Worksop.’ And so she was. So to go forward again now so that was that. But he used to disappear. He used to go to Berlin and he used, he was a big friend of Lord Haw Haw in those days. He used to go to Berlin. Disappear, come back all well dressed and all the rest of it. So we all knew but of course he was shunned in the camp. But at the end, of, at the end just at the end of our stay in the prison camp he disappeared from Luft 7. He disappeared altogether and that was the last I heard of him of course at that time. So we didn’t know whether he’d been killed or, we didn’t care either. That didn’t matter too much to be very honest. However, after the war was over and I was in Worksop I had a lady friend who, we were married afterwards, Joyce. And she worked in the Co -op. We used to walk, I used to take her for, I had about three months leave altogether. However, that’s another story. I used to slip down to the Co-op. We used to go out for lunch together of course. You’ve got to imagine I’m twenty then [laughs] So you can probably, I’ll leave that to your imagination. And we were walking up Gateford Road near to where I bought the piano accordion funnily enough. Walking up there and I see this bod coming down with a lady on his arm and it was him. That was in Gateford Road in Worksop. So I said to Joyce, ‘We don’t speak to this man. Walk past him.’ Which is what we did. I wouldn’t, he did try and speak but we wouldn’t speak and so that was the end of that. And that was the end of it so far as I was concerned except later on when I got a news bulletin he’d been, he’d got five years hard labour I think. Eventually when all this, because of course we all made reports about him at the end of the story and so he got five years hard labour. So that was, we all clapped or at least I clapped. That was after the war that was. I clapped hands then when I found that out of course. That was it. But so that was a great coincidence in there really. But as I say the piano accordion made my life that bit better more than most. Well, it did anyway. There’s no question about that. So that was very fortunate really. Yeah. It was. Yeah. So that ends the story really as regards the prison camp I think. I can’t think of anything else.
DE: You were just about to tell us about the walk to Belgium and what that was like.
RI: Oh yeah. It was, we were gobsmacked really because we used, John being a navigator and a very intelligent one at that he knew the way right enough and so we used to make our way from camp to camp. It sounds impossible now but that’s what, we actually went to one, we got in one American camp one night or one day rather and they made us awfully welcome. And food we’d never had for ages and Glenn Miller’s band was there. He wasn’t there of course because he was dead but his band were there. They played all day every day. That was wonderful that was really. I’ll never forget that really. Being in the musical business myself as well. Yeah. So that was that but we went from place to place. Army places and all sorts but from there we enjoyed it I suppose in a way because we’d eaten. We ate plenty you see and that sort of thing. Yeah. The only thing about the remnant of the outcome of all this was when I was in 3a I got yellow jaundice. Now, yellow jaundice in the hospital there all it was was a mattress on the floor and there were loads of us. It was caused by eating too much fats we think. Or I think. At the time when we were liberated we were liberated then and we were eating all these fats and that came one way or another. And so I had yellow jaundice. I was five days in there. Now, when I came home, I’m going on a bit now I’m back in the UK, having flown back from Brussels. I’m now back in the UK. Now, I’d never heard from my parents through that nine, ten months I was away. And I arrived, I get a leave warrant and I come, I’m coming home now with my kit and a leave warrant. I got a month’s leave I think to start with. And when I got off the train there was the station master in Worksop then was a man called George Taylor who was a large friend of my father’s and when I got off the train George was waiting for me and he said, ‘Oh, Ron. Let me just have a word.’ He said, ‘Before you go home I want you to go up to the shop and see your father.’ So I said, ‘Whatever for?’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t really know. Your father wants to see you.’ So I think that in Worksop from the station up to the top of Bridge Street is about a mile so I walked up there to right where the Town Hall is in actual fact. So I walked up there to the thing and saw my father was there waiting to see me. And they knew, I’d sent a telegram I think to say I was coming home and then he knew. My father knew. So he said, ‘Well, before you go home you’ve got to go and see Dr Anderson down Potter Street.’ So I said, well, that was just a bit further down the Town Hall. Down Potter Street. So I said, ‘What for?’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t really know.’ So I put two and two together and I thought now this is yellow jaundice. I’d had an x-ray by the way after, after. So I thought this relates to yellow jaundice. It’s given me heart trouble. That’s all I could think of because actually yellow jaundice has, does give all sorts of problems. So that was, that was, so I trooped down and sure enough Dr Anderson’s waiting. He had two sons then running his business but he was there waiting to see me. So he got me sat down and he said, ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’ve got some bad news for you.’ I said, ‘Ok. Thank you,’ thinking, still thinking, I mean I’m in now dead stuck. So he said, ‘Your mother’s very ill.’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon.’ He said, ‘Your mother’s very ill and one of her sisters is looking after her and,’ he said, ‘I think she’ll probably live two weeks. She’s purely alive to see you.’
DE: Oh crikey.
RI: Which [pause] so I then made my way home and of course all that he’d told me was true. My mum was in a bed in the front room and had been there for months. And she did die about a fortnight after I got home. So that was home coming [pause] I’m sorry.
DE: No. Do you want me to stop it for a minute?
RI: Yeah.
[recording paused]
DE: Ok. So we’re recording again.
RI: The worst part of it really was that I had no need in the first place. As I was in a Reserved Occupation being a bound apprentice I was a fool to go. I’d no need to have gone in the Service until I’d done my apprenticeship. Five years. Or seven years, I think. And I’ve, in some respects I’ve held myself responsible for my mother’s death.
DE: You think it was something to do with her worrying about you.
RI: Well, I’d no need to have gone in the Services. I could have stayed out. And I think with hindsight it was what I envisaged the Service offered as against what I’d got at home. I’d got a marvellous home but at the same time you were subject to sort of home discipline I suppose in one way or another. And of course by going in to the RAF I envisaged all sorts of things which some which materialised and some didn’t but I’d [pause] people have said what a fool I am to think that I caused my mother’s death. I still don’t know to this day what she died of.
DE: Right.
RI: I don’t know what the death certificate was made out of. I don’t. I’m not quite sure. I went, I went to pieces actually for a while. I went back to Church Fenton which was, after I had this month and was interviewed by a wing co or whatever. I can’t remember what rank he was but it was an interview and he said, ‘What do you want to do with the rest of your stay in the RAF?’ And I said, he said, ‘Do you want to go on a pilot’s course again?’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know really.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, we can put you on a Mosquito course if you like or — ’ I said, ‘What’s the alternative?’ he said, ‘Air traffic control. Flying control.’ So I said, well I then went out and then explained to him about things at home and all the rest of it and he said, ‘Well, take some more leave. Take us much as you like.’ I had actually about three months leave in total I think. But betwixt times I got talking to some friends, ex-RAF friends and as they said, ‘Think twice before you start talking about flying because the Japanese war is still on and the Japanese don’t take aircrew prisoners. What they do in actual fact [unclear] I speak to you. They cut the goolies off and sew them to your mouth and kill you.’ He said, ‘That’s what happens to all if you get shot down.’ But I think and I’m nearly sure that people that flew over Japan at that particular time towards the end of the war were given suicide tablets anyway. I’m not a hundred percent sure about that but I’m nearly certain that’s what happened. Yeah. Because the death rate they just didn’t take prisoners. Aircrew prisoners anyway. So that was that. So then the air traffic control business came in then. And the only row I had in, in my RAF career I think ended up by, I went on a course for air traffic control business which really didn’t amount to much. I got all the rudiments of it anyway and I was, I got eventually sent to Spitalgate near Grantham and there was a flight lieutenant there that was in charge. I was a WO1 in those days. The overall bod in that flying control at Spitalgate was the lieutenant and he’d, he was a pre-war bod who hated aircrew anyway because of the rapid promotion. [laughs] Not unusual. And, but I was the senior NCO there and the station warrant officer was also an ex-aircrew bod which was a blessing. So Christmas came in ’45 and there was a list arrived on the notice board of people on duty over Christmas. Of which I was one. So my father was now of course on his own and I spent the last Christmas in the POW camp. So I got hold of this flight lieui who didn’t like me anyway and I, mutual and I said, ‘I find that very hard to take.’ I said, ‘I think,’ I said, ‘And there are one or two more NCOs who’ll take my place anyway because I’d already broached it with them,’ and I said, ‘There’s one or two NCOs that will take my place so that I can have Christmas leave.’ ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘It’s all been done fairly. That’s the end of it. And you’re on at Christmas.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘In that case I’ll put an application in to see the old man,’ who was an ex-aircrew bod you, see and I knew, I knew he was on a loser. So one thing led to another and then my name disappeared off there and I got Christmas leave and some bod took it on. But when I got, when I came back after Christmas leave a couple of the bods said, ‘You want to be ever so careful because he hasn’t half got it in for you now.’ I said, ‘That won’t matter anyway,’ I said, ‘No chance.’ He didn’t know I’d got a car anyway and he didn’t know that. Cars were very scarce in that time of course but I had my own car. And he sent me out to Coleby Grange which was in Lincolnshire here and I I ended up stopping there and closing that place down ready for the Yanks because they were going to put nuclear weapons in there eventually. In Coleby they were. And so I had a great time at Coleby Grange unbeknownst to him you see, yeah because I was a senior bod there. There was supposed to be a commissioned officer but we never hardly saw one. But we had a great time there. A really great time. And another part, another story which, this is hard, you’ll find this hard to believe. It became a storage place for the RAF when they were closing stations down we’d get all sorts of tackle then. And I got landed with the job of putting all this stuff that appeared on lorries and trailers and things into these hangars that were empty then. And of course one day, I hope you believe this, one day a lorry arrived and he came. I went to talk to the driver and he wanted to know where to take it. So I said, ‘Well — ’ And they were balloons they were. Air sea rescue balloons but not, not the land ones. The water ones. Over the water. So he said, ‘They’re all barrage balloons I’ve got.’ So he said, ‘Do you want one?’ Now, this sounds too silly for words but it’s, so I said, ‘Well, I don’t know really. Yes. Yes.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve got one spare if you want one.’ So he give me one of these balloons. Bloody great thing of course. So I got one of the ground crew lads to take one of the seats out of the car and I got it in there and I eventually took it home for all the ladies to cut it up and made clothing for themselves after this. This was of course when clothing was scarce. So that was really the end of all that and I stayed there until Coleby closed down. Then I managed to get, I was demobbed then and came home. Since when of course a lot of these other things have born light now. And which I’ll probably go into now with. When you’re ready. Yeah.
DE: Okey dokey. Yeah.
RI: So really that covers, sort of I don’t know if I’ve done right.
DE: No. That was wonderful. So what did you do after you left the RAF?
RI: Well, the RAF. When I, as I was coming out of the RAF the RAF informed me by letter I think that certainly I was communicated somewhere or other, the RAF would pay a third of my wages to complete my apprenticeship. Which is what they did. And there’s a completion of apprenticeship papers in there somewhere. There is. Well, there is. It’s in there. And so I did two years and I did very well to be honest. I got, and I got on very well with, with the employer and who gave me a magnificent twenty first birthday I might add too. Gold cufflinks and everything which I’ve still got of course and, but I was obsessed with self-employment rather than somebody to, I’ve never liked people telling me what to do. That’s unfortunate. So I was obsessed with the idea of you know getting on my own sooner or later and [pause] And I hadn’t the money to set up in business but the Yorkshire Penny Bank I knew the manager in there. The Yorkshire Penny Bank as it was in those days. And I eventually took a shop in Chesterfield that sold news and it had, there’d been that, it was a big shop actually for a new starter but I borrowed money from one place or another and what money I had and we went into this. There was, we had a thousand paper customers. I’d never been in the shop in my life before. With bacon and everything in but it progressed but there’d been thieving going on terribly and the place had lost money. However, I soon put a stop to that and I got some of the family to come and help and so we progressed from there and then I eventually sold that. And because I wanted to go and live, oh I did have, I suffer with catarrh. Still do. And the doctor said, ‘You want to go and live by the coast.’ So eventually I went to have a look at the coast and found a piece of land and built half a dozen bungalows on there which we then let in the summer time and then eventually sold. And then through the Chesterfield business a chap arrived where I lived in, in, down on the coast and introduced his self. He said, ‘I’ve had a word with — ’ I think the Heinz representative, he said, ‘Who met you in Chesterfield. I said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ He said, ‘You wouldn’t be interested in coming along with me would you?’ So I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. In what respect?’ So he said, well he said, he was a man just a bit older than me, he played the organ as well by the way, Johnnie did. And one thing led to another and he said, ‘Look, why don’t you come and take the store over in Sutton on Sea for me?’ Why this all came through a traveller that had been to me in Chesterfield and then met him in Sutton on Sea. So I said yeah. So I took over and ran that and put it, it was losing money, we put it back on profit and sacked a lot of the staff because they were all at it. And yeah, so that was, so well my kids came and helped in there as well. So that, that was going, and then Johnnie was getting to the, he got caught with his, well that’s another story but he, he his wife left him and then he got married again. She was a great woman too I might add. However, things progressed and then he opened an organ shop. She came from Derby and he said, he was thinking of retiring and one week he came, he came down to, and had a word. He said ’Look,’ he said, he used to come to our house in Trusthorpe and he came and he said, ‘Look, Ron, can I have a talk with you? Can we come Sunday night and have a talk to you and I’ll bring Edna with me?’ I said, ‘Of course you can.’ So he came around, we had a meal together and all the rest of it and he said, ‘Look, he said, ‘I’m thinking of retiring.’ Now, he’s got a business there or had then and employed about two hundred people in the summer time. He had a Rootes group, a car place, spray shop, loads of restaurants, fish and chip restaurants. You name it he’d got them. He’d really got it. He’d been in the RAF too. But he’d really, he was a gruff man. You’d never believe with some of his language but the best business man I’ve ever met in my life. So we sat and he said, ‘Look Ron, he said, ‘I’m not looking for money,’ he said, ‘I’m looking for you to take it over lock stock and barrel,’ he said, ‘And you can pay me back.’ He said, ‘We’ll put it through a solicitor but I want you to pay me back gradually. A bit at a time.’ So I said, ‘Well, ok. Let’s think about it then.’ So off he went thinking we’ve already agreed to this. So when he’d gone I said to Joyce, ‘Look, I’m not really too sure about this. We’re going to, this, this business is a seven day a week thing from eight in the morning ‘til 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock at night when we close up.’ So I said, ‘Look, I think, I think not.’ So I went to see him down at his house in Mablethorpe and I said, ‘Ray, I’m ever so sorry but I’m going to turn you,’ Oh he couldn’t believe it.’ He said, ‘You’re never turning it down.’ I said, ‘Yeah. I am. Because I want to be on my own.’ So from there that was that. And I’ve always been interested in antiques as you probably look around you’ll see. And I said when we built these bungalows, I said to Joyce, ‘We haven’t had a holiday. Let’s bugger off and have a holiday.’ So we grabbed the kids and took the car and went toured around Scotland. We’d arranged to stay away two weeks and after about, I can’t be still anyway, after about twelve days, no. Less than that. After ten days we were back around as far as Stranraer and we got, I said, ‘Let’s have another two or three days before we go home. So I said, ‘Let’s go across to Ireland and find John Tregoning,’ who was the fella I’ve referred to already. He was a customs officer on the border. Now, I didn’t know where he was unfortunately so the first morning we were there we went into the customs headquarters in, in Dublin. No. In Stranraer sorry. Yeah. In Stranraer. No, it was over in, no, the headquarters of, it was in Ireland somewhere where the headquarters. Anyway, I went to see this bod in there and I said, ‘I’m looking for a man called John Tregoning.’ And he said, well we wouldn’t tell me where he was, he said was because, ‘The reason I don’t tell you is I don’t know whether you’re looking for retribution or whatever.’ So I said, well, so I explained it to him and then he said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ he said, ‘I’ll get in touch with him and I’ll have a word with him,’ he said, ‘And then if you come back I’ll tell you either yay or nay.’ So we do this and we went back and he told us Ray lived in Auchnacloy down on the border, you see. So we get down to Auchnacloy and we have festivities as you probably can imagine. And walking through, through the village we see a fella who obviously knew John, called George Taylor and we eventually go across to his place down in, he was dealing in antiques and horses and horse and carriages and things. I couldn’t believe the stuff he’d got. So, anyway, one thing led to another and so I formed a friendship with this George Taylor in Auchnacloy and it lasted, well until I packed the antique business up. We used to go to Ireland weekly, virtually. But he, he had some carriages and all these things that you see on the TV with these fancy carriages and stagecoaches and things and he’d all these. He’d over a hundred in one field. Traps. So I ended up buying some bloody traps you see and bringing them home to the UK [laughs] and landaus and all sorts. So that bore fruition, and went very well until to go back to my son he, he wanted to go, he wanted to go into navigation in the Merchant Navy. But when he went for a medical examination he found, they found he’d got the same trouble with his eyes I have. And so we had a, they rang me up from, from Grimsby actually. Been for this test in Grimsby and they rang me up and said this problem and they said that you could probably get him cured by getting him going to the relevant people. But he said, ‘We must warn you that he’ll have to undergo the same eye test every year. Now, he said if it deteriorates he’s never going to be out of trouble.’ So I went over and I told Robert what all this was and he said, ‘Well, I don’t know what to do, dad.’ I said, ‘Well, do you want to come and work with me for a while?’ So he joined me and that’s how it all ended up and it’s still the same thing now.
DE: Right. Ok
RI: He’s still, still doing now. He’s got some bungalows. So that’s another. So that, so that was that story really. How that all came about. My son came to work, to work with me and that’s how. Then of course the family all then we all amalgamated and got together and poor old, poor lad then we put him in we had a hot dog stall in Mablethorpe so we put him in there at nights. I think he gave more away then he sold but if you ever meet him. Oh, you met him anyway because he was with me when we went there.
DE: Right.
RI: Robert was. Yeah.
DE: So you mentioned that you met up with some of your crew.
RI: I did yes. I did. Well, I used to see John regularly because he was in Auchnacloy and we used to go and stay there you see. So we used to see John quite regular. Now, Tom Coram, came over from Australia and he wasn’t a very nice chap so that was best forgotten really. So I then decided to go to Canada to see, to see John Callingham. So we went and had a ride down the, you know, down. Did all the trip and I went and flew over on Concorde and all the rest of it we did because [laughs] So, so that was that. And so, yeah. So we had, we had a great time with John. There’s photographs of him somewhere which we’ll come to shortly. So we discussed all this. What we’d done and of course we were much older by this stage of course, you see. So things take on a different light really. But we had a lot of, he was a hell of a nice man and he’d taken a big part in in Canada in in Toronto in the ex-Service Associations. They used to fly him over to France every year to the, to this thing there. So he’d taken a big part actually after. He was a, what did he do? He was a [pause] he weren’t an engineer. No. He was a surveyor I think. Yes. He was. Yeah. So I saw him and the mid-upper gunner. He went. He played the clarinet by the way, the mid-upper gunner and, but he went to live in Australia and so I lost touch with him. The last time I talked to them on the phone he’d got dementia and so he didn’t really know anybody and all this tragic story. So that ended, and that finished that. John Tregoning, who was the navigator was the bod who we became very, very friendly with. We used to go and see him in Plymouth. When he came back from Ireland he took a big job in Plymouth so we used to go down there and have a few days with him in Plymouth. And he used to, hadn’t been on the Hoe and this Plymouth Hoe and all this business. So we had great times down there. Yeah, yeah, so that. And the Eddie Gaylor, the bod who was the spare rear gunner I met him regularly then of course because he used to walk past with his little dog and so forth. So I met him quite regularly. So, but the rest, for the rest, it sort of it disappears doesn’t it? The engineer that we had he had joined us latterly of course after, after we’d crewed up originally. He joined us last but he was a married man and he was twenty eight. Lived in Liverpool. But to us this is incredible.
DE: He was an old man.
RI: We thought he was an old man. He’d got kids. So we never sort of mixed with him at all whilst he was a good engineer so far, but he never sort of became part of us at all. And Christ he was only twenty eight [laughs] This is unbelievable really now.
DE: Yeah.
RI: You’ve disturbed all this news you have [laughs] you’re the one that’s responsible now. Yeah.
DE: Yeah. So when did you start going to Squadron Association meetings and reunions and things?
RI: Do you know, it was only through him. Through Eddie that I went. Meeting him. That was. Oh, it must be —
DE: Eddie was the spare bod gunner.
RI: Yeah. He was the spare bod gunner.
DE: Yeah.
RI: Yes. Yeah. And that of course at the reunions was where I met the fella who sold all the books. I will show you. I won’t let you read them now but I’ll show what he’s written. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. Of which he’s put copies in the museum in Elvington. But you can’t get at them unless you get permission but they’re there to be read. All of them that he wrote on my behalf. Yeah. He became a great friend. A great friend, he really did, a real nice. What a nice man. He really was. Yeah. Really is rather. I must ring him, because going back to the rear gunner’s memorial at your place when your helpers told us that his name wouldn’t be on there because there was only Lincolnshire names on there I had to tell you that didn’t I? And then we find out from your good self that, that wasn’t true and of course the names that I imagine that the two Ridleys on there weren’t him but of course they are.
DE: Yeah. Yeah. One of them is. Yeah.
RI: Yeah. That’s right. One of them is Bert so I‘ve now got to ring around some of his family because they want to, they’ve seen it all at Elvington but they’ll certainly want to see this at your place now. So I’ve got the, one of them, one, his cousin he lives in a castle up in [pause] his two lads. One of them’s a test pilot for [pause] in France. And his wife flies the queen. And the other one is, is in charge of building the new airport in Hong Kong. So you can guess what they are.
DE: Yeah.
RI: Yes. So they all want, they send hampers to us at Christmas and all this sort of thing now. So it’s all, just to tell you the story about his family about the rear gunner’s family that’s written down. But you’ll see this but if you want to record it while you’re here. What happened was, I forget how many years ago it is now, but it does tell you in there anyway. How many years ago I get a phone call one Sunday afternoon and a bod saying, ‘Is that Mr Indge?’ Now, I don’t like being disturbed Sunday afternoons and I thought it was somebody trying to sell me double glazing or some silly bloody thing so I said, ‘Yes, it is,’ I said, ‘What do you want?’ I wasn’t very courteous I don’t think. So he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘All I can say to you Mr Indge does the name Ridley mean anything to you?’ I said, ‘Yeah. It does. It means a lot to me.’ I said, ‘Why? Do you know him?’ And he said, ‘No. But,’ he said, ‘I’m one of the Ridley family.’ So then we start to converse then and one thing led to another. So then he got in touch with his brother and his father who then ring me up and all this. So then eventually they want to come down here and have a look at a Halifax, you see. Now, I’ve been in the one in Elvington several times, and they normally in those days and still, as far as I’m aware still do, you can go in. You go in. Of course we didn’t, we didn’t come out that way. We came out via a hatch but the side of the Halifax is well back.
DE: Yes.
RI: But they won’t let visitors turn right down to the rear turret. They only let visitors go left up in to where the engineers and everybody else was sat. So they arranged then to come on holiday for which I never coughed a penny. They paid for my hotels and all this they did. These three did. And so then I rang Elvington and arranged that I could take them and they’d let them go inside the aircraft probably and have a look. Now, I’d been in several times obviously, and there was usually young men that were there to show you around the aircraft because it’s really a job for a very young man climbing in and out anyway. So when I went with these three Ridleys, it was an old man. Well, old. I say oldish. I suppose sixty five, seventy perhaps and he was going to take us into the aircraft. So he climbed into the aircraft first followed by perhaps myself and these other three bods and he then starts to, I said, ‘They would like to look in the turret.’ He said, he said, ‘You know that I can’t let you go down there.’ I said, ‘No. But — ’ I said, I told him who they were and he said, well he said, ‘All I can do,’ he said, ‘I’ll walk up the front,’ he said, ‘If they’d like to go down to the rear turret but,’ he said, ‘If I catch you,’ he said, ‘I’ll have to say. I’ll have to say.’ I said, ‘That’s fair enough.’ Now, perhaps this is unbelievable but they all went down. They went down into the rear turret in turns. Three of them. And they even say now how, how Bert’s cousin got in there because he wasn’t young of course by now. How the hell he got in there is beyond belief. But you’ll perhaps, you’ll find this out, they all came out crying. I’ve been and sat in the rear turret. They all deserved a VC. It was an awful job. An awful job. You were sat with nothing. It’s awful. Terrible job. Terrible. So that was really, so we’re now big friends and all the rest of it and so they all now want to come to the new one at Lincoln and have a look at the one of Bert’s name on the —
DE: On the wall. Yeah.
RI: On the wall. Yeah. They do.
DE: They’ll be most welcome.
RI: Yeah. Yeah.
DE: Yeah. I’ve not, I’ve not been inside the Halifax at Elvington. I’ve been inside a couple of the Lancasters.
RI: Yeah. That’s funny. I never have been inside a Lanc ever in my life.
DE: Have you not?
RI: No.
DE: There’s not meant to be as much room is there as there is in a Halifax?
RI: I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. There was very little. They could get another thousand feet in height roughly. But their bomb load was a little bit more. But there weren’t a lot in it. A lot of the bods that had flown in both reckoned that the Halifax was the better of the two. I don’t know. I’ve no idea. I don’t really know. They were there just for a job weren’t they?
DE: Yeah
RI: They weren’t designed for comfort. They were designed to do a job weren’t they?
DE: Yeah. You were talking a bit earlier again before we started recording about how the Lancaster has been remembered and the Halifax less so perhaps.
RI: Yes.
DE: How do you feel about the way Bomber Command has been remembered over the last seventy years or so.
RI: Well, it’s got you see, even at Elvington now there’s some young men how this should be done now. They’ve rebuilt a Mosquito up there and they were hoping to get, we became very friendly with the bod that was building it. He reckoned it had cost him his marriage. And he used to get some young engineers from right from down south to come up there in the holidays and help him to rebuild this thing. And his second wife, Sotheby’s have an aircraft sale once a year and she, for some reason or other went to see them at this whatever in, up in Leeds. And they said to her, ‘If he wants to sell it we’ll get, could get him a million for it. But,’ but they said, ‘If he can get it airborne we’ll get him two million.’ But of course he won’t because he’s had bits to rebuild this thing from all over the world actually. I haven’t been for a while so it’ll be finished now I presume. But what a nice man that rebuilt this Mosquito. Yeah. Yeah. So you know and so it’s all progressed from there now and a lot’s happened since of course finding where the aircraft crashed and all the rest of it. Do you want to go down the route now? Or —
DE: Yeah. Fine.
RI: Or later?
DE: No. If yeah if you have a story to tell about that then yes please. Yeah.
RI: Well, when, I don’t know how this started now. How the hell did it? [pause] Well, we went. I went myself and Hollis’ went to Germany to Bert’s grave on several, three or four occasions because there are in Reichswald Forest there are several 578 bods buried. And when we used to go there’s always brought two little wooden crosses and we used to not only go to Bert’s but go to all the others and put a little cross on them. This was on Reichswald Forest, and so that went on for several years and I then started going down. I lost my wife and I started going for, the RAF have got some places, recuperation places. I don’t know what you’d call them. There’s one down on the south coast, there’s one in Scotland, and there’s several of them. I went to one of them down on the south coast and some bod down there got in touch with the National Lottery. This all sounds, but however it’s true and eventually I hear from a lady in, the National Lottery then had an office in Nottingham in that time of the day and I had a letter from them. Would I be, did I want any lottery funding for anything that I might? So I said, ‘Yeah, I do really.’ So, however the outcome of that was they sent me a thousand pounds. The National Lottery did. So I gathered together and there’s pictures now of this. There’s pictures of them all somewhere in this somewhere which I’ll give you before we go too much further.
DE: We’ll find them.
RI: We’ll find them. Yeah. So I then, so we gather, so we got this funding from the National Lottery but at the same time a German who worked in Germany, an Englishman who worked in Germany who was aircraft mad had discovered in Gelsenkirchen where there was some aircraft, aircraft had crashed. Now, he’d gone as far as sorting out that there was a Lanc and a Halifax. Now, they couldn’t decide which bits belonged to which except all the crew of the Lanc were killed and in our case only the rear gunner was. Now, we’ll get to this bit in a bit. The rear gunner was still in the, in that, in the back bit of the aircraft. And what happened was this, this bod who was Air Force mad but worked in Germany he, he found out that going back a little bit he found out that they’d been widening a dyke and they’d found all these bits of the aircraft and the turret with the body of Bert still in. Or what remained of him. And also he found out that there’s an old man with dementia, well it’s all fell foul now, but there’s an old man in that village that had got a photograph of it when it first came down. Before it, and actually there’s good photograph of Bert in it actually. Or what remained of him. But he won’t part with it. But they’ve promised us that they will part with it eventually but when the eventual will be I’m not, I’m not quite sure. But this is, this is part of the epilogue of course and this refers to it. This is what I’ve been meaning to give you, and let you look at. Now, I think, I think you’d better take the recorder off.
DE: Ok.
[recording paused]
DE: Recording now. You were saying about petrol.
RI: Yeah. Well, we were aware, I was aware that, and of course we all were, all aircrew members that once you were on ops you could get a petrol allowance for pleasure. And so far as I’m aware, and I’m certain we were the only people in the UK that got actually a petrol allowance purely for pleasure. Not involving business. So that, that, I never registered the thing. I never taxed it or anything. I’d no driving licence or anything of course but nobody bothered us in those days. There was nobody about. So when we were shot down they sent a list which they’re all here still. Those lists are still here. You’ll see them if you want to. Those lists told my father what, what behind, what was mine. There was a bit of money. There was several things and they would be forwarding this stuff to him. But there was no mention of a car. So of course my father apparently panicked and then rang about this car because there was a bike. That got sent back but there was no mention of a car. So my father actually went up to Burn I think eventually and some of the bods there had pinched the tyres and the battery [laughs] So eventually they got it squared up and my father was friendly with a garage and they got some tyres from somewhere and managed to get it. And so the Ministry wrote to him to say that the car was available for collection. So that’s, so it was here. When I got home it was there. All taxed and ready and on the road it was. Yeah. So that was another thing out of there really that I hadn’t told you about which it’s only you coming here that disturbed all this information.
DE: Made you think of it. Yeah.
RI: It has. Yeah. Yeah.
DE: So it wasn’t a bad life when you were on the station on ops then. You —
RI: No. No. Because I used to go out. We used to, we got in with several pubs locally. We used to take the squeezebox down. Never had to buy any drink because we just used to use the squeezebox and that was it. Yeah. No. That was good really. Yeah. From that point of view. Yeah. Yeah. You never thought of what might happen I think did we? You just, your name just got rubbed off [coughs] excuse me. Your name just got crossed off when you didn’t get back. So yeah. That was it. So that, that was the end really of the of the escapade until, a lot of it came to light with the grant from the Lottery Fund and when we all went and met among these others. Well, there were pictures of that too. We met this Roman Catholic padre and a member of the press came around and wanted to take pictures of us and all assembled. It was, it was remarkable how they found bits and pieces of the thing really but, but there was I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet there’s a vague picture of the remnants of the turret.
DE: I did see it. Yeah.
RI: Did you see it? Yeah.
DE: A black and white one.
RI: Yeah, it is. Yeah. So whether we shall ever get any more we don’t know but there’s nothing so sure that in my mind that that was actually him. Yeah. Yeah. So, but they took us for a ride around the old oil refinery at Gelsenkirchen where we were shot down and it’s a lot bigger now than it was then of course. But whether it was all in vain I’m not quite sure. I don’t know. I remember us all saying at the end of it all we’ll never buy anything Japanese or German ever again.
DE: Right.
RI: And look at us now.
DE: Yeah.
RI: We’re all riding about in them now.
DE: Yeah.
RI: But we all said that you know. We’ll never buy anything from Germany again. Yeah. I know the March reflection, you know. You’ve brought all of these reflections up. The March. Now really it’s unbelievable that we were straggled out for miles but the cold weather. I mean we couldn’t, I couldn’t live through it now any more. I suppose you’d [emphasis] struggle perhaps.
DE: I’m sure I would. Yeah.
RI: With twenty to thirty below. Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
RI: Yeah. But we were lucky because the Germans marched us through the day normally and at night time locked us up in farmyards and things. But we were a bit lucky because John Callingham, he was, he was of farming stock so he was able to, where a few nights we did manage I think he managed to get us milk and all sorts of things. Having been a farmer’s son and the rest of it. So that was very useful really this extra milk and things like that. Yeah. And then we, yeah, so there we go. So what else you would like to know about I’m not quite sure.
DE: I think we’ve ticked off just about everything that’s on my list.
RI: Good.
DE: Yeah [pause] No. So unless you have anything else that you’d like to tell me I’ll draw the interview to a close and thank you very much.
RI: Well, only that I’ll just get a couple of the books out and show you. Not that you’ll want to read them.
DE: I’ll just pause this then.
RI: If you ever do want to see them you know where they are.
DE: Smashing. Thank you.
RI: I don’t, you know one way or the other.
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 Ronald Indge
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
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
2018-01-31
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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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AIndgeRC180131
Format
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01:24:29 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Belgium
Great Britain
Poland
Belgium--Brussels
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Worksop
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Tychowo
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Description
An account of the resource
Ronald Indge was a wireless operator on 578 Squadron and became a prisoner of war after his Halifax aircraft was shot down.
Upon leaving school, and unable to obtain employment in his chosen career, his father arranged a bound apprenticeship with a joiner. Attracted by the glamour of the RAF, when almost eighteen, and without his parent's knowledge, he travelled with a friend to Sheffield and they both enlisted in the RAF. Entry was initially deferred until Ron was at the required age. He describes his route through training, on successful completion of which, his crew joined 578 Squadron. In February 1944, Ron’s aircraft was attacked from behind, killing the rear gunner. With limited control of the aircraft, the remaining crew was forced to evacuate and Ron was immediately captured. Following interrogation, he eventually arrived at Stalag Luft 7. Whilst there he met a fellow prisoner playing a piano accordion. Having learnt to play in his younger days, Ron describes how further instruments were obtained and the formation of a concert party which enabled them to entertain their fellow prisoners. However, they were also required to entertain the German officers which caused some concern to Ron, but they received meals in return. There was a known collaborator amongst the prisoners, and care had to be taken to ensure no loose talk gave away any information. In January 1945, the advancing Russian army forced the evacuation and the prisoners were forced to march to Stalag 3A. This took several weeks in temperatures as low as -20 degrees Celsius, and improvised sledges were used to pull weak prisoners. Following liberation, Ron returned home to discover his mother was terminally ill. He spent some time on general duties before being discharged and with support from the RAF, was able to complete his apprenticeship. Contact with some of his crew has been maintained in conjunction with 578 Squadron Association, with several visits to the grave of the rear gunner. The site of the crashed Halifax, with the body still in position, was located when civil engineering was carried out in the area.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1944
1945
578 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
entertainment
final resting place
Halifax
military living conditions
prisoner of war
RAF Burn
RAF Riccall
RAF Yatesbury
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
training
wireless operator
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/733/9288/ACarswellA170614.1.mp3
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Title
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Carswell, Andrew
A Carswell
Description
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An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Andrew Carswell AFC (b. 1923). He flew operations as a pilot with 9 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-14
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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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Carswell, A
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: Ok. So, I’ll just introduce myself. This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Andy Carswell on the 14th of June, I always get the dates wrong. 2017.
AC: 13th. Isn’t it March the 13th?
DC: 14th.
DK: Oh, it’s the 14th . Yeah.
AC: 14th eh?
DK: 14th. 14th of June 2017 at his home in Toronto. I’ll just make sure that I said Toronto. Make sure everybody knows I’m here. So, if I just put that there.
AC: Now, you have the address of the home in Toronto and all that.
DK: Yeah. I’ve got all the address. Yeah.
AC: That’s good.
DK: If I keep looking down I’m not being rude I’m just making sure it’s working. There’s been a couple of occasions when I’ve been beaten by the technology when the battery has just stopped or something.
AC: I see.
DK: Right. Yeah. I think we’re ok.
AC: Do I have to speak any louder than normal or —
DK: No. Just, just speak normally. Just sound like that.
AC: That’s good. That’s good.
DK: Firstly, what I wanted to ask you was what were you doing immediately before the war started?
AC: Ok. I was going to high school. I was, immediately before the war started I guess I would be about sixteen years old or so. And just before my eighteenth birthday the principal of the high school I was going to — I was in Grade 12 and in those days you needed twelve grades in order to graduate in to university.
DK: Right.
AC: But they changed it. The timing on the thing so that you had to have thirteen grades. So, I was at the end of my twelfth grade. I was just coming up to eighteen years old and the principal, in one of his lectures said, ‘Anybody who wants to do war work can get off early.’ And so of course I stuck my hand up and said, ‘Yes, I want to do war work.’ And so I got off early and the first thing I did was I went downtown to the RCAF Recruiting Unit.
DK: Right.
AC: On my eighteen birthday. I was eighteen years old and I walked in there and they said, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘I want to join the Air Force.’ They said, ‘Oh. What do you want to be?’ And of course everybody watched the movies. I said, ‘I want to be a pilot.’ So they said, ‘Ok.’ And they put me in and I went to, to the local unit in the Toronto International Exhibition there and, at Upper Avenue Road, and they sent me to, to Belleville. They had taken a school for the deaf and dumb and kicked everybody out.
DK: Right.
AC: And I don’t know what they did with them. And they put us in there and some of us were sort of dumb too [laughs] but anyway we were selected there on the basis of various tests to be pilots, air gunners, or navigators.
DK: Right.
AC: And you had to be smart to be a navigator. And you had to, you had to be, I guess a good shot to be an air gunner so I was trained as a pilot. So, they selected me as a pilot and they sent me to, right off the bat to what’s the name of the place?
DC: Goderich.
AC: Goderich. Yeah. A little town on the Lake Huron and where there was a civil airport operating and there were volunteer instructors at that time. And there I soloed. Learned to fly an aeroplane. And then they sent me a couple of hundred miles away. Down to a place called Bradford which is also in Ontario. And they, they were flying Avro Ansons.
DK: Yeah.
AC: The very first order of Avro Ansons where you had to crank the undercarriage up and down by hand. And so I graduated from there as a pilot and I got to wear a pair of wings and I was a sergeant pilot.
DK: Did you, did you find learning to fly easy? Is it something that came naturally to you?
AC: Oh yes. It was very easy for me because I had spent most of my time outdoors. I was in the Boys Scouts.
DK: Right.
AC: And I did a lot of hiking and that kind of thing. And so they gave me a couple of weeks leave and then they sent me to England. Here I was, still just a little over eighteen by then I guess. And, and in England I went to Bournemouth where all the Canadians went.
DK: Just, just going back a bit how did you come over to England? Were you on one of the —
AC: On a ship. A boat.
DK: Right. Yeah.
AC: I forget the name of it. It was a — had normally been a freighter, I think.
DK: Oh right.
AC: And I was not too, not too — my memory is kind of clogged there with all the other things that are in it. But anyhow I went over by ship, you know. Evading the German submarines and so forth.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And eventually we ended up in Bournemouth. And in Bournemouth they sent me to, on more training. And I took three or four different courses on different kinds of aircraft. Getting larger, larger and larger from the smallest multi-engine aircraft to, to things like the DC3 and whatnot. And finally they put me on the Lincoln. Which was the brother of the Lancaster but it had different engines in it and it would only fly on one engine if one engine quit.
DK: Was that the Manchester?
AC: The Manchester. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
AC: They put me on the Manchester.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And nobody liked the Manchester because they knew that if one engine quit the other one wasn’t enough to keep it going.
DK: Right.
AC: So, anyway and then they graduated me up to the Lancaster.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And I spent several weeks or a month or two flying the Lancaster and then they sent me up to number 9 Squadron.
DK: What did, what did you think of the Lancaster as an aircraft? Was it —
AC: Oh, great. The Lancaster itself was a very good aircraft and it was as easy to fly as the Avro Anson or any of the other aircraft. It wasn’t very cosy inside like the American aircraft. The Americans had lots of nice cushions in their front seats [laughs] And all kinds of good lighting and whatnot. And the Lancaster was just basically the controls that you needed and the — that was, that was basically all there was. You had your rudders. And there was no, no engine activated controls, you know. Everything was done.
DK: Manually.
AC: By force of —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
AC: Force of habit.
DK: Had you, had you joined up with your crew at this point?
AC: No. No.
DK: Oh. Right then.
AC: They sent me to number 9 Squadron. And then they had a [pause] I’ve been trying to — that’s a good question. I’m trying to remember where they had the — I think we had the crew selection before I got to 9 Squadron.
DK: Right.
AC: And then people would go around saying, ‘Look. I’m a navigator. Do you want a navigator?’
DK: Was that then —
AC: ‘I’m a rear gunner,’ and all that.
DK: Right.
AC: So, anyway that was supposed to be my selection but I didn’t know any of the other people involved. I just picked people who looked like nice fellows [laughs] and we ended up with a crew of seven or so.
DK: And was the rest of your crew, were they Canadian or were they British?
AC: They were a mixture. The flight engineer was Scottish.
DK: Right.
AC: Jock Martin his name was and —
DC: Paddy Hipson.
AC: Paddy Hipson was Irish. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And what else have I got? I had a couple of English guys. My wife’s got a better memory than I have. She, she, we’ve been married seventy years and she can still remember every bad thing I ever did [laughs]
DC: There was three Canadians besides you.
AC: Who, who were they? Three Canadian besides me eh?
DC: [unclear] The fellow that froze to death.
AC: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DC: And —
AC: That was my navigator.
DC: And then there was —
AC: That navigator was a Canadian and he was just —
DC: Claude Clemens.
AC: Claude Clemens was a Canadian. He was a rear gunner. Yeah.
DC: West Ontario.
AC: That’s right.
DK: Was that — I’ve got your crew here as yourself. Sergeant Martin.
AC: Martin. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
AC: That’s Scottish.
DC: Martin.
DK: Scottish. And what was he then?
AC: He was the flight engineer.
DK: Flight engineer. Galbraith. Galbraith.
AC: Galbraith. Yeah.
DC: He’s the one that froze to death.
AC: Yeah. Galbraith was the navigator. He was a Canadian.
DK: He was the navigator. Hipson?
AC: Harry Hipson was English.
DC: Irish.
DK: English. Irish?
AC: Scottish.
DK: He was Scottish.
AC: Scottish. And what was he then? The wireless operator?
AC: Hipson [pause] Oh, I know. He was the, not the — bombardier.
DK: Ah bombardier. Yeah. And then Sergeant Phillips.
AC: Sergeant Phillips.
DK: Yeah.
AC: Sergeant Phillips.
DC: Eddy Phillips.
AC: Eddy Phillips.
DC: The one that got a leg broken on the march.
AC: Yeah. That was Eddy Phillips was, I’m glad you’re here Dot to remind me of these things. Eddy Phillips was a part of our crew and he broke his leg after we landed.
DK: Right.
AC: And he moved about in different hospitals. I never saw him again.
DK: Oh right.
AC: But he didn’t die. He got home ok apparently.
DC: What did he do in the aircraft?
AC: Eddie Phillips was a mid-upper gunner.
DK: Air gunner.
AC: I think that’s what he was.
DK: And I’ve got Sergeant De Silva.
AC: De Silva. Yeah.
DC: English fellow.
AC: Oh. He was a mid-upper gunner. Yeah. Sergeant De Silva.
DC: De Silva. Yes.
AC: De Silva. And —
DC: His parachute didn’t open.
AC: And he was killed because his parachute didn’t open.
DK: Right.
AC: With him improperly loaded up into the aircraft, I guess.
DK: And then Sergeant Clemens, I think it says.
AC: Claude.
DC: Yes.
AC: Claude Clemens was the rear gunner. Yeah.
DK: He was the rear gunner. Ok.
AC: And he was a Canadian.
DK: Right. Ok.
AC: He just died a while ago.
DK: Ok.
AC: Big talker.
DC: Twelve years ago.
AC: I’m surprised that they’re still sending people out because I’m one of the youngest of the whole lot and I’m ninety four and Dorothy is ninety five. We’ve been married seventy years.
DK: Years. Well, congratulations.
AC: She remembers every year of it [laughs] Sometimes that’s not a good thing.
DK: Don’t ask me how long I’ve been married. Twenty two years. There you are.
AC: Twenty two years eh. Well, there you go.
Other: We’ve got a long way to go.
DK: [unclear]
AC: Anyway, so that’s, that’s how we got crewed up.
DK: Right. So, you were —
AC: As you know, that they normally the captain of the aircraft was normally commissioned and he was —
DK: Yeah.
AC: Started off as flying officer and then went to flight lieutenant and so forth. Well, on my first trip I was a sergeant pilot. I was the only pilot on board a Lancaster and I was only a sergeant. And there was no other, no other officers in the crew of course.
DK: Right.
AC: And they sent me on a couple of trips with other people just to see how I did and I would take the flight engineer’s spot because they only had one pilot in those aeroplanes. And then they put me on operations fairly shortly after that. And the first trip was fairly normal, I think.
DK: Can you remember where that was too?
AC: To, to Berlin.
DK: So, your first trip was to Berlin.
AC: And the second trip was to Berlin.
DK: Right.
AC: And then they stopped it. They lost so many aircraft that they stopped it for a while. They had aircraft going down all over the place. In fact when we were shot down we were about half way between [pause] what’s the name of that little town? I can’t remember now.
DC: Well, John took you on that trip.
AC: Yeah.
DC: To retrace your steps.
AC: Yeah. I’m just thinking yeah. But anyway, it was about half way between the [pause]
DC: Do you have any? You can look.
No. No. I don’t have any notes.
DC: Yeah.
AC: We weren’t supposed to take notes.
DC: We went to the wrong place when we were in Germany.
AC: Yeah. We went down to that town.
DC: You sat opposite.
AC: Where I got shot down.
DK: So, so this was the fourth operation then was it? You were shot down.
AC: Yeah.
DK: Can, can you say a little about what actually happened on that particular operation?
AC: Well, we were, we were at twenty thousand feet or so and a, and a barrage of flak came up around us and the next thing I noticed the navigator was pointing at the right hand engine. And the right hand engine was on fire and the fire was creeping towards the gas tanks. It still had a thousand gallons or more gasoline in them. So, I, I gave the order to bale out and so the rear gunner baled out, and the mid-upper gunner baled out and the mid-upper gunner’s parachute didn’t open as you know. The rear gunner, he only died a few years ago. And the rest of the crew all got out but my navigator who had recently been married and he was so anxious to get home he didn’t care what was wrong with the aeroplane. He kept saying, ‘You should go. Take — ’ such and such a course. And so we had a bit of an argument and I said, ‘If you don’t go out I’ll go out ahead of you because we’re going straight down.’ The aeroplane was on fire by then. And so he finally went out and I went out and that was it. And then I found myself in a tree and I [pause] that’s all in that book anyway, I think.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And I decided I’d walk towards Switzerland [laughs] which was a stupid idea. But I was walking pretty well all night and eventually I realised that I had two choices. Either give myself up or just hide in the woods until I froze to death. And I didn’t think that was a very good thing to do so I walked a little farther and I saw a farmhouse in the distance, down a side road. And I went down there and I knocked on the door of the farmhouse. Some woman opened a, opened a window up above and yelled something at me. And I just said, ‘It’s pretty cold out here. Let me in.’ [laughs] The next thing I know I hear is a crunching noise in the side driveway and this little old guy with a gun almost as big as himself came out, pointed it at me. And I said, ‘Don’t shoot.’ And then the wife came out and yelled something at him. And they decided to take me in. And I went into their living room and they had a Chesterfield about that size there and they told me to sit down there. And I sat down there and fell asleep. When I woke up again there was a great crowd of people wandering around and looking at me. And a little boy was looking at my arm here. It said Canada on it. He said, ‘Oh, Canada.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ And then everybody sort of thought that I understood German. Which I didn’t. And eventually a car pulled up with a couple of Nazi soldiers in it and they made sure that I didn’t have a weapon on me. And then they put me on the car. They took me down to the town hall which was — oh it’s in that book there anyway.
DK: That’s all right. Christine, can you have a look through there and see if you can find out the town he parachuted into? Just see if you can find it.
AC: I was trying to think of the name. I had a beer there too. Not after I got shot down but after.
DK: Yeah. When you went back.
AC: When I went back with me wife.
DK: You didn’t get a beer the day you were shot down then.
DC: He went back with John.
DK: Yeah.
DC: Our son took Andy back.
Oh yeah. That’s right. You weren’t with me on that one were you?
DC: And John has a very very good memory [unclear]
CK: Was it Zerbst?
AC: Pardon?
CK: Zerbst Town Hall. Z E R B S T.
AC: Zerbst.
CK: Zerbst.
AC: Yeah. Z E R B S T. Zerbst.
DK: Yeah.
AC: We were quite close to there when we got shot down. And so, I was, I was kept in a private room with a young fellow with a gun sitting there. And finally he went out to get something to eat and he came back and said something to me and he offered me some food too. So, he gave me something to eat. I had a sandwich along with him. And then I stayed there for a day. And the next day a bunch of soldiers came in and marched me out into the parade square where they had a crowd of people around. And they were all looking at this strange guy that had just got shot down nearby. And from there we went to a Luftwaffe station where they put us all in cells and various people came in and interviewed us and whatnot. And they were fairly decent, you know about the whole thing. And after that they put us all together except for the dead people. They couldn’t find the navigator. They didn’t know where he was. And neither did I. I suspected he was hiding in the woods, you know. Which would be not a very smart thing to do in sub-zero temperatures. But so they eventually found him. He’s buried near Berlin right now.
DK: Right.
AC: And —
DK: So, he had frozen to death then.
AC: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
AC: He just stayed out until he froze to death. It wasn’t a very smart thing to do either. But he was so much in love with this woman he’d just married that he figured he could get home. Sad eh? So, anyway that was, that was the beginning of my two years and three months in a POW camp. And they moved me to a place called Lamsdorf.
DK: Yeah.
AC: The rest of the crew was there and I spent the next [pause] And what did I do there? I figured I should do something useful so I escaped a couple of times and I got caught a couple of times. Let’s see. Three times I escaped, I think. Two. Must be. You’re right, Dot. Two times I escaped. Lucky I’ve got somebody to correct me. So, I escaped twice. I got caught twice. I spent time in three different prisons.
DK: ‘Cause reading your book what you seem to have done is exchange places with an army —
AC: Oh yeah.
DK: Was that how it was?
AC: Swapped over. Yeah. That was the, the theory that the people running the place you know. The RAF people decided that that was the way to go. We didn’t dig tunnels or anything like that. We swapped over. And I swapped over with a couple of different fellows.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And they went up into my barracks and wore my uniform. And I went down into their barracks and waited for my name to be called. My fake name. And then I got marched out with the rest of the people and —
DK: And the Germans never cottoned on to this then. That this was what was going on.
AC: Oh, I think they, they suspected. But I mean to them a POW was a POW. You know, they all looked the same.
DK: Yeah. Because I was very surprised when, when you were captured you were still that army person.
AC: That’s right.
DK: And even they took you back they still didn’t realise that you were —
AC: That’s right.
DK: Air Force.
AC: That’s right.
[background noise]
DK: Can, can I just stop?
[recording paused]
AC: I didn’t have much of a record as a bomber pilot.
DK: Yeah.
AC: I got shot down on my second trip really as captain. And it was all very sad. And after that I don’t remember anybody who ever flew a Lancaster who was below the rank of flying officer or flight lieutenant, you know. They automatically commissioned people to be captain of a huge aircraft like that. But anyway, that’s the basic. The rest of the story is in the book.
DK: I see with your second escape you were actually captured and held by the Gestapo.
AC: The Gestapo.
DK: It was the Gestapo?
AC: Yeah. We were, we were arrested [laughs] for eating lunch in a park. And you got —
DK: So, what was your plan of escape because you’re —
AC: We were going to Stettin and we were going to —
DK: Right.
AC: Get on to a Swedish ship to go to Sweden.
DK: Right.
AC: And that was, if I’d known more about it I would have gone to Denmark I guess because there they hated the Nazis.
DK: Yeah.
AC: They were driving people over to Sweden all the time.
DK: So, you’ve got false documentation now, presumably.
AC: Yeah.
DK: And you’re taking the part of, of foreign workers.
AC: That’s right.
DK: Is that the idea?
AC: That’s right. And they didn’t, nobody knew we weren’t foreign workers. We didn’t tell anybody.
DK: Yeah.
AC: The thing about the Gestapo was that they were just a mean bunch. I think they had to be mean to be selected. Our own guards were nice people, you know. Basically —
DK: Yeah.
AC: And some of the people, some of the Germans we met like you may remember a part where we had just got to Czechoslovakia and we were being taken back to our camp by a guard and he was quite friendly. And he, and he spoke to the other fellow a lot because the other fellow spoke German. You know. Had been a prisoner since Dunkirk. And any time an official looking German walked by, you know he’d change his story and be talking about something else. And, but he asked why we took a freight train. Because when we took a friend train all the way to, you know from where we jumped. Where we escaped the working party.
DK: Yeah.
AC: We jumped on a freight train. And I was pretty good at that because I used to do that as a kid. I had, when I went to high school you know. We went out to the freight yards. We’d jump on a freight train and go —
DK: Yeah.
AC: For a couple of miles and then jump off again. But anyway, so we came down in a freight train because we jumped on it. We were at a slight slope uphill and the freight train was going at a fairly slow rate, you know. And we’d run along beside it and jump on. And the guard said, ‘Well, why didn’t you jump on an ordinary train?’ And my friend who spoke German said, ‘Yeah. We, we took a freight train because the ordinary trains have got all these Gestapo people on them.’ And they, they said, ‘Oh, that’s, that’s not true,’ he said, ‘Most of our trains are full of people. Workers.’
DK: So the German guard was giving you advice on how to escape.
AC: Yeah. So, the German, the German guard was telling us how we, so, he said, ‘The next time you escape you should go on a passenger train.’ You know, this is a German guard.
DK: Yeah.
AC: Yet the Gestapo guys they were really mean. If you put your head out of line to look down you get hit on the back of the head with a rifle butt. You know. They just amused themselves and they’d take the women in there and march them around. Make them sing patriotic songs. And then they would take the men down there, march them around and make them go on their hands and knees. You know. Just —
DK: So, how long were you held by the Gestapo then?
AC: Oh, a couple of weeks.
DK: A couple of weeks.
AC: I think it was. I think it was more than a week anyway. Two weeks.
DK: Right.
AC: And, and then a guard came and rescued us you might say. He —
DK: So, had you, had you been trying to explain to the Gestapo that you were escaped prisoners then? Prisoners of War.
AC: Oh yeah. They — but they didn’t bother them.
DK: No.
AC: They, they didn’t give any particular respect to Prisoners of War or anybody else. But anyway the, the guard who came down who was very nice. As a matter of fact, on our way out the main, the main part of the prison I mentioned to the guard that they had taken my watch away from me. I had a Rolex Oyster. And that’s about a two thousand dollar watch, you know. And he said, ‘Oh. Ok.’ So, he went to the fellow on the desk and he started yelling at him in German and telling give me back my watch. The guy opened the drawer.
DK: Wow.
AC: And gave me back my watch.
DK: Wow.
AC: So there was, there was a guard. An ordinary, an ordinary soldier giving the Gestapo a hard time. And we had to give him advice on how to get back the best way because he didn’t know the railroads as well as we did.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And so we went back there. That was my last attempt at escape. And then after that I got back. And nobody ever caught us in the form of our, nobody ever proved it or even suspected that we had changed identities a couple of times.
DK: So you went back to the camp then as this army person.
AC: That’s right.
DK: And then you swapped over again.
AC: I swapped over again. I re-swapped over and I —
DK: I’m just amazed that the Germans never quite cottoned on to this.
AC: So am I but the like I said the average guard there would be a postman or something who would just as soon be a guard in a prison camp then fight the Russians. You know, the Russians were really mean. They were even meaner than the Germans. They still are I think but —
CK: Can I just ask which camp this was? Was this Stalag 8?
AC: Stalag 8B. And then they changed the name to 344, nearer the end for some reason.
CK: You mentioned in your book about a couple of coincidences. You met a couple of chums from Canada or something.
AC: Oh yeah. That’s right. I met a, I met a couple of chums who had gone to the same high school that I went to.
DC: When you first went in the camp.
AC: When I first went in the camp. Yeah. That was my first visit to the camp where they unloaded the train and then they marched us all down to the camp. And a couple of these fellows actually met us and said, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ I said, ‘Same thing as you. What are you doing here?’ That camp had a maximum capacity of about twenty five thousand. There were a lot of people there. So, and you can imagine the guard’s problem.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
AC: You know. Keeping track of all these people. In fact they had a compound which, where they supposedly punished people who were trying to escape and what not. I’m trying to think of the name of the compound. Anyway, it’s in, it’s in my book. And, and we never saw the inside of that but we heard about it, you know. If you were caught climbing a fence or trying to beat up a guard or something then you go in to that camp and get punished. So, anyway that was my, my whole period there. And then the, the end came when the Russians were so close you could hear the guns firing and they decided to take us off out of the camp and they tipped the whole Air Force compound at once. They marched us out about 3 o’clock in the morning and we were going west on the, on the side roads. And we were sleeping in barns and so forth.
DK: Had you been expected to be evacuated as the Russians advanced?
AC: Well, we didn’t know. Nobody told us everything. And they decided they were going to take it because having a bunch of prisoners in fairly good condition was a good thing to do when the British were obviously winning the war.
DK: Yeah.
AC: I think most Germans knew that the war was pretty well lost by then. And they marched us all the way there. And the most interesting place we stopped at a train pulled over, stopped because there was going to be an air raid. And the name of the place was Halberstadt, which means half a town. Halbe is half and stadt is town. And the RAF came and bombed the place. Shot up the place quite, and some of our own people were killed there which was fairly normal for wartime you know.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And they and so the next morning they gathered up, they buried the people that were killed and they put the rest —
DK: So, you’ve been both. You’ve been both dropping bombs and on the receiving end of them.
AC: Oh yeah. That’s right. I was on the receiving end.
DK: Right.
AC: And so they put us back into another train and they took us all the way to West Germany. And, and in West Germany we were in a camp that had just been evacuated. They had taken a bunch of officers and people out of there that they wanted us to hang on to and they put us in the camp. And then we were in that camp when what was his name? Not Montgomery. Montgomery. Yeah. Montgomery and his army came by that area.
DK: Right.
AC: And they, they released us. I was quite disappointed because I met a couple of British soldiers that were telling us where we could go to steal things from houses. You know. How you can loot houses. They’d just walk into a place with the guns and start to look around.
DK: Really?
AC: And take stuff off the mantelpiece and whatever.
DK: And this is, this is —
AC: I was quite disappointed with that, you know.
DK: Yeah.
AC: After the way we had been treated. But you’ve got to remember we also knew that the Poles and the Jews and the Russians and a few other people like that were treated really terribly by the Germans.
DK: Yeah.
AC: The Germans. I guess we were the best treated, treated of the lot because we were connected with the Red Cross.
DK: Yeah.
AC: And you know what Germans are like. They go by the book and the book said the Red Cross was in charge of us. And so the Germans —
DK: So, just going back a bit to your time in the camp would you say you were fairly well treated then?
AC: Yes. I think we were fairly well treated and any, anybody who wrote a book saying we weren’t well treated I think they were probably stretching the truth a little bit.
DK: Do you think the Red Cross parcels made a big difference then?
AC: Oh yeah. They made a big difference because we would get an average of maybe one, one or two Red Cross parcels a month and one Red Cross parcel particularly the Canadian ones were full of butter and jam and all kinds of things that you didn’t get. Because our normal food, God only knows what was in but you know, dead horses and whatever. And that is why I’m so old, I think. I’ve eaten so much crappy stuff. I’m, I just had my eighty fourth birthday and Dorothy —
DC: Eighty fourth? Ninety.
AC: Oh, ninety fourth. Yeah.
DK: Ninety fourth. Yeah.
AC: Ninety fourth. Yeah. And Dorothy’s birthday is coming up. Her ninety fifth is coming up at the end of next month.
DC: Ninety six.
AC: Yeah. She’s going to be, she’s going to be ninety six. Well, she’s got a much better, better memory than I have. So, I didn’t meet Dorothy until after the war.
DK: Right.
AC: And she was working for a big oil company. Imperial Oil. And she was, had a pretty good job too. I didn’t marry her for her money of course but —
DC: Oh yes you did.
AC: So, but anyway and I was a starving student, you know. I had to go back to school and get my grade thirteen. And then I went to university and I got admitted in to university as an architectural student. And in the second year I realised that this would be a pretty boring occupation doing stairways and tall buildings and things like that after what I’d been through. So, on top of that I didn’t have a job or anything and didn’t have any money. Dorothy had some money. But anyway we got married and, and I re-joined the Air Force. Did I join the Air Force after we got married?
DC: [unclear]
AC: Yeah. And I re-joined the Air Force and that was about — 1945.
DC: 1949.
AC: ’49. Yeah. And I was in the Air Force for the next twenty odd years. And then I was too young to start over again then so I went to Transport Canada. And in the same capacity as a pilot.
DK: Right.
AC: And doing safety work. And my job there was to look after the safety programmes in the Province.
DK: Oh right.
AC: I was the head safety officer. Anyway, so, and that’s, so I’ve been a pilot all my life. From, from age nineteen to, to now.
DK: And could I just take you back a bit? When Montgomery’s armies turned up and you’d been liberated how did you then get back to England from there? Or Canada really?
AC: Well, actually they took us by truck down to the nearest airport and then they flew us back in Dakotas, you know.
DK: Right.
AC: You know what a Dakota looks like. And there they sorted us all out and like an idiot I said I want to go back to Canada when I should have stayed and looked around England a bit first. But anyway, so I went back to Canada pretty well —
DK: Right.
AC: Shortly after. Before the war was even over. And that was the end of, that was the end of my military experience. And I got a, I got a private pilots or a commercial pilot’s licence and I got an instructor’s job at the local airport.
DK: Right.
AC: Then I joined the Air Force, and —
DK: So, what were you flying between 1949 and the twenty years you were back in the Air Force.
AC: Well, they didn’t put me on Lancasters. They put me on Cansos.
DK: Right.
AC: I was flying Cansos and, and the first year I was flying as a co-pilot with another chap whose name was [pause] I can’t think of it right now. But he’s probably dead anyway. But anyway he was flying all over the Arctic and looking for the North Magnetic Pole and this and that.
DC: The [unclear] Magnetic Pole.
AC: Do you remember his name, Dot?
DC: Just a minute. [pause] I have to think about it for a minute.
AC: Yeah. Anyway, anyway, so his job was, you know relocating the North Magnetic Pole and a few things like that. And the following, the following year they decided to make me a captain so they moved me to Vancouver.
DK: Right.
AC: Where I took a course on the Canso. I thought I was going to be flying the Lancaster but no I went on to the Canso and I must have done fairly well on that because when I came back I was a captain on a Canso for the next couple of years. And then after that just to make things different they moved me on to Cansos in Vancouver. And I spent another five or how many years were we in Vancouver.
DC: Seven years.
AC: Seven years in Vancouver. There you go.
DK: Yeah.
AC: So, I was seven years in Vancouver. And most of our work was rescue work, you know.
DK: Yeah.
AC: Locating crashed aeroplanes and things like that and that’s where I got that medal from the Queen there.
DK: Oh right.
AC: See the picture of me and the Queen.
DK: Yeah. Oh yeah.
AC: I sent her a picture. I sent her a letter asking her if she would sign the picture. She said —
DC: Oh no.
AC: She said, I got a letter back from her assistant saying sorry but we can’t do things like that. You can imagine the problem we’d have writing to everybody who wanted our signature. So, she said, “I appreciate your enquiry,” and so forth and so on. It was the same as the Air Force Cross except it was a peacetime medal.
DK: Oh right.
AC: And it was for rescuing a guy who was having a, some kind of a heart attack in his head out on a weather ship. You know.
DK: Oh right.
AC: In those days they had weather ships way out.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
AC: In the middle of the ocean. And so I went out there and landed close by and they brought this sick guy over on a life boat and loaded him into the back of the aeroplane where there was a couple of nurses there. And then this guy was loaded in to the aircraft I’d got to take off in fairly rough water. But I had put two JATO bottles in the aeroplane.
DK: Right.
AC: One on each side. And do you know what a JATO bottle is?
DK: Is it a —
AC: It’s a rocket.
DK: Jet Assisted Take Off
AC: And it lasts for two or three minutes and so we managed to get off at about the second bounce. We got off and stayed in the air and flew this guy to Victoria where he was sent to a hospital and apparently lived to tell about it. So, anyway that was one of the more spectacular ones I did but I did lots of picking guys out of the water and flying them home and things like that. So, that was my job in Vancouver. And then they sent me to Toronto. A staff college again wasn’t it?
DC: You went to Goose Bay, Labrador first.
AC: Oh yeah. I went to Goose Bay, Labrador as a chief operations officer there. I was a squadron leader by then. And then I was told that there were so many people due for promotion that they were going to have to pass me over and start promoting some younger people otherwise everybody would be retiring at about the same time. Which was fair enough. So, I never got any higher than squadron leader.
DK: Yeah.
AC: But it was a pretty good job anyway doing that.
DK: So, so you never flew the Lancaster again post war.
AC: Oh, I flew the Lancaster again in Vancouver.
DK: Oh.
AC: Having been a Lancaster pilot they chose me to check people out in the Lancaster.
DK: Oh right.
AC: And so, I checked quite a few people out in the Lancaster. I flew a few tours myself looking for various crashed aircraft and whatnot.
DK: You didn’t, you didn’t fly the one that’s still flying did you?
AC: No. I didn’t.
DK: No.
AC: I didn’t fly that but no, I’m, I’m listed as a Canso pilot. I got thousands of hours in a Canso. And my son, one of my sons started a business which he called Canso. And he’s got the whole, and it’s doing pretty well.
DK: Yeah.
AC: So, and he’s got his whole office full of Canso pictures and parts and things like that. So, it’s quite flattering to see.
DK: Yeah.
AC: All these Canso things are out. So, anyway that’s my story. It’s not much of a story.
DK: Oh, it’s a great story. Just going, looking back now after all these years. How do you feel about your time, you know in the Air Force during the war and particularly as a POW? How do you look back on that now? Your feelings.
AC: Well, considering the fact that my father and mother both died in their 60s. My older brother died many years ago and he was a couple of years older than I was. My younger sister, who was quite a few years younger than me died just last year. I figure, and I may be wrong but I figure that the bad food that I got used to in the camp and the good treatment I got, pretty well, you know went together and made me sort of, I’m still, despite what my wife may think I’m still fairly healthy.
DC: I watch his diet.
AC: Just, my recent call to the doctor, he said, ‘You’re very slightly on the diabetic line.’
DK: Right. Yeah.
AC: And so I —
DK: So, you think it —
AC: I told Dot this and now she gives me hell every time I have a cup of sugar.
DK: So, you think it made you a stronger person. Is that what you’re saying?
DC: Yes.
AC: Yes. I think —
DK: Yeah.
AC: I think it, I think it made me stronger. The fact that, you know, some of the people like my rear gunner Claude Clemens he never went outside the camp once, you know. He just sat there and played bridge and played cards and had a good time and then got released. And I and a number of other people thought that we should be doing something useful like trying to escape.
DK: Did you see it as your duty then to escape?
AC: I thought so. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
AC: So, I mean I was a young fellow I’d believe anything in those days. But —
DK: Was it partly then to stop the boredom? You know. That you were doing something. This was —
AC: I was doing something yeah. And I was hoping to get to, to get out, you know. Actually have a successful escape. And they never did send the escapers back on operations. They used to send them back to Canada or someplace.
DK: Right.
AC: So they could propagandise the other people. So anyway, that was my reason for trying to escape but I think that it actually did me some good because I can eat almost any kind of food. Can’t I Dot?
DC: Yes. You don’t like certain kinds of green vegetables.
AC: So, anyway that’s, that’s my story.
DK: Ok.
CK: Did you keep in touch with some of your crew?
AC: They’re all dead.
CK: After the war.
CK: Ah.
DC: Well, we did keep in touch with them.
AC: We kept in touch with them. Yeah.
DC: But there’s none of them left.
AC: Claude Clemens was one of them.
DC: And Mac.
AC: And, yeah.
DC: And John Marchant, he’s dead.
AC: Yeah. They’re all dead now.
DC: And —
AC: And I’ll probably be dead in a couple of years. That’s why I wondered about you guys waiting ‘til, waiting so long to do this. There’s all kinds of —
DK: It’s taken a while. Yeah.
DC: De Silva’s grandson keeps in touch with us. Michael de Silva. His father got killed at [unclear]
AC: Who are you talking about?
DC: De Silva’s. You know the —
AC: Oh, the son of the fellow.
DC: That was the grandson.
AC: The grandson. Yeah.
DK: So, that’s de Silva’s grandson is still in touch with you.
AC: Can I make a cup of tea?
DK: Oh, I’d love one, I think. What I’ll do is —
AC: Let me make the tea, Dot. You just sit down.
DK: What I’ll do is I’ll just stop this now.
AC: Yeah.
DK: But thanks very much for that. That’s been —
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 Andrew Carswell
Creator
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David Kavanagh
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-14
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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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ACarswellA170614, PCarswellA1702
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:44:31 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
Poland--Łambinowice
Germany--Berlin
Description
An account of the resource
Andrew Carswell volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force in his native Toronto. He trained as a pilot and on arrival in the UK and completion of his further training he was posted to 9 Squadron. His first operation was to Berlin. On their final operation they were attacked by a night fighter and in the subsequent departure from the aircraft one member of the crew broke his leg, one crew member’s parachute didn’t open and another had resisted all prompts to leave the aircraft. Andy was taken as a Prisoner of War and was sent to Stalag 8B which he escaped from twice before being recaptured.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
9 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
escaping
final resting place
Lancaster
Manchester
navigator
pilot
prisoner of war
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag 8B
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/240/3385/PCoxJ1606.1.jpg
1bcdedc530fd2f872407ddab9e936c8e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/240/3385/ACoxJ160321.1.mp3
06100ff099a07721ae8e49ba1bd5acd8
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
Cox, John
John Cox
J Cox
Description
An account of the resource
Seven Items. Includes an oral history interview with John Cox (133397 Royal Air Force), his logbooks and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 626 Squadron before becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Cox and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-14
2016-03-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Cox, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is David Meanwell the interviewee is John Cox .The interview is taking place at Mr Cox’ home at Old Oxted in Surrey on the 21st of March 2016. Right could you perhaps tell us a little bit about your, like where you were born and your up bringing.
JC. Yes I was born in a town called Bourne actually, in Lincolnshire, that was spelt Bourne on the 15th of November 1922 and I was brought up there, I had two brothers one younger, one older than me we all went to the local grammar school and eventually each of us went into the services my elder brother went into the Army, he became a captain in the Army and was posted to India for a good time in of the war. My younger brother was, didn’t join up because of his, he wasn’t old enough until shortly before the war finished. As far as I was concerned I was always anxious to get into the Air Force and I looked forward to it with some relish. My, we all went to the local grammar school, we all enjoyed sports, I particularly enjoyed cricket. I used to cycle to Nottingham, to Trent Bridge some forty miles away to see a game of cricket when I was about fifteen. So, and I used to play cricket locally, then I decided that, well it was decided for me after I left school that I had to earn a living and I considered myself fortunate to be, to receive an entry into the Midland Bank. Now in those days it was not customary for anyone in the Bank to be allowed to work in the town in which they were born. So I was sent in fact about some sixty miles away to at the age of sixteen to a town in Norfolk it was called Wymondham, it was spelt Wymondham but locally pronounced ‘Windham’ and I went there into a small branch of the bank and I enjoyed a very, a very nice period there, I was only there for about four months I suppose before war was declared and I clearly remember the Sunday morning when we listened to the broadcast to say that we were at war with Germany. Whilst I was there in Wymondham I again played a lot of cricket for the local teams, I was staying in a nice boarding house together with some of the younger people who required accommodation like I did. I was entirely happy, it was only when war was declared I of course that I had to look at things rather more seriously. I wasn’t old enough to go into the Forces at that stage I was only sixteen but nevertheless it was looming in the distance that I was eventually got to join up and I was looking forward to joining the Air Force.
DM. So what was the route you followed into the Air Force, how, how did you come to join the Air Force?
JC. Well before the war I was interested in gliding as well as other things. I did a bit of gliding which gave me which gave me a lot of encouragement that I might be accepted in aircrew I didn’t know whether it was or not. But after that and when my time came to be called up I had an initial interview at Cardington I think near Bedford that is where they used to keep the R101 I do believe, the airship in the hangars there or outside the hangars and there we had a medical examination and a very brief interview with three Air Force officers who asked very simple questions which any idiot could have answered and I was accepted in as potential aircrew. Sent back home again and then eventually I got the call to report down to London where, which was the general reception area for aircrew and I found myself living in some very expensive flats in St John‘s Wood, all the furniture and important articles had been removed from the flats and we were just sleeping on the floor of the flats. Incidentally I found myself in a troop of thirty chaps, I was the only Englishman, all the rest were from the West Indies and they had just come over to England for the first time and very anxious to see London and with the result that we didn’t see much of them for quite a time because they were absent without leave. However eventually they came to heel and we went through the usual motions of being marched round the streets of that part of London by the corporal in little troops of about twenty or so and he would stop us at some little tea shop where he got his free tea and we had to pay thrupence for a cup of tea. And then we had our medical examination in the Lord‘s Cricket Ground in the Long Room at Lord‘s, which was absolute sacrilege for a for a cricketer but nevertheless we had our examinations, medical exams there and then we proceeded to be issued with our uniforms. I remember the big boots we were issued which took a little bit of breaking in. We used to have our lunch each day, be marched to the zoo and we had our lunch in the zoo, the animals were still there, we could hear the sounds of all the various animals as we were having our lunch. From there we I was transferred to an Initial Training Wing at Cambridge to Pembroke College. We had the College had been placed at the disposal of the Forces during the war. I remember it was very cold indeed we used to have to wash outside in the mornings in a sort of a little tub, the living was a bit sparse but nevertheless it was very interesting we then began to enter into our studies, aircraft recognition and everything applying to flying. We used to spend a lot of time at Cambridge being marched from one university to another where we had the privilege of receiving our studies in some of the well known universities. And we, the idea was at the end of our initial training there we should be sent to an Air Force Station where we would commence our flying. The course in Cambridge covered learning the morse code and many matters concerning RAF law et cetera, et cetera. Anyway I found myself being sent up to Scotland to an aerodrome called Scone which is near Perth. This was in the middle of winter. It was in January and when we got there we were suppose to do some initial flying to see if we were going to be airsick and that sort of thing otherwise we would have been thrown out. However when we got there it began to snow, we were only going to be there for three weeks but in three weeks we got one hours flying, because each day it snowed, or each night it snowed and each day we were spent clearing the snow off the runways. However the three weeks went by reasonably quickly and I found myself flying I think a couple of hours in a Tiger Moth. They satisfied themselves that I wasn’t subject to airsickness and so I was then delegated or instructed to go to America. We went over to the Clyde and boarded a relatively small American ship I think it was called the USS Neville it was a small one. We went in convoy then over to the State everybody was seasick without a shadow of doubt but we had a, went over in convoy and we didn’t have any, meet any trouble from the enemy at all. But when we got to New York that was that was a very pleasant environment in which to find oneself. Well the Americans had only just, that week I think it was just come into the war, Pearl Harbour had just occurred and they were forced into the war. They were then, as Americans are, very “gung ho” and everything was everything was sort of orientated to ensure that the troops were being prepared for war. Great celebrations, well not celebrations but incidents of patriotism in Times Square, New York where there were banners all over saying ‘let‘s go USA’ that sort of thing, it was all, they hadn’t experienced any war themselves at that moment. They were extremely kind to us, extremely generous, they enabled us to and provided us with tickets to go to any function almost, free of charge in New York whilst we were there. Personally I went to, I chose to go one night to a boxing match between Joe Louis and man called Abe Simmons at Madison Square Gardens. That was just one of the things I went to, but after a few days there they then arranged for us to board into trains to go to the Southern states of America, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana et cetera.
DM. So after you left New York where did you end up.
JC. Well we then went by train to the Southern states, I was very much looking forward to getting, starting to fly because I remembered in about 1935 when I was about thirteen years old I went to Sir Alan Cobham’s Air Circus which was, which came to my local town in Lincolnshire and I was absolutely thrilled to go and also very anxious to fly in the future. So anyway we got down to Tosca Alabama initially on the train. There we were well received by the local population, they hadn’t experienced any war at all down there or in America at all at that stage and they couldn’t have been kinder to us they really gave us a warm welcome and in Tosca, Louis or Alabama. I was attached to the local aerodrome where we started our primary training, we were flying Steersman aircraft. I remember I had an instructor called Mister Allan who was a very good pilot, not an awfully nice man but a very good pilot. I think before he started working for the US Air Force he had been a crop sprayer flying, flying low level and he was a very good pilot indeed. Well I managed to survive the six weeks course there in Alabama having gone solo after a few hours and I think when we done sixty hours we moved on to Turner Field in Georgia where we were then flying a rather heavier type of single engined aircraft. We did sixty hours or so there. After that we went to our Finishing School at Ellington Field in Houston in Texas. There we were flying twin engined aircraft, the Cessna 89 and some much more sophisticated aircraft after about sixty hours there we qualified to receive our wings. I was one of the fortunate ones who was invited to remain there as an instructor of the American Air Force. The Americans of course had a war forced upon them unexpectedly after Pearl Harbour and they hadn’t got enough instructors to cope with the large influx of pupil pilots of their own. So a few of us were asked if we would remain as instructors for the American pilots.
DM. How did you feel about that, were you pleased to stay or were you keen sort of to get into the fray back in Europe?
JC. Well no, I was desperately anxious to get home quite honestly. But I got messages from my home saying please take this opportunity to be an instructor in America because they realised the dangers were less over there than they were back home.
DM. You were out of harm‘s way.
JC. Yes I was out of harm’s way. In any event it was a, it was a very pleasant experience we had a course, courses lasted about six weeks and each of us had six pupils and they, I think I did about four or five courses there until the end of the year. It was a very interesting assignment and we knew we were eventually going to come back into the general fray of things in England but we did enjoy it over there.
DM. How did the young Americans I assume they were mainly young take to an equally young Englishman teaching them how to fly an aeroplane?
JC. They looked upon us with great respect strangely enough. I think it was because we had come from England where the war had been going on for some time and somehow they thought they they.
DM. You were the experts.
JC. Yeah they thought we knew all about it, in fact we didn’t we had only just trained ourselves but I suppose we had been selected because perhaps we had done reasonably well in out training and we were commissioned and generally speaking we, we did enjoy it. I, we had lots of privileges there too, for instance we were enabled if we wished to have an aircraft each weekend and we could go anywhere within a thousand miles as long as we were back by Monday morning and that was fine. We could take anybody with us if they were in uniform and so each weekend, not every weekend but many weekends we did make use of this great advantage. I remember one weekend I flew from Houston in Texas to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and, and back again. There was one restriction which was placed upon us that was that we were not supposed to fly more than a thousand miles away from base. Well the Grand Canyon was in fact one thousand two hundred and ninety miles away. So what I had to do was to fly to an aerodrome called Winslow, Arizona and land there and that was about three hundred miles short of the Grand Canyon. I had to refuel there, fly into the Grand Canyon, we flew around I took a Sergeant with me who was my Flight Sergeant on the aircraft, on the ground staff and we flew in the Grand Canyon and then flew back to Winslow, Arizona to refuel. So in fact I hadn’t exceeded the thousand mile limit [laughs] but had cheated a little bit and it was a very pleasant experience.
DM. Did you have to do your own navigation for that?
JC, Oh yes, there was just the two of us in a twin engined aircraft and they were lovely aircraft Cessna’s very much heavier aircraft than our Airspeed Oxfords and over here over in England, a fine aircraft. Anyway but that was a privilege, that sort of privilege made life very congenial over there and I exercised it quite a lot. We used to go to New Orleans and Kansas City and Memphis Tennessee, each weekend if we wished, we didn’t do it every weekend, but if we wished we could make use of that facility.
DM. So you were flying around the United States visiting places like New Orleans and having quite a good time. Eventually all good things come to an end and you had to come back to England. So what, what was the journey like, how did that go?
JC. Well, the journey back from America was interesting; we actually came back on the Queen Mary. Now the Queen Mary at that time was plying backwards and forwards to New York, without, without any support, without any military support or naval support because it was so fast in relation to the other ships. And so when we came back there were only about twenty of us I think on the Queen Mary from the RAF. All the rest were German, were American Soldiers and there were sixteen thousand on board. It annoyed us immensely because they all thought it was an American ship as it was so large, the biggest in the world at the time they thought it must be American. It took a lot of convincing them it was in fact an English ship. My colleagues and I in the Air Force were invited or requested via the ships’ crew by the Captain to go onto the flying bridge I think they call it in the fore end of the ship and spreads right across the whole ship and we had to keep our eyes scanned for enemy shipping or anything which needed reporting to the Captain. We had eight on the bridge at the same time each of us had in front of him a disc which had a segment marked out for us and we had to survey that particular segment looking out for enemy activity. Another, occasionally we had the extreme edge of this bridge to do our observations from and that was right over the sea, it was over the sides of the ships. The object, the objective of having those observation points was that we could look back along the side of the ship to see if there were any portholes being opened or flashing of enemies or flashing of lights to the enemy. Of course we didn’t, all the port holes were in fact locked and so it would be a problem for anybody to make any signals to anybody, but that was the object of that particular exercise. It kept us busy, we used to, used to do it about one night in three on the way back but it, I think it took us about twelve days to get back which was a long time for the Queen Mary then, it was going across in about three and half days in normal conditions, but we came back via the Azores which for security reasons apparently we did came, did a long circuit that way, that way home. That’s why we took so long, but it was an eventful journey. The reason it was restricted to sixteen thousand on board was that they could only serve thirty two thousand meals a day. So we all had two meals a day but they were very good meals.
DM. What was the accommodation like?
JC. The accommodation, we were, we were housed in the cabins and they were probably about ten in each two man cabin. We had bunks there to sleep in and they were stacked up the walls of the cabins we had about three or four cabins, three or four bunks on each wall of the cabin, so we were very crowded. Nevertheless the food was, although we only got two meals a day they were absolutely marvellous meals for war time conditions.
DM. What port did you come back to?
JC. We came, we came back into Gourock I think in Scotland and then we would ship down to somewhere near Liverpool overnight and then we came, I think we were allowed some time to go home. We had a bit of leave, that was, that was before we started on any serious flying in England again.
DM.So at this time you have been trained, you have been a trainer, you have come back to Britain. You have obviously not been allocated a squadron or anything yet.
JC. No, no we hadn’t. We were allocated to our squadrons we had all done about a thousand hours of flying already. So we didn’t need a lot of flying training I would suggest but we had to obviously had to get used to the Wellington and the Halifax and then onto Lancasters. We went to different aerodromes for that purpose. We had a reception centre at Scarborough in Yorkshire where and, and we were billeted in hotels there till such time as we we were allocated to our next station for training. First of all, then a Wellington a rather heavy aircraft, I didn’t care much for them, but that was the first English aircraft that I flew really. I had flown Airspeed Oxfords and lighter aircraft but that was the first heavy one that I had flown. Then we went onto Halifax’s at another station and then further on, finally Lancasters. From that of course we were allocated a squadron and that is the begetting of another story.
DM. How did the crewing up for the Lancaster come about.
JC. Well the crewing was a bit haphazard in my mind. We were just let loose with the aircrew, potential aircrew and they said well ‘just sort yourselves out’, you know, ’pick somebody you like the look of and, and if you want him he’s yours.’ So It really was a hit and miss affair fortunately I picked a very good crew, they were all friends of friends they were all very capable at their jobs. They weren’t truculent or boastful or cocky they were just very good crew members. We didn’t have a lot of jollity while we were flying in fact we had none at all. I used to make sure that there wasn’t a lot of idle chatter over the intercom ‘cause that was a bit disturbing and I, I stopped any of that, but we, we always worked well together. When we were on the ground we would go out together, possibly into Lincoln to whoop it up a bit. I’d got a motor cycle I remember that was a great help to me, I could get into Lincoln in about twenty minutes time. One night I was coming home after having probably a spot of liquid refreshment and I hit the railway gates which were closed [laugh] and went right over the railway gates much to the. The signalman came out and admonished me, I told him ‘he hadn’t got his light on the gates’ and he said ‘of course you haven’t got it on because you have knocked it off.’ I threatened to report him to the authorities he said ‘you can do what you like’ [laughs] I didn’t get very far with him. Anyway in Lincoln itself the squadron there was 626 Squadron I joined at Wickenby eight miles outside Lincoln we also had the 12 Squadron on the same aerodrome and but by and large we kept to our own squadrons for community reasons, friendships but it was a well run aerodrome.
DM. When did you receive your commission because I assume -
JC. I got my commission in America.
DM. You did? While you were training?
JC. Well, at the end of training, yes, those who became instructors also were commissioned at the same time. So I had my commission and I was a Flight Lieutenant when I was flying from the squadron in Wickenby.
DM. Were all your crew British or?
JC. They were, there was a Scotsman but they were British as you say. But on the night that we were, we were shot down my rear gunner who was a Scot was injured on his motor cycle, he had been into Lincoln and he was coming home he he had a crash and he was injured so on that particular night of our, of our operations, when, when it was a bit fatal for us, I had another gunner allocated to me and he was a Belgian. I had never met him before but as far as I was concerned, he was a good gunner and but otherwise they were all English. Eh I’m sure they were all English, yes.
DM. So can you remember anything about your first mission what your thoughts were, how you felt.
JC. Well, I didn’t have any apprehensions at all in, in flying certainly early on my own crew were well trained by then we done a lot of practice flying together we were, we were a good happy combined unit. No I didn’t have any apprehensions about it, no.
DM. Now you were based at Wickenby and you came from Bourne so you were sort of a local lad to all intents and purposes but did that mean you were able to see more of your family than perhaps your colleagues at all?
JC. In fact it didn’t because we had, we had to remain on the station whenever there was a possibility of any flying and we didn’t know what the weather conditions were going to be so they couldn’t give us leave and the tour of operations would normally be relatively short. Either you got shot down or you finished your thirty tours, thirty operations and it wasn’t going to be spread over a long period. No it was nice to have my family close at hand but I don’t think I ever visited them whilst I was operating.
DM. So where were some of the places you flew over?
JC. You mean.
DM. Where were your missions to?
JC. Well my first mission was to Karlstad [?] and that was in December of that year. And then I went to Essen and to Ludwigshafen to Ulla and Bonne and quite a few more that was in about two or three weeks we covered those few. Subsequently I went to Gelsenkirchen, Nuremberg, Munich, Ludwigshafen, Wiesbaden, Kleve, [sound of papers rustling] Dresden, Chemnitz, Dortmund, Duisburg, Flashier, Dessau, Kassel, Essen, Dortmund and finally shot down over Nuremberg.
DM. Before that fatal, so to speak twenty-first mission when you were shot down had you had encounters with enemy aircraft or bad, bad experiences with flak?
JC. Yeah, yes on each occasion usually there was some, some enemy action which was, was a bit disturbing, on occasions we had a clear run. But places like Nuremberg and Munich and Chemnitz, was a long distances to go and Dresden was a long way to go. Off course there was a lot of criticism about our bombing of Dresden. We didn’t know before we went we were going to cause so much damage. It was of course because Dresden was built mainly of wood and burned rather readily. It was a great shame about that but it did help the Russians to get into East Germany and quite a lot sooner than they would otherwise have done. Because the Dresden railway yards were being used by the Germans to bring their troops up and the Russians were complaining that we weren’t doing much to help them. They had come back from Moscow driven the Germans back from the doors of Moscow almost to the borders of Germany again, but their lines of communication were so long it was causing them problems. Just as it had caused the Germans problems when they got were attacked Moscow. They got to the gates of Moscow virtually but the weather and the long lines of communication caused them to be defeated there.
DM. The criticism about Dresden, I have always assumed it was after the war. Was there any criticism at the time, do you remember, I suppose people didn’t know what had happened then?
JC. There was no criticism in the British press I don’t think, in fact it was hailed as a great success probably. When I was shot down which was not too long after my trip to Dresden it was shouted at me by the Germans, ‘Dresden, Dresden, Dresden’ and it had obviously hit home very hard there. And it was a, it was a very unfortunate affair that so many were killed. But at least it did help to shorten the war because within about a month or so the Germans, the Russians were in Berlin.
DM. So turning now to that mission to Nuremberg when you were shot down what, what led to your demise?
JC. Well, Nuremberg, we’d been before we thought we knew the way there, we did know the way there quite well. We had, we got caught in searchlights which was a frightening experience. The master searchlight got us at twenty thousand feet earlier on then all the other searchlights coned in on us and it was at twenty thousand feet the inside of the aircraft was lit up as though it was daylight. One felt very vulnerable because there was nothing you could do to get out of the searchlights. If you weaved about the master searchlight seemed to follow you then all the other searchlights coned in on you and for a few minutes it was, that was quite a frightening experience. But the last mission to Nuremberg when we were shot down, we were attacked by a Junkers 88 and we were about, we were on the bombing run in, we were the bomb aimer, the bomb aimer was at his gun sights giving instructions to the pilot who was me to change direction very slightly here and there as we went in and it was at that time that we were attacked by this Junkers 88, yeah.
DM. So can you tell us a bit about the night when you were attacked by the Junkers 88 and shot down?
JC. Yes indeed we had completed about two thirds, two thirds of our tour and we were therefore quite experienced we had been to Nuremberg on the 2nd of January 1945 and we had moments of excitement but were not unduly concerned about the second trip. My regular rear gunner had a motor car, motor cycle accident the day before and he was replaced by a Belgium that we hadn’t met before but he had been well recommended to us. The notes I made at the pre flight briefing show that we were to bomb in three waves, commencing at three minute intervals and our aircraft was to fly the second wave from 21:33 hours to 21:36 hours we were at twenty thousand feet and our bombs, we were dropping our bombs on a heading of 084 degrees. Mosc, Mosquito Pathfinders with illuminating flares would be available at 21:26 and then they would follow up with red and green flares. If the target was vis, if the target was visual then red target indicators would be backed up with green target indicators. The aircraft would be staggered between eighteen and twenty thousand feet and the bomb load was one four thousand pound bomb and six thousand four hundred pounds of incendiaries. The, we witnessed considerable night fighter activity on the way there particularly south of Stuttgart where we had seen one or two aircraft going down and they were shot down by heavy flak. We were not concerned with night fighters and we successfully took evasive action when the rear gunner reported the Junkers 88 on our tail but it was out of range. The searchlights were plentiful as we approached Nuremberg but not too troublesome except to the extent that it made our silhouettes more easily seen. At 21:24 hours we were just short of the target and contemplating our bombing run although our bomb bays were not yet open. Without any warning we were attacked from underneath and set on fire in the centre section flames and choking smoke funnel, funnelling forward to the cockpit. I had no intercom response from the crew. Almost immediately I, the Lanc went out of control and into a steep dive and I am convinced some part of it must have fallen off or a control linkage severed. Having regard to the nature of our bomb load I still cannot understand why we did not explode as it appeared to me that the incendiaries were on fire. Immediately I gave instructions to bale out, not knowing if my order was received but mid upper gunner and wireless operator were presumably either injured or prevented by the fire from escaping. The bomb aimer and rear gunner were captured on landing about thirty miles from the crash site. The flight engineer did not survive and I can only assume that after he jumped he was caught up by some sort, part of the aircraft which was in a very steep dive. The parachute of the navigator failed to open and he was buried in the neighbouring village of Burgoberbach. For my part I must have been no more than a few hundred feet up when I baled out. I saw the Lanc explode on the ground just below me and within seconds I landed about three hundred yards from the burning aircraft. A compound fracture of the right leg resulted in a series of bone graft operations in various RAF hospitals for the next, for the next three years and I was eventually invalided out of the Air Force at the end of 1948. The exceptionally large losses that night I think could be attributed to the fact that the German night fighters were able to penetrate the bomber stream at an early stage and on a clear night. From Stuttgart onwards we were very vulnerable. Nuremburg was always a hot target.
DM. Ok so you you you parachuted, you managed to escape the aircraft, you baled out, you landed near to the aircraft, it was obviously night. What what happened after that once you were on the ground. Did you hide, you were injured clearly so you weren’t very mobile.
JC. It wasn’t a question of hiding, it was a question of, I fell in a pine forest and the trees were very close together. Looking at it from as you parachuted down it looked like a pin cushion that you were going to fall into which I did fall into it and my leg, I could see that as I parachuting down my right leg was bleeding and that and my boots had come off both, both boots had come off and it was my fault because I hadn’t got the straps tied sufficiently tightly around them. So that was a mistake on my part but I, when I landed and crashed through the trees, there was no way which I could avoid crashing through the trees. I was there with a, with a shell wound in my leg, no boots on at all, my feet were absolutely bare and I was lying at the bottom of a pine tree in the middle of the forest. I thought my chances of escape from there were pretty limited. After that I didn’t know, I couldn’t do anything for myself, I couldn’t my leg was busted, broken completely with a shell wound and I was, I thought that was going to be my end because there was no way I could attract attention of anyone being in the middle of a forest. It was the next morning probably about six o clock or six thirty in the morning when it was just daylight I could see just through the trees the silhouette of an old lady who was gathering firewood. The Germans were very short of any sort of fuel and she was obviously thinking about her fires at home and gathering firewood. Well I, I hailed her through the trees and she didn’t see me initially because the trees were so closely together but then she did see me and she scuttled off. Well I thought at least somebody knows I am here. Then I was waiting then, I could only wait to see what happened. There was no way I could move with my leg as it was, no shoes, there was no way of escaping and I just had to trust to the Lord for my future. Well after about an hour I saw a soldier coming through the trees towards me. He was a very well dressed soldier and he was part of the, we were to call it the Home Guard in our country but had a much, much more military style about him and he had two guns in his belt but he came, he didn’t take the guns out of his belt or anything like that, he saw that I was helpless lying at the bottom of this tree and he looked at me and then indicated that he would come back. Well he went away and I didn’t know how long it was but an hour or two later he came back again and this time hauled me to the side of the forest that we were in and he had a hay cart there. Well, and he helped me onto this hay cart and started trotting away back towards the village. On the way back he, he also picked up the body of my navigator who was dead and I notice that the navigator had no parachute and I can only assume that he had not attached properly his parachute when he clipped it on, leaving the aircraft. I saw him leave the aircraft and I thought he’d got the parachute with him then but obviously somehow or other he he lost it on the way out. So I am afraid he was dead and they put him on the side, on the straw in this hay cart that I was on alongside me and trotted into the neighbouring village of Burgoberbach.
DM. Where did you go from there, what happened after that?
JC. Well after I got there of course they were very hostile, the local inhabitants and they continued to shout the name of Dresden to me quite frequently. I couldn’t do anything by way of response except look a little bit contrite and they took my, the body of my navigator off the hay cart and decided that the local hospital where they took me wasn’t appropriate for my particular wound which was quite serious, they couldn’t deal with me and so they transferred me to a pony and trap, put me on this trap and the same soldier who had picked me up out of the forest drove me about probably four or five miles to a German hospital and left me there. There is no doubt about it they were pretty hostile towards me and I wasn’t in a position to do much arguing with them.
DM. Was the hospital you ended up in, was it a military hospital or a civil hospital?
JC. It was a German, it was a military hospital, it was housed entirely with German soldiers and a place called Troisdorf and they, they received me there and they took me into the operating theatre, they looked at the leg and they put a plaster cast, plaster cast on it and they left a hole in the side of the plaster cast where the shell had gone in so they could treat that. In fact it, it was a good idea but it didn’t really work because of the leg didn’t improve. They weren’t antagonistic towards me in the hospital they were I thought reasonably, not friendly that would be stretching it too much, but they tolerated me and put me in a ward of soldiers. There were forty in the ward the beds were so closely packed, they were all injured German soldiers except me. There was a gap between each bed of no more than six, eighteen inches just enough so the doctor could come round between each bed but they were very, very, very closely parked the beds in the hospital. They I wasn’t treated badly, they didn’t give me a very warm reception. The soldiers in the ward strangely enough were not antagonistic. They were in the same boat as I was, they were all injured and I received a daily visit from the doctor, he couldn’t do anything because they probably got more important things to do. I was there for some weeks in the hospital hoping that one day the Americans would come along and release me.
DM. Did you receive any information as to what was going on in the war, did you manage to glean anything when you were there?
JC. The only, no, I had a, I was concerned that nobody knew where I was and furthermore the Red Cross weren’t aware of where I was so I couldn’t be reported as a prisoner of war. I was concerned my parents back home would assume that I had been killed because the Red Cross were normally pretty good within twenty four hours or so indicating that either members alive or he wasn’t. And there was no way in which I could ask the Germans to do anything for me in that regard no I felt very lonely and I was more concerned about my parents at home must be believing I had been killed and I wasn’t able to communicate with them and that happened, that applied for quite some weeks afterwards, so I was very sorry about that.
DM. Did, did you get a chance to write a letter before, before you left to your parents or you never had a chance to communicate with them?
JC. Oh there was no way at all, there was no question of writing letters it was a question of surviving really and this was on my mind the whole time that my parents would believe that I was dead because normally when one was shot down they went to a prisoner of war camp. The Red Cross would immediately take action to ensure the parents was advised that the son was still alive at least and in a prisoner of war camp. And of course the food in a prisoner of war camp would have been better than we were getting in the hospital. Our meals were very very sparse, mind all the German soldiers were getting the same food as I was. But we used to live on sort of a very watery soup if I remember and I lost quite a bit of weight there, yeah.
DM. When did you come to leave the hospital what happened?
JC. Well, I think it must have been about six weeks or so that I was there before the Germans, before the Americans came in.
DM. So was the hospital evacuated or ?
JC. Well they were on the brink of it and there was a lot of disturbance and I wasn’t quite clear what was going to happen. Certainly there was a lot of activity at the local railway station and I suspected that they, the patients were going to be evacuated, but on the other hand there wasn’t much sense in evacuating the only way they could go was further into Germany and into that part of Germany and the Americans were going to follow them anyway, so there wasn’t much point in it. So in the end I waited until I could hear the guns coming of the Americans I could hear them in the distance a couple of days before they actually arrived. They were approaching at about fifteen miles a day and when they got to the hospital they were, they had a man come, I managed to contact them. The hospital wasn’t evacuated and the Americans were not delighted to see me, I was just a nuisance to them. I got my leg in a full length plaster, they didn’t know what to do with me, but the only thing they could do was take me along with them. And I went along [laugh] with General Paton [laugh] and his officers for quite some days but I was going in the wrong direction, they were approaching at about fifteen miles a day into Germany and I was going the wrong way with them, but my main concern was still that I couldn’t get a message to my parents. I couldn’t ask couldn’t ask the Germans to do anything, they weren’t interested and General Paton was too busy with his troops and not of, not of an inclined nature to be helpful. It was interesting to see how they were progressing, they would do about fifteen miles a day and they would go through three of four villages during that time and there was no resistance of any substance at all for them they were just rumbling through. They would ring up the next village and say ‘we want to see the white sheets coming out of the windows by way of surrender otherwise we will come in shooting’. In no time at all you could see the white, look at the next village, and the sheets were coming out of the bedroom windows and they had pretty well a free run. But they had bypassed so many Germans on the way through and this is why they couldn’t do anything with me, they couldn’t send me back by ambulance. So many Germans had been by passed and there was still a great danger, well nuisance anyway, but General Paton was only anxious to, plough on through, through that part of Germany and he had no, virtually no opposition at all. We went, they always used to choose the best building in the village that they were going to stop in that night and kick anybody out if they were, if they were residing there and make that the Officers Mess. Every now and again they would pick up a village halls one night we stayed in a school the village school and I was interested to walk round the school. I thought whilst I was there I might as well walk round the classrooms and I was, it was very interesting to see that their style of education was obviously very much similar to ours. On one occasion I saw that there was a map on the wall and it was the south coast of England and the north coast of Europe there the English Channel between them, but I notice they called that the German Channel. I thought this was a bit off side, [laugh] I thought it was the English Channel but no it was the German Channel, never mind.
DM. How did you eventually come to leave General Paton’s army.
JC. Well eventually they began to get the Germans cleared behind them so that it made it, it made it possible to bring ambulances forward and eventually I, I was put in an ambulance together with about six of their own soldiers that were injured and brought back. I was about a fortnight day by day moving backwards from one medical station to another, Russian, American medical stations to another and I saw some. The Americans were treating the German injured as well as their own. I remember on one occasion there was a nurse giving a blood drip to an American to a German soldier and he was, he was in agony, crying out and she slapped him across the face and she said ‘shut up will you’ she said, ‘you should be grateful to get good American blood’ [laugh]. Anyway eventually I, I got back by ambulance to Rheims, “did I tell you this?”
DM. “No you didn’t.”
JC. Went there, Rheims where there was a very big American camp and these chaps were being sent back to England to go on to America the war was over as far, they weren’t, they were just American soldiers, they were surplus to requirements then in France and I was the only Englishman in this camp there must have been a thousand American troops there. Very basic. They were living in tents in the middle of Rheims and from there they were flying them back to England, the Americans were flying their own troops back to England and I, I eventually came back with them. On one occasion I looked along the line and I saw outside one tent a table, it was a big tent a table was displaying lots of little parcels on it. There was a master sergeant there sitting by this table and these, the soldiers were lined up receiving one of these little parcels and I so said to one of them ‘what are they queuing for?’ and he said ‘they are queuing to get their Purple Hearts.’ So I said ‘oh yes so I will try and get a Purple Heart’. I was the only Englishman in the camp it was all various Americans. So [laughs] I went, I got in the queue they were lined up and signing and taking their Purple Heart away and I, when I got there the master sergeant looked me up and down and said ‘what outfit are you in?’ you see and I said I was in the Royal Air Force and he said ‘well I shall have to see the colonel about you’ “I said, ‘don’t bother’ [laughs] and passed on. I didn’t get my Purple Heart.
DM. So did you fly home from Rheims?
JC. Yes they, I was the only Englishman on the flight it was especially for the Americans really they all, the pilot asked me to go and sit with him in the cockpit so that I could see the White Cliffs of Dover as we came over. We landed at an aerodrome in the south of England its name just escapes me, but I was there for a fortnight and it was only there that I could arrange for a phone call to made to my parents to say I have landed in England and that was a happy release for me. Then I went from there to Cosford near Wolverhampton which was the general reception area of all RAF prisoners of war as they came back. Whether they were injured or whether they didn’t, they went there. The prisoners of war went to Cosford where they had an absolutely marvellous organisation. These chaps came back like I did with ragged clothes, and that sort of thing, and they were fitted out with new uniforms. If they got brevets to put on their uniforms they were put on, and if, they were fitted up with new boots, fully fitted up and after a medical examination they were sent off home, to their homes which they were anxious to get to of course but as far as I was concerned I went and there was no way they could get me home immediately but I was there for about a fortnight being looked, having my leg looked after, put in another splint and then they did allow me to go home. There were some very good natured people about at that time who were prepared to drive these ex prisoners of war from Cosford Hospital to their homes where ever their homes may be. I was in Lincolnshire, my home was in Lincolnshire a long way from the hospital but some kind chap drove me all the way there all the way home. And he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t stay, with my parents to have a chat with or anything, he said ‘I must now turn round and go back’ and he went all the way back to Wolverhampton very nice of him. But I suppose that in those days there was rationing of petrol but these people who were prepared to do this, the transfer to patients back home to their homes obviously got a special allowance of petrol to do that. Yes, that was pretty much the end of my story.
DM. You didn’t stay on in the Air Force after the war?
JC. I stayed on for three and a half years not because I wanted to but because my leg, was needed treatment and, I was in hospital, Cosford Hospital for two years with various operations on my leg. I had bone grafts and that sort of things the first ones wouldn’t, wouldn’t heal l so I had new ones and it was a very long winded job. And then they sent me or allowed me to go to an RAF Regiment camp near my home in Lincolnshire where I was assistant administrating officer or something like that not having to do any work but it was a place to put me whilst my leg was continuing to heal. Anyway it was three and a half years before I actually left the Air Force. Meanwhile they paid me all the time which was good of them, in the Officers Mess.
DM. Did you go back into banking?
JC. Yes I went back into banking, first of all I went to the Lincoln branch of the bank. I couldn’t accept any pay from them because I was getting Air Force pay, so I was working for nothing but as far as I was concerned I was getting back into my line of business. From then on I, I took up various appointments in the bank I went to Northamptonshire, I went to Birmingham, I went to Coventry and different branches each time receiving a bit of an uplift in by way of promotion, eventually I, I, I managed a big branch in Birmingham and then I went to London and I was reluctant to go back to London because I was so happy in Birmingham. We lived in a nice house and got well settled but I had to go back to London. When I got there I objected in a mild manner, I know I agreed to the move, but they said be patient and within six months they had made me Manager of the largest branch in the bank in Threadneedle Street which was a surprise to me and obviously they had moved me around with this in mind from Birmingham. But I was there for about five years and then was eventually made a General Manager of the bank from which I retired.
DM. Did you keep in touch with colleagues from the war?
JC. No, well my Canadian bomb aimer he, he went back to Canada, I lost touch with him. The remainder, of course I lost four of the crew for one reason and another and the Belgian he went back he went straight back to Belgium he didn’t come back to England before going home, I don’t blame him either he went straight back home. So I,I didn’t have any more contact. I did have a lot of contact with the Germans afterwards at various reunions and entirely different.
DM. That’s the Germans that shot you down basically?
JC. Oh yes, I met them, they turned out to be quite nice chaps really, yes there we are. They visited me in England, came over and had a holiday then they went on to Ireland to extend the holiday a little bit and I took them round the RAF Museum. They wanted to look inside the Lancaster but they wouldn’t open, they wouldn’t allow them to open the door.
DM. That was mean.
JC. [laugh] So that is more or less the end of my story.
DM. Do have any thoughts, opinions about how Bomber Command were treated after the war. About the public reaction or lack of recognition?
JC. It didn’t unduly concern me but I, I agree that they did justify rather more publicity than they got publicity of a favourable nature, but that’s the way it is they weren’t, I don’t think people understood for a long time just the percentage of losses which were really incurred it seemed to be about one in two that were likely to not survive. No I didn’t get worked up about it, it was one of those things. Now of course some attention is being paid to that remission, yeah.
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Interview with John Cox
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01:08:49 audio recording
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David Meanwell
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2016-03-21
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John Cox grew up in Lincolnshire and worked in banking before he joined the Royal Air Force. After training as a pilot in the United States, he served as an instructor for almost three years. He flew 20 operations as a pilot with 626 Squadron,from RAF Wickenby, before his aircraft was shot down and he became a prisoner of war. He was repatriated from a German military hospital by American forces and returned to England. Spending two years in hospital at RAF Cosford, he received treatment and bone grafts to his leg. After the war he returned to banking.
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1945
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Hugh Donnelly
Carolyn Emery
626 Squadron
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bale out
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bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/887/11126/AHughesJ171123.2.mp3
33dfe3a2b506d35007a636f6c426d4e4
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Hughes, Janet
J Hughes
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Two oral history interviews with Janet Hughes (b. 1958) about her father Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923). He served in Bomber Command.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-23
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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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Hughes, J
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DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Janet Hughes. The interview is taking place at Mrs Hughes’ home in Farnham in Surrey on the 23rd of November 2017, and is the second interview with Mrs Hughes. If we could perhaps pick up from where we left off, where they’re now continuing to fly as spare bods without a settled crew?
JH: Okay. Well, a month elapsed, I don’t know quite why that was for operational reasons since the previous flight, and dad’s next operation as a spare was mine laying, which I think was fairly uneventful, that was on the 11th of November 1943, which coincidentally is seventy-three years before his death. The next one was a trip to Mannheim and Ludwigshafen; this was one of the diversionary raids which were organised to- As a decoy to deflect the German attention from the main target which was Berlin. So, they did it hoping that the, the fighters would think that was the main raid and therefore the less- Berlin would be less heavily defended. The next one, on the 22nd of November was a very big one, very famous raid, it was the second of the battles collectively known as the Battle of Berlin. It was the third heaviest of the entire war, and also the most successful, because there was considerable damage to industry and munitions factories, in particular. An interesting point of that raid from my point of view, as Reg’s daughter, is that the Kaiser Wilhelm church in the centre of Berlin was badly damaged. Now the Kaiser Wilhem Gedächtniskirche was a, a two-towered cathedral-like church in the centre of Berlin with many precious artefacts and, and paintings, and it was almost completely destroyed, and it was big landmark and still is a big landmark, was one of the iconic landmarks of Berlin that you think of when you think of Berlin. After the war the decision was made to keep the ruins as a reminder of the destruction of war, and the, and the, and the heartache that it causes and a brand new cathedral was erected by its side, not in any way trying to replicate the original church ‘cause it’s very modern and I think the tower is- Well certainly I think the main church is hexagonal and it’s very sort of geometrical- Looks like a hat box, and it’s entirely glazed with glass which I believe was a gift from Chatres in France as a sort of peace thing, and it’s very, predominantly blue, and when you sit in the modern church you kind of have a sense- Almost a sensation of being underwater. It’s very beautiful, I mean it’s very stark in many ways ‘cause it’s very modern but it’s also very beautiful, and like Coventry Cathedral it sits aside the, the, the original church. One little point of interest here is that in 2005, when we were back on a, on a research visit to Berlin about which, more later, I asked my father what he wanted to see, you know, what he wanted to visit in Berlin ‘cause we’d- I was teaching at the time and it was half term, we didn’t have very long. So, I said, ‘Look, you know, we’ve got a couple of days, what are your priorities?’ and straight away he identified that church as a priority which surprised me ‘cause he wasn’t in any sense a religious man, and when I- I kind of said to him, well, you know, ‘Why do you want to see that, do you want to see the outside or do you want to go inside?’, ‘No, I want to go inside,’ and when we got there, I’d seen it before ‘cause I’ve been to Berlin many, many times and dad just sat there for- with my mum, for quite a long time just, you know, staring into space seemingly, and the significance of it wasn’t lost on me because it was a church which theoretically, he could’ve bombed personally, because he was on that raid and I think he was making his peace. He never said so, but I think that’s what was going on. Anyway, dad’s plane on the mission of the 22nd of November,that particular bombing raid, dad’s plane was unscathed but it did have a near miss on the way back to Pocklington in Yorkshire, when two other planes that were very close to dad’s plane, collided on their attempt to land, and with the loss of all lives of both crews. So, you know, you could, you could return from a hair-raising trip like that and then get killed over, over the Yorkshire countryside on your way home, that was, that was the lottery of Bomber Command. So, three days later dad did another trip to Frankfurt, on the 25th, which I don’t think was a particularly eventful trip, but then they were called again [emphasis], the following night and pepped up with caffeine and pink gins on the 26th of November. That was another diversionary raid, because the main bomber thrust was going to Berlin. So that’s the 22nd, the 25th, and the 26th, so what kind of physical and mental state they must’ve been after three raids in four nights I cannot imagine. Dad was due to do another flight as a spare and I think this must’ve been shortly afterwards although the date isn’t specified in his, in his notes, and that one was aborted because the plane on which he was flying as a spare taxied into mud, and was unable to take off, and dad was quite relieved about that because I think he, he just didn’t have any confidence in, in the crews that he was flying with as a spare. That turned out to be the last mission that he flew with as a spare because not long afterwards they crewed up again. December ‘43 was quite a quiet month, that’s because there was a full moon, now earlier in the war when there was a full moon, they all used to think, ‘Oh good,’ you know, ‘We’ve got good visibility,’ and it was even known as a bomber’s moon. But as the German defences improved, they learnt that it was not a clever idea to fly when there was a full moon because not only could they see very much more easily, but they could also be seen, and there were quite a lot of occasions when they entire bomber stream was, was identified early on by the, the flak and the night fighters with catastrophic results, so, you know, they basically learnt not to, not to fly on those nights. Also, during December there was a period of poor weather, of other kinds that, that made flying not a good idea. So, they’d gone sort of quite a long time before they were crewed up. Now, the final crew, and this is important because this was, this was my dad’s, you know- This is the crew that I’m still in touch with, or at least I’m in touch with the second generation, because my late father was the last member of this crew alive, and he died a year ago. So, the full crew was- The pilot was Flight Officer George Griffiths DFM, he was on his second tour so he was a very experienced pilot. There was a second dickie pilot, with them. Now, second dickie pilots were those who’d completed their training but who flew as spares in the sense that they were observers, and I think they had to do two of these before they were allowed to, to command their own crew. So, the second dickie pilot, who as the eighth member of what would normally be a seven-man crew, was Sergeant Kenneth Stanbridge. Then there was the flight engineer, Sergeant John Bremner who had done previous ops, the wireless operator, Eric Church, who was a flight sergeant, he had done previous ops, and the mid-upper gunner, Flight Sergeant Charles Dupueis, who was a Canadian. It says in dad’s notes that he was a French Canadian but I’ve, in- Since I’ve published the book, I’ve been in touch through Facebook with relatives and it turns out that he, he wasn’t a French speaker at all, and that also perhaps accounts for the misspelling of the surname, because it’s not the conventional spelling of Dupueis, and I think if there was French blood it was obviously several generations back because he wasn’t a French speaker. Dad found it surprising that now these five people had, had been teamed up for that night’s operations, and theoretically for future operations with the exception of Stanbridge, with the original crew, or the remains of the original crew that is, Johnny Bushell the rear gunner, Laurie Underwood the bomb aimer, and my father the, the navigator, you, you would’ve expected that a new crew would’ve been given time to gel and would’ve been sent on some training flights, or some reconnaissance flights or something before they were sent off on an important mission. But that was not to be, and on the 29th of December, which again was the third anniversary to the night of the bombing raid on the city of London which provided my father’s inspiration to join the RAF in the first place, that’s the famous raid with the, iconic picture of St Paul‘s with everything around it in ruins, and this was exactly three years to the night from that raid and my dad was bombing Berlin, you know, getting them, getting. them back if you like. Although, he was not a vindictive man, it’s somewhat of an irony that three years later he was bombing Berlin. So, it was the eighth raid on Berlin by the RAF, it was the fifth heaviest, seven-hundred-and-twelve aircraft took part, two-thousand-three-hundred-and-twelve tonnes of incendiaries and high explosives were dropped in twenty minutes. From dad’s point of view, it was uneventful, from the point of view of not being shot at. He remembers seeing the Zuiderzee on the radar screen, using H2S on the way out. Bad weather had restricted the German night fighters to sixty-six, but due to two spoof raids by RAF Mosquitos the night fighters reached Berlin too late to be effective and this, this contributed to the success of the raid, in terms of the damage that it caused. They dropped their bombs from seventeen-and-a-half-thousand feet, on the target indicators but they couldn’t see whether or not they’d caused any damage. Sometimes you get these photographs where you can actually see the, the fires. That was due to the fact that there was ten-tenths cloud cover. The overall losses that night were only two-point-eight percent, which is lower than many of the other Berlin raids, but 102 Squadron, dad’s squadron, yet again managed to beat the average with two aircraft missing, and on one of the aircraft that was shot down, one of the crew members was named Harold Par, and he was on his first op, and he later became a POW in the same camp as my father, Stalag 4B and he was in the same hut as my father, and about- Let me think, this would be about twenty years later, he was living in Chigwell in Essex, and his son was in the same class at Buckhurst Hill Boys Grammar School as my brother. So, my brother and Howard, who was Harold’s son became good friends and when, their fathers met, so that’s my father and, and Howard’s father, they realised that they’d been in the same POW hut, and in the same squadron, and on the same raid. So that’s, that's a pretty good set of coincidences, such is life. So, we move into 1944, and January ‘44 began as another month of inactivity, bad weather, another full moon, and the combination of these two events meant that there was a reluctance to send Halifax Mk 2’s to Berlin because they were being recognised by then as increasingly vulnerable, and in many squadrons they were already being replaced by the Mk 3’s which were less vulnerable. However, another maximum effort to attack Berlin was required, so dad’s second operation with the full crew including the second dickie pilot, Stanbridge, was scheduled for the 20th of January 1944. This was six days before my father’s twenty-first birthday, so he’s twenty. So, dad was responsible as one of the four navigators operating HS2, sorry H2S, get it confused with the railway H2S equipment in 4 Group. 4 Group comprised fifteen squadrons, totalling between two-hundred-and-fifty and three-hundred aircraft. Dad had to radio interview- intervals his calculated wind velocities back to Group, to 4 Group, and they would average the readings from the four navigators and rebroadcast them to the whole of 4 Group to, enable them to concentrate the bomber stream. Dad was also due to do his own blind bombing that night. Now blind bombing means, when they weren’t bombing on Pathfinder markers using H2S, to identify the homing point, for a timed run. Now they only gave this to navigators with a good track record obviously because most of the others would, would follow the Pathfinder markers. So, dad was effectively a Pathfinder. The bombing raid was to be the ninth raid on Berlin, and the fourth heaviest. Seven-hundred-and-sixty-nine aircraft took part, two-thousand-four-hundred tonnes of incendiary and high explosive bombs were dropped in twenty minutes. It was considered to have been successful, although less concentrated than planned, and perhaps less successful than the one in December, which I mentioned earlier. Due to bad weather again over Germany the night fighters were limited to nighty-eight but they were experienced crews, and they were equipped with something called Schräge Musik which is- It means jazz, jazz music. That was code for upward-firing cannon, radar interception and critically H2S homing devices, and I think at this stage, they weren’t- They didn’t realise that the night fighters could home in on the H2S. It was a kind of cat and mouse scenario with the technology because each side would produce something new and then the other side would find a way to disable it, and so if you happened to be in the period where they just learnt how to intercept your new piece of technology and you didn’t know, it would make you very vulnerable. The night fighters, which were all twin engined were operating a new technique called tame boar. This meant they were directed by ground control into the bomber stream at intervals and over the target, and after this they were on their own really, they could fly freelance and use their own equipment to seek out bombers, fly beneath them out of sight of the gunners and fire cannon shells into the petrol laden wings, completely invisible. Additionally, on this night thin cloud covering Berlin with tops at about twelve-thousand feet was illuminated from below by many searchlights, so it’s, you know- It meant that they were effectively backlit, and the night fighters flying above the bomber stream could, could locate them, silhouetted against the bright backcloth, like back projection. So despite the limitations of night fighters, it was a highly successful night for them. They claimed thirty-three victories, nine of them over Berlin, out of the thirty-five bombers lost that night. So presumably the other two were flak but it meant that the night fighters had a fiesta, and in fact, there is some footage on YouTube from a, a German propaganda film bit like Pathé news which features the pilot responsible for the demise of five aircraft that night, and I’ll come back to him later. So, preparations; dad’s plane LW 337 Halifax Mk 2 Series IA took off at sixteen-thirty-hours GMT, in, in the- The plane was, as I’ve just said LW 337 was nicknamed Old Flo by the ground crew, something to do with the red- With the, with the numbers that were painted on the side, and they were soon flying above the ten tenths cloud. So first they used Gee, radar, and then H2S to map read. They flew uninterrupted on a northerly route into Germany turning south east sixty miles from Berlin. Berlin is a large city and there were too many stray reflections on the H2S screen to be able to identify the target position. Dad was instructed personally at the navigators briefing in Pocklington to identify a turning point. Taking a precise bearing, and distance on his screen of a small town doesn’t name it about ten miles north of Berlin and that was the commencement of a timed bombing run to the target which was Hitler’s chancery, and they flew in straight and level at eighteen-thousand feet, maintaining a pre-calculated track and groundspeed at the time set by stopwatches, and they dropped their bombs at twenty-hundred hours, GMT. Unfortunately, this procedure made them a sitting target for the night fighters because they’d hardly closed their bomb doors when they were hit by one of these aircraft. We had- They had trailed behind, this is the night fighters, this particular one had trailed behind and below dad’s plane waiting for the bombs to be released, obviously they didn’t want to be shooting at you before then ‘cause they might get in the way of the bombs, and then they fired the cannon shells upwards into the starboard wing, where there were more than a thousand gallons of petrol still aboard. A lot of petrol obviously needed for the return trip, so two-thousand gallons to start with, and if you got them over the target, half of that was still in the tanks, and it was only seconds before the whole wing caught fire. Dad can remember Griff, the pilot George Griffiths shouting, ‘Graviners engineer.’ The graviners were switches used to activate the fire extinguishers for the engines, but it was to no avail and the blaze was so fierce that Griff realised that the aircraft was stricken, that there was nothing he could do, and so he immediately called, ‘Parachute, parachute, bale out’. Now dad was already wearing his parachute I think in an earlier interview I explained that after a near miss he used to put it on over the target and pull up his navigation seat to facilitate quick access to the escape hatch and so, he lifted the escape hatch door and dropped it diagonally through the hatch itself, but it caught in the slip stream and jammed half in and half out. With dad’s efforts combined with those of the wireless operator Eric Church and Laurie Underwood, the bomb aimer, they did manage to kick the door clean. So, he- Dad sat on the edge of the escape hatch and dropped through immediately, followed closely by Laurie. This was truly a leap of faith, a leap into the dark with fingers and toes crossed. They had no idea what would happen next. They were surrounded by flak, searchlights, well-illuminated, very vulnerable. The wireless operator had no time to follow them, although he’d helped to kick out the escape hatch, he perished with the plane. Dad believes that after Laurie dropped out the blazing aircraft went out of control and into a spiral dive. So, dad and Laurie baled out at seventeen-thousand feet. Dad spun over a few times and then pulled the ripcord. The canopy opened, and when the harness tightens around his crotch this is in his own notes he said it brought him to his senses in double quick time. Sure all the men amongst you can understand why that might be. Below him and to his left he could see another parachute and to this day he doesn’t know whether it was Laurie’s or not but, obviously we know that Laurie survived, and Dad and Laurie didn’t actually see each other again until Laurie’s wedding after the war, in June 1945. So, dad was floating on a layer of light cloud, or over, over a layer of light cloud I should say, and he could see the glow of the fires beneath it with heavy flak, tracer shells, hose piping around in the sky, and he floated down for ten to fifteen minutes, which is incredible when you think of being that vulnerable for a whole ten to fifteen minutes, it’s quite unthinkable. He said he didn’t feel cold, doesn’t remember feeling cold, although at the altitude when he, where he baled out it would’ve been about minus thirty-four Celsius. There was a sixty mile-an-hour northerly wind prevailing, and this was, you know, 20th of January so, pretty damn cold. But because of the wind he drifted away from the centre of the city which, which might well of saved his life, because he was out of the hot spot so to speak. His, his sensations were of silence. The deafening noise from the aircraft’s engine which was present all the time during the night, during the flight, had gone, and once he’d blown away from the target, there was, the sound of the flak had died away too, so there’s this uncanny silence, and blackness as he descended through the cloud, and as he got near the ground, he thought he was gonna land in marshes because in the light that was available it looked like marshland. So, he thought he was gonna need his Mae West life jacket. So, as he, as he got closer it- He realised that what he could see beneath him wasn’t actually marshland but a canopy of trees in a small wood, that turned out to be a southern suburb of Berlin. So, he crashed through the trees, fell the last fifteen feet and his injuries amounted to a grazed face and a sprained ankle. Remarkable that these were the only injuries he sustained. So, in fewer than twenty minutes his life had gone through a dramatic change. He survived by a hair's breadth, a mix of emotions, elated at being alive but then what of his crew? He had no idea whether any of them had survived. He thought about his family, and how they would suffer when they were informed by telegram the next morning that he was missing. A few hours beforehand he’d been eating egg and bacon only available before operational flights in the mess at Pocklington with his aircrew colleagues all around him, laughing and joking. The friendly town of York, twelve miles away, and imminent home leave to get his officer's kit. Well, that wasn’t going to happen now. He was in hostile Germany, in south eastern suburbs, he wondered what would happen if he were caught by civilians, having just bombed their city. Nobody here would care whether he lived or died. It was the depths of winter, he was in enemy territory six-hundred miles from home, and on him he had some French francs they weren’t going to be much use, a handkerchief with a map of France printed on it equally useless, and a magnetic trouser button with a white spot on it, which when cut off the flies and balanced on a pencil point would point north, so that’s his compass, high tech. Oh, and a tin of Horlicks tablets, which was all he had to sustain him while he evaded capture and made his way back to England. He was still in his flight sergeants' uniform, in spite of having been commissioned on the 1st of December, nearly two months previously, and he was five days away from his twenty-first birthday. So, he walked because he had nothing, there’s nothing else he could do, and about eight hours later he disturbed a dog while trying to hide in a barn, and at this point he was captured by the civilian police. What had happened to the crew? Well, we now know that Laurie had blacked out during part of his parachute drop, but landed uninjured and he was captured by the military. Also, something that dad didn’t know till later only four of the crew of eight came through the ordeal. So, the two survivors that we, we suspected were dad and Laurie, the one who followed him out through the escape hatch. The other two survivors had an even more miraculous escape because Griff, the pilot, and Johnny really, just, just benefitted from extraordinary good luck. Because after Laurie and dad had baled out, the aircraft had gone into a spiral dive and Griff, the pilot, was thrown forward onto the controls and he was held in his seat by the, the g-force of the spiral dive and he saw the altimeter this is in his own notes which I also have, he saw the altimeter unwind past seven-thousand feet, and basically wondered how long before the end came, and at that point he lost consciousness, trapped in, in the cockpit. Dad believes that the petrol tanks exploded, ‘cause there’s no other explanation, there was no escape hatch, and Griff was blown out and he had his parachute on, at some point he must’ve put that on, and he regained consciousness just in time to pull the rip cord, a couple of hundred feet from the ground, and he knows this because his parachute was still swinging like a pendulum when he landed. What normally happens is it swings like a pendulum and then eventually reaches equilibrium and then you go down straight, but he was still swinging, so, you know, it must’ve been a matter of minutes, maybe seconds since it opened, and he thumped down among debris from the aircraft on waste ground, in Berlin, quite a long way from dad ‘cause, you know, they didn’t obviously get out at the same time and the aircraft continued to travel. He was uninjured but in shock, he wrapped himself up in the parachute and went to sleep under a bush, and he was discovered the next morning by a party of civilians, led by a soldier. Now Johnny the rear gunner, he was thrown over his guns during the spiral dive and also lost consciousness and he came to in the air. So, he must’ve been blown out as well. In similar circumstances to Griff, he opened his parachute near the ground but he landed close to a searchlight battery and so he was captured immediately, so there was no delay as there was with dad and the other two. He had a bad cut over his right eye and a bruised face but otherwise was alright, and one thing that dad always stressed was that the four crew who were killed were those who were, were new to them. He believes that the bond that he and- Certainly that he and Laurie and Johnny had had, had somehow kept them safe. The wireless operator- So of the four who perished, the wireless operator and the co-pilot were eventually buried in the British war cemetery in Charlottenburg in, in Berlin, having previously been buried just, you know, where, where there was a space. So, one was buried in, I think in Spandau and the other one was taken to a civilian graveyard about fifty miles east, ‘cause basically they just had to put them where they had spaces, and then later they were, they were exhumed and buried in the war cemetery. An interesting point is that when Griff, the pilot, was asked by the German military, ‘Tell us the name of your wireless operator, so that we can bury him with a name’. So, you know, I expect, Griff must’ve thought well, you know, ‘should I give them this information?’ But otherwise, he would’ve been buried, you know, in an unmarked grave, and because of Griff he, his name was on his grave. Now the flight engineer, and the mid-upper gunner were neither found, nor identified, and having no known graves, they were remembered only on the war memorial at Runnymede. Another point, the mid upper gunner the, the Canadian, Dupueis he’d avoided an assignment to Berlin on his thirteenth operation because he’d been, he’d been drafted to a comparatively safe mission instead and so, the one to Berlin turned out to be his fourteenth operation but it turned out to be just as unlucky as thirteen. He carried a lucky rabbit's foot with him, but it didn’t help him. Another thing, the, the flight- The wireless operator, Eric Church, had taken some milk from the sergeants mess for his own use, and my father had seen this, and had criticised him, saying you know, that’s not for civilians, that’s for us. What dad didn’t know at the time was that he, he had taken the milk for his young wife who was living near Pocklington and who was expecting a baby, and, my dad was destined to meet that baby later on in 2008. He lives just outside Southampton and I am in fairly regular contact with him, so that's a nice little story. After the war, dad realised that not only was the 20th of January 1944 a big night for him, but it was recorded by both sides as one of unprecedented activity. Fifty years later, through the help of a German archivist, they discovered that the plane had been shot down by an ace night fighter Pilot Hauptmann Leopold Fellerer, in a twin-engine Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4. He had forty-one victories to his credit, over the war, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross, and that night had shot down five aircraft including dad’s. He became gruppenkommandeur of the night fighter group and later became a high-ranking officer in the Austrian air force, and ironically was killed in a Cessna flying accident in 1968. In 2005 the German archivist had provided dad with a map of Berlin showing approximately where the aircraft had crashed, which was about seven miles southeast of Hitler‘s chancery, at [unclear] and this confirms that they were on target that night as the crash point was on our track less than two minutes flying distance from the time when they’d released their bombs. So if you do all the maths you can see that they must’ve been bang on the target at eight o’ clock. So, there’s an extract here from the 102 operational record which is held on the microfilm at the public records office in Kew so it says, ‘Weather: foggy, clearing later. Visibility: moderate to good. Wind: southerly, 20 to 25 mph’. Sixteen aircraft were detailed to attack Berlin on what proved to be probably the most disastrous operation embarked upon by 102 Squadron. It’s- Who suffered the loss of five crews, Griffis DFM, that’s dad’s crew Dean, Render, Wilding, Compton. Two other aircraft were lost in Britain, so one had to abandon the aircraft because they ran out of petrol and another one crashed near Norwich, and the bomb- The air bomber died of his injuries. So, seven of the sixteen aircraft from that squadron were lost that night. That’s nearly fifty-percent, and five crews were lost, and this exceptional night of misfortune was never repeated, within that squadron anyway. So that was the end of dad’s time in Bomber Command, so after reforming as a full crew, they’d only done two operations, and that for dad made ten in all. But in spite of that they’ll go down in the annals of 102 Squadron as having been shot down on the night when the squadron suffered the loss of seven out of sixteen operation aircraft, or forty-four-percent of the planes that flew that night, and that’s a loss which is greater than any other operation in the squadron’s history in both World Wars. Dad also appended that 102 Squadron was not a lucky squadron. After that disastrous night another four aircraft were lost the following night to Magdeburg, so that was 21st of January, and shortly after this as the losses continued, they were stood down. Too late for dad, but they were stood down from operations over Germany. So, they did, you know, perhaps mine laying and, and trips to France, but they took them off the really perilous missions, and then the Halifax Mk 2’s were withdrawn, and they were replaced by the Mk 3’s, which were equal to the Lancasters of that time in their operational efficiency. But for dad’s crew the new aircraft arrived too late, otherwise they might’ve had a better chance of survival and they might’ve been able to complete at least one tour of thirty ops, and they might’ve been able to avoid ending up in captivity for the rest of the war. In the Second World War, 102 Squadron suffered the highest losses in the whole of Group 4 of bomber command, that’s fifteen squadrons and the third highest losses in the whole of bomber command, that’s ninety-three squadrons. [Beep] So, dad said that he’d disturbed a dog and the dog drew attention to dad and a farm worker, who was waking up- It was early morning, I don’t know exactly what time but this, this farm- He was a kind of overseer and he was going round and knocking on doors of all the agricultural workers to wake them up, and he handed dad over to a couple of policemen, one of whom had a revolver and the other one had a pair of handcuffs, but they indicated to dad that, you know, they wouldn’t use any kind of restraint or violence as long as he behaved himself. So, they walked him to the police station where my dad remembers being exhibited like a trophy to the policeman’s wife. He was searched and they took all his possessions away. Interestingly, they asked him if he was Jewish. My dad could’ve been Jewish if you look at the photograph in the book, you can see that he had very dark hair and quite a prominent nose although that was because he got hit by a cricket ball when he was twelve, but, you know, they wouldn’t know that, and it makes you wonder why they wanted to know because even if he had been Jewish, as a British POW, you know, they weren’t- There was a German Jew actually in my father’s POW camp, who was incarcerated there rather than in a concentration camp because he was a British POW and therefore under the protection of the Geneva convention. Anyway, another person who interviewed him was a very attractive young woman who had perfect English and appeared with, you know, very long legs and very long hair and dad said that, you know, she definitely improved his morale. Then he- They returned, I think, his cigarettes and he offered one to the policeman and they smoked them together. I don’t- They were clearly trying to get information at this point, but they weren’t- They were very correct. I don’t, I don’t think- They might’ve been a bit smug but, but, but he certainly wasn’t ill-treated by the police, he was fortunate to have been apprehended by authority rather than civilians because it’s well known that people who were initially found by civilians, if the civilians weren’t being monitored by anybody else, they sometimes, you know, applied their own sanctions and put pitchforks through people and so on, and that apparently increased towards the end of the war. But everybody knew that you were better off being apprehended by authorities particularly, well, military rather than gestapo. Then he was given a sandwich, which was wrapped in a newspaper with a very prominent piece of propaganda on it about the American [unclear] as they called them, and he said, you know, to his dying day he didn’t know whether that was a coincidence or whether it was deliberate. It gave him something to think about. Then he was taken by car to Werneuchen which was the night fighter station and, on this journey he, he was driven through the, the less damaged parts of Berlin. Again, I think that was deliberate to show him, you know, you haven’t actually inflicted any damage on our city. The route was very carefully chosen. From there he was in a guard house cell and he was, interviewed by a guard, who had been a bomber pilot over London, or so he claimed, and had you know participated in some of the Blitz raids, and my dad apparently quipped to him, ‘Now we are quits’. These people all had pretty good English and I’m sure he understood. He remembers a meal of macaroni pudding being given to him at this point, which was the first decent meal he’d had since he was shot down several days previously, and he said it was like a feast, never have macaroni- Tasted so good. From Werneuchen he was taken by underground to Spandau, and he said this was a very frightening experience because there were several captives and I think only one guard or two guards, certainly not enough to protect them if the civilians got nasty, and this was a very, very frightening experience because, you know, he thought he was gonna get lynched at any minute and they were all spitting and gesticulating and, you know, dad said he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t of wanted to be without the protections of the guards. In Spandau they were kept in a bunker to protect them from the bombs, their own bombs. There are- There were still no sign of his crew at this point but there were lots of others and obviously they shared stories, but at any moment they didn’t know whether they were being watched or listened to, so I don’t suppose the conversations were very natural. The food was very poor, in the bunker. Then there was another incident where they took all his possessions off him and a guard offered him one of his own cigarettes. From there they went by train to Dulag Luft at Frankfurt-am-Meim. This is where they were kept in solitary confinement in cells with a straw palias and the notorious electric heater, which was not just for their comfort but also for their discomfort because the temperature was intermittently turned up to, I think one-hundred-and-twenty degrees Celsius dad said, in order to try and make them crack. Here he met the notorious ‘Red Cross representative’ in inverted commas who asked them for lots of personal information over and over again, weren’t aggressive, but dad would’ve been warned about these people, they weren’t really anything to do with the Red Cross and he persisted in only giving his name, rank and number. So, there he is in the cell with a cigarette, which he couldn’t light because he didn’t have any matches, and he said he remembers picking a piece of straw up out of the palias and sticking it in the fire to see if he could make it light enough to light the cigarette, but it didn’t work. The interrogators showed him pictures of things like H2S and asked him what it was for and he said, ‘I don’t know,’ and they seemed to know an awful lot about the RAF and they knew which squadrons people had come from. Dad later realised that they were able to identify- They were able to work this out from the numbers painted on the sides of the planes which they could then link with squadrons. So, you know, they, they made it seem that they knew more about you then they actually did, but it was all done, well partly to demoralise you and partly to make you think, ‘Well they know that much, it won’t hurt if I tell them some more’. On my father’s twenty-first birthday, he asked- He told them it was his twenty-first birthday and he asked them if he could have a shave, and they duly provided him with a towel and hot water, and soap and a razor, and so on, which was a nice gesture, but not really what one hopes for their twenty-first birthday present. One of the interrogators told him that 102 Squadron were ‘one of our best customers,’ which dad just thought was bravado but when he got- Later when he was looking at the statistics, he found that they were right. His astro watch was never returned to him, it was formally confiscated and he, he had a receipt for it, which we still have, you know, and he did joke when we were in Berlin that he was going to go to the authorities and say ‘Right well here’s the receipt, can I have it back?’. Some of the other possessions, not the watch, were returned to him at this point, but not the rest of the cigarettes, and not his photographs. But, at this point he did meet up with Johnny, Johnny Bushell, his rear gunner, and he was overjoyed. They had no news of any of the others but they knew that at least two of them had survived. At the Dulag transit camp they were presented with a cardboard suitcase, by the Red Cross which contained basic items of underwear, toiletries and so on, and funnily enough a pair of pyjamas. At some point there was a cartoon with a- I think this was probably somebody in the prison camp, who, who did a cartoon of a guy coming down, you know, in a parachute having been shot down carrying a suitcase containing a pair of pyjamas as if, you know, they’d jumped out of the plane with them. In the transit camp the food was good, because it was provided by the Red Cross, and at this point dad was also able to send a postcard home to his parents, which we still have, saying that he was safe and they, that they mustn’t worry. Obviously wasn’t able to tell them where he was, and in any case, he was still in transit, he didn’t know where he was gonna go. So, from this, this transit camp, they were transported to, the prison camp that Johnny and my father were allocated to, which was Stalag 4B. This was in a series of cattle trucks, very similar to the ones that the Jews were moved to the concentration camps, that were marked forty men and eight horses, or something like that, in French. They were obviously rolling stock that had been commandeered and been taken from France because the signage was all in French, and that was a terrible journey taking a couple of days with only a bucket to pee in, in the corner. They couldn’t sit or lie down because they were rammed in so that they had to stand up. Every now and then the train would stop and they would all have to get off and defecate next to the line. The only slight relief that they had during that time was that they were able to eat some [emphasis] of the contents of the Red Cross parcels, but only that which didn’t require a can opener. Now, dad’s theory at this point was that he missed Griff and Laurie at the transit camp because they’d either arrived earlier or later, probably earlier, than Johnny and, and my father, and because they were both commissioned officers and could prove it, they went to a different camp anyway, they went to Stalag Luft 3, the scene of the great escape in Sagan which is in modern day Poland, but dad because he couldn’t prove his rank, and that was a critical point, that he couldn't prove that he had just been commissioned because he went with Johnny to Stalag 4B which was not an RAF camp specifically, and there my father remained for a year, until his commission came through at which point he left Johnny behind. Which I think cut him up quite a lot because they were muckers together, which meant they would share their rations and cooked for each other, but dad said at that point that Johnny was a very sociable type, unlike my dad actually who’s quite reserved and that dad felt sure that he would team up with some other people. Dad then went on to- Initially to a camp in Eichstätt in Bavaria which obviously was a long way away, and then towards the end of the war when everything started to fragment there was, there were a series of movements, all of which is described in great detail in my father's own words in our book, which is entitled “Into the Dark: A Bomber Command Story of Combat, Survival, Discovery and Remembrance.” It’s published- It was published in 2015 by Fighting High, and the authors are Janet Hughes née Wilson, myself, and Reginald Wilson, who was still alive at time of publication. [Beep]
DM: Do you have any idea how his time in Bomber Command, being shot down and later becoming a captive effected your father in later life?
JH: Well yes, I, I- My grandmother always said that he’d never been the same after the war, and yet I know other people who went through similar experiences to my father who, who, who had a more positive and optimistic view of life. So I think some of it was down to his personality. I think he as a child was a very shy little boy, he was very meticulous, he wasn’t very adventurous, he was very studious. You know, perhaps a bit reluctant to join in, that kind of thing, and a combination of that and the horrific experiences that he went through kind of shaped him forever. I, I keep meaning to ask my aunt, who’s still alive, she’s ninety-eight now, if she’s got any recollection of, you know, her impression of how he changed when he did come back, in 1945. During the prisoner of war as a- days, as I’ve said it was a, it was a, it was a Stalag, well the first year anyway it was a Stalag, they didn’t have enough to eat, they were very cold, they were quite bored a lot of the time although they did have an opportunity to study, and, you know, they, they put on musicals and that sort of thing. They weren’t badly treated really, they were just very, very hungry and cold and a lot of them succumbed to- As the place got more and more overcrowded, a lot of them succumbed to, you know, typhus and typhoid and, and TB and things like that, so certainly the people that were prisoners of war for a long time dad really only had a year in that very bad camp suffered more, more than he did. But- And then the, the second camp that he was in was, was, was much more comfortable but I think really the worst thing was the complete lack of privacy, that’s probably the worst thing of all, you know, never being able to be on your own, to do your own thing, being permanently surrounded by other people, and obviously you needed them for moral support but there must have been times when you just wanted to get away, you know, imagine going to the toilet with, with forty other people. Not even, you know, the most basic human, human functions being witnessed by thirty-nine other people. It must have been awful, and, and he was very private, always very private, you know, my parents never walked around without their clothes on, you know, like I sometimes do or, you know, they always locked the door of the bathroom and that kind of thing, and, and they were very kind of- Well that, that might’ve been a generational thing I don’t, I don’t know but I think when my dad did get home he cherished, you know, the ability to, to, to have privacy when you wanted it. When I was a child in the 1960’s his mental wounds were still too raw to allow him to talk to me about his experiences. He occasionally still had horrific nightmares which I remember really clearly. They caused him to sit bolt upright and scream, and I had an adjacent bedroom and I would wake up, it would be loud enough to disturb us even in a well-built house, you know, with brick walls not like in these days, the partition walls and I can remember, you know, going round and knocking on the bedroom door and saying, ‘Mummy what's happening,’ and she’d say, ‘Oh it’s alright, daddy’s had a bad dream, go back to sleep he’s alright now,’ and I must’ve thought, you know, that daddies had nightmares, that’s what daddies did in bed. I didn’t know any better, and I suppose I must’ve thought that it happened to all my friends’ fathers as well, I didn’t realise that dad was different, in that respect, but also, he was a bit older than a lot of my friends’ fathers because he was thirty-one when he married my mother, having been dumped by the woman who he was going out with before he got shot down, and he was thirty-two when my brother was born and thirty-five when I was born, so he was quite a lot older, probably ten years older than some of my friends’ fathers. So, by the 1970’s, I was at grammar school and I was studying German. He never had any objection to me studying German, I had a choice between German and Latin, my parents let me choose what I wanted to do. I don’t ever remember him questioning my desire to learn German or thinking it was a strange thing. He, he wasn’t anti-German, he never had been, he was anti-Nazi and he always made a distinction between those two things. He had a lot of respect for the Germans actually, because they were generally very law abiding and because dad was law abiding, he liked their formality in the fact that, you know, they always did things by the book. I think that kind of had a resonance with him really. In the sixth form, when I was studying German A-Level I also, as part of the course had to study modern history, as it related to Germany since the war and, and during the division of Germany ‘cause of course at that time the wall was still up and Germany was two countries, and you know, my father who had all these amazing stories to tell, couldn’t or wouldn’t share them with me and I don’t know whether that was because he couldn’t or because he didn’t want to or just because he was so busy because he had a, he had a very prestigious career. He was eventually a management consultant with Unilever and he travelled all over the world and, you know, he worked hard and he commuted into London and to be honest he wasn’t there all that much and when he was, he wanted us out of the way, you know, so that he could spend time with my mother and he travelled a lot, you know, he was sometimes away for weeks on end. So, I just thought, ‘Oh well what a shame,’ you know, he didn’t want to look at my photographs of Berlin taken in the late seventies when the wall was still up and I went there as a student. I thought he never would talk about it but I was wrong, fortunately, and it all happened on the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. Well actually a bit before that in, in the run up to January 1994, you know, dad realised it was a big event, he’d kept in touch with the other three survivors, they sort of, you know, occasionally met up and exchanged Christmas cards and things, and they decided that for that fiftieth anniversary they would all meet up. So, they all met up three of them had wives, Johnny had never married, and they met in a hotel in Peterborough because it was central for all of them to kind of, you know, reminisce and toast the fifty years of life that they’d had unexpectedly afterwards and, you know, share artefacts. The pilot by this time had started to do a bit of initial research into where the plane had come down, but he died not all that long afterwards, about four years afterwards, and he hadn’t completed this research, and, you know, the whole thing- The whole of the country was suddenly talking about the war. In the summer of 1994 there was a lot of TV coverage of the anniversary of D-Day and by then dad was, what was he then? Seventy, seventy-one, and he was developing a growing sense of time passing and the compelling need to share his story with others and he started to talk and write about his experiences. He’d always wanted to find out where his plane had crashed and having inherited some of- copies of things that the pilot had discovered, he went to the RAF museum, he went to the public records office at Kew. He slowly gathered bits together but it was, it was a bit of a patchwork, it was a, it was a jigsaw with quite a lot of pieces missing. So, in July 2005- So that was another ten years later, I think he’d written his, his memoirs by then and, well partly written his memoirs, and put it on a floppy disk so that we all had copies. He, he suddenly started using the internet an awful lot, you know, for a man of his age he was, he was quite competent with computers and, he discovered Google Earth, and this meant that he was able to compare this map that he’d got with the, with the approximate crash site marked on it, something that the pilot had given him. He tried to compare the two and I was over there in the summer and he said, ‘Look at this,’ you know, ‘We might be able to find out where my plane crashed,’ and I told him he was bonkers but humoured him, and he decided he wanted to pursue it and I didn’t see that it could do any harm, so I agreed to help him, when I wasn’t teaching ‘cause I was busy teaching full time. He contacted a German museum curator and an archivist, and the curator put him in touch with a journalist, and the journalist together with the archivist sort of launched a campaign in a local newspaper on his behalf, and appealed for witnesses to the, to the crash. They knew approximately where the plane had come down, they knew the night, they knew the time of the raid, and they asked for witnesses, and, you know, a lot of people replied who didn’t really have all that much to say, or it was interesting but not directly relevant. But there were sixty responses and these lead to an incredible discovery which nobody could have anticipated at all. Just incredible. So, Ralph Dresser[?] was the investigative journalist and he collated these sixty responses and some turned out to be eye-witnesses, one in particular had actually seen the wreckage of my further- my father’s plane. He’d been a schoolboy, he was now a retired dentist, and he remembered going through the wood on the morning after the crash, and seeing this plane which was being guarded, what, you know, until they could take it away ‘cause of where it had crashed, it wasn’t an easy thing to move ‘cause it had all woodland all around it. So they gave- The journalist organised a reception for us at the townhall in Köpenick on- In October, it was half term, October 2005, and- The atmosphere was amazing because, because, you know, here are all these people that had been bombing each other and they were all sitting round the table and telling anecdotes and the atmosphere was, was wonderful it was a, it was a atmosphere of, entirely of friendship and reconciliation, and towards the end of this reception this guy came forward and he had kept a diary as a schoolboy and in the diary was a record of, you know, his thoughts when they were in their cellar during the raid, during which my father's plane was shot down, and, you know, finding the plane the next day and there was a little sketch showing the plane and where all the bodies were, and it just seemed too much of a coincidence not, not to be connected but obviously we had no proof at that point, that it was dad’s plane. So, we went back in May 2006, again we had to wait until I could, you know, dedicate some time to it, school holidays. We didn’t want to do it during the winter, obviously. So we went back in May 2006, and we finally identified- Visited the site, identified by the main eye-witnesses as the crash site, and with the help of local historians, who’d all climbed on the band wagon, and a metal detector, one of them was a research, you know, a researcher into historic aircraft and had done a lot of these excavations and he had a metal detector, and we unearthed fragments of metal which had been buried underneath the leaf mould, and, you know, lots of bits of hinges and pipes and tools and, you know, it got more and more exciting until we eventually got to one fragment which had a reference number on it, which is a bit like the vin number on a car, and the researcher took it away and linked it to a particular series of Halifax bombers that were made in the English electric factory at Preston and it narrowed it down to a series of about fifty planes, and then we cross referenced that list with the list of losses for that night and we ended up with two planes, and then later dad established that the other plane had crashed on the other side of Berlin. So, we, we knew, you know, ninety-nine percent sure that it was dad's plane and he was so excited. I can remember him in the bathroom with the fragments of metal that we'd found and a nail brush and a tube of shower gel, you know, cleaning them up and he thought- He, he was just like a little boy at Christmas. But the story didn’t end there you know, I thought ‘Oh great, we’ve got some closure,’ you know, ‘Dad’s visited the crash site, he’s met these people, perhaps he’ll, perhaps he’ll have peace now’. But, the journalist carried on nibbling away and he told the Berlin police and sort of wound them up a bit and said ‘Oh,’ you know, ‘Maybe there’s some unexploded ammunition there,’ you know, ‘You really ought to go and have another look in case there’s anything that could be hazardous’. So they waited till November 2006 and went back with metal detector again, they found further fragments of the plane, various tools, part of a parachute harness with the instructions turned to unlock on it, and then near the parachute harness, they found human remains, and I can remember having, you know, being given this news by the German journalist on the phone and then having to sit by the phone and plan how I was going to tell my father because I knew it would open another can of worms and part of me didn’t want to do that. Anyway, so having ascertained that the human remains were probably linked to the plane crash. They handed them over to the British authorities. This took a while because Berlin police had to satisfy themselves that it wasn’t a crime scene. So, the British authorities had them for quite a long time, they went at one point to Canada because one of the people that had been missing and didn’t have a marked grave was a Canadian, and dad got frustrated because things weren’t moving fast enough and he was getting older. So he wrote a speculative letter to a newspaper in Newcastle because he knew that the other chap, whose remains had been- never been found, who was buried in an unmarked grave or probably not buried at all, he’d come from Newcastle so my father had tried to find out, you know, if any of the family were still in the area, and he had traced, through this speculative letter to the Newcastle Chronicle, a lady called Marjorie Akon [?] who was the sister of his missing flight engineer, John Bremner. Efforts to close-to trace close relatives of the other missing crew member in Canada had proved more difficult, although I did actually make contact with them after the book was published through Facebook and I am now in, in touch with a distant relative of the Canadian, and I sent her a book so that she wasn’t, you know, so that everybody's now got copies of the book. So in April 2008 so this was two, not, no- one-and-a-half years, eighteen months after the bones had actually been found mitochondrial DNA testing finally established a definitive link between the remains found at the crash site and Marjorie Akon[?]. So after sixty-odd years of not knowing what had happened to her brother, she was told definitively that these were remains of her brother, and she was eighty-eight, so for sixty-four years she’d not known what had happened to her younger brother, and the result was a full ceremonial, military funeral in Berlin on the 16th of October 2008 with the Queen‘s Colour Squadron officiating. The surviving crew members and their closest relatives were invited, most of them attended, I think only Laurie Underwood wasn't represented. Huge efforts were made by the MOD to trace the families of the two crew members who were already buried in Berlin, so that was Eric Church and Stanbridge. Stanbridge’s daughter actually came over from Australia and she had never visited her father’s grave before, and the- Eric Church’s son, Michael was discovered literally a few days, that he was finally traced- Literally a few days before the funeral and he had to actually take someone else's place on the flight in order to get him there on time, and again he, he’d never known what had happened to, to his father, not definitively. So, it was hugely emotional. So, six of the crew of eight were represented by their own family members and the Canadian was represented by somebody from the Canadian embassy, so that was seven out of eight. Only Laurie Underwood sadly wasn’t represented ‘cause he was too frail to travel, and none of his children or grandchildren were there, but I - Again I’m still in touch with them on Facebook. The most important mourners at that funeral were- Well the most important one, was undoubtedly Marjorie Akon[?], John Bremner’s sister, she was finally able to say goodbye to her beloved brother and in an interview with the BBC, or it might’ve been ITN, anyway I’ve got the footage, she expressed the deep gratitude that she’d at last been able to do this, to, to say goodbye because she’d not wanted to spend the remainder of her days believing that John had never been accounted for, and she actually died herself three months later at eight-nine, just, just after her eighty-ninth birthday. Because of my father’s efforts she didn’t have to go to her grave without knowing the outcome, because John was buried with great dignity and ceremony, so she died almost exactly sixty-five years to the day after her brother, also in January, and although she was sadly missed by her family they were unanimous in saying that she’d experienced a great sense of closure and relief at the end of her life having been able to say that last goodbye, she actually said- I can’t remember the exact words but she said something like she’d been spared long enough, to see her brother laid to rest. But I think what is important to stress is that none of this could’ve been achieved without the internet, the internet was absolutely pivotal to all of this research. We could never have made any of these links without the internet, so the internet, you know, we couldn’t’ve done in, ten years- If the bones had been discovered ten years earlier, they would’ve, they would've just buried them in an unmarked grave, you know, just ten years. The technology had all, all come on stream, we- Everything was available on, you know- In time for the internet and the DNA profiling and before she died because once we’d lost Marjorie Akon[?]- I think that her daughter could've also given a DNA sample because the, the mitochondrial DNA goes down the maternal line and she in turn has got daughter- No has she got daughters? Yes, yes, she’s got two daughters, so probably we could’ve used the, we could’ve used the next generation but it was much nicer for it to be a sibling. So, the internet was pivotal. The MOD were obviously pivotal, we couldn’t’ve done it without them. We couldn't've done it without the Germans because the- Our German friends, I’m still in touch, you know, almost daily with the journalist. The museum curator, who himself had been a prisoner of the Stasi during the cold war. So, he was an interesting man. Historians, eye-witnesses, it was a group effort and the ability to communicate via the internet had even enabled us to trace the Austrian grandson of the ace fighter pilot who shot my father’s plane down, and incredibly he visited us in August 2007 and we all drank champagne in my parents' garden in Essex. This was before- After we’d found the bones but before we knew who- Exactly who, whose they were, and although my father wasn’t a religious man, he did once say that somebody else had a hand in, in the discovery because it was too much to be a coincidence. In the opening- In the preface to the book I’ve, I’ve quoted Byron and said, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction,’ because if you’d made it up, you know, if somebody had made it up as a, as a plot of a book, people would’ve dismissed it and said that it was too perfect that all the things linking up, you know, it was too good to be true, and that made me think of the Byron quote. So, contacts that we made during the course of the research led us to friendships, new friendships in the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia and I’m in touch with the second generation of the entire crew, including the second dickie pilot. It reminds us of the horror of war, but also shows us how coincidences like this can lead to deep and lasting friendships between former enemies, and the crew and their families have achieved a sense of closure. So, I'd like to dedicate this interview to the crew of LW 337. Their survival rate exactly mirrors the chances of any airman in Bomber Command, because only half of them came back [voice breaks with emotion]. The average age of those who died in action was- Well here it says twenty-one, I’ve read twenty-two somewhere else, so I don’t know which is right. So, the crew were; the pilot George Griffiths, POW, died in 1998, navigator Reg Wilson, POW, died in 2016 on the 11th November ironically, the rear gunner Johnny Bushell, who was a POW and who died in 2013, the bomb aimer Laurie Underwood, taken POW also died in 2013, the wireless operator Eric Church, killed in action, identified and buried in Berlin shortly after the war, the second dickie pilot Kenneth Stanbridge, also killed in action and identified and buried in the German- the Charlottenburg war cemetery in 1947 I think it was after the war, when they were moved, then the flight engineer John Bremner who was killed in action whose remains were not found until 2006, and who was buried in 2008 in the same row as the two others in the Berlin war cemetery, and last but not least the mid-upper gunner Charles Dupueis, the Canadian who was killed in action and whose remains, as far as well know, were never found and so he remains to this day commemorated on the Runnymede memorial. Although it’s possible that he is in the Berlin war cemetery but in an unmarked grave, that’s, that’s entirely possible ‘cause there are some unmarked graves in the same area and they did tend to, to bury the- whole crews together if they could or part crews together, and of course now the four who died in action will all be commemorated on the ribbon of- On the stones at the IBCC, and we have funded stones in the ribbon of remembrance for those who did survive but have now all passed on. So that’s George, Reg, John and Laurie, whose, whose stones we have yet to, to see because they're being laid as I speak.
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Interview with Janet Hughes. Two
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David Meanwell
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-23
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AHughesJ171123
Format
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01:28:18 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
Civilian
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
After flying as a spare, Reginald Wilson (Hughes’ father) formed a new crew and completed their first operation to Berlin on the 29th December 1943. During their second operation to Berlin on the 20th of January 1944, the aircraft was shot down. Upon baling out, Wilson was captured and became a prisoner of war at Stalag 4B. Despite Wilson’s initial reluctance to open up about his wartime experience, Hughes describes the process of researching and publishing a book together. She recounts their discoveries including the fate of his crew (George Griffiths, Kenneth Stanbridge, Erich Church, Johnny Bushell, Laurie Underwood, Charles Dupueis) and the excavation of the crash site which resulted in the burial of John Bremner in 2008.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Tychowo
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Carolyn Emery
102 Squadron
4 Group
aircrew
bale out
Dulag Luft
final resting place
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Me 110
memorial
navigator
prisoner of war
RAF Pocklington
Red Cross
shot down
Stalag Luft 4
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/927/11170/PLiddlePAF1601.1.jpg
4b309d0d7a9d3d42699d17e49a761c54
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/927/11170/ALiddlePAF161130.2.mp3
a89943f2bf3dee6d245760aa6f62153d
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
Liddle, Peter
Peter Anderson Forgie Liddle
P A F Liddle
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Peter Liddle (b. 1921, 1556756, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 406 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Liddle, PAF
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is David Meanwell. The interviewee is Peter Liddle. The interview is taking place at Mr Liddle’s home in Badshot Lea in Surrey on the 30th of November 2016. Ok. Peter, if you start of with just a bit about growing — where you were born and growing up.
PL: Yeah.
DM: Before you joined up.
PL: Right. I was born in Falkirk in 1921. In Falkirk. A twin. A twin brother, Alfred. And in 1939 when the war started a mobilization order came out saying that all male person, all male persons between nineteen and [pause] sixty I think it was had to report to to the local Exchange in Falkirk. That date duly arrived. At nineteen my twin brother and I went and joined up. And three options — army, navy or air force. My twin brother and I being ex-members of the ATC at that time volunteered. Volunteered for aircrew duties. After the usual medical examination I was called up in [pause] 1940 and report to Aircrew Receiving Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground. From there kitted out and posted up to Initial Training at St Andrews. And from there I did a graded — posted to a Group Grading School. Flying School in Perth and soloed on Tiger Moths after eight hours instruction. From there eventually posted to Canada [noise of letter box ] Oh post. And to join the Empire Air Training Scheme. And after training in Canada — Ontario, Calgary, several other stations met my twin brother. He was, he was doing pilot training as well. And we came back to the UK in 1943. That’s it. Joined the Operation, Operational Training Unit, OTU at Lichfield. And posted to Blyton on twin engine Wellingtons having been crewed up at a centre in Lichfield. Three members of the crew were [pause] four members of the crew were Australian. Mid-upper gunner, wireless op, pilot and navigator. After operational training posted to a Conversion Unit at Blyton in Lincolnshire. Near Gainsborough. Converted from twin to four engine aircraft there via a Halifax first and eventually posted to a squadron at Binbrook. We picked up a flight engineer there because the four engined aircraft required an extra crew member and they weren’t trained in Australia.
DM: And you were flying as the bomb aimer. Is that right?
PL: Pardon?
DM: You were the bomb aimer.
PL: Flying as a bomb aimer.
DM: Yeah.
PL: After I joined the squadron, 460 in November ’43 and after one or two exercises, fighter affiliation, air to air firing and fighter affiliation our first raid was scheduled for the 19th of November. The big city. Berlin. It was the start of the Berlin bombing campaign and I went on the 19th, 21st and 23rd of November. We reached the target alright and dropped our bombs. No problem at all. We were engaged over the target by a Focke Wulf 190 but we managed to evade that attack. But my hydraulic hoses on the turret burst for some reason and I was covered in oil. Hydraulic oil. We, we turned then for the return trip back. There may have been a change of wind and and I think at the time we were blown south of the markers, route markers, on the way back and we finished up over the Ruhr. Happy Valley as it was called then. We were immediately coned by the radar controlled blue searchlight. Impossible corkscrewing, evasive action. We couldn’t get out of it and in no time the port engine was on fire and the captain told the [pause] control the hydraulics. The captain told the mid-upper and the rear gunner to vacate their turrets. The shelling got worse. We were flying about twenty, twenty two thousand feet at the time and no amount of evasive action we could get out of the radar controlled searchlights. The plane was on fire then. Diving down. And the captain said, ‘’Crew. Prepare to abort. Abandon aircraft.’ And I did the, as I was trained to do released the forward hatch so as we could bale out from there. I sat on the edge of the hatch. Oh I jettisoned the hatch cover down. Sat on the edge. Whipped off my intercom and oxygen mask helmet in case they snagged on the parachute cords and somersaulted forward out of, out of the plane with a terrific deceleration. I thought at first I may have got caught in the tail but no. I was safe. Dropped the rip cord away. I could watch on the way down the plane diving away on fire and at least three members of the crew were coned in the searchlights on the way down. I didn’t know where I was going to land because coming down at night you couldn’t tell the difference between the, the, what was water, what was buildings or what was forest. And luckily I came down in a patch next to the forest. I landed quite heavily but survived that. Followed my training instructions. Burying the parachute which was, which I did under the, next to a cattle truck. Truck. Cattle truck. Where the ground was soft. I then buried my flying kit except the battle dress. Checked on my escape kit. Buried all my badges etcetera and went into the woods and settled down there. I could hear the all clear go on the, on the sirens. Next morning. Early. It was still dark. Dawn. The first person I saw was a Wehrmacht soldier cycling home. Probably off duty. He had his can on the handlebars of his bike. Later on in the day I checked on my escape kit. I checked out where I was. I could tell I was in Germany because the navigator said, ‘I think we’re east of the Rhine,’ And I confirmed that by seeing the German notices on their electricity pylons — “Verboten." During the day I tried to get my bearings but I came across a group. A group of Hitler Jugend parading in the nearby roads. I managed to get between — in Germany on most roads there’s drainage on both sides of the road. I went down into one of those connecting culverts and I must have been seen by somebody but they came and asked me for my identification. They knew at once that I was an aircrew member. They took me to the local police station then and told me my pilot had been killed. Killed by flak in his parachute. They didn’t say who else had been killed at the time because they hadn’t found the two gunners who were still trapped in the aircraft. The other three members of my crew — they didn’t say anything about that. And I didn’t, I didn’t meet up with them until I eventually got, got to Dulag Luft via an experience. I was being escorted by a Luftwaffe officer and we had to stop enroute in Cologne. And unfortunately there was an air raid on at Cologne then and of course we had to go into the air raid shelters under the station. And that was bit dodgy because all the lights went out at one time and I was down there on my own. Aircrew. Just been on a raid to Berlin. The all clear went without any mishap down in the shelter and when we came above near the cathedral I could see the damage done to the, done to the, one of the spires. We eventually reached Dulag Luft and I was there until about the 8th I think. Oh [pause] I just forget. We eventually went by train. Cattle truck. It took about three days, two days to get across Germany to Nuremberg which is just north of Dresden. And I think I arrived, we arrived [pause] we arrived the 28th of November. Registered with the Red Cross then and given a number. Once you had that number there you were under the jurisdiction of the Red Cross. Anything could have happened between Dulag Luft and prison camp. Every time there was an air raid on then the trains were shunted into the siding. I was there too. We were duly photographed and that identity card, I’ll tell you about that later on, we acquired after the liberation by the Russians from the, from the German headquarters. That’s it. And fingerprints. All the information. That’s my air force number 1556756. That’s cleaned up, shaved, in the prison camp. A little — and the number.
DM: 203 263602.
PL: 263602.
DM: How did you feel when you arrived at the prison camp?
PL: Pardon?
DM: What were your thoughts when you got to the camp? What did you think of it?
PL: Well, on the camp it was at night because it was no — we had no idea where we were really until we went through the gates. Well, we were in prison camp then. The next day we were deloused. Hair all shaved off by the Russian prisoners. They were operating the machines. Like a horse trimmer. Deloused. And allocated a camp. While I was in the camp I was apprenticed. Trained at, being apprentice trained at the time. I managed to get a drawing board and information from the Red Cross through their education scheme. And during, in ’44 when, when there was a typhus, typhus epidemic in the camp we were, we were confined to our barracks. Barracks. Now, if you look at that there there’s the RAF compound consisting of four huts. Two hundred men in each side. A wood built hut there. Centre ablutions. And another two hundred odd. So there was four hundred in each. Aircrew. Locked up. The gate, the gate into the camp was there. Right. Well, we were moved from there out to hut sixteen. I think.
DM: That was originally the French and Dutch compound.
PL: Yeah.
DM: Yeah.
PL: They wanted that for, for a different nationality. So, we were there ‘til the 23rd of November. Out on parade. Appell as they called it. No guards there to take the count. They’d left the camp the night before. And the next thing we saw the Russian cavalry coming up that road from Neuburxdorf. They came up there. Cossacks. Run to the front gate which was there and gone up straight down the main roadway. Back out again and off. That was it. So we were left in the charge of the senior British officer then for him to negotiate with the Russians. Now, the Russians held us in that, in the camp apart from allowing us to go out for foraging to get food. And the army were quite good at that. They brought back fresh meat and food. Chickens. And of course it didn’t do us any good because we couldn’t eat fresh meat. We’d been, we had been without parcels for about — well we were down to one parcel between twenty. So we were short of food. Eventually the Russians said, ‘Well, we’ll march you down to Riesa,’ which is a town quite near the camp. Near Dresden, ‘And we will billet, we’re going to billet you there until we come to some agreement with the Americans.’ They might have been holding ex-POWs as bargaining power with the Americans. A Canadian chap and I we decided we weren’t going to Riesa and we made our own way and stayed for a couple of nights with a German family enroute to the River Elbe. We stayed with this German family and after being in a prisoner of war camp for two years they gave us a bed for two nights with a white, the first time I’d ever seen a duvet. That was the German nightwear you know. And during, during the time there we were visited once or twice with the, with the Russian soldiers looking for female members of their family. We said goodbye to them but with regret because they wanted us living with them as a protection. We eventually got to the Elbe. And on a tributary of the Elbe at a place called Oschatz near Torgau. That’s where the Americans were based. We crossed the river there on a pipe bridge to the other side and the Germans were waiting there. Russian trucks were waiting there to take us to our camp at Halle. They’d captured an airfield in Halle. And from there they fed us and of course I listened to Churchill’s big speech on the, on the radio. And they flew us to Brussels. And then from Brussels to Cosford. At Cosford in [pause] near Wolverhampton. We were debriefed there. Medicals. Kitted out and sent home on leave. I duly arrived home at — mother didn’t know my whereabouts at all and she just said, ‘Come away,’ and that was it. Back home in Falkirk.
DM: You were going to say how you got hold of your identity card. Your prison identity card.
PL: I’ll tell you about that. After the, two or three days after the Russians when the camp had settled down we, one or two of us went up to the commander. Commander [unclear] Got into the filing cabinets. Found out where our papers were and we all — that’s when I got my, got the original. And that’s a copy of it. The original. It was all information of —that’s where I lived in Falkirk. Next of kin, identity and air force number. Shot down. They’ve got it down as Essen on the 23rd of the 11th ’43. That’s a photograph of that with the identity. And that’s the negative. When I got back I corresponded with a Mike Garbett. He was author of Lancaster 1, 2 and 3. He he got in touch with me to relate to him an experience. So I set all that down and sent it. Sent it off to him. So that’s really an account of what happened. That’s it. And he acknowledged, he acknowledged it. As I say when I was in the camp that’s the, that’s the original plan of the camp I drew when we were in quarantine. And I’ve based the, I shan’t get that out because it’s getting a bit fragile now.
DM: I can imagine.
PL: This is a small print of the — print of the camp.
[pause]
DM: Did anybody escape from the camp while you were there?
PL: Well, we had an Escape Committee but they weren’t very happy about escaping. The only means we had of escaping were the army. There was, the army POWs who were sent out on commando, work parties. And they devised a scheme where an army man would change places with an RAF man. Right. And when they went out in the working party the RAF man devised a way of escaping. It wasn’t very successful. Always came back into the camp. Two weeks in solitary. Punishment. But the way, the way I drew this at the time paced out all the perimeter lighting. About fifty yards between each column. That gave me the scale of the camp. And as I say when we were there last in April for five days we got a copy of [pause] a copy of this.
DM: This is when you went back to the camp.
PL: Back on a visit.
DM: Yeah.
PL: On a display. On a display board. P Liddle. Because after the war, after the release [pause] there’s a book on there. The visit. If you’d like to have a look at that.
DM: So you went back to the Stalag.
PL: Yeah.
DM: In April 2015.
PL: Went back on a Monday.
DM: Right. How many of you went? Can you remember?
PL: Well —
DM: Actual. Actual POWs. Obviously you had family and friends.
PL: I think I was the only one then.
DM: Really.
PL: Yeah. Guest of honour.
DM: Yeah. I bet.
PL: If you like. That’s my son and grandson. They were, they were, when we [pause] that’s one of the organisers. [unclear] Berlin. To the Imperial War Graves.
DM: Yeah. Cemetery.
PL: [unclear]
DM: Yes.
PL: Have you been there?
DM: No. I haven’t. No.
PL: That’s the Olympiad 1936. That’s inside the [pause] Soviet War Memorial in Berlin.
DM: How did the Russians treat, how did the Russians treat you when you were with the Russians?
PL: The Russians?
DM: Yeah.
PL: You mean the Germans?
DM: No. The Russians. When you, when the Russians liberated the camp.
PL: Oh. They were off.
DM: They didn’t sort of bother with you.
PL: No.
DM: At all.
PL: In fact the Russians prisoners of war as soon as the Russians, the Cossacks arrived they were off. Just knocked the fences down and went off.
DM: Went off.
PL: Where they went?
DM: No.
PL: No idea.
DM: And the Germans. How did they treat you while you were there? Were they fair do you think?
PL: They were fair because we didn’t have to go in working parties. That’s the main gate. Stalag IV-B. There’s a party going out now. A working party. But being senior NCOs we didn’t have to do work.
DM: Were you a warrant officer by then?
PL: No. I was a warrant officer when I got back [laughs] Six months Colditz. That was two of the members. Well, that’s a Memorial in the camp. No. In Neuburxdorf. It was built by the French POWs. Well France.
DM: So, what, how many nationalities were there in your camp? Obviously Australians, Canadians and British and New Zealanders.
PL: And there were Serbians and later on there was a Romanian. They were German allies at the time but they capitulated in ’44 and they brought all the officers in to the camp as POWs. And during the time they were there I acquired through the, through a middle man, a dealer if you like, a Polish Jew. Aye. His name was Novokowski. I remember to this day. He came to me one day and says, ‘I’ve got a pair of binoculars. Romanian officer’s binoculars.’ He said, ‘And I could get you a luger as well if you want. If you want it.’ he says, ‘I want three hundred. Three hundred cigarettes.’ Of course cigarettes were legal tender.
DM: Yeah.
PL: And I was quite fortunate in getting a regular supply from the squadron. So I’d still got them. I’ve got the, I had these binoculars buried in my bunk somewhere. Under the floorboards at the time. Took a brick out and put it under the floor. And I was able to keep the rest of the lads [pause] what was happening with the American Air Force raids. It was very helpful that. My son, my grandson, we laid a wreath at the, at the Memorial. Now, only those who have been imprisoned should talk to us about freedom. That’s the trans, my grandson translated that. That was left on. And that there, that little obelisk, holding up your original drawing. After the war, after the release of the camp the Russians converted the, refurbished the camp as a camp for dissidents for, ‘til 1949.
DM: Right.
PL: They electrified and boarded up all of the fences so as they couldn’t contact the outside world. We had a piper in the party. And that’s me actually sitting on the foundation.
DM: Of the hut.
PL: Of the hut.
DM: Of your hut. What happened to your twin brother? Did he survive the war?
PL: He, he finished up flying with the Second Tactical Air Force at Lubeck on rocket firing Typhoons. He survived the war. He died two years ago.
DM: Right. Was he a pilot or a navigator?
PL: He was a pilot.
DM: A pilot. Yeah.
PL: He was a pilot. He got right through the war without a scratch. That’s a display board in the camp. There was a section there where my plan was stuck up.
DM: So I assume — was the camp in old East Germany or was it in West Germany?
PL: It was in old east Germany.
DM: It was. Yeah. So you obviously wouldn’t have been able to visit it until after.
PL: Aye. Yeah.
DM: Right.
PL: And after, after the, where you crossed the River Elbe. That’s it.
DM: So how did you get across the river?
PL: I went across a pipe bridge. Bridges were down. Torgau and Oschatz. [pause] My —
DM: Can you remember when you were demobbed?
PL: Well, after my two weeks leave, repatriation leave, I could have. I could have come straight out of the air force. Ex-POW. But I opted for an extra six months to get back into civilian life after. After the two years I wanted to get myself acclimatised. So I was posted down to De Havillands and they gave me a job in a drawing office then to get used to. And after six months I came out and had an interview for a job with United Steel Companies in Sheffield. And my intended wife lived in Sheffield. She was an ex-wireless op. She corresponded with me while I was in Germany but her letters always came back with holes in them, you know. She told me too much about [laughs] And my, we were [pause] that’s a, a Dutchman did a panoramic view over there as a painting and made it available. You can see the similarity as the — to my drawing. What else have I got to show you? [pause – pages turning] Now, when the camp was being used as a camp for dissidents about seven thousand were buried in a mass grave. Never heard of again. No names. And this is a Memorial that the families erected.
[pause]
DM: Did you, was it four of your crew that survived?
PL: Pardon?
DM: Was it four of your crew that survived the —
PL: Four.
DM: Yeah.
PL: Aye. Well —
DM: Did you meet up with any of them?
[pause]
PL: I’ll tell you about them.
DM: Right.
PL: But I’ll just put these away. Years ago.
DM: So the —
PL: Ten years ago I got a letter from Australia.
DM: Right.
PL: It was from the nephew of the pilot. His mother was the pilot’s sister and she had handed all the information to her son who was flying with Quantas Airways at the time. And during one of his trips to Luxembourg they decided to do a bit of research and find the [unclear] I was going to show you that. I’ve got his letters. I’ve got his letters somewhere.
DM: You didn’t meet any of the crew while you were a prisoner.
PL: Pardon?
DM: You didn’t meet up with any of your —
PL: Oh yes.
DM: You did.
PL: They actually landed in our, the same camp.
DM: So all four of you were in the same camp.
PL: Yeah.
DM: Right.
PL: Well, used to [unclear] anyway this Grant, the pilot from Australia he researched the, found where the actual crash site was.
DM: Right.
PL: Mollen. He sent me this. That’s Mollen [pause] that’s — he researched all this and the crash was at Bahnhof. That’s a German station at Mollen.
DM: A station. Yeah.
PL: And at [pause] He spoke to a woman in there. She was sixteen when the plane came down. She remembers it when she was a girl. And in 2006 my son and I he was, he was a Porsche enthusiast at the time. He was driving a 911 and he bought a car. A Boxster S. He said, ‘We’ll take it to Germany, Peter and visit the — ' I had the information from the pilot.
DM: The crash site.
PL: He said we’ll go and visit that. And so we went there. Actually went to the site but the woman that lived there she was on holiday so we didn’t see her. But then from there we went to Reichswald. To the Imperial War Graves are. [pause] The pilot, the two gunners. That’s there and the pilot is there. Three men. Three of them they were re-interred at Reichswald near Arnhem.
DM: Right.
PL: So we went to visit that. The Australian pilot, Grant Worthington, he told us about where the graves were and he was really surprised. His one remark was about it was, about it was no signs of graffiti at all. It was designed by a British architect. Very moving really. There’s the Boxster I went in outside the station house. That’s where the plane came down. Near the Bahnhof. That’s the station house.
DM: Right.
PL: There’s the railway and it was near. It was on that road. The crash site and he’s put a plaque on there somewhere. We didn’t see it but we — no time you know. But these are different. That’s, that’s the obelisk at the camp there.
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 Peter Liddle
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Meanwell
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
2016-11-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ALiddlePAF161130, PLiddlePAF1601
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:48:52 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Liddle was living in Falkirk when he and his twin brother both volunteered for the RAF. Peter became a bomb aimer and was posted to 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook. He was shot down and as he was descending by parachute he could see his burning aircraft and at least three other parachutes coned by searchlights. Peter became a prisoner of war at Stalag 4B.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Oberursel
Ontario
Scotland--Falkirk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11
460 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
Dulag Luft
final resting place
Fw 190
memorial
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Binbrook
RAF Lichfield
searchlight
shot down
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1017/11306/AThompsonPJ181122.2.mp3
834e0550a7742e0ac812eae3e9300d18
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
Thompson, Frederick Denzil James
F D J Thompson
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. An oral history interview with Peter Thompson (b. 1933) about his uncle, Flight Lieutenant Frederick Denzil James Thompson DFC. Fred Thompson flew operations with Hamish Mahaddie. Collection also includes a photograph, correspondence and newspaper cuttings. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Thompson and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Frederick Denzil James Thompson is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/227942/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-07-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Thompson, FDJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewee is David Meanwell, the sorry, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Peter Thompson who is going to be talking mainly about his uncle, Fred Thompson, who was in Bomber Command. The interview is taking place at Mr Thompson’s home, in Croydon today, the 22nd of November 2018. Right Peter, perhaps if you could start off just say a bit of introduction about yourself, and then what you, perhaps start off with your personal recollections of Fred and then get on to his career.
PT: Right. That’s right. My name is Peter John Thompson and I am talking really about my uncle, Frederick, or uncle Fred. His full name is [cuckoo clock] Frederick cuckoo [laughter] – sorry about the cuckoo clock! -his full name is Frederick Denzel James Thompson and Fred and, he’s the second son of Walter Henry Thompson. My grandfather was Winston Churchill’s bodyguard throughout the whole of the war, and there were five children, basically. My father was the first one, Harold, Fred was second and Harvey was third, and then there were two sisters, Grace and Cathleen, much younger. Now, I, at the beginning of the war, 1939, I was six years old, but I can remember quite clearly Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred was in the Metropolitan Police, he was CID, Special Branch. And he had really a reserved occupation, and he worked in the East End of London, in the dock area, looking for aliens and spies etc. So he had quite an important job there. Now, my memory of uncle Fred, was when I was about three, Fred would have been about seventeen, he had a cage in the garden, with budgies in it. He used to take me into the cage with him and with all these budgies around, and he was very quiet, serious chap. And anyway, he’s, he was a really nice chap, very reliable. Grandad was a Victorian type of man, very severe, very good at his job as a bodyguard I might say, and quite brave, but very severe, and my dad used to say that he used to be frightened of him, so that gives you the set up. When the, in 1936, Fred decided that he would join the Met and he didn’t want to know, anybody to know that he was the son of Walter, his father, so he made his own way there. Now the thing is that Fred was a very reliable chap. When the war came, my dad joined up or he volunteered, and a little while later, when the war, about 1941 ’42, grandad, who had quite a deep [emphasis] relationship with Churchill, was talking to him about his sons and Churchill said to him, well I’d like to meet them. So my dad said well Harvey was out in South Africa at the time, but Fred came along, and this is a, a defining moment for Fred. When my dad and Fred met Churchill, my dad was in uniform, in a RAF uniform, but Fred was in civvies, and Churchill turned upon Fred and said ‘Why haven’t you signed up? Why aren’t you doing your bit? All the other lads in the front line.’ And this really hurt Fred. My dad said he was really upset and he immediately went and volunteered for aircrew. That was quite an important point for Fred. Anyway, he was trained as an Observer, or navigator and he joined the Pathfinder Group at Oakington, and he was on, flying Short Stirlings. The pilot was Wing Commander Mahaddie, and this chap was very well known, and it’s something unusual about the group: because the whole crew maintained right the way through, they did forty missions, the whole crew just stayed together, very unusual and most of the men were married, with families. Now Fred, he got two DFCs. They, of the forty missions he did, a lot of them were right, er, into far into, deep in Germany, obviously went Cologne, Berlin, but he also flew a lot down to Italy, and they gave this crew some of the most difficult jobs to do. Now the Pathfinders was a very, they, I think they were selected very carefully. The Pathfinder Group was that the aircraft went out first, alone [emphasis] on its own, and it flew somewhere like half an hour, to an hour in front of the main bomber group coming behind and their job obviously was to drop incendiaries and to light up if you like, the target. But they were alone, they didn’t have any cover. So there was a famous, no not, take the word away, one of the times when he got his second DFC, they had, they were, they had a mission to Cologne and on the way back the aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The cockpit window was completely smashed, the radio equipment was completely smashed and the radio operator was badly injured. The ailerons on the aircraft were severed and the aircraft basically fell out the sky, and it was going down. Mahaddie, the pilot, managed to get the thing on to a, out of this dive, and the flight sergeant, or flight engineer, he actually crawled in to the aircraft fuselage and repair the ailerons. Now the navigation equipment had completely gone, it’s, of course the Pathfinders would be flying at night, and the flight engineer, having got the aircraft working and they lost a couple of engines as well, he attended to the badly injured radio operator, and Fred navigated the aircraft by navigating with the stars. That’s how he did it. And they, the thing is, they got back to Oakington on time and they got there. And so, the evidence is, of a photograph of the crew outside their aircraft and you can see the holes right across the fuselage where all the German canons’ bullets had gone through. And these men were awarded their DFCs, or equivalent ‘cause the lower ranks didn’t get DFCs, so he was awarded his second, his second DFC. So. After the mission to Cologne all the crew were awarded their medals and they were going to go to the palace to meet the King and get their awards, but before they could go, two weeks later a special mission came up to Stuttgart. They, they volunteered, because, for many of them had, were past their operational times, and they all volunteered, but there were two exceptions. The pilot Mahaddie, Group Captain, Wing Commander Mahaddie for some reason couldn’t fly so they had a replacement pilot, and of course the radio operator had been injured was replaced, so they did have two new crew members. [Cough] So anyway they took off this mission. On the way over France, the German radio, radar group picked up the aircraft and they radioed to the German night fighter group and their, this particular German pilot took off. Now the RAF didn’t know a particular thing, that the Germans had discovered some of the secret equipment on the aircraft, on the bombers. The bomber, the aircraft had this equipment called H2S, which was really a ground radar and it was really what we have now, mapping out the underneath, so they could, they could actually fly higher to the target and the bomb aimer could see where the target was whereas previously they would have to be visual. But the only thing is when you put H2S on, it gives out frequencies which is used to get the display up, and the Germans had found a way of locking on to the H2S so they knew that, where the aircraft was to some extent by the signal coming from the H2S. What the Germans also had put in was a special gun in the nose of the aircraft, and the, in front of the pilot and it pointed up, and they had, the Germans had nicknamed it Jazzmusik, jazzmusiker, and what the Germans, night fighter pilots did, they used to fly underneath the bomber and gradually come up underneath. Of course nobody in the aircraft, the air gunner wouldn’t see it, and it’s night time, nobody would, there was nothing to detect anything underneath and they used to fly right underneath and fire straight into the bomb area, bomb area. The aircraft caught fire and it started to come down in flames. The strange thing was, that it was coming down in this little tiny village way out in the French countryside, and the village has high hills round it, and on the top of the hill was the actual radar unit that had picked up the aircraft. The aircraft came in, and I’ve got witness statements here written by people that saw it at the time, it was aflame, and the people at the radar unit fled because they thought the aircraft was going to hit their radar unit and them, but in fact it came down just over. And in this village they had a swamp area, it’s a lake, swampy and they used to use it for people, used to come to fishing. The aircraft exploded and broke up in two parts. The tail end landed one part of the village, with the air gunner still in it. The aircraft hit the water and it exploded and obviously all the crew were killed. Can I stop there for a. Many of the villagers saw this aircraft coming down all on fire, at night. The aircraft nearly missed, only just missed the actual radar unit, German radar unit, that was stationed at, on the top of the hill. Now this unit was the one that detected the aircraft earlier on. It missed the radar unit, the huts, by a few hundred feet or so, and it crashed into a swamp. Now this swamp was a man-made area, loads of reeds and things like that and it was used by people to do fishing. The aircraft literally broke up into bits: a mangled mess of just of metal and four of the member of the crew bodies were floating on the lake. The German Army came and secured the area and wouldn’t allow any of the villagers to come nearby, but the French resistance was very strong in the area, and at night, three chaps went out with shepherds’ hooks and went in to the lake and hooked the bodies out. One of the bodies was Fred’s. They said that they were, the bodies were very, very badly mangled. The Germans’ commander, I think did a, a very unusual thing, I think. He then stated that these men should have a proper military funeral. They wouldn’t allow any of the villagers to come, but they selected some young men to carry the bodies up to this little tiny cemetery. And they dug one grave and they put the four bodies in there. A few days later another body came up and this chap was buried, and then many weeks later the pilot’s body surfaced, and he was buried. So there were three graves really, and that’s the situation. They just put little wooden crosses up with the peoples’ names on. At that time, my grandfather had heard via the Red Cross grapevine that Fred had been killed, and he sent my father a telegram, which I have, saying that Fred had been killed. Now Fred’s wife, who was in the WRNS, then had the job a few weeks’ later of going up to Buckingham Palace to receive her husband’s DFC, his second one, a Bar. When I seen this young girl, in her WRN uniform and she was only about twenty, going up to receive this award, this medal, it must have been heart-breaking. An interesting thing, occurred here, because my grandfather had a very close relationship - it’s an unusual relationship - with Churchill. Churchill valued him tremendously. They had lots of scrapes and he valued grandad because he was very good as a bodyguard, very professional. It’s not the same as you have today. He was the traditional bodyguard where he had a trilby hat a long black coat, and he always had his hand in his right hand pocket with his gun there and all the photographs during the war, wherever they went, you always saw grandad about four paces behind Churchill and he was always, pictures of him looking left right all the time. And he had been Churchill’s bodyguard before the war, when Churchill was in government positions, and they built up this unusual relationship of, of trusting each other. But when grandad heard the news about Fred’s death, he went in to Churchill and he had words with him, and he blamed Churchill for the way he had treated Fred at that meeting years ago, where Fred was so cut to the wick and he gave his job up as a Special Branch detective, to join the RAF. And he said to Churchill, ‘I blame you for my son’s death.’ That’s a funny thing to say to Churchill. Strange thing is, that Churchill said, ‘I accept that.’ And he said Churchill was very, very upset: I’ll face death. Anyway, that day seven men died. The interesting thing when you look at the records, there were eleven other aircraft that night on those, who were all shot down. So for me it’s all about Fred, but that night there were at least eleven, I think it’s eleven [emphasis] aircraft, so if you think about seven men in each aircraft, that was seventy seven men either prisoners of war or killed, all lost their life on that one night. And when you look at Bomber Command, the death rate was very, very high and most [emphasis] of them didn’t do very many missions before they died. So Fred’s group were very unusual having forty missions before they got killed. Anyway, after the war the Commonwealth Graves Commission came into being and they went to this little village and the village is Minacour les menis les halous and it’s a little tiny place, so tiny, only a few hundred people. They went to the village cemetery, which we’ve, I’ve visited; it’s so small, it’s about a hundred yards square and they said these men must have proper graves, and with proper memorials. Then all the bodies were exhumed and each man was put into their own grave. A few years ago my son, sorry my daughter and my son-in-law very kindly said they would take us out to this little village, and they took us out. It’s so quiet, the cemetery’s just on a hill and you go in there, and I stood in front of Fred’s grave, and I just thought, ‘what a mess! What an utter mess this, all these men killed.’ Anyway, the interesting thing is, that there’s a group of people that really wanted to know all about the men that died in Bomber Command, and they did some very interesting work and they found out who the German pilot was, somehow. [Cough] A few years ago, about 2009, my daughter and my son-in-law, Tim, and Sally, asked me would I, we like to go and visit the cemetery where Fred is buried, and we did. They took us out there. And this little tiny village, with just oh, a few houses, and while we were there we – nobody was around - we parked outside, wondering what to do, outside a little farmhouse. A dog started to bark, and a young lad came out, who was about sixteen. Now my French is almost non-existent, and this young lad, his English was also non-existent, so I got out a photograph out of Fred, of young Fred and the site where the crash occurred. This young lad pointed and said, basically wait and he came back, got on his bicycle, and beckoned to us to follow, and we followed for a good half mile, and then he, we got to this area which was swampy, he goes up to a garden gate, big iron gate and unlocks it, it appears his family have owned this area of the swamp for years, went in and we walked around in, on the swamp: it’s almost the same as it was and I just could picture the devastation of this aircraft which was just a mangled mess, looking at the, the lake, looking at the water and realising that all those years ago Fred was floating with his other mates on there, completely dead. It was quite a strange feeling. And then the young lad beckons, and says follow me and we go back to the village and he points up this hill and we realise that is where the cemetery was, and the cemetery really is tiny and we went up, found the graves. My son-in-law had made a special plaque, with Fred’s details on it, and my, he had put my email address at the bottom. A few weeks later I had an email from a group of people who were researching the aircraft and all his, all his crew. I found this very interesting because they came up with some information that they sent me, of the German pilot that had shot the aircraft down. And this was again, a young, German pilot, his name was Hans Karl Kemp, Kamp. He was one of their top fighter pilots and the information we’ve got here he had shot down at least twenty one aircraft and found out that later, a couple of years later he was shot down again, not again, he’s shot down over Germany and was killed himself. They also show, got a picture of the Messerschmitt, Bf110 and you can see clearly [emphasis] this jazzmusiker gun, there, pointing up, and this photograph is actually showing the pilot, Oberleutnant Hans Karl Kamp, and the information down here identifies him as the pilot that shot down Fred’s aircraft, it’s down here from the German records. It’s got all of them here, and Hans Karl Kamp and you can check them all the way down, so that was quite interesting really. But my impression now as an older man, looking at it, and I thought: all these men German and English, just are called up and they do their duty for their country so there was no real difference between Hans Karl Kamp and Fred Denzel James Thompson, except that they must have left a lot of hurt. Kamp’s wife eventually married a, an American airman and then went to America. It’s odd that she marries the enemy. And that’s that. So that is my investigation and journey with my uncle Fred.
DM: Thank you very much Peter. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Peter Thompson
Creator
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David Meanwell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-11-22
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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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AThompsonPJ181122
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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00:32:00 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Second generation
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France
France--Minaucourt-le-Mesnil-lès-Hurlus
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Thompson is the nephew of Fred Denzel James Thompson. Fred’s father was Churchill’s bodyguard. In 1936 Fred joined the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Department and, following a meeting with Winston Churchill, volunteered as a navigator, despite being in a reserved occupation.
Fred joined the Pathfinder Group at RAF Oakington, flying Stirlings. The crew were together for over 40 missions. Fred received two Distinguished Flying Crosses (DFC). The second one was awarded following an operation to Cologne when the aircraft was badly hit and Fred successfully guided the aircraft back using celestial navigation.
Before receiving the award at Buckingham Palace, Fred volunteered for a special mission to Stuttgart alongside two new crew members. Unfortunately, their aircraft was struck from below and exploded near the village of Minaucourt-le-Mesnil-lès-Hurlus. The bodies were rescued by the French Resistance but given a military funeral by the German commander. Fred’s father blamed Churchill who apologised, regretting Fred’s death. The Commonwealth Graves Commission organised proper graves and memorials for the aircrew. Peter later visited the cemetery and subsequently found out information about the German pilot who later also lost his life.
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Sally Coulter
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1936
1943-03-12
aircrew
bale out
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Distinguished Flying Cross
final resting place
killed in action
Me 110
navigator
Pathfinders
RAF Oakington
Resistance
shot down
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1018/11482/BWynnDWynnIAv1.1.pdf
9dec228d01b48b5c5ece6433260ba0f1
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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Wynn, Ian Archer
I A Wynn
Description
An account of the resource
146 Items. Collection concerns Pilot Officer Ian Archer Wynn (1908 - 1943, 146838 Royal Air Force). After training as ground crew he remustered as a flight engineer and flew operations with 100 Squadron. He was killed 25 May 1943 on an operation from RAF Grimsby to Düsseldorf. Collection consists of a diary, a memorial book, an official report on what was his final operation, photographs of his crew, his family and the squadron as well as official correspondence from Air Ministry and British Red Cross, letters of condolence and a large number of letters from Ian Wynn to his wife Kathleen. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Patrick Anthony Wynn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Ian Archer Wynn is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/126116/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-13
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Wynn, IA
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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Ian Archer Wynn memorial book
Description
An account of the resource
An album book containing: 1. Photographs of Ian Wynn, his family and his first crew captain. 2. A history of his first captain. 3. Letter of sympathy and memorial scroll. 4. A diary of events from joining the air force up to first operation fully described in item #11456. 5. Details of his awards. 6. Letters from the padre at RAF Binbrook described at items #11477 and #11478. 7. Details of a operation to Dortmund. 8 Details of his final operation to Dusseldorf on 25 May 1943 described at item #11483. 9. Career details of German night fighter pilot Manfred Meuer (he shot down Ian Wynn's aircraft). 10. Details of ceremony at Herkenbosch (Limburg, Netherlands) cemetery in 2013. 11. Photographs of Bomber Command memorial, London and the grave of Ian Wynn. 12, Wynn family tree. 13. Acknowledgements. 13. Photographs of Lancaster
This item has been redacted in order to protect the privacy of the lender.
Creator
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David Wynn
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2004-04
Format
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Album with 53 pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Map
Photograph
Text. Correspondence
Text. Memoir
Text. Diary
Identifier
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BWynnDWynnIAv1
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Düsseldorf
Netherlands
Netherlands--Nijmegen
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1943-05-25
2013-05-24
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
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Pending review
100 Squadron
aircrew
final resting place
flight engineer
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
killed in action
Lancaster
memorial
RAF Binbrook
RAF Grimsby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1167/11733/ATrotmanPJ180604.2.mp3
4c11d1e2b9ac76fcd78b3c8a985d3116
Dublin Core
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Title
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Trotman, Percival
Percival John Trotman
P J Trotman
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Percival Trotman DFC and bar. (b. 1921 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 150 and 692 Squadrons.
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
2018-06-04
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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Trotman, PJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DH: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Dawn Hughes, the interviewee is Mr John Trotman. The interview is taking place at Mr Trotman’s home in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on the 4th of June 2018, and thank you John for agreeing to talk to me today. So can we start off with, if you remember last time we talked about the lead up to joining the RAF so what made you join the RAF? How did it come about?
JT: Well the, obviously there was, everybody was being taken into the services, Army, Navy, Air Force. And I considered the Army but, you could volunteer of course, if you volunteered you would be taken instantly, but otherwise you would be called up, so I felt I should volunteer. So I considered the Army, and I thought about the first world war and I thought there is no way if we get into trench warfare that’s, that’s something I don’t want to be involved in. Navy, I‘m not a very good swimmer so if I’d off into the ocean in the mid Atlantic I’m not going to get very far, so I decided the Air Force was obviously the thing to do, and in any case they had a much nicer uniform. So that was my decision to join the air force. And so, I went and applied at Reading, I was given an interview and then subsequently I was sent up to an airfield in the Midlands where I spent twenty four hours going through a tremendous [emphasis] number of tests. Overnight we slept in a bell tent, all with our feet towards the middle and er, the food wasn’t too bad and then we came home. And then I had to sit and wait, to be called up. And in fact from the time I was there, which was in May 1940 I wasn’t called up until the September, which was quite amazing, first, first of September. I was called up to, went down to Torquay for two weeks and then six weeks in Aberystwyth for basic training. And life changed of course, no longer [laugh] was life a sort of semi-leisurely situation, you were under military orders and of course your life changed completely, of course, and I wasn’t unhappy about that. Obviously like all the others we were keen to go through the training and get on with the job.
DH: Okay. So, what was the initial training like? Can you tell me a bit more about that.
JT: Initial training at Torquay well, you know, it was sort of getting your hands and feet in the right direction and doing all the right things according to drill, and of course you quickly adapt to that. So it was a question of drilling, marching up and down and doing about turns, and you know, there was responding to orders which was what it really was all about; time passed very quickly, until eventually we got our posting, which was to Aberystwyth. To do that we had to go by train, so we got on the train at Torquay but the train got stopped just outside Bristol because there was an air raid going on and we went across and stopped outside Cardiff because there was an air raid going on, and then this train chuffed its way right up to West Wales coast; took a total from midnight when we embarked on the train to Torquay till three o’clock on the following afternoon, on a train with no food, no toilets, we got packed sandwiches, but no toilets so every time the train stopped at a station there was a mass city central in the toilets! [Laugh] Anyway we finally got into Aberystwyth and then we got oriented of course. Where it started, you were out of bed at seven in the morning, in fact you were doing PE at seven o’clock in the morning, so you had to be ready for that, and you did that for half an hour each morning on the sea front, then from half past seven you went back, changed and you had to be at breakfast within quarter of an hour, quarter to eight for breakfast, breakfast finished at quarter past eight, on parade at half past eight, then march to the classrooms and spent all day in the classrooms. That happened every [emphasis] day, except on Saturdays we were, eased off wee bit; we still had things to do on Saturday, but you got Saturday afternoon, and Sunday, except Sunday we had to church parade, in which case I decided, I was Church of England, but I decided I’d try the Catholics and the Jews and everybody else [laugh] so I went to their services as well. That was interesting. At the end of the course, [clock chime] you had to pass and you had to reach a certain standard, and if you didn’t pass that standard then you were out, or as I say you were moved to other things, ground jobs within the air force.
DH: So at that point in time had you, had your trade been established?
JT: Sorry, had it?
DH: Had it been established that you were going to be a pilot or - ?
JT: Oh yes, once you had reached a certain level to their satisfaction yes, you were destined to be a pilot, considered so.
DH: So did you [emphasis] choose that, or did they choose you to do that?
JT: I wanted to be a pilot and I didn’t know until long afterwards that apparently I was rated above average, through sheer hard work and it was that I think got me through to what I wanted to do. That was what I was posted to, Coventry, just outside Coventry.
DH: Can you tell me what happened then, ’cause I believe you had a part in the clear up in the Coventry bombing.
JT: Yes, I was posted in on the, Coventry, the airfield just outside Coventry and that night there was an air raid warning, so we went down into the shelters and of course that was the night that Coventry was blitzed. So the next morning we were loaded into trucks to what, taken into Coventry to see what we could do to help in any way at all. To try and help the military and the civil authority maintain some sort of order and help clear up the worst situations. And the worst situations were something, I don’t think you want to, talk about very much. For example the Owen Owen’s department store had a whole lot of people in it when the air raid started.
DH: It did.
JT: So they were all bundled down to the basement; it was a shelter, but unfortunately Owen Owens got a direct hit: the whole building collapsed in on itself and they were buried, alive and of course I think over eighty people died in that alone. So you can understand that some of the other situations were [sniff] not very nice. So aft, at the end of that day I think we’d had enough and glad to, well right get on with your training now and that’s what we did.
DH: Yeah.
JT: So, that had certainly instilled in me [emphasis] the effects of an air raid at first hand and I thought, like everybody else, we’ve got to give it to them back, they’ve got to know what happens under these circumstances you just can’t do this willy nilly. Obviously they were after targets in Coventry because there was a high concentration of companies: tool makers, aircraft part makers, I think there were six main manufacturers virtually in the centre of Coventry because that’s the way the city became built. And that’s why the centre really, the centre of Coventry got such a battering.
DH: Yeah. I can, I can understand why that would make you think, yeah, I’ve got to do that back, yeah. So from, so that’s your initial training so how did you come to start then, next? You went to Cranwell, didn’t you.
JT: Yes, basic training just outside Coventry then went on to advanced training on twin engined Oxfords at South Cerny in Gloucestershire, at the end of that course they then decided, which way, you qualified for your wings, so you were a qualified pilot at that stage. They then decided your future. Most other people were sent to either to a squadron at that time of the war, or for operational training unit where, for heavier aircraft, at that time Stirling. But for some reason I was sent instead, again I was above average on the course, and I was sent to Cranwell to train as a flying instructor, which surprised me no end. And that meant three weeks on, learning to instruct on the bi-plane and another three weeks learning to instruct on twin engined Oxfords, and it was hard work because there was so much to do. You had to go through twenty eight subjects on each aeroplane, and you had to not only learn that but you also had to espouse this, that as an instructor and I didn’t know how to do that, so it was really hard work for six weeks. While we were there incidentally we suddenly heard a funny noise, rushed to the windows to look outside, and saw an aeroplane take off and it’s got no propeller, this was absolutely amazing! How actually does an aeroplane fly without a propeller? This was of course the basic first jet, so quite amazing sight to see, but, er filled us with wonder and tremendous encouragement I think we’d got the thing that might end the war, for flying anyway, did help, but not till much later, had to be developed. Anyway after that I went back to Shawbury as a flying instructor.
DH: So you were on Oxford Airspeeds there?
JT: Yes.
DH: So, so at this point you’re, you’d done training, you’re an instructor, but you hadn’t seen active service.
JT: Oh no. I stayed in Shawbury for nine months and quite frankly I got to the point where enough was enough, I felt. You trained a few people to fly the plane and then subsequently supervised later in lessons as you went through it. Then the next course came in and you started all over again, and then the next course came in and you went through it all again, very repetitive. And it tested your flying skill at times, because for example the undercarriage and flap levers on the early Airspeed Oxfords were side by side, and if in fact you wanted to, took off an aeroplane for example, you wanted to lift the undercarriage, and you or, you lifted the flaps instead, it can be a hell of a job to get off the ground at all, or alternatively, if you do what we call an overshoot in other words you come in to make an, you do an approach to land and then you command the pupil to open the throttles and go round without landing, and at that stage your flaps are fully down to retard the speed of the aircraft, so in this case if the chap pulled up the wrong lever, the flaps would come up and the plane just sank like that, hit the runway and where it would explode virtually, so you had to be very [emphasis] sure that he pulled up the right lever, [chuckle] and you watched like a hawk to see which one he was going to pull up, and one chap did pull up the wrong lever, I was there, and without any hesitation I whacked my fist down on the back of his hand and knocked the lever back into position! He was protesting strongly that I’d bruised his hand! I said well that’ll remind you which lever you’re pull up in the future. [Laugh] Anyway, life goes on. But at then at the end of nine months I’d had enough, decided to leave. The circumstances of my leaving were unique perhaps in a sense that I took a pupil down to, just north of the A5, towards the midlands and there was a low flying area specifically where we trained people to fly low. The purpose of this to evade enemy fighters because no enemy aircraft can get under you if you are low flying of course, and that’s your vulnerable part. So I took this pupil down there and he wouldn’t fly below two hundred feet so I said, ‘look this is nonsense, you really must get down, now let me show you.’ and I took him down, right down, so low we that were actually hedge hopping over hedges and flying between trees, and he looked with horror at the moment, for a moment or two and then suddenly he began to get the excitement of it all and we came out across an airfield that was under construction. All the work was lots of sea of mud and two runways and right at the intersection of the runways was a big caravan on wheels. And two chaps on the veranda of this were looking out over the scene. Obviously discussing things, the engineer or the architect. It just so happens that this caravan was in my line of flight, and I was only about ten feet off the ground. I flew towards this thing, hopped the plane over the top and these fellows jumped for their lives, unfortunately down into the mud, which was a very naughty thing to do really. But in fact it was, had results because one of the gentlemen was the officer commanding Shawbury, a group captain, and his gold, hat with gold braid fell into the mud which had to be sent away for specialist cleaning and his wonderful uniform got into a mess. I was posted forthwith.
DH: Oh wow!
JT: And frankly it suited me down to the ground actually and I think I got a detrimental report on my, on my record. Still.
DH: So you got moved for doing what you were supposed to be doing!
JT: Yeah, well.
DH: It’s just he got in the way.
JT: He got in the way.
DH: Yeah. Oh wow!
JT: I was very sorry for him afterwards, really.
DH: Yeah. I’m sure you were! [laugh] Not. So when you were posted then, where did you to go then?
JT: I then went to an Operational Training Unit which was at Pershore, in Worcestershire. There, as the Operational Training Unit you had to fly Wellington bombers and to do that you had to have a crew. You got a navigator, wireless operator, front gunner and rear gunner; the front gunner also being a bomb aimer. So you collected your crew, and you met people, you formed a crew, which we did. And then we went through the appropriate training period for that, for that aircraft. Towards the end of the training period, lots of night flying, cross countries where you would fly from that place up to, virtually up to Scotland, down the Irish Sea, to, down to sort of bottom end of Wales, and then fly back into this, that would be a normal night cross country exercise to get the idea of long distance flying at night, and so, you know, we were just, getting towards the end of that training, and suddenly Bomber Harris - chap in charge of Bomber Command of course - decided that he would like to wanted to bomb, do the first thousand bomber raid. Now, Bomber Harris had not got a thousand aircraft in Bomber Command. So he had to take some from the Training Command, some - one or two from Coastal and various other sections - to make up his thousand, which he did. So despite the fact we hadn’t finished our training, six aircraft were designated from our training unit to join this thousand bomber raid, though we hadn’t completed our training at that stage. Fortunately the other five people had a qualified pilot sitting alongside them, so they were all right, but since I was also, got lots of flying hours in, been an instructor, I was told I was going on my own. And so we flew to Cologne which was the first of the thousand bomber raids. Which was quite, that was the first time we did, and quite spectacular it was. The defences were completely overwhelmed with one thousand aircraft did the whole job in about ninety minutes, and that’s really [emphasis] intense bombing, and it virtually destroyed Cologne, most of it in the centre and the outlying areas: devastating. And of course two nights later we all went to Essen to do the same job there, but since, at Cologne we could see everything, visibility was perfect; at Essen there was cloud and we actually had to bomb through the clouds, because we hadn’t developed the Pathfinder thing to the right extent at that stage. And then they said right well you’re operational we’ll post you to a squadron and that was it. So I was posted to, eventually to an Australian squadron just north of the Humber. And when I arrived there the commanding officer was on leave, so we went down to the flight and got us out an aeroplane, one of their aeroplanes and flew it around on navigational exercises we decided on our own, to get used to the area. The engines were not the beautiful engines on the, ones we were used to, these were American Pratt and Whitney engines and if you, they had notorious, they were absolutely notorious because when they took off the noise was out, absolutely outstanding, very noisy aeroplane due to the design of the engine, well, anyway we got used to this, and at the end of the week we were told the CO was back and he wanted to see us. So we marched in, lined up in front of his desk, he points to me, ‘Right, what’s your name and where you from?’ [Australian accent] So I told him, he said, ‘You’re a bloody pom! I don’t want any bloody poms on my squadron, you’re posted!’ - that was it. And so same with my rear gunner who was also English, ‘cause the other three guys were Australian, in my crew, and so they remained, formed another crew, and unfortunately they didn’t survive the war. But the other gunner and I survived the war, that’s, the way things went. We were posted another British squadron this time and to carry on to do the other twenty eight trips necessary to make up the total thirty. So, our crew, Aussie crew, were hell of a nice guys, one from Sydney, one from Melbourne, I forget where the other one was from, and when we first met, when we’re crewing up in the first place, in training, they took one look, said to me ‘Christ we’ve got bloody poms running our, bloody, on us’, I said, ‘Christ we’ve got bloody colonials working for us!’ [Laugh] So all together [cough] we got on like a house on fire, great guys, thoroughly enjoyed it.
DH: Good.
JT: That part.
DH: At what point did you go to RAF Binbrook on the Wellingtons? Is that the period of time you’ve just been talking about?
JT: Yes, that was the time when I was posted just for a brief time to Binbrook.
DH: Yes.
JT: And this turns out to be a mistaken posting for some reason, so we weren’t unhappy about that one. From Binbrook we went to the Aussie squadron and from there we went on to the English squadron.
DH: Right. So. You did some raids, or a raid on, at St. Nazaire. Can you tell me about that?
JT: St. Nazaire, yes. Well, St, Nazaire, like Lorient on the west coast of France of course, were submarine bases, with huge concrete submarine pens there, they were bombed incessantly and so they built these huge concrete pens, so that submarines would come from the sea up, a narrow channel and then dive under the concrete shelters so that they could then load, refuel and ready to come out again. The trick was, while the bomber command had tried all sorts of bombs to penetrate this concrete, waste of time because they were just bouncing off concrete: they could be six nine feet thick, reinforced. So the trick then was to try and catch them either coming in or going out. The most effective way to do that was to drop mines, sea mines, in the, in the channels leading into the bunker, you know. And that we had to do. So to do that you had to fly an aeroplane one hundred feet above the water, at a set speed, because of the, it has to be about, only about a hundred knots, that’s about a hundred and fifteen miles an hour, and then you open your bomb doors and absolutely accurately from one hundred feet above the water, in pitch dark, [emphasis] you had to drop your bombs up the line of the channel. And these bombs, the mines in effect, would sink into the water and they would lay there, and just any metal boat that went across the top of them, the bomb would explode; just lay there all the time. So about six or eight aircraft sowing a whole host of these things on the water, would stop submarines coming back for refuelling and that all sort of out in the Atlantic and they certainly stopped the loaded boats from coming out, ‘cause they couldn’t get out that was the principle of it. It was effective in a sense, but the Germans of course decided that all these mines had got to be set off, and the easiest way to do that was to get a French trawlerman with a metal boat to travel and explode the bombs, and killed the Frenchmen on the way: didn’t matter. That’s effectively what they did.
DH: So they were magnetic I presume.
JT: Hmm.
DH: So they’d come up and hit whatever was metal.
JT: Aye. Well they’d trip, trip a magnetic mechanism within the bomb and [explode sound] go up yes, and sink any French, metal boat that was going over it or submarine for that matter, German submarine. It would sink them The idea was that if we could get a few submarines sunk in the channel that they would stop using the top, have to use the, the two depots.
DH: How long did that, did you do that for? You know, did they make a decision right to stop them?
JT: Yes, virtually, almost continual basis over a period of time, perhaps once a week, once every two weeks you’d go back and have another go and because of this the banks on either side on the approach to this, these were lined up with anti aircraft so when you went there with your hundred feet steadily at that speed with anti-aircraft fire coming in from both sides and you just crossed your fingers you would get through safely and of course you couldn’t take evasive action a hundred feet above the water, the slightest movement you’d be in the water yourself. So it was a, rather a dice with death situation. Not as simple as it sounds.
DH: And can I ask were, did many crews get killed, doing that?
JT: Sorry?
DH: Did many, were many aircraft killed, shot down?
JT: Yes, a few, I don’t know the total frankly, but certainly a few. Well, you were a sitting target so just the way but once the mines were in the water, it was quite effective in inhibiting where the submarines could get, go in and out.
DH: Reading your book, you talked about Lorient, the Bay of Biscay. What happened there? Was that, is that around the St, Nazaire?
JT: That is, yeah, one is up the coast, one is further down the coast, exactly [emphasis] the same sort of situation. Again, the thing was, again there was a channel which the u-boats went in and out and again we were throwing these mines into that channel, to stop, stop their progress.
DH: Yes.
JT: This was particularly important as we, as we got to D-Day of course, we had to stop them dead.
DH: Okay. You mentioned in your book about, is it Mainz, to do with a gentleman called Viv Parry.
JT: Yes.
DH: Can you talk about that please?
JT: We did bombing raid in Hamburg and we had a hard time with that one, and coming back we realised that we were losing fuel, one of the petrol tanks had been holed and we were, not losing fuel from it, and so we got to the point where almost half the way back across the north sea and I had to stop, the engine just stopped for lack of fuel and I feathered the propellers and we were now flying on the one engine, bit tricky because we hadn’t got very much fuel left, so in the remain, tanking on the other side, so by cutting its power back, on the engine, so it consumed less fuel, we also were losing height until eventually we crossed the Yorkshire coast very low indeed and we were desperate to look for somewhere to land and I was really dicing because it was a question as to how long we would stay in the air, give us time to find an airfield to land on. In fact we ran out of fuel. And so from about a thousand feet I had to suddenly look round in the early dawn, to find somewhere to land the plane. I suddenly spotted one just about the last hop would do the trick, dead engines, the plane just wasn’t exactly a good glider, it came down fairly rapidly, I managed to screw it round get into the airfield and do a perfect belly landing which I thought this is absolutely superb, marvellous. I even thought, you know how good it was, until eventually, we approached a copse where were quite, fairly slow down, then suddenly the wing tip on the right hand side collided with a young tree, just projecting out, and this had the effect of swinging the plane round, rapidly, it came to a stop. Now part of the procedure in all this crash landing is that the crew goes into what we call crash position and brace themselves. I stayed in the cockpit doing the flying and they all brace themselves. The rear gunner turned his turret to one, to right angles like that to the, to the line of flight, and he opened his little back doors and he unstrapped himself so as he could get out quickly, and the unfortunate effect of this, this catching the wing, swinging the aircraft like that it ejected him from the rear turret, he must have flown through the air about twenty, thirty feet, landed, unfortunately broke his neck and it was me was, to discover this. A complete shock, you know one of your own crew, one of your best and close friends; suddenly there he is lying dead. You can’t stand there, do nothing.
DH: No.
JT: So, was a question of having him covered up, one chap stayed with the plane and the body, and the other guys were sent in different directions, and I went off to look, we all went to look for help get to a telephone and get to the air force and that’s where I sort of waded into a, through a canal, put my boots back, on knocked on a farm door, the farmer eventually answers the door, looked at me, I was bloodied, because I’d cut my head badly, blood all over my face, I was wet, I looked a wreck, and, he didn’t know what I was, in fact he thought probably I was a German, he didn’t, my speech was a bit slurred. Anyway I managed to convince him who I was and he invited me in and put through a phone call, called his missus down from upstairs and she came down in her nightie, a little dressing gown over the top, being a practical woman of course, she immediately got a bowl of hot water and started cleaning up the wound and making me reasonably respectable and for good measure stuffed a big double whisky down me, [laugh] in to me which made me feel just a little bit better at that time. So we got recovered, plane and everything else. And we set off on leave of course. Viv Parry was buried in a graveyard in Anglesey, where he lies to this day.
DH: Was the plane re-usable after that?
JT: No, only in parts. The strain put on the crash landing and the effect of hitting the tree couldn’t support some of the metal parts, so they weren’t prepared to risk taking off the wings and trying to get it to fly again, when they reassembled it, so I think they used it for spares, so we never saw it again.
DH: At some point after that I understand you went to Tilstock, as an instructor. Was that after, that was after that was it?
JT: Yes, after the tour of operations I was posted to Tilstock in Whitchurch. I was there for quite a time. Flying Whitleys, Whitley, old fashioned Whitley bombers. You took pilots up and you trained them to fly the plane and when they were qualified as you felt fit and you, you put the crews in and then they went off on to practice, cross country work round the country, all round the country, the bombing range at er, just across, not far from here, they used that as a bombing range, of course other bombing ranges were in different parts of the country. So they had to navigate their way to this particular bombing area, do the bombs and then carry on a circuit, prescribed circuit and then come back. In other words it’s a virtual imitation of what they’d be doing when they qualified. And it was from there, they went on, at that stage of the war most of them would go to what we call a conversion units to convert from two engines to four engines, and then from the conversion unit, with a crew they would go on to operations, operational trips. Tilstock was a nice post. It was a relief to survive to become an instructor on that, one or two adventures of course, there always is. Which isn’t always totally reliable.
DH: So you completed, was it thirty ops, you completed thirty ops before you went there.
JT: Yes, at that stage.
DH: So that’s where you got the DFC.
JT: Er, I didn’t get the DFC till much later in the war, I realise is utterly wrong, when I joined the Pathfinders.
DH: So after Tilstock what happened then?
JT: Well, they decided at Tilstock should, was approaching the end of 1943, and they decided they wanted to train people to gliders, towed gliders to go in into the invasion, and so the whole airfield was converted to a different type of aircraft and towing gliders and mixed in with the Army. And so I was moved on to a place called Peplow, not far from Wellington, and there I became an instructor on another different type of aircraft altogether, Wellington. Which I gave up after a while became test, briefly a test pilot for every one that, every aeroplane that came out of over, being overhauled I would fly it to make sure everything was in order. I decided early on, that to avoid any errors, I’d, the chaps who worked on the aeroplane, the fitters and riggers, had to fly with me when I did the test flight. They quickly cottoned on, they made sure that if they flew with me on the test flight it had to be right, and so apparently the quality of the servicing shot up! [laugh, cough] Just a little trick you learn.
DH: That’s a very good trick!
JT: From there on, after D-Day I decided I had to get back into the war, that’s you know, going on to Mosquitos.
DH: Can you tell me about Mosquitos then?
JT: Sorry?
DH: Can you tell me about your time on Mosquitos then please?
JT: Yes, the Mosquito was a beautiful aircraft, it was never given an awful lot of publicity, but was a workhourse and did a lot of good work. So we had two weeks on a training course, joined up with a navigator, chap, navi, Tubby, Bernard Tubbs his name was, my navigator, thin as a rake, but because of his name he was called Tubby, and we got on like a house on fire. He already done a tour of operations himself on Lancasters, so he was a good navigator and an experienced one and I’d done a tour and been an instructor. So we went in to Pathfinders and in two weeks, we’d not, I think only a short four hours, flying the Mosquito. Lovely aeroplane to fly, really was, we were very pleased with that. In fact one stage I think I flew over the centre of England and I could see Ireland on that side, and half way across the north sea on the other side, in those days yo,u flying at thirty five thousand feet, was something so rare, you know, didn’t happen. Today it’s commonplace of course, had to, had to have oxygen, and it was a nice scene rarely, rarely you get weather that good in Britain. Anyway, from there we went, posted to Gravely, in er, not far from Cambridge, and we did our second tour of operations, another forty operations over Germany with the Mosquito. The Mosquito was used in various ways Pathfinder squadron. So either you would join in an air raid on a particular German city. The principle was that the main force, of Lancasters and so on, would go to the target. We would take, they were, we would take off after them because we were a lot faster, we then flew over the top of the bombing raid, got in to the target ahead of them and then dropped right the way down and spread markers on the ground so that they knew what to bomb. So by the time they came in, we’d put all the markers there and so they could come in and bomb the markers and know that they’d done an accurate bombing job. So as we were Pathfinders we were prime targets for the Germans of course, but that was the way it was. But apart from that, we did not many of those strangely enough. We were sent off, because at this time of the war, the idea was to be bombing as many Germans cities every [emphasis] night as possible. That meant the workers were down in the cellars and if they’re down in the cellars they couldn’t be making guns and ammunition and aeroplanes. And it was quite effective in that sense. So a lot of the trips we did, fifteen, twenty, twenty five thousand feet, over various, while the heavies were doing all their damage over one part of Germany and we were scouting out and dropping bombs on other parts of Germany. That was the general idea of it all. So flying at twenty thousand, twenty five thousand feet, today’s jets, was quite common. We were very fortunate, because they developed one type of Mosquito that could specially fly that high, the engines were slightly more, got more beef in them, they provided heat, and they provided some pressurisation which was virtually unknown in those days. So in fact we were flying in a pressurised, heated aeroplane, rather like today [laugh,] really deluxe stuff. In fact we were the only squadron who had this type of aeroplane. Quite remarkable, but it was a nice way to go! Until you had trouble of course, and then, then it wasn’t. Because if you suddenly lose the heat, and the oxygen, at about twenty five thousand feet, you got difficulties.
DH: Yes, I can imagine.
JT: Because above fifteen thousand feet, no oxygen, you’re [pooft sound], you then become unconscious quite quickly, apart from the fact that you’re flying at temperatures of, at that height, could be minus thirty, minus forty degrees.
DH: Did you ever have any close shaves like that?
JT: The only time I’ve ever had was, was, having flown down to, started off and flew to the target in south Germany and, in the normal way you climb up to, in that case I think it was twenty five thousand feet, and then head off for the target. But the plane I was in, I’d got up to about five thousand feet and suddenly I looked the temperatures and the pressures on the engines and the temperatures were up and the pressures were down, which meant the engine was over, both engines were overheating; that wasn’t good news, particularly when you’ve got a bomb, big bomb on underneath you. So I levelled out and flew the plane a short while, level, throttled back the engines and they seemed cool down, to almost normal. So again I opened and climbed another three or four thousand feet, again they overheated and I levelled out, they cooled down, then I went up in steps to about seventeen, eighteen thousand feet I think, and I thought this is silly, so I flew along for a while at, about that height, eighteen thousand I think it was, and the engines came down, to, temperatures were up, slightly up, pressures slightly down, not enough to worry about anyway, so I thought right we’ll go, but of course this was all time consuming. Whereas we should have been first on the target to mark it, the other guys were way ahead, including the main bomber force. So we plodded our way down towards the target, and we got within sight of the target which we, thirty, forty miles ahead, I suddenly looked at the port engine temperatures were up, way up [emphasis] pressures right the way down, if I left it running it would just stop, catch fire, and in a wooden aeroplane that it not good news, so immediately cut the engine, switched everything off, cut the fuel and everything else, carry on with one engine but I daren’t open the other engine because we got ourself in trouble with that one, so I had to leave that one as it was, which was in a cruising position because one engine, two engines support the plane, one engine doesn’t, so the plane progressively started to lose height. So instead of bombing the target at twenty five thousand feet that night or whatever, we were down to five thousand feet by the time we got to the target which was thoroughly well alight, but fortunately the bombing raid was over and the Germans were all rushing around putting out the fires and dealing with everything. So we flew in straight over the target at five thousand feet, which is very low, let our bomb go right bang into the centre of the target we were aiming to do. And of course, as soon as the Germans spotted that, they’d heard a, an aeroplane with one engine, not two, so they thought it was one of their own that far down in Germany.
DH: Wow.
JT: So they assumed it had to be one of their own with those engines, so that’s why we got in dropped the bomb and it was only then that they realised who we were and then suddenly there was a whole barrage of stuff, heading out at us, we just did a quick turn, that way rather, and vanished into the darkness, and worked our way back up, in fact because we hadn’t got a bomb, we’d used half our fuel, so made the plane was much lighter of course. So with the one engine left in that cruise position it actually climbed and back up at eighteen thousand feet. So we kept a sharp eye out to be sure we weren’t going to be followed or attacked and crossed over the border into Belgium, and suddenly I looked at this engine, the temperature had crept up, the pressure was down, and I thought that’s it, you know, just the way these things were going, we had no hope of getting it back to the UK. So that’s when we called it, started calling up ‘Mayday, Mayday’. Got no response. So I thought there’s only one thing to do, let’s try, may, I think I sent out nine maydays altogether, in groups, nothing and er, so I said right, we’ll go. So Tubby went down and tried to release the bottom hatch which is the normal way to go out, but of course we were pressurised. So the only other was out was through the top, you pull emergency lever and the hatch flies away, top hatch, flies away. The whole plane was depressurised, that meant that anything lightweight [swooshing sound] was sucked out of the plane: chocolate bars, baps everything went out the top, [laugh] which didn’t matter at that stage anyway. And so he clambered up, and went out through, I brought the plane back to as low a speed as I dare, which was only about ninety miles an hour, and he went out through the top, and parachuted. I thought well, that’s me, I’m next. So the idea is, you switch off the engines, chop the fuel, put the plane into a glide and you go out through the top as well. By that time I could have got out through the bottom with the pressure’d been released, either way I was just about close the engines down I thought I’ll give one [emphasis] more try and I went, ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,’ and immediately a voice came back, in English, and said, you know, ‘what’s your problem?’, so I told him, and in no time at all they’d put up a cone of searchlights and the engine by this time was on its last legs, I really pushed it [cough] I landed the plane with almost, one, just, barely an engine working at all, managed to get the undercarriage and flaps down and landed and it was, it was a forward English fighter aircraft base, fortunately was also a maintenance unit, so I thought well that’s good. So I checked in with the people there, and they said we well can’t do anything tonight, but we’ll send a wire to er, I said why don’t you just send a wire back to the squadron to tell them where I am? ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘well, I’ll send a signal’ but he said, ‘no chance,’ he said, ‘there’s so much going on in Europe at the present time, the chance of your getting a signal back are fifty-fifty.’ So I said ‘well how do the squadron know that we’re missing?’ I said. ‘Well the only way they know you are missing is ‘cause you don’t come back, from their point of view.’ So just had to hope that somehow a signal could find its way through in the end. So I, they found me a bed to sleep on that night, and we looked around the aeroplane the next day they said well they were too busy today with other fighter aircraft to get them in the air, so we’ll try and look at your plane tomorrow. So that was it. That night we went out to a bar, we got in the car trundled along, and there’s nothing on the road generally at night, except we came across a couple of wagons, French peasants, and there hanging lanterns under the wagon that’s to tell, so you know that if coming up from behind, [laugh] you know there’s something in your way. We went into a bar there and, had a couple of drinks and were drinking away happily, and suddenly there was a click, click, click of heels, sorry, we decided, having had a drink we decided go to the loo. So we were standing there was we gentlemen do, and suddenly a click, click of heels and women walked right past us, so I looked at this gentleman and ‘Oh’ he said, ‘don’t worry chum, you’re in Belgium now, men and women use the same toilets.’ [Laugh] I’d learnt a lesson! Anyway the next day they did look at the mossie, the one engine that had failed they said nothing much we can do with that its either a new engine or we’ve got to strip it right down, and refurbish it which will take time, so I’m sorry you can’t use your aeroplane unless you can take off on one engine and the runway wasn’t very long and in any case each side of the runway was lined with German planes that had been dropped off their, down off all their undercarriages, so you daren’t deviate off the runway. So I said no, I’m not going to take this plane off like that. The plane had a tendency to swing to the left on take off and if you tried it, you came to that, the left hand engine, running ahead of the right hand and that’s how you took off a mossie, the way, as long as you knew the trick, that was the way to do it. So I said if you try to take a mossie off with the starboard engine running full out and nothing on the left hand side, the tendency to swing to the left is going to be accentuated and I have no way of countering it. If I had got a very, very long runway of about three or four miles, I could gradually ease it up and with time, I could work it, get power up and get off the ground, but you haven’t got that long a runway. And if I did take it off on your runway, once I’m airborne, the chances are the plane will just flick over on its back and dive in the ground and I don’t intend to commit suicide at this time. So I said no, you’ll have to repair it. So they said well can you fly a Wellington bomber? I said yes, I can fly a bomber. We’ve got one in the hangar we want to get back to the UK, we can have it ready by tomorrow. So I said all right I’ll fly that back. So we that night, we went to a local, he said come on, we’ll go to a better place than we did last night. So we went to this place, semi-circular building, and virtually in the centre, sort of half a circle, as it were, circle in the centre of that was a woman behind a humendous cash, national cash register, biggest one I’ve ever seen, and stairs going up, and a lot of dance music seemed to be coming down from upstairs, I thought that’s nice for the lot of air force lads, lot of army lads, said it must be nice for these lads, a night out. And so I was chatting, we got beers brought across to us, and sitting there chatting away and suddenly a very beautiful [emphasis] woman, girl must have been in her early twenties I suppose, came across, sat down beside me. I glanced at her, didn’t take any note, carried on talking. She tapped me on the shoulder, says, ‘You no like me?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah, very, very nice,’ and carried on chatting. She tapped me again, I forget her name was, she gave me a French name, ‘oh yes, I recognise that, but I’m talking to this, my friend,’ and suddenly she was stroking me round the, [chuckle] round the unmentionable area. I thought what the hell’s going on here and my colleague was laughing like hell. Of course we’d come to a, an appropriate place for that sort of thing! I said, ‘Look I’ve got a girl, I’m not going to get into this sort of situation.’ ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘you can’t leave now you’ll insult the girl, insult the management and if you get like that they’ll think nothing of cutting your throat when you get outside.’ ‘Oh’ I said, ‘that’s a difficult situation,’ and I thought, I turned to this girl with my friend, so I said to her, ‘I’m sorry, but we are only here for a short time because we have to go flying, so I would like to come back and see you tomorrow, at seven o’clock.’ And she said, ‘oh, oui monsieur’. So I stood up, she stood up, shook hands, kissed on both cheeks, I got this bloke and went out the door and said [mutter] ‘spoilt my whole evening!’ [laugh] So we got out and the next day I flew the Wellington back to the United Kingdom. And then finally got back to the squadron. My navigator landed in a ploughed field and because you got the plough, the way the ploughed field is, you put one foot on, down the trough and one foot on, got himself a black eye so he didn’t feel so good, but anyway managed to bury his parachute in a ditch, kind of off the main road because there’s no hedges or fences, and looked at the stars, decided which was north, south east and west, and decided he’d go west, or north west, which is, the road was generally in that direction. He plodded along for a while and he came to a village. He looked around the village for a plaque, you know doctor, found plaque there, banged on the door, finally chap opens the window upstairs, you know, ‘Qui est la?’, - who is there? - and so he told him who he was, in his fractured French, and ‘Non, non, non. Allez!’ Slammed the window and told him to go away, which he thought well that’s not good for a doctor, so he banged on the window again, door again and the chap opened the door and pointed a double-barrelled shotgun at him. ‘Allez, allez!’, you know, and so there’s no arguing with a shotgun, so he walked away and told the, told the chap he should have married his wife in b, in voluble English language –
DH: Yes.
JT: - hobbled along and down the road for a while and suddenly he heard some vehicles coming towards him from the west and thought well now, are they retreating Germans or are they advancing Allies? So he dropped down the ditch out of sight. All the stuff trundled past: vehicles, tanks, trucks. And eventually one stopped just above him, stayed silent as the grave because if he’d emerged from the ditch and decided he was English, they would just shoot him and leave him in the ditch. So he kept very quiet, till a voice said, [American accent] ‘Hey Mac, will you give me a cigarette?’ He was out of the ditch like a shot! The headlights of the jeep across, identified himself and they said, ‘horrible weather, mac,’ they were pointing at, two cocked pistols pointed at him. Americans, you know, quick on the draw, anyway eventually he identified himself, one American soldier sat at the back of the jeep, he sat in the front by the driver with a pistol in his back and they went back to the local military depot and before long they get into another American airfield, I’m sorry, and given food, medical treatment, sorted out and sent to bed. And they said well, we’ll see if we can get a message back to you, into Britain but you know how it is, we have to report back to brigade headquarters and they have to report to London, and London has to report to the Air Ministry and by the time they get around be an age, he said until you are identified, positively identified back from your Air Ministry you’ve got to stay here! So a couple of days went by so enough’s enough, then eventually a chap flew in, came in to the mess where he was, an American pilot, he got chatting to him, ‘Yeah, I’m on delivery, at present on Dakotas and I’m bringing in supplies sure I can give you a lift back, take you to Southampton, is that all right?’ So he flew back, back in this thing to Southampton, and got some money out of the American adjutant to get him back home, and went home to check with his parent to say, tell them he was all right, and then got to London and then came back to the airfield and I was very pleased to see him. So he had his little adventure in his own way.
DH: He certainly did, didn’t he!
JT: And then we carried on with the war, as you do. [Rustling]
DH: So is, after that had happened [rustling] obviously D-Day had happened by then, and we were with the allies as plans, so what part did you take then, after that, before the end of the war?
JT: Well, we, we continued bombing into Germany because that’s where, you know the stuff was, ammunition, guns, tanks were still being made. and it was important to stop those. But there was a case where, just before Christmas 1944 that we established that there was a tremendous build-up of arms, ammunition, everything else, in West Germany where, at the point where they go through a series of tunnels and they come into France. They quickly picked up that there might be an attack down there, but, so what happened they were a bit slow in getting the, moving troops into the area to contain it, and that was where the Americans did a breakthrough actually about that time, unfortunately the weather was, we couldn’t fly in the weather that was going on at the time, so there was nothing really to stop these guys actually, bursting their way back, Germans bursting their way back into France. So the only way we could tackle this was to close down the tunnels, that’s where the supply route was. So the job was to fly down the banks, where the tunnel was, fly down the banking on either side, down along the tunnel railway tracks about twenty feet up and then drop a bomb, so it was actually, you thew, literally threw your bomb into the tunnel with a delayed action fuse and hoped that it worked, and of course it was unfortunate that all the tunnels had got machine guns rooted round them so you went in, you know under those conditions, it was, just so happened this happened when I was on a day off, or stood down for the day anyway, but I know that our squadron did go in and they did drop some bombs, blew up a lot of the tunnels in that area, so as to stop the trains getting through. And one of my colleagues was last seen going down in flames, was obviously shot into bits. But it was a tough time. Anyway, it all helped to stop the Germans and their supplies getting through, and in the May, stopped because they only got so far, then they ran out of fuel and they had to pick up the fuel locally where they could, there sort of, there was no further supply of ammunition, so they were isolated and the whole thing failed of course.
DH: Was that still flying Mosquitos then?
JT: Sorry?
DH: Was that still flying Mosquitos?
JT: Oh yes, yes. So we were getting towards the end of the war at this stage and just wanted to finish, but still we had targets we had to hit. Hammering Berlin was the usual; we went to Berlin nineteen times. Try and hammer them into submission, you know. I’m not sure the public wanted submission, but they’re not being allowed to submit, under those circumstances, and then Hitler committed suicide, and his lady friend and the war ended quite quickly after that.
DH: So how regular were you going, in that period of time, how regularly were you going? Like, every day? Every two or three days?
JT: Sorry?
DH: To do a bombing run. How often were you going?
JT: I’ll tell you. [Shuffle of paper] Trying to catch up, yeah, so many pages, ah yes, yes, it’s er, ah right, 21st October: Hamburg, 10th of November: Hannover, 11th of November [indistinguishable], 21st of November: Hannover, 24th of November is Berlin, 25th is Nuremburg, so it’s sort of two nights running quite often then a break. 27th of November was Hannover, 29th was Duisburg, 30th was Duisburg. December 1st was Karlsruhe, so you know, it was -
DH: All over the place, and regularly.
JT: December, that’s when I had the trouble, December the 5th, I didn’t get back to flying operationally, until February the 5th after it was, I forget what happened earlier, it was Berlin, Mannheim, Berlin, Berlin, [tuning pages] Erfurt, Berlin, Berlin, Dessau, Berlin, Berlin, Bremen, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Dessau, Berlin, Berlin, Hamburg Munich Berlin, Berlin, Kiel, Munich, airfield and so on.
DH: Yeah.
JT: Some of them little bursts of two or three days and then a break.
DH: Yeah. So in between bombing raids what did you get up to?
JT: Oh well, you went out to a local pub and had a few beers! [Laugh] The main thing was you drank in the mess sometimes but the tendency was to get away from the atmosphere, the flying and everything else, into a local bar and meet with normal people.
DH: Can you think of any capers that people got up to?
JT: Oh, I can’t think of anything particularly but I’m sure they did! [Chuckle] There were sometimes you’d get to the pub and there’d a drinking party going on, not very common the publican in those days had to close at ten o’clock prompt at night. So he’d close the front door at ten o’clock then open the back door, so if you wanted to drink you went to the back door and kept going till two or three in the morning, as long as his beer ration lasts.
DH: I was going to say that, was there much beer?
JT: There seemed to be a reasonable amount of beer going round but you, if one pub ran out of beer then you moved on to the one that had beer - the word quickly got around on these situations.
DH: Very good. So.
JT: In other words get away from the military atmosphere get into a relaxed atmosphere. It was good to do that –
DH: Absolutely
JT: - otherwise the whole thing would bear down on you and you’d be no good to anybody.
DH: So after VJ day how do you think the war affected you, did it affect you in any way?
JT: Well I think a) we were glad the European war was over, but remember the far east war was still on. We were given some opportunities to choose what we wanted to do. I’d always thought the idea, we were still ferrying Canadian built Mosquitos from Canada, and flying via Greenland, Iceland to Europe and then you went back on a commercial transport of some sort and then brought another one in. But then fortunately I investigated it, and I found that in Iceland the weather conditions can be such that suddenly like a cold air meets the warm air and a blanket of fog [noise] just descends on the airfield and you could be flying from [cough] Greenland to Iceland, suddenly arrive at Iceland and they’d be blanked out with fog. there was no way you can land the aeroplane and you certainly wouldn’t have enough fuel to head to England, or Scotland. So they were stuck there bail out waste of aeroplane so on, and if you landed in the sea up there you didn’t last very long anyway.
DH: No. Oh my god!
JT: So I thought this is almost as bad as operational flying, so I thought right I think I’ll give that one a miss! [Laugh] So I went to an Operational Training Unit then, so I could train people to fly, and it was a more relaxed atmosphere, in any case the air force had decided the there’s no point now doing operational flying; the war’s over, so the amount of flying it was doing less and less and less, and so they had to keep us occupied, with either courses or you had to take parades you were in to the old pre-war military situation of parades and officialdom really came into its own. And these characters who had been sitting around, administrators and everything else, been doing as they’re told for all this time emerged from the woodwork and didn’t make life too easy for the people flying. [Clock chimes] In the end I decided anyway the particular airfield I was on, that I wouldn’t, I’d got extended service, that is to say I applied for, and they gave me extended service, that meant I could continue with the service till it, the air force had sorted itself out in which case I could remain in the air force and carry on using it as a career, so I thought I might well do that. Until I got to this station, particular airfield, where I became an instructor there, along with others, but one of the problems with it, in the officers mess at I was at this time there were two squadron leaders, and they were bango whizzo type characters who didn’t think the war was over, so they’d think nothing of walking on the ceiling and drinking themselves silly and making the whole, most in fact people didn’t go into the mess any more, they couldn’t stand these two characters. But unfortunately there was no one in a senior position, the group captain who ran the station was due to leave the air force anyway any minute, so he’d lost interest in the field, the wing commander also in charge, he was in a similar situation so there was no real [emphasis] somebody to do something about it. And one of the, favourite trick of these two drunks, was about two o’clock in the morning they close the bar in the officers mess and they’d go round tossing people out of bed just as a, just for fun, and I remember about half past two in the morning you’d suddenly find yourself on a mattress on the floor being tipped out of bed, and these two characters guffawing like mad and going ahead and trying somebody else. I thought this just isn’t going to happen. So I thought, all right, and three nights later, drunk again, I could hear them coming down the passage, so I got up, stood behind the door, one of them barged in, I closed the door right behind him. I got hold of him, slammed him up against the wall, he was drunk mind you, and I put my fist under his nose and I told him, you ever come in here again, you’ll know what you’ll get. I made sure he understood that, and I opened the door and pushed him out and he fell on the floor, drunk of course, in the passage outside, when he looked at me I knew one thing, right there and then, I was a flight lieutenant, he was a squadron leader. I had insulted and virtually assaulted a superior officer and I could be in real trouble. So I thought that’s it, I thought about it, so I sat down and wrote my resignation from the air force there and then and requested immediate, you know, removal from the air force, and I went first thing in the morning at half past eight I was in the, put the letter in the hands of the adjutant officers. And at ten o’clock, or half past ten I think it was, I was told to report to him, and he was an old timer, a bit of a character, and he threw the, he threw this thing across the desk at me, ‘what’s this nonsense about, why should you leave the air force?’ And that’s when I’m afraid I lost my dignity and a lot of temper, we were all stewed up about the situation, I let him have it, hard, about how the station was not being run properly, about the mess was a mess, mess was a mess, these two squadron leaders acting like overgrown schoolboys and disgrace [emphasis] to the service and gave him a long lecture about this. Me a flight lieutenant, lecturing the commanding officer, and he was going purple in the face, nobody’d ever spoken to him like this. I said that’s my decision to leave, sir, gave him a smart salute, about turn and walked out! And I was out of the air force in a week, that’s in a week, I was gone, civilian life, got rid of me. But [emphasis] I still had contacts back in the, back in the mess, and a chap actually ring me, er two weeks later and said I don’t know what you did but by god things have changed, you rattled the CO something rotten and he went into the mess at about eleven o’clock one night, found these two squadron leaders drunk as, like I have described to you, making a mess of themselves. and he you know, suddenly they spotted him, standing in the background, ‘Hello sir, good evening sir, come and have a drink. sir,’ you know, something stupid like that. He turned round and walked out. So the two squadron leaders were posted forthwith to different areas, left the station, and this chap said suddenly the whole atmosphere of the mess, everybody came back into the mess, the whole atmosphere changed, wonderful, nice to have it back again, nice to have our mess back again. So he said I don’t know what you did, by golly it worked. So I was rather pleased that something had come out of it anyway.
DH: Did you have any regrets about leaving?
JT: Sorry?
DH: Did you have any regrets about leaving?
JT: In a sense no, because the air force was changing, it was no longer, the wartime service was, I know it was death and destruction but you were in, a tight family, you knew everybody, knew what was going on, were up to date, but suddenly there was nobody to fight. And so, as I say they had to keep us occupied, so we were up to, a lot of administrative duties were thrust at us, which, a lot less flying was being done, the whole atmosphere was beginning to change, as I say these people who’d been in the background: administrators and everything else, now came to the fore and weren’t making life too easy for the flying people. It was just one of those situations at that time. So I said enough’s enough, I’m off and that’s really precipitated my leaving.
DH: So what did you do then with your life after you left?
JT: Well, I hadn’t made up my mind really what I wanted to do, except that in my home village for many years, they decided, the local authority decided that the village should be by-passed and the by-pass was rumoured for a long time and then it became something more important after the war, something they could get on with. So I thought well, the situation was that my father ran a garage anyway, and what we would do was open up a petrol station on this by-pass probably with sort of motel type accommodation or accommodation of some sort, and that would be a good idea. So, I knew the, roughly where this thing was planned to go, and so I approached the landowners with a view to possibility of purchasing this land, but the word had obviously got around what was happening, so the idea of a) they refused and b) they raised the price so, it was all, eventually I gave up on this it was a good idea, but not practical for me, a rather penniless man trying to get into the world, it just didn’t happen. So, er, I was escorting my lady friend at that time, she lives up here and obviously offered me a chance of connection up here and the chance of joining Hoover, I thought well, something to do keep me occupied for a while. So I went on a training course, a few training courses, before I knew it I was the manager, regional manager and the whole of Birmingham and the Midlands was all, then moved down, they moved you about every four years, moved over and looked after the western half of London and out in to the counties, east part of London and into the counties, then up to the west country taking over the whole of Devon and Cornwall and all that sort of area like that, and then moved up to the north as you do, every four years until we finally settled there, just up the road in Cheshire. So it was a very nomadic sort of life particularly when you’re bringing up youngsters and various schools they had to attend. No, I enjoyed that, responsibility and everything else, just upsetting moving for the children’s education point of view, but from the housing point of view it was an advantage, because that was the time after the war onwards, house prices were rising. First house I bought was a semi-detached house on the outskirts of Birmingham for £1,975. Then we moved to Harrow where I paid £3,200 for a four bedroomed semi-detached, from there I moved to, er, Chelmsford, about £4,900 for a brand new, four bedroomed detached property with double garage, and from there I moved down to the west country. I paid £7,250 for a four bed detached double garage in a nice area, and from there we moved up to Cheshire where I in fact, I bought a piece of land and had a four bed detached property with double built there. So I took advantage of the rising prices, I don’t know what the last Cheshire one was, about, I don’t know three or four hundred thousand, something like that. Ridiculous when you think about the prices.
DH: I know. It’s daft isn’t it.
JT: Crazy. And as long as the land is restricted to build on, so the prices will maintain their, and that’s the problem Where do you find land to build that doesn’t upset people.
DH: That’s right.
JT: So. But there’s a lot of land available that’s not being utilised. Anyway, that’s another story.
DH: Can I ask, can you think of any occasions when you were absolutely scared to death during the war?
JT: [Breath out]
DH: Did you get scared?
JT: Oh yes, I think you did get scared. You, the thing about being a pilot, you daren’t, particularly when you’ve got a crew, you daren’t show it, you know your heart’s in your mouth and all that sort of thing, I know that dropping these mines in that water at a hundred feet with people springing out everywhere ‘am I going to make it, am I not going to make it,’ and when you go in, you think, well there’s a job to do, I’ll do it, but whether I’ll survive it I don’t know, and I did. But somehow and I think I explained in the book, my mother, grandmother on my mother’s side had this virtue of, or they called it a virtue, had second sight, that is to say she could, tell you things that are going to happen, before they happen. For instance, for example, she was doing some washing in her house, my mother told me this, suddenly she took off her apron, put on her hat and coat, took a tram in those days to the other end of Eastbourne, she knocked on the door of a house she’d never been to before in her life, she told the woman who answered the door she was to go immediately [emphasis] to a hospital in London, her husband was calling for her. She so convinced the woman that she caught the train, went in to London, she arrived at the man’s, her husband’s, bedside half an hour before he died. How did she know that?
DH: Wow.
JT: My mother had it to a lesser extent, I never really thought, well I’d heard these stories but you don’t take, as a kid you don’t, it doesn’t mean much to you. It was strange enough I got to one point on the squadron where I knew instinctively [emphasis] whether a crew would survive or not. At first that was a frightening experience, you get the guys and then a couple of weeks later they’re gone. And you know, when you’re losing crews like that, that’s not, it’s no good, you know, this instinctive feeling I had about it I just had to submerge it, forget about it. But it was there, I could tell if they were going to live or die when they came on the squadron. Never happened before or since. Can you explain it?
DH: No, I can’t.
JT: Probably inherited in the family, something like that.
DH: Probably, yeah.
JT: But, er, something my sons never had, not that I’m aware of.
DH: You said right at the beginning that, when you’d gone to Coventry and when you saw what happened there, you wanted to, you wanted the Germans to understand what we were going through. By the end of the war did still think that, did you have any regrets about what you’d done? Any dilemma in your head or anything?
JT: Not really. The idea was you know, to, really try to bomb them into submission, to agreeing to stop the war was all we wanted, to stop the war, and that was what the bombing was all about, apart from the invasion of course to stop these people fighting, that was all we wanted, and when it was over that was it. I think perhaps we tidied it up a bit better after this war than we did after the first world war, but it was not doing the job properly after the first world war enabled the Nazi party for example, to rise. It hasn’t happened so far in Germany and we hope that, it is obviously a reasonable country.
DH: Is there anything else that I haven’t, or we haven’t covered, while we’ve been talking that you think might be of interest to people?
JT: Not really, I can only express this from a man’s point of view in the situation, from the women’s point of view: wives and sweethearts, and all that sort of thing, it was tough because the men, we go off to war and you’re never going to know if you’re going to see them back ever again, that was a tough situation particularly as the families were concerned that was, was rough because there were many widows as a result of all this, plus the effect of war which was disastrous really, we don’t want wars but if you’re forced: you fight back, and that’s the result of what happens. A modern type of war, the second world war anyway, was a bit disastrous for civilians, no doubt about it. If you have another war it’ll be rather a different kettle of fish, again just whole civilians war, be engulfed. But I don’t know what would happen, have fair idea what will happen, but just hope it never will.
DH: Absolutely. Right. Can I say thank you very much.
JT: Oh you’re most welcome.
DH: It’s been fascinating to listen to, and very informative.
JT: As I say, there are stories in the book you might want to include.
DH: Yes, yeah. Your book’s fascinating.
JT: Hmm. Anyway, it was very nice to see you.
JT: Is it still recording?
DW: I shall turn this off then, okay.
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Interview with Percival Trotman
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Dawn Hughes
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2018-06-04
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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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ATrotmanPJ180604
Format
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01:21:24 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Applying for RAF Bomber Command in May 1940, Percival Trotman was called up in September 1940, training as a pilot at RAF Towyn in Aberystwyth. Being present at Coventry when the town was bombed, he recalls deciding that the Germans deserved to have the same done to them and pushed to do well in his training. Completing his advanced training at RAF South Cerney, Percival was rated above average and was sent to RAF Cranwell to train as a flight instructor, without seeing active service. He gives some examples of training, including low flying over hedges and almost crashing into a caravan, which eventually led to him being moved to an operational training unit where he trained to fly Wellingtons. Whilst completing his training, Percival was drawn into the ‘thousand bomber raid’, without completing his training. Posted to RAF Binbrook by mistake, Percival took part in operations over France and minelaying. Explaining a close call on a return from am operation on Hamburg, Percival gives insight into how he dealt with a crew member's loss during a crash landing. He explains that he felt fear during operations, but kept it hidden so that his crew remained strong. Completing 30 operations in total, he was eventually transferred to the Pathfinders, earning the Distinguished Flying Medal and flying Mosquitoes. Percival recollects his crew members fondly, including his Pathfinders navigator ‘Tubby’. Percival outlines what the aftermath of a crash contained, including making it back to Great Britain, giving insights into another crash he had on the return from an operation.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Cheshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Coventry
England--London
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
France
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Wales--Ceredigion
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-05
1940-09
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sam Harper-Coulson
Anne-Marie Watson
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
150 Squadron
692 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
final resting place
Flying Training School
forced landing
Initial Training Wing
military ethos
mine laying
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Binbrook
RAF Cranwell
RAF Graveley
RAF Peplow
RAF Pershore
RAF Shawbury
RAF South Cerney
RAF Tilstock
RAF Torquay
RAF Towyn
recruitment
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1794/35835/ELangslowMCOBrienJF480506.1.pdf
244c6adde5ce26f3c069e8f0c5b0cd50
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
Wilson, Reginald Charles
R C Wilson
Description
An account of the resource
166 items. The collection concerns Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923, 1389401 Royal Air Force) and contains his wartime log, photographs, documents and correspondence. He few operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron. He was shot down on 20 January 1944 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Janet Hughes 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
2017-01-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wilson, RC
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[crest of the Commonwealth of Australia]
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Casualty Section,
DEPARTMENT OF AIR,
Albert Park Barracks,
MELBOURNE [deleted] C.1 [/deleted] S.C.3
TELEPHONE:
MXY [deleted] 550 [/deleted] 130
TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS:
“AIRFORCE MELBOURNE”
IN REPLY QUOTE RAAF.166/31/143(38A)
70385
MAY 6 1948
Dear Sir,
I refer to previous communications concerning your late son, Pilot Officer Cecil O’Brien, and now advise that a report has been received from the Missing, Research and Enquiry Service operating in Germany.
The report is based on interrogation of local residents, investigations carried out at the scene of the crash and at the Doeberitz and Elsgrund Cemeteries. It states that your son’s aircraft crashed on a house in Wendenschloss Strasse, Kopenick. On impact the aircraft exploded and caught fire. Kopenick is a suburb of Berlin and is situated approximately 8 miles south east of the city.
The report adds that the bodies of two members of the crew were recovered from the wreckage by the Germans, and that of a third member, who had apparently been thrown from the aircraft, was found in a garden nearby. It is thought that the remains of the other four crew members may have been recovered by the Germans later, when they removed the wreckage. An alternative possibility is that the severity of the explosion and ensuing fire was such, as to render impossible, the recovery of their remains.
A large number of Royal Air Force and Dominion airmen, recovered from aircraft which crashed in the Berlin area, were buried in the Doeberitz and Elsgrund Cemeteries, but the Germans neglected to keep a proper record of the majority of such burials. However, following exhumations at the Elsgrund cemetery, it was possible to establish the individual identification of two members of your son’s crew, namely, Flying Officer Sudds and Sergeant Coombe both of the Royal Air Force and their remains have now been interred in the British Military Cemetery, Heerstrasse, Berlin. The Elsgrund Cemetery is adjacent to the Doeberitz Cemetery which is located about 14 miles west of Berlin.
Eventually all graves in both the Doeberitz and Elsgrund Cemeteries, will be exhumed in an endeavour to establish the individual identification of many airmen still buried as unknown in those cemeteries. After these investigations have been completed, the remains of all identified and unidentified airmen will be transferred to the nearest British Military Cemetery, in accordance with the policy of the British and Dominion Governments. The unidentified members will, unfortunately, have to be reinterred as unknown airmen.
[page break]
2.
However, you may be assured that if any advice is received at a later date, to the effect that your son’s remains have been identified you will be informed without delay. If his place of burial cannot be established, he will be commemorated by including his name on a memorial which will be erected at a later date by the Imperial War Graves Commission, to the memory of those deceased members who have no known grave. Details concerning the location and form of this memorial have yet to be decided by the Commission.
Permit me to assure you once again of the sincere sympathy of this Department in your great loss.
Yours faithfully,
[signature]
(M.C. Langslow)
[underlined] SECRETARY. [/underlined]
Mr. J.F. O’Brien,
4 Wills Crescent,
[underlined] DACEYVILLE. N.S.W. [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Cecil O'Brien's Father
Description
An account of the resource
The letter advises that his son died in a crash near Berlin although his body has not been identified.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Department of Air, Australia
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1948-05-06
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ELangslowMCOBrienJF480506
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-28
aircrew
final resting place
killed in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1543/28342/MTansleyEH149542-181113-010001.2.jpg
684190de78a1413c4a07fc03f67b6ac8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1543/28342/MTansleyEH149542-181113-010002.2.jpg
45e0abc726859a5a6e5385bda15c5c0f
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
Tansley, Ernest Henry
E H Tansley
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
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
Tansley, EH
Description
An account of the resource
98 items. <br />The collection concerns Pilot Officer Ernest Henry Tansley (1914 - 1943, 149542 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 57 Squadron and was killed 2 December 1943. Collection consists of photographs, letters, memoires, biographies, accounts of operations, logbook extracts and official/personal documents.<br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Anne Doward and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br />Additional information on Ernest Tansley is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/122894/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Grave concentration report form
Description
An account of the resource
Lists eight crew including Pilot Officer E H Tansley. Date of reburial 1947-05-16. Collective grave one cross.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Deputy Assistant Director of Graves Registration and Enquires
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page form document typewritten filled in
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MTansleyEH149542-181113-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Trebbin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1947-05-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
final resting place
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22409/MCurnockRM1815605-171114-093.1.pdf
eefebf0061109ce009f489c044488d92
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
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
A WARTIME LOG
[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]
[hand drawn R.A.F. crest]
[hand drawn sketch of a Halifax aircraft]
[page break]
THIS BOOK BELONGS TO
R M CURNOCK. 2108
SUNNYCROFT.
59. MINEHEAD STREET.
LEICESTER
[Y.M.C.A. crest]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
CONTENTS
Addresses of the Crew Page 122
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
1
[private addresses - aircrew]
S. J. Wheadon — G I. Dunsmore — Wesley Skink
[page break]
2
More of The Crew
C. A. Stowell — R. Friskey
[page break]
3
Pals
Gord. McGillway — Robert J H. Prince — A. Laing. — George. F. Cole.
[page break]
4
Basil Cotton — Eric G. Standen. — A. G. Hunter
[page break]
5
Jack French — A. G. Fripp. — W. N. Wiffen — Jim Toole.
[page break]
6
C. A. MELLING. — J. M. Hudson — ALFRED HUNT
[page break]
7
A. J. Gulucke — W Marshall Featherstone — F. A. Bartlett — George. A. Kirk.
[page break]
8
David Y. Young, — D, Stubbs, — W R Forbes,
[page break]
9
John. Waldron.
[page break]
20
[blank page]
[page break]
21
APRIL 20th 1945 To our Engineer “Ginger” Wheadon
Ginge was killed by a bullet from a Typhoon whilst we were resting during a march on April 19th 1945, he was killed instantly. We are trying to get some of his personal kit to bring home for his Mother and Mary his girl. He was buried at a village of Heydekrug, 4 KM. from Gresse where we had just drawn food parcels. He was buried by our Padre and a parson. The time of his death was approximately 12 noon.
Harry looked after one or two of the badly wounded lads, I went back to Ginger only to find that all his kit had been taken and his pockets empty. Some thieving B — had pinched everything he had on him.
I only hope the food
[page break]
22
choked them and all the other things brought them the worst luck possible.
[page break]
23
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of a scantily dressed female firing a bow and arrow]
MAMA MIA
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of a person holding a tray of steaming tea, the steam is obscuring their face. From out of the steam is another face saying “WHERE”]
[underlined] BREW UP DICK [/underlined]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of an air gunner in the rear turret of an aeroplane. The fuselage of the aeroplane is twisted like a corkscrew.]
NOT SO VIOLENT NEXT TIME CHUCK!
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
1st
[underlined] D. H. TIGER MOTH [/underlined]
[hand drawn sketch of a Tiger Moth aeroplane]
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of a Lysander aeroplane]
[page break]
3rd
[underlined] BOULTON PAUL DEFIANT [/underlined]
[hand drawn sketch of a Defiant aeroplane]
[page break]
[underlined] AVRO ANSON [/underlined]
[hand drawn sketch of an Anson aeroplane]
[page break]
5th
[underlined] AIRSPEED OXFORD [/underlined]
[hand drawn sketch of an Oxford aeroplane]
AIRSPEED OXFORD
[page break]
6th
[underlined] WELLINGTON] [/underlined]
[hand drawn sketch of an Wellington aeroplane]
WELLINGTON
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of a Halifax aeroplane]
HALIFAX III
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of a Dakota/DC3/C47 aeroplane]
DAKOTA
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of a line of washing hanging above 4 cupboards]
[page break]
[hand drawn sketch of a drunken man leaning against a crooked lampost]
OPERATIONS CONTINUING ACCORDING TO [underlined] PLAN [/underlined]
[page break]
55
[blank page]
[page break]
56
[blank page]
[page break]
57
[underlined] A KRIEGIES X COMMANDMENTS [/underlined]
I THOU SHALT NOT REFUSE ANYTHING.
II THOU SHALT DO NO ARBIET. NIETHER [sic] SHALT THOU DO DHOBI. NIETHER [sic] SHALT THOU LABOUR WHEN ON STOOGE NOR DO ANYTHING IN HASTE. THOU SHALT ALWAYS ENDEAVOUR TO BLUDGE.
III REMEMBER THAT THOU KEEP HOLY PARCEL ISSUE DAY.
IV HONOUR THE RED CROSS. Y.M.C.A. AND GENEVA CONVENTION LEST IN THE DAY OF NEED YOUR CRIES GO UNHEEDED.
V THOU SHALT NOT WALK OVER THE WARNING WIRE.
VI THOU SHALT NOT BE FOUND OUT.
VII THOU SHALT GET INTO AS MANY RACKETS AS POSSIBLE.
VIII THOU SHALT EXPOSE THE REST
IX THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOURS SPACE
X THOU SHALT NOT COVERT THY NEIGHBOURS BEDBOARDS, NOR HIS PALLIASE, [sic] NOR HIS DIXIE NOR ANYTHING THAT IS HIS.
[underlined] AMEN [/underlined]
[page break]
62
11
12 didn’t sleep very well about 4 1/2 hrs up 6.30 picked up a 7.10 went to Bristol thru evesham stratford still [one indecipherable word] about breakfast, transport cafe dripping toast into depot [inserted] lunch on way back [/inserted] back to Shawbury for delivery into work at 3.45 did some jobs home about 5.20 went to badminton home just after 10-00 bed at 12 and slept quite well up once only.
13 up at 11.30 breakfast read paper read a part of book Dutch resistance watched [one indecipherable word] long range desert group. Sea of sand Richard Attenborough, went for walk in garden finished The stand started another about Dutch resistance. very good.
14 didn’t sleep well up 10.30 lovely morning went in garden and did a bit of tidying up same after dinner.
15 very cold and windy had log fire sat by but chilblain on toe playing fine tune had to move to other end.
16 after dinner started jigsaw. B out. phone rang got it too late bed 11.30 raining.
17 up 9.30 walk to Branston. Peter phoned from work wonder what budget surveyor B gone to town made self coffee 11.30 Rich cold no Badminton raining would have walked down B hair then TLG home been on own most of today.
[page break]
18th Rough nite with children snowed today most of morning walk in Garden afternoon cut some plaster off to set at toe.
19th Nice morning B at Drop out then hair do finished nuzzle watched snooker went to badminton read a bit bed at 12.
20th up 10.30 was going for walk but it snowed for a while. Went for walked [sic] when finished 1.30 it is snowing again.
21 Not good night snowed again today watched snooker and filmed T.V read book F Forsyth fourth protocol. J Stewart film to finish up bed 12.05
22 up 10.30 after good night went for walk round new st met a number of folks after dinner Peter came in Sues car then their house to watch Rugby France Ireland. F won Wales v Scotland S won then to B & R for tea then played cards till 11.50 nice meal not too [one indecipherable word] home at 12 now watching final of [one indecipherable word] snooker [two indecipherable words]
23
24 Up 7.30 to LRI FOR 8-50 straight in had plaster of saw doc no more treatment, walk as much as possible no [one indecipherable word] 3 wks leg all scaly and white feels funny not much sleep went to badminton Lynden taking me into work Mon
[page break]
64
25 up by 10 cold day tho sunshine finished book 4th Protocol F Forsyth good Frank came in 3pm went 4pm brought book on RAF, been for walk but not very good, starting work Mon.
26th Went for walk as far as Branston foot rather swollen read watched tele Rick & C came told us they have decided to go back to Aussie later this year [two indecipherable words] winch went badminton watched Bowls
27th Two slates of [sic] roof had to prop up fence mine also blown down by Mrs Austin lots of destruction severn bridge closed also Humber an M2 lots of lorries blown over
[page break]
65
[blank page]
[page break]
104
AUGSBURG — FRANKFURT AM MAIN — DAEMSTADT — FALLINGBOSTEL NR HANOVER — THORNI (POLISH CORRIDOR — HYDECRUG [deleted] NR HANOVER [/deleted] EAST PRUSSIA — MARCH - CELLE CROSSED ELBE HEADING FOR LUBECK — LUNEBURG CAMP FLEW HOME
[page break]
105
COSFORD
[page break]
106
RANKS AND SERVICE Nos OF FRIENDS
[page break]
107
[blank page]
[page break]
108
[list]
Letters received and sent.
[page break]
111
[blank page]
[page break]
112
[blank page]
[page break]
113
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
WAR PRISONERS AID
AIDE AUX PRISONNIERS DE GUERRE
KRIEGSGEFANGENENHILFE
WORLD’S ALLIANCE OF YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
ALLIANCE UNIVERSELLE DES UNIONS CHRÉTIENNES DE JEUNES GENS WELTBUND DER CHRISTLICHEN VEREINE JUNGER MĀNNER
Quai Wilson, 37
GENÈVE (Suisse]
Centre International
Addresse Télégraph, : FLEMGO-GENÈVE
Compte de Chèques postaux : 1. 331
Téléphone 2.70.60
Dear Friend,
After the Canadian and American editions of the War-time Log, here is a special issue for British prisoners of war. Though its format is somewhat different, its purpose is just the same as the others: to bring you greetings from friends and to facilitate your recording some of your experience during these eventful years.
Not everyone will want to use this book as a diary. If you are a writer, here is space for a short story. If you are an artist, you may want to cover these pages with sketches of your camp, caricatures of its important personalities. If you are a poet, major or minor, confide your lyrics to these pages. If you feel that circumstances cramp your style in correspondence, you may write here letters to be carried with you on your return. This book may serve to list the most striking concoctions of the camp kitchen, the records of camp sports or a selection of the best jokes cracked in camp. One man has suggested using the autograph of one of his companions (plus his fingerprints?) to head each page, followed by free and frank remarks about the man himself. You may write a commentary on such photographs as you may have to mount on the special pages for that purpose with the mounting-corners in the pocket of the back cover. This pocket may be used for clippings you want to preserve, or, together with the small envelopes on the last page, for authentic souvenirs of life in camp.
Your own ingenuity may suggest to you many other ways of using this book, which comes to you with our greetings and good wishes.
Yours very sincerely,
WAR PRISONERS’ AID OF THE YMCA.
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
Dick Curnock's Wartime Log
Description
An account of the resource
In the log Dick Curnock recorded crew and friends names and addresses, an obituary of Ginge Wheeldon who was shot by a Typhoon whilst on a march, cartoons, sketches of aircraft, dates of letters received and samples of window.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dick Curnock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
29 page handwritten book
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MCurnockRM1815605-171114-093
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicester
England--Leicestershire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945-04-19
1945-04-20
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Alan Pinchbeck
David Bloomfield
aircrew
Anson
arts and crafts
C-47
Defiant
final resting place
flight engineer
Halifax
Lysander
military living conditions
Oxford
prisoner of war
Red Cross
strafing
Tiger Moth
Typhoon
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22419/BCurnockRMCurnockRMv1.2.pdf
dd6c1f8bb85b78fcd0c5a2ab7464a67a
Dublin Core
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Title
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Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Curnock, RM
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2016-04-18
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[photograph]
Richard Montague Curnock
My War Story
[page break]
[underlined] CONTENTS [/underlined]
Page Number
Foreword 4
World War II begins 5
Samuel William Curnock 7
Dick's War Begins 10
Dalcross 10
Wellesbourne- Warwickshire 11
Heavy Conversion Unit - Dishforth (York's) the crew is completed 13
Tolthorpe - Squadron station 14
Our First Mission 15
The Second and Final Mission 16
Prisoner of War-number 2108 17
Stalag Luft VI - Heydekrug 18
Kriegies 10 commandments 20
Torun Stalag Luft 357 25
Oerbke near Fallingsbostel 27
The Long March 27
19th April 1945 28
The end of the War nears 31
Military Transport Training 33
Horsham 34
Egypt??? 35
To Italy 36
On the Road to Bari 39
Mercy Mission to Egypt 43
Dakota back to Italy - Treviso 46
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[page break]
Reunions 49
Appendix 1- RAF flying log book 52
i) Gunnery course results 52
ii) Gunnery training 53
iii) - vi) 22 O.T.U 54-57
vii) - viii) 1664 Conversion Unit 58 - 59
ix) 425 Squadron 60
x) Flights to visit Bob in Egypt 61
Appendix 2 - Berlin cemetery plan 62
Appendix 3 - The March 63
Appendix 4 Red Cross map of prisoner of war camps
i) Long march route and map correction information 65
ii) Long march route 66
iii) Blue cross in circle marks where Dick was shot down. Red
cross near Frankfurt where he was moved to 67
iv) Red line shows route taken by Dick. Torun (Thorn camp) 68
v) Poznan - Stalag Luft XXI D 69
vi) Stalag Luft VI - Lithuania 70
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[page break]
Foreword
The following writings are a combination of Dick's recollections as he remembers them in 2013/14. Also within are additions (in blue) from earlier recordings by Barbara, and information taken from his Wartime log (given to him by the Red Cross when in his first POW camp). And from his RAF navigator's; air bomber's and air gunner's flying log book.
Richard Montague Curnock (in his own words January 2014)
I was speaking just recently to Shirley and Steph about the anniversary of the shooting of the 50 POW's that attempted the escape from Stalag Luft 3, as I was at that time also a prisoner in another camp and was recounting how we took the news of this wholesale murder of our fellow airmen, also what the Germans retaliated with was an excuse for their prisoners over in North Africa having to sleep in tents (which anybody knows most troops lived that way in the desert) they took all our mattresses off the bunk beds, which left us with about five or six bed boards only and one blanket too sleep on, also we had two tables and a few chairs to each room, these they also removed.
All this happened whilst we were herded out of huts on to the parade ground where we were surrounded by hundreds of the German army in lorries with mounted machine guns, also the troops were on the ground with machine guns also lying on the roofs of the huts were virtually surrounded and all you could see guns pointing your way.
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[underlined] World War II begins [/underlined]
Guess it is time for me to start this saga of my war time story, which started when it was announced that Hitler had not replied to our letter stating of no reply had been heard from them by 11am on 3rd September 1939 then we would be at war with them, no reply so we were at war again.
I was a fifteen year old and had been working for a year and half, the first twelve months in a piano shop on Belgrave Road, was sacked for not dusting the violins and bows that hung on the walls "enough times".
My day started at 8.45 washing the front of the shop which was on a corner, so had two large windows and tiles along under the window, then dust all the pianos and they needed polishing regularly, sweeping regularly, attending to customers who wanted to pay for the their [sic] pianos which they paid for weekly. Pianos were priced at the lower being 12 pounds for an upright and 15 pound for an over strung, we had a special made for a customer a baby grand, the wood used was walnut and cost 35 pounds was on show for a week.
[photograph]
Dick, Sam, Bob and Mary, Minehead Street. 1940-1
Next job was making boot polish and paint that was used in the boot and shoe industry. My job was delivering the product to a lot of factories in Leicester and as far as Wigston and Oadby on a bike with a large basket over the front wheel, which held quite a lot of cans, they weighed nearly as much as I did that's another story.
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[photograph] [photograph]
Dick in ATC uniform 1941 Bob, Dick, Sam and Mary (1941)
6
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[underlined] Samuel William Curnock [/underlined]
[photograph]
Samuel William Curnock RAFVR: newly qualified sergeant pilot 1942
Brother Sam was already in the RAF and over in Canada training to be a pilot and I had then joined the Air Training Corps on third September 1941 as an aircrew cadet, brother Bob I believe was waiting to go into the RAF as a trainee pilot, I believe that during his tour over there Sam was killed in a flying accident at Gibraltar in 1942 (26th September 1942).
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[photograph]
Our flying crews have their recreation room at the United Kingdom landplane base
Sam (second from left) in a recreation room
There was nothing to how the accident happened but that the aircraft crashed into the sea at Gibraltar with no survivors. The pilot was a senior captain, Sam was a second pilot officer and they had an officer wireless operator. We were led to believe it could have been sabotage but no one knew.
It was then I decided I would get in the RAF quicker if I re-mustered as an air gunner instead of waiting for my pilot navigator course to come through.
In 2009 Peter and Jayne received a phone call from Jonathan Falconer who was researching Sam Curnock, the extract below gives more information on the circumstances of Sam's death than the family had ever known before.
Extract from "Names in Stone"-Jonathan Falconer.
Sam had volunteered to join the RAF in October 1940 on his eighteenth birthday, just as the fortunes of the RAF seemed to be swinging in its favour after the desperate air battles of the Battle of Britain in the summer months. He learnt to fly on Tiger Moths at 7 Elementary Flying Training School, Desford; Leicestershire. Before sailing to Canada; for further flying training at 73 Service Flying Training School; north Battleford, Saskatcheqan [sic] .
Sam qualified as a pilot and returned to England. With a shortage of flight crews for civil aircraft he was transferred in May 1942 to fly transport aircraft with Britain's national airline; BOAC.
in September 1942, Sam was Second Officer in the four-man crew of Whitley MK V, G-AGCI, which was operated by BOAC on its route between the UK and Gibraltar. Thirty-three year old Capt Charles Browne was in command of "Charlie-India".
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Charlie-India had flown into Gibraltar from England on 10th September 1942 and the aircraft's Master had stated in his Voyage Report that the aircraft was tail-heavy for the landing. The aircraft left again for England on 13th September, but her Master decided to turn back after only 25 minutes, reporting that Charlie India was now flying nose heavy.
Not long before his death, Sam was second pilot in a BOAC Whitley that crashed in England on take-off due to engine failure. He was uninjured and managed to walk away from the wreckage. In the fortnight that remained before her fatal crash, Charlie-India was the subject of several engineering inspections and three test flights after report by several pilots of nose and tail heaviness during flight. These problems appeared cured, but on 19th September the Master reported that Charlie-India was underpowered during take off and the initial climb, and unstable in flight. A further detailed inspection was carried out and another test flight was arranged.
To add to Charlie-India's woes, on 24th September the twin Bristol Hercules engines of an RAF Beaufighter was run up on Gibraltar's tarmac, tail on to the BOAC Whitley. The powerful propeller wash from the two radial engines caused damage to the trailing edge of the Whitley's elevators and the rudder trim tabs. Engineers made temporary repairs to the elevators, the damaged trim tab mechanisms were replaced, and a test flight was arranged for 3.56pm on 26th September.
With Charles Browne in command and Sam and the rest of the crew, Charlie-India took off normally from Gibraltar's east-west runway at 3.56pm and climbed out over the Bay of Gibraltar to about 300 feet, whereupon Browne eased the Whitley into a left-hand turn. Then something went badly wrong because the aircraft assumed a power glide attitude and continued in a shallow dive until it struck the sea at 3.59pm, sinking almost immediately in more than 900 feet of water.
Naval vessels were on the scene within minutes. Apart from a few small items of wreckage floating on the surface, the aircraft was not recovered. There were no survivors from her crew of four, and no bodies were ever recovered.
BOAC's technical investigators launched an immediate inquiry into the crash and on 29th October 1942 they made their report. Its conclusion was based more on informed speculation than hard fact, but in the absence of any wreckage or survivors this was the best that could be hoped for: "The precise cause of the accident cannot be determined, but a possible cause was an uncontrollable elevator trimmer tab due to a fracture in some part of the actuating mechanism .... There exists a possibility that subsequent to the take off one or both of the elevator trimmer tab mechanisms fractured, with the result that the Master was unable to maintain longitudinal control of the aircraft."
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[underlined] Dick's war begins [/underlined]
22nd March 1943; When l was 18 and 11 months I was called up (RAF (V.R) volunteer Reserve) and was sent a rail warrant for travel to London and Lord's cricket ground which was the Aircrew Receiving Centre (A.C.R.C) for al! aircrew candidates were we were kitted out and billeted in hotels all around the St Johns Wood area, loads of marching around going from one lecture to another with lots of marching exercises around the hotels, and in between times you were taken to a medical centre for inoculation, stand in line both arms bared, left arm two injections one inoculation right arm then out to the street, where there were bodies al! over the place, some bodies flat out other holding their arms and moaning. When they managed to get all of us in some semblance of order, we marched back to our hotels, but swinging of arms was painful and was not done with any energy.
After our initiation into RAF life we were on a train to Bridlington to learn navigation, armaments mathematics- aircraft recognition plus as always plenty of marching from one lecture to another, one other pastime was Morse code and the Aldis lamp, this was done with someone being sent to the end of the breakwater with an instructor with an Aldis lamp and they sent signals to the rest of us on the beach in twos, one reading the signal being sent and your friend writing it down, we used got some very weird messages at end of a session.
My next stage of training after Bridlington was Bridgnorth where unfortunately there was an outbreak of scarlet fever and German measles and unfortunately I happened to catch German measles and was put into an isolation hut, one of many for the recruits who had caught one of the diseases. I was put into a room of my own and had two weeks being looked after very well by a WAAF nurse during the day, and my night nurse who looked after me exceptionally well and was a lovely young lady. And as my condition improved she brought a radio into my room and we managed to have a dance and then she would tuck me up for the night with a cuddle and kiss goodnight.
After two weeks it was back to work where we did have a lot of lectures about armaments - aircraft recognition - Morse code with mathematics also but mainly armaments, how to dismantle a machine gun and also put it back and hope it worked alright.
Aircraft recognition was a priority knowing which the enemy was and which ours. My time spent with aircraft recognition at home kept me getting top marks in every exam we did, we had night vision exams where pictures were shown on a screen as if you were in a turret and had to identify the aircraft shown, my trouble was the fellows around me were always asking me what the aircraft was, the instructor stopped me helping them, he said that they would not be any use unless they got to know themselves. From then on I was removed from my seat and had to sit by the light switches turning them on and off as required. After finishing this course my instructors gave me a very good report and should get on well.
[underlined] Dalcross [/underlined]
Dick RAF flying log book information can be seen in appendix 1
My section was then sent on leave for a week after which we had to board a train to Scotland, destination was a place called Dalcross (near Inverness, Moray Firth) which turned out to be our Initial Flying Training course on Avro Ansons.
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Pilots converting on to twin engine Airspeed Oxford after training in Canada. This was now 17.7.43 and my course here lasted until 28.8.43 (appendix i) and ii)). The training consisted of being taken up in Avro Ansons six training gunners and an instructor we took it in turns to sit in the turret which had one gun in it attached was a camera which we had to train on a fighter aircraft which made a dummy attack on you, all exciting stuff, except when the fighter was late arriving and you had to fly round and round a church steeple, that was when my last coffee and biscuit decided to reappear, this happened three times, each time I was sent to the sick bay and gave an explanation of what was happening, I was given a glass of horrible liquid and told to report back for more flying. This occurred twice more by that time my stomach stopped playing around and settled down to the rigours of flying.
We also had firing with the one gun at a drone towed behind another aircraft and our bullets had colours on the tips so that they could record the number of hits. Our results were pathetic as the guns would only fire two bullets at a time and then jam so you then had to rearm it; we also used camera guns with which we had more success.
It also happened to be a training camp for pilots on night flying on airspeed oxfords.
Bob had by this time gained his pilots wings in Canada and was back in England and was posted to Dalcross near Inverness. I think this was during July 1943 and August 1943 to train on twin engine Airspeed Oxfords. Neither of us knew we were there until one evening we were going into Inverness and just happened to be walking down the road to catch the bus into town when I spotted Bob who was as surprised as I was; from then on we spent a bit of time together until he was posted elsewhere.
I continued at Dalcross to become a Sergeant air gunner had quite a good report from all the training staff and was given above average report from most of the tutors, not that it helped much as the ammunition we were using had a wide flange on the bullet casing as it was American and caused it to stick, you could only fire a couple of rounds and then you had to re-cock it again, life was hard on us.
[underlined] Wellesbourne- Warwickshire - meet the crew [/underlined]
18.9.1943. (Appendix iii) t [sic] vi)) My next posting was to Wellesbourne (Warwickshire) the Operational Training Unit to start being crewed up with members of a crew. The procedure was for the pilots to have a chat with the navigators, wireless operators, bomb aimers and air gunners and then ask the ones he wished to be his crew if they would join him Charlie (Chuck) Stowell, the pilot picked Bob Friskey as navigator then Eugene Fullum our wireless operator, the next was our bomb aimer Gordon Dinsmore, which left the rear gunner, which I believe was unanimous decision by them all that was me. We then spent our time getting to know each other; that is we went out at night doing a spot of drinking and rather a lot of talking or the other way round.
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[page break]
[photograph]
Bob Friskey, Eugene Fullom and Chuck Stowell
[photograph]
A copy of the only photo of the crew: Back row: Bob Friskey, Gordon Dinsmore
Front row: Eugene Fullom, Dick Curnock, Chuck Stowell
This was at Gaydon the satellite airfield to Wellsbourne, here we started flying as a crew in the Wellington bomber, doing practice bombing at targets on the coast and various places also we had
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fighter aircraft doing dummy attacks during which I had a camera gun and it recorded my success against these attacks we also did firing at a draught [sic] towed behind another aircraft, with our bullets being painted different colours so they could count the number of hits we scored. This proved to be very hap hazard as the ammunition we were using was American and every second round got stuck in the breech and had to be manually ejected so our scores were very low. We did quite a lot of cross country flying for the navigators to gain experience a lot of it at night time.
We also did a lot of circuit flying at night so that the pilot could manage to get us back to the airfield safely. Some nights were a bit bumpy as he misjudged his height, my head used to get a lot of knocks on these occasions and the skippers name was anything but "Chuck".
[drawing]
Picture drawn by Dick whilst a prisoner of war
[underlined] Heavy Conversion Unit - Dishforth (Yorks) - the crew is completed [/underlined]
14.1.1944. ( appendix vii and viii) We moved on next to a conversion unit which meant going onto four engine aircraft this was at Dishforth (near Ripon, Yorks) 1664 Heavy conversion unit. The aircraft was a four engine Halifax bomber for which we needed two extra crew; a mid upper gunner and a flight engineer. These we met and we all moved into a hut so that we would could get know each other. The mid upper gunner was a Canadian from a farming background a rather slow on the uptake but we got on well together. The engineer was from Salford a tall lad and red haired. The mid upper gunner was Wesley (Wes) Skerick and the engineer was Ginger Wheadon.
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[photograph] [photograph]
Ginger Wheadon Wes Skerick
At this stage we were beginning to get to know each other and in the evenings we were usually down in mess having some light refreshments, Bob Friskey didn't very often come, as he had not been married very long and took to writing to his wife almost every evening, so the rest of us went into Burroughbridge [sic] the nearest town to have a few beers, this we managed quite well with a another couple of Canadians from another crew who Chuck knew, and we each bought a round of drinks which lasted us most of the evening.
[underlined] Tolthorpe - Squadron station [/underlined]
7.2.1944. (Appendix ix) We then moved from Dishforth on to our squadron station which was at Tolthorpe near Easingwold still up in Yorkshire. It was the only French Canadian squadron from Canada, although all spoke English there was a lot of French spoken between most of the other crews, also most of the senior officers were from French ancestors. They could get very aggressive to each other as happened one evening later on.
Here there were four squadrons of Halifax bombers with around 60 planes. The squadrons with mainly Canadian or French/Canadian crews were:
[picture of 425 Squadron crest]
420 Snowy Owl
425 Alouette (the Lark- Dick's squadron)
431 Iroquois
434 Blue Nose
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We did lots of night cross country to various parts of the England to give the navigator, targets to find and which would be our target to bomb later on, also we had a bombing range which we had to find and drop practice smoke bombs on and from a certain height, some pilots tried to drop from a lower height so that they were getting better results and a higher percentage of hits. Not our pilot he said we would go as high as the aircraft could climb and then drop our bombs, which we did, only to be told on our return we were still too low, to which the skipper said that the Wellington couldn't climb any higher, and the rear gunner had a tin of drink in his flying suit pocket that was frozen no more was said on the subject.
We as a crew were sent to a camp which was to improve our fitness, which we didn't think was necessary as we all felt fit and well, we were allocated a hut and promptly forgot, we went for meals regularly and were not called on to do anything apart from eat and sleep, Eugene Gordon and myself walked around the fields and found where they were growing swedes, carrots, turnips, so we borrowed a few and cooked them on our stove in the hut and with other bits from the cookhouse and had some good meals in the evenings. Fortunately we were only there for about 10 days, and then were sent to squadron.
The squadron was from Canada and had only been in England a short while and we joined it at the end of January 1944 in which time we got to know the aircraft we to fly in, it was a Halifax MK3 K.W.U for Uncle. Unfortunately for us we only did about 14 hours training on our aircraft.
[photograph of Halifax bomber]
Halifax Bomber
[underlined] Our First Mission [/underlined]
February 24th/25th we were called for a briefing and found we were due to fly a bombing trip to a place called Swinefurt [sic] , a long trip to the south of Germany which would be an eight hour round trip but unfortunately the port outer engine decided to cause a problem and stopped altogether, we couldn't climb to our bombing height due to lack of power and could not carry on at this low height, so the skipper decided we had best abort and return to base dropping our bomb load at sea. Which we did, and landed back at air station about three hours after take off. Not a good start at all, but the fault was found to be a blockage in the fuel pipe to the engine.
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[underlined] The Second and Final Mission [/underlined]
February 25th/26th we were on our second trip which was a bombing raid on Augsburg (North West of Munich) to bomb a factory making ball bearings for tanks, from which we failed to return. Our aircraft was hit by anti aircraft fire and both the engines on our left side were put out of action and caught fire. The noise it made when the shell hit our left side was like a firework being let off inside a dustbin. Then the next thing was flames coming past my turret Chuck our skipper came over our intercom asking if we were all uninjured which he did by calling each one by name. Then he said that we were not going to keep going, so had to bale out, each one of us saying we understood, good luck and made ready to bale out. What to do first I thought, disconnect my intercom, then the oxygen tube, think we were flying at a height of around twenty four thousand feet so would I have enough oxygen to keep going to get my parachute which was in a rack in the fuselage and then get the panel open in the fuselage floor for myself and mid upper - which was Wes to jump out. We shook hands and shouted good luck and looked down through the hatch to see the flames from the engines flying by so put my leg out and flow of air pulled the rest of me out!!
Suddenly everywhere is quiet, you are supposed to count to ten before pulling the ripcord to your parachute by the time I counted up to four I didn't hear any noise so pulled my ripcord and was instantly jerked upright, with my flying suit collar up round my ears and it was very quiet.
My thoughts whilst drifting down were varied and very worrying to say the least, it had my thoughts in turmoil.
Below was a patchwork due to snow and could have been fields, but from a height of 20000 feet there was no telling what it was going to be. My thoughts of a church spire came to mind or there was an industrial town down there with factories with tall chimneys also electric power cables, or a town with tall house and me hanging from the roof. The later [sic] was near to it as I came down between two poplar trees and I landed in a town house garden in an apple tree. I had my parachute hanging up in the tree, which I decided to pull down but it must have snagged and a piece ripped off and was left hanging in the tree what I had pulled down and bundled up and slipped under some buses [sic] . I then decided to find a way out of the garden; so removed my flying kit as I would be very conspicuous walking around in it. At that time I was just in my battle dress getting very cold, I then found a road running alongside the garden, so jumped over the wall onto a road started walking past some large houses all about five stories high, I had landed in a large residential area of a town. Then the siren for what I presumed was an air raid starting, so I walked up another road to miss people around that area, then the siren started again and people started running around (I discovered later that they had two sirens at the start of a raid and also two all clears) by which time I was back to where I had landed in the garden. So I hopped back over the wall and decided to put my flying suit back on as I was feeling very cold.
What to do now I thought; sleep seemed the best option or wake someone up and tell them who I was and call the police. I ended up curling up and sleeping and was woken by a squirrel running around me and then two elderly ladies coming our of the house next door and saw a piece of my parachute stuck up the tree, they shouted and ran back indoors and about 10 minutes later a policeman came down the garden path with a little pistol pointing at me and said hands up or words to that effect. Which I obliged, he then told me to take off my flying suit and go in front of him where
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he had left his cycle, and for me to put my clothes on his bike and we walked into the town to a police station. There were lots of people in the police station a lot were ex army with battle scars but quite polite, except one old boy who should have been in a home for the elderly along time ago, saying we would never win the war by sending us over to spy on them.
[underlined] Prisoner of War -number 2108 [/underlined] (Appendix 4 - iii) -Red Cross Map of prisoner of war camps)
I was then escorted to the Gestapo headquarters in the town which I discovered was Darmstadt (South East of Frankfurt) (on this journey Dick cut up his parachute with his penknife so that it couldn't be used by the Germans), and there met up with Wes, Eugene and Gordon whilst waiting there a rather irate man came in and picked up a chair and was going to hit Eugene with it, but fortunately I was able to stop the blow hitting Eugene with my flying suit, we found out later that Eugene had fractured his spine, releasing himself from his parachute harness whilst still hanging along way from the ground, which meant he had to go to a hospital so we didn't have any further contact with him.
Wes, Gordon and self were then taken by two armed guards to a building being used by the Police and handed over to Dulagluft Interrogation HQ on a tramcar with civilians on board who looked at us rather hostile, good job we had a couple of Luftwaffe guards with us, on the way through the streets there were a number of bodies hanging from lampposts turned out to be American airmen shot down on an earlier raid, quite a jolt to the system.
At the Interrogation HQ all our belongings were taken from us and we were then put into a cell with only a bed and a chair in it, no windows and an electric light on all the time, so you didn't know what part of the day or night it was. Dick became prisoner of war number 2108.
Then every so often an officer came in and said he was from the Red Cross and he would make sure that my parents would be notified where I was and was alright, but was being held in Germany as a prisoner of war and would be able to write once we had been sent to a POW camp. This treatment went on for quite a time you didn't know what day it was or time of day, we were fed soup and black bread and had brown water which they said was coffee, two or three times I was taken out and interviewed by an officer who told me who our commanding officer was and he had a daughter, had I met her, and then proceeded to tell me about the Halifax bomber but it wasn't doing much damage and we were losing them at a fare [sic] rate every night. When after a few days we were taken into the camp and given an American plastic suitcase in which was all manner of toiletries and clothes -a pair of slip on slippers, a towel, a face flannel, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, pyjamas, packet of pipe tobacco and a pipe, packet of twenty cigarettes, some vest and pants, a bar of chocolate a meal can opener, also an American army shirt.
We stayed there for a short while until they had enough bodies to fill up a lot of cattle trucks to take us to our next camp. I was then issued with our name and prisoner of war number, mine being 2108 and made of metal, we still had only our battledress uniforms and it was February so felt the cold. (Appendix 4 - iv)
Then one morning we were paraded on the square with our cases and marched off to the railway yard where our train awaited, there was no difference between first and third class, you were just herded along and pushed up into a cattle truck 20 prisoners into each end of the wagon (The wagons had written on the side - 40 hommes or 8 cheveaux, this became part of the POW insignia after the war),
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with the centre section for the guards, so each wagon was divided into compartments by a wire netting wall. There were no toilets so you had to wait until we had been shunted off the mainline and were then allowed to do your do's sitting on a log which was alongside the railway line, at first it was very embarrassing but after three or four days you didn't bother just got on with it.
We had a stop each day for a bowl of soup and drink of so called coffee. Forgot to mention that each truck had a guard sitting on top of the wagon and must have been covered in smoke from the engines. Sleeping was almost impossible with twenty people in a small space, but you managed you might have had feet by your head or a bottom, because the only pillow you had was your plastic suitcase.
I didn't keep a record of how long the train trip was but was told it was ten to twelve days, we passed through a couple of large stations but could only see out through the gaps in the sides of the trucks as the guards closed the doors, were surprised at one station when we went slowly past a train of open trucks packed with people they were either Jews or displaced persons being taken to places of forced labour, we couldn't pass them anything so had to just let them pass without being able to speak to them.
[underlined] Stalag Luft VI - Heydekrug [/underlined] (Appendix 4 - vi)
We finally arrived at our destination Heydekrug (in Lithuania) and Stalaf Luft 6 which meant in German prison camp for airmen. This was in East Prussia on the Baltic coast and was built on sand, so that tunnels couldn't be dug in the sandy soil, that didn't stop some of the hot heads from trying. Only one was tried and the Germans had some idea this was happening and brought a motor roller in to run up and down between the huts, it found a tunnel starting out between two huts and it sank into the sand about six feet and was stuck for two days, when they finally tried to move it, they couldn't start it as a lot of the parts had somehow gone missing, the Germans never did the same trick again.
All the crew members met up again here, except for Eugene, who was in hospital. The camp was divided into 3 compounds, two of which contained 2,000 men, the third being smaller held 1,000 men. Dick was in one of the larger compounds, with 60 men to a room. Dick and Ginger were in the same hut, the other crew members elsewhere.
We had some good men who cold [sic] turn their hands to anything and make things out of bits and pieces, one being a clock which went backwards made from an old gramophone. Also we had radios I think there were two, both were built inside Dixie's which was an eating and cooking pot.
We had some well educated lads with as a lot of early aircrew were from college undergraduates who were in the call up age range, so they started up classes in the camp on a variety of subjects, and you could qualify for a degree as the Red Cross got permission from the Germans for this to happen. One of the POWs that made use of the books was Peter Thomas, who became a Welsh MP after the war and later Lord Thomas.
My only inroad into anything like this was to draw in our POW book, we were issued with, like a diary was the drawing of the aircraft they flew in and the air force inscription over the top; and I charged one cigarette for each drawing, not a lot but helped out. I believe a number of people at home sent me cigarettes through the Red Cross but only two tins of tobacco got through to me, these were St
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Bruno and they lasted me some time. They would have lasted longer but I used to roll some into cigarettes and fellows used to drop by for a couple of puffs.
[drawing of book]
One of Dick's drawings
Dick also found a talent for needlework. He unpicked the silk lining from his flying boots, and made a cravat, with the RAF crest embroidered on it.
Cigarettes were used as currency for buying food, if and when the Red Cross food parcels arrived, they were divided up and were allocated, as 1 parcel between seven or ten men, not a lot, but as some kriegies didn't want some of the item they sold them for cigarettes. (Kriegies was short for Kriegesgefangenen which is the German word for prisoner of war)
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[underlined] Kriegies 10 commandments [/underlined]
[drawing of scroll]
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We had radios which were hidden in various places. In our hut we had the men who looked after the radios. One evening after being shut in, lookouts kept watch whilst repairs were being done. Suddenly someone shouted Goons up. An officer with three men plus an Alsatian dog walked in, the tables were cleared very quickly, everything dropped into a carton and passed down the lower bunks, it arrived at my bunk and I had nowhere to pass it to so I hid it under my knees under a blanket and picked up a book to read. The dog came sniffing around but kept on going by, when I sort of came too I found my book which I was supposedly reading was upside down. Good job the dog didn't notice it.
[drawing of hut interior]
Inside one of the huts in a camp
Mornings started with the overnight latrine bucket having to be emptied, not a nice job we had a rota in the hut and two of us had to take a 30 to 40 litre container almost full and take it and empty it at the toilet block you invariably finished up rather damp and needed a good wash.
Next it was the guards shouting "RAUS!" get out the parade ground for morning head count and anything that the Germans thought we should know, like how well they were doing in the war but didn't say where.
After the head count which could take quite some time, they couldn't agree on the figures and had to do it again sometimes it was our own faults [sic] for moving around whilst they tried to count us.
Finally all was right so off for breakfast the German rations were not very plentiful. It started with what they said was coffee, first in the morning, but what it was made with didn't question, but it was hot and with adding powered milk you drank it, it had to be fetched from the cookhouse in metal jugs.
Dinner was usually a soup of some sort could just be potato or sauerkraut and on a good day you were given corned beef which was send to the camp from Argentina, another soup was swede with potatoes, we were also issued with a fish cheese which was not very palatable but you ate it.
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Bread, black was issued per day, it varied in the amount which was either 6 or 10 persons sharing a loaf which was about 8 or 9 inches long about 4 inches wide and could be 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches deep that is they were thicker one end than the other, so one can imagine trying to share it out to either a combination of three or twelve.
Then to the cookhouse for our very large cans of ertzats [sic] coffee I still don't know what it was made of but it was wet and warm and washed down your breakfast if you ever had any. You were dreaming about eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade but didn't make a habit of it.
The next part of the morning was spent washing and shaving or not then cleaning up your space and making it tidy, then any washing you had to do for which you had to boil water which meant finding some material to burn, bed boards were used but there was a limit to how many you could sleep without and still have a straight back. As I previously mentioned classes were being held in huts all around the camp during the day also we had the parade ground on which was played sports, football, rugby, rounder's and also they had physical exercises for those who wanted it, we had a stream running through a part of the camp which was used to see who could jump it in one go! If not you had a free foot wash and legs and shorts!!
During the evenings one of our newsreaders would come in the hut, with days news that had been listened to on one of the radios (Daily Express reporter Cyril Aynsley was one who took it down in shorthand), some of us would keep watch at the door and be ready to stop the reader if any Germans happened to be about.
Most nights it was a nightly ritual to have a walk, around your section of the camp and have a chat with anyone and everyone. Then back to your hut for a late evening drink of tea or coffee which entailed lighting up your blower to boil the water. When we then had to either get to bed or light a candle and try and read but not for long.
[cartoon drawing of brew up]
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[photograph of washing facilities]
Washing facilities of Stalag 357 Fallingbostel
Our washing and shaving facilities were very limited, with some of the camps having the washing troughs in the open, ours were inside, just a trough with cold water running along it with holes in it about 18 inches in between to allow the water to run out into another trough below. If you wanted hot water it meant you had to get the blower out find some paper - cardboard or wood to burn to get some hot water. Wood was hard to come by unless you used your bed boards, which left you with another bend in your back. So it was usually a cold water shave and not everyday.
There was a shower room but this was situated about half a mile from the camp and we were taken there under guard once in about six weeks, why it was so far from the camp no one knew.
We were searched on leaving the camp and again when we returned, what they thought we would steal from room which only had showers and all in one large room. The water was switched on for about 10 minutes so you had to be quick.
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[letter confirming POW status]
Letter received by Dick’s Father, from the Chaplain at Tolthorpe
We were allowed to write home one letter and two postcards each month, which I think most of us took the opportunity, although it took quite a long time for the first ones to come from home. My first on arrived on August 14th having been sent from home on May 28th in all I think my mail total for my stay in Germany was a total of 42. 34 from Mum and Dad and a further 8 from friends and the caterpillar club confirming I had become a member.
[photograph of family] [reverse of photograph]
Family photo Dick received, the reverse shows the German censor’s mark
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There was a lot of aircrew arriving in the camp that they had to get two large tents and add them on to the rows of huts, each one held a further hundred men which didn't help our food rations. Not long after this we were told that we were to be moved into Germany.
[underlined] Torun Stalag Luft 357 [/underlined] (Appendix 4 - iv)
The place was actually in a part of Poland which had been the Polish Corridor and was Thorn or Torun Stalag 357. So we had to get packed up and ready to go in two days as the Russians were headed our way, so it was take the essentials, our pots and pans and the blower which was used for heating water mostly; any food plus your blanket and toiletries any spare clothes, some of the Canadian families had sent things over which were ice skates and baseball bats, most of which were left behind.
A wind up gramophone was smashed up plus all the records, and on the walk to where we had to board our cattle trucks which was about two miles away the road or more like a country track for carts was littered with discarded equipment people decided they could do without.
Once we were at the train which was waiting us at the trackside, no station. We were herded into the cattle trucks, 40 persons per truck; 20 bodies in each end of the truck. The centre used for the guards. They also had a guard sitting on top of each wagon wearing goggles and had a machine gun.
This trip took us about five days and nights on a slow train to Torun (on the river Vistula), and one wasn't very clean and tidy upon arrival.
The others at Heydekrug that were being shipped by boat from the port of Memel had a very bad time on the boat as they were herded into the hold of a boat and spent between five and seven days on board in horrible conditions on the way to a camp in Germany.
Our trip by train took about five days of shake rattle and very uncomfortable and one stop a day for the toilet, and sad to say we had to use a corner of the truck to relieve ones self.
We arrived at Thorun, which was a large camp mainly army prisoners and we were crowded into huts about 120-140 per hut and the meals we had were very poor in quality and quantity. We were only there for 6 weeks and once again were on our cooks tour again, back into our 40 hommes or 6 cheveaux carriages with a small amount of straw spread across the floor which had large gaps between the floor boards and no central heating, and again another train journey of six days to our next camp which was Fallingshostel [sic] which was about 80 miles north of Hanover. This again was an army camp but now accommodated American air force as well as us British and was split into three separate camps which also included a Russian compound. (Appendix 4 - i) and ii)
Also around this time I wanted some shoes as mine were about paper thin and I managed to get a brown pair of American army boots which was just what was needed if we were going for a long walk.
The huts were the usual having two tier bunks down each side of the room and a further rows [sic] up the centre of the room, with a large stove in the centre which wasn't used as there was no fuel for it.
The cookhouse supplied us with what was called coffee and made from what we really never found out what, but we called it coffee because it was brown. The food from the cookhouse was mainly
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some sort of soup, mainly potatoes with some sauerkraut like cabbage added. Sometimes we would have a ration of corned beef which the Argentineans sent over in bulk for us and very good too. We did also had what the Germans called cheese, but it tasted very fishy but never quite found out what its origin was our supplies of Red Cross parcels were getting few and far between with so much disruption on the railway.
Where they originally intended to have one parcel person per week, we were now having to make do with one parcel for ten men and had to last them a week or longer until more arrived.
Being closer to some large towns we now had the sounds of bombers targeting them at nights, we also had some low flying Mosquitoes shooting up the railway not far from us.
We all stood outside the hut watching when one of the guards shouted at us to get inside; of course no one moved so he took his rifle off his shoulder and put a bullet in the chamber. But forgot there was one already in, so it sent a round flying out onto the ground. The old fellow looked at us shrugged his shoulders picked up the bullet and left us to watch.
[photograph of prisoners]
Prisoners of war watching allied aircraft - inside Fallingbostel
Life here was not very good as there were too many of us cramped into huts, we did have an unusual game some evenings - because as it got dusk we had some large flying insects around, about an inch to inch and half long with a hard shell body. We used to wait them and then hit them with a wooden stick, scoring two points for a certain hit and one point for a probable; you had to produce a body for the two points. But there wasn't any prizes for a high score only a mess of squashed bodies.
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[underlined] Oerbke near Fallingbostel [/underlined]
The news we had from the Germans was that during the next couple of weeks we would be leaving camp and would be marching north to a holding area somewhere near Hamburg.
Our last camp at Oerbke near Fallingbostel was very large and housed British soldiers - some Russians also American airmen, the war was drawing to a close and the Russians were approaching us from the East and the Allies from the South so the beginning of April 1945 we going to be made to leave the camp in sections and carrying all our possessions. (Appendix 4 – i) and ii)
[underlined] The Long March [/underlined]
There is more information on the Long March in appendix 3
Whatever a holding area was meant to be for and why they would want us there was never discovered. There was a lot of speculation that they were going to drive us into the Baltic and drown us or otherwise just put us in barbed wire enclosure and leave us, but they didn't.
Instead we were marched out of the camp early April to begin a long trek northwards. The first lot we were marched out of camp April 6th in parties of about 500, everybody loaded with bags and blankets a box of food, a water bottle and all your clothes which didn't amount to much. I was glad that I had been given a new pair of army boots, also an overcoat, French army blue but very thin and not very waterproof but better than nothing. We covered varying distances each day, the weather varied from wet and windy to very cold, and we were not sure where would be sleeping the next evening.
It turned out that first night which was rather wet with rain, our accommodation was a field, no trees or high hedges to shelter us so it was rather a nasty start to our walk, which was on rough tracks through farmland and we managed to collect some vegetables from fields we passed although the guards were told to shoot anyone found doing it, which meant just about everybody.
Our second night was under the stars in a field.
It was on our third day we arrived in a village and were taken in to the church for our nights lodging sleeping anywhere you could lay out on the pews and under them and in the aisles. We had to boil water outside for our tea, on our blowers.
As we progressed each day through the county we saw American aircraft by their vapour trails going on some bombing mission.
There were some days after marching or should say walking, or hobbling, that we would finish up in a farmyard, this was welcome as we soon found eggs about. Some lucky lads found barns that were not in use as the cattle were in the fields; this allowed chicken and sometimes a small pig to enter the barn which was quickly turned into a meal.
One occasion was a nice bit of garden behind a barn that was full of ripe rhubarb, must have been about 10 feet wide and 14 feet long, within a very short time it was clear, the farmer was furious, he got an officer who said he would punish any prisoner found with stewed rhubarb. He walked around
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with the farmer looking in every saucepan or a fire, in which lo and behold they were full of stewing rhubarb, he just shrugged his shoulders and that was it.
Later in the month we had to cross the river Elbe by a railway bridge, but as we approached it there was a column of tiger tanks coming over and their tracks were breaking up the road as they passed. Our guards suddenly vanished into air raid shelters and circling over the bridge was one Spitfire. With the Germans firing at him with machine guns mounted on the ends of the towers at the ends of the railway bridge, but they were nowhere near hitting him as they fired miles behind him. They were useless.
When it quietened down and the tanks had all gone our guards came out of their air raid shelter and herded us across the bridge.
We must have covered a fare [sic] distance as we have been walking every day from the 6th April and it is now midway through April and the weather is improving, but our lodgings don't improve, the villages we go through gave us drinks of water and now the guards turn a blind eye.
It must have been mid April that was about the 18th April that we stayed at a farm that was rather run down and neglected. Cow sheds were filthy and hadn't been cleared so no one could sleep in them so we were in the open up against walls. I was itching around my waist and found that it was lice, so I needed a good wash, but where so had a look around and discovered a duck pond covered in greed [sic] weed, there had to be water under the weed, so clothes off make a hole ain [sic] the weed and lower myself into about 8 inches of water and a foot of mud, it was wonderful and I got rid of a lot of the lice.
We stayed one night in a farm where the farmer had a stable for a couple of horse, on a walk round with another chap, I found this stable and it had a water tank on top, so we had a look and found a pipe leading down from the roof with a large tap at the base, we hurried back for our toiletries and towels. I said you sit in front of the tap which was about 4 inches across and I will turn it on, which I did, and oh dear the water came out with such force he shot backwards across the cobbled floor on his bottom. He said you wait until it is your turn. It was a wonderful feeling to get your self refreshed.
[underlined] 19th April 1945 [/underlined]
Still moving North on about the 19th April we were informed that at our next stopping place we were going to get a Red Cross food parcel, one parcel per man at a place named Gresse, this was very good news as it was about three weeks since we last had one.
We were walking through a rather large forest for quite some miles now and were informed that on the other side we would be issued with our parcels.
We had been living on soup some overnight stops and now and again ertzats [sic] coffee reputedly made from acorns.
So to be handed a parcel for your self was out of this world and very much needed. So we came out of the forest along a track which was about 18 feet wide and had about another 6 or 8 feet either side which was about a foot lower and then a few trees sort of along the edge after them were fields and quite a lot more trees.
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At this time we were having a rest on the track starting to open up our parcels, when we heard some aircraft flying parallel to us about half a mile away. They sounded like Hurricanes so could be ours so kept sorting our parcels, when we heard these load explosions coming down the road towards us. The aircraft turned out to be our own Typhoons equipped with rockets and cannons plus machine guns and anti personnel rockets.
I flung myself down and into the ditch which was only shallow and behind a plant which was about a foot high and about eight inches wide. it was just something to hang onto. The guard who had been sitting by a tree had been wounded and next to me an Aussie Sergeant wireless operator had been shot through his head and chest, my nearest bullet hit my boot heel, as I felt it but it just left a line across the heel.
The two others I shared everything with were Ginger Wheadon and Alec Laing, who were no where to be seen. So I decided to walk back and found Alec not far away but very shaky. So told him to stay put and I would look for Ginger, on my way back up the track, I was giving drinks of water to people who had been wounded and were waiting for treatment either shock or wounds, but couldn't find Ginger.
There were people calling out for their friends, I came across one fellow sitting by a tree with the lower part of his body a mess, although he asked me for a drink as if nothing was wrong. Just as I had given him a drink a couple of his pals came and took over whilst I carried on my search for Ginger.
At one hedge I passed there were legs sticking through so I hopefully looked on the other side, but hastily moved on as they were all there was.
There were quite a few bodies lying about on the track but not Ginger, someone suggested I looked in the fields near where we had been; a lot of men had run across them, so I did and found him but he had been hit in the chest whilst running and was dead.
He must have left his belongings in his haste as I never found them.
In Dick's Wartime log book he wrote on April 20th 1945 - "to our engineer Ginger Wheadon. Ging was killed by a bullet from a Typhoon whilst we were resting during a march on April 19th 1945, he was killed instantly. We are trying to get some of his personal kit to bring home for his Mother and Mary his girl. He was buried at a village of Heydekrug, 4km from Gresse where we had just drawn food parcels. He was buried by our Padre and a parson. The time of his death was about 12 noon.
Having looked after one or two other badly wounded lads, l went back to Ginger only to find that all his kit had been taken and his pockets empty. Some thieving B……. had pinched everything he had on him.
I only hope the food choked them and all the other things brought them the worst luck possible."
The count was 35 POW were killed also 6 of the German guards.
I searched around and found one of our seniors who I gave him Gingers name which apparently someone else had already done so after finding his name and number on his dog tags. So I returned to where I had left Alec and we moved on down the road to the next village where we stayed for the
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night in field with a couple of barns in it but some good thick hedges to bed down under and found a barn with some straw in which we used as bedding.
Dixie Deans our camp commandant spoke to the officer who was in command of the Germans guarding us to let him go through the German lines accompanied by a German officer with a safe conduct note, to then contact the Americans, and let them know that there were 20,000 allied prisoners on the line of their advance and to advise them to let their airbase know of this situation. This was done and Dixie Dean and his accompanying German officer cycled back through the lines and after sorting out the burial of our lads in the churchyard at Gresse.
They were buried in a mass grave and the German priest held a service for our lads and also the guards that were killed. (After the war the RAF personnel killed in this attack were reburied in a new Commonwealth War grave cemetery outside Berlin see appendix 2).
The injured where taken to a hospital at Boizenburg for treatment, and no doubt sent home for further treatment.
Our English Padre was to march on with the others as he would not attend the church service as it was not his parish.
That was April 19th 1945 which will always be remembered as it was just a few days before my 21st birthday which I very nearly could have missed, that was a dream that haunted me for quite some time.
We constantly saw American aircraft around but they were mainly bombers heading Hamburg way we did pass an airfield that had JU88's on it but it had been bombed and most of its aircraft destroyed.
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[War Graves Commission citation]
Ginger's burial place, to the right of the building in the distance (see Appendix 2 for cemetery map)
[underlined] The end of the War nears [/underlined]
We carried on Northwards and the farms that we stayed in were larger and did have some decent barns, but were rather a lot bodies and not everyone got in a barn. Alec and my self usually found a well and stayed out with the weather now being quite good. My birthday on the 26th April was nothing special I think maybe I had an extra piece of chocolate and maybe made a cigarette with my pipe tobacco and smoked it all myself, otherwise we usually passed them around.
It's now the beginning of May the weather is quite good and there are lots of American aircraft leaving vapour trails, we think Hamburg or ports in the North were their targets.
We settled down on the 2nd May in a small outhouse with no windows or doors just three walls and a roof that would have let in more rain than it kept out and wondering what tomorrow would bring.
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When we woke to a fine morning and made a drink someone said look all our guards have gone during the night, so we then went to find what our next move was.
We were told not to go out on the roads running North as there were German panzer troops still in that area, this information we got from an officer in jeep which came on ahead of the English and American troops who pushing the Germans back in this area.
We were then informed by Dixie Deans that we were to find some means of transport and make our own way South to Luneburg where our troops had built a pontoon bridge over the river Elbe and from there proceed to a German airfield situated near Luneburg, which had been turned into a reception area for POWs.
The area around the airfield became littered with vehicles we had acquired including a fire engine, a few tractors some civilian cars, horse and carts, motor cycles and a couple of buses.
My mode of transport was in one of the buses so had a comfortable ride to the reception centre.
May 8th 1945. The road we had to use to get the river crossing was littered on both sides with German and English military vehicles which had been bulldozed off the road so that others could get through to the pontoon bridge at Luneburg.
We spent a couple of days here being subject to a delousing period that incurred someone with a spray gun putting it down your back and front and also each trouser leg.
After which they took your particulars and you were given an identity card with your name, number, rank, and squadron number and told to find a bed in one of the huts and report back in the morning. If we had anything which we didn't need there was a bonfire on which we could get rid of old clothes not that we had much. But some of the prisoners had picked up guns and ammunition on the way which they decided to get rid of, there was a lot of exploding ammunition going off all night and the next day.
We had a breakfast of coffee and a slice of toast and then had to go on a parade ground and form up into groups of around 40 to await the arrival of aircraft for our homeward flight to England and a POW reception centre at RAF Cosford in a Dakota, used as transport and troop carrier the workhorse of the air force.
Here we were met by nurses and WAFs and again given the treatment of delousing, then a check over by doctors and lots of questions as to how you felt. Then it was a sit down meal, but our stomachs would only take a small amount, l can't remember what was on the menu but I know I could only manage a little, and a nice young WAAF sat with me and talked me into eating a little more. I really couldn't eat anymore, but had more tea so I could keep her talking with me.
We were then subject to being kitted out with new uniforms and glad to be out of the old stuff. The only [sic] I kept was my American army boots which had walked many miles or should say kilometres over German countryside, they lasted a good many years as my gardening boots. They still have the mark on the heel where a bullet from a typhoon clipped it when we were shot up.
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We only stayed at Cosford long enough to be kitted out and given some idea of how would carry on until our number for demob came up.
I had still about a year to do so was given a choice of ground trades which was, clerk in accounts, pigeon keeper or store keeper. What a choice is that it I asked and said that I didn't like any of these and wanted to be assigned to the transport division either as a driver or in admin. The Officer said he would put my choice forward but didn't think I would be lucky as so many had chosen transport as an option. So it was then we had to collect our travel warrants and any pay we had coming plus identity cards and ration book.
It was now late May and a start of long awaited leave which was for about four weeks to get me back into being fit again, I arrived from Cosford at London Road station and a neighbour who was a taxi driver happened to be at the stand and so he shouted over to me to get in his car. After putting my bags in and much hand shaking from other people I was on my way home. Mr Shuker talked all the way and got me up to date with what had been happening in Minehead Street, and upon arriving there he slowed down and hooted so people could know that he had arrived with a neighbour. There was quite a lot came out and gave me a cheer, and upon arrival at home I [sic] most of our neighbours were there with Mum, Dad and Mary. It was quite a homecoming with lots of hugs and kisses from all the close neighbours, it was something I’II never forget.
It took a while to get used to a normal bed and home routine but it was good to be home.
My two pals Ken and Derek who were both in the air force Ken was an engine maintenance engineer at fighter station, while Derek was a Corporal in the RAF police service. They managed a spot of leave whilst I was home so we spent a few days together.
The first evening they took me down to our local pub which was the Blue Moon. This was the first time for me to go out for pint.
Ken and Derek ordered pints, but I said that mine had better just be a half, which was just as well as when I got up to go the bar to order another round my legs gave way so I didn't have any more. So Ken and Derek took me home, I could manage to walk but not very steady, I guess that my system hadn't had any booze for quite some time but would get around that problem in time.
[underlined] Military Transport Training [/underlined]
My leave seemed to pass very quickly and very soon a travel warrant arrived to say that I was being posted to Melksham, and it turned out to be a course for Drivers-motor transport, I was told previously that there was no chance for this as so many had tried but were told they had no chance. Lucky me as my Aunts and Uncles all lived around this area at the village of Wingfield, so I would have some place to go at weekends.
So up one morning and off to catch the train for Melksham and becoming a driver for the air force in what sort of vehicles one wondered.
It turned out to be initial training was on vehicle maintenance as you had to be able to keep your vehicle in road worthy conditions at all times.
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We had a very rigorous course on engines and ensuring they were in good running order with oil and water checked daily, there were lectures every day on subjects such as Highway Code road traffic signs and use of hand signals and being courteous to other road users.
Our first driving lessons were with British School of Motoring civilian instructors driving mainly Austin cars, each car had three learners with tutor and took it in turns at the driving. I had some goes at driving but this was a trifle different as you had to double de clutch as if you were driving a vehicle without synchromesh gears. One instructor was very strict and if you didn't get it right he had a wooden mallet with which he used to clout your knee with, it worked well, my leg went up and down like a yoyo, after just one tap.
If you passed you then passed on to RAF instructors to learn the different types of vehicles you would encounter, these were classified as Hillman Minx used a lot by junior officers, then on to 15 cwt hundred weight [sic] for light loads, then three ton vehicles used for ration collection and general work. Progressing then to the lorries, eight ton and ten ton lorries and the five and seven ton cranes, last of all came the sixty foot long trailers for carrying aircraft when dismantled for repairs.
Having mustered [sic] this little lot you had to pass a driving test on a three ton vehicle and one of the other larger vehicles. After passing all this you had a written test on all subjects and if all was well you were given a driving certificate and were now an MT driver.
What was nice about this posting that every weekend I could spend on the farm with my Aunt and Uncle it was called Sparrow nest farm and they kept cattle for milking, and I was not at all good at milking but helped out fetching the animals in for milking and taking the milk churns on a tractor and trailer to a platform on the roadside ready for the lorry to collect which was twice a day.
Alternate weekends were spent in Wingfield village with Aunt Hilda and Uncle Bill and Granddad who was Aunt Hilda's Uncle, he and I used to play cards in the evenings and he used to beat me at cribbage quite often even though he was missing a lot of his fingers on both hands due to wounds in the First World War.
One morning I awoke and on looking out my bedroom window overlooking a field there was a white object there in a corner, so when l got up I said to my Aunt I'm just going to see what's in the field, and when I got there it was a mushroom the size of a dinner plate, yes I had it for breakfast.
Another time Granddad and I were walking down a lane when a rabbit ran out from the hedge, I had a walking stick which I threw towards it and it stopped running because I had killed it, broke its neck and so we took it home and Auntie skinned it and it made us a dinner.
I used to catch a bus from camp to Wingfield but Uncle Bill always took me back to camp on his motorbike and no crash helmet.
[underlined] Horsham [/underlined]
When I finished at Melksham I was posted to Faygate near to Horsham, it was a maintenance unit, where we were sent out to dismantle aircraft that were not required anymore.
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My vehicle that I was allocated turned out to be a six wheeled lorry a left over from the last war, a
1918 model it would not start on the starter motor so had to be towed.
I got up into the drivers seat to which there was no door only canvas panels which just hooked across also the whole cab was just canvas. The steering wheel was about 2 feet in diameter like a bus, the gear lever was about three foot tall and the handbrake was on the right side and about four feet tall, I wondered what I had let myself in for.
They towed me out of the gates with a three ton Bedford lorry on to a main road and I managed to get it started. They then left me and said over to you and don't forget that this vehicle has not got synchromesh gear so you have to double declutch on all gear changing.
After about two hours and 15 miles later I had mastered it all and found my way back to the unit.
There were no facilities for accommodation on the camp so we had to be billeted at Horsham and commute every day by train. But we were away quite often for three or four days, we spent two days at Monston [sic] airport dismantling an Avro Anson that had overshot the runway and went through a small plantation of trees, which left it a write off, so my band of lads reduced it down to a scrap heap. We had to stay there awaiting the vehicle to collect the parts so had an extra day there.
Over [sic] next trip was down to Boscombe near to Bournemouth and we were told we would be there for four or five days as we had to dismantle quite a lot of spitfires which had been made redundant at Christchurch airfield. So we had to look for accommodation in Boscombe, which we found in a Salvation Army hostel and had five days there.
I parked my lorry in the railway goods yard as there would be someone with a vehicle there to give you a tow in the morning. The old lady surprised me one morning and started first time on the starter motor but that was the only time.
That was my only trip with her as t was assigned to a brand new three ton Bedford lorry. It was the same that we trained on at Melksham and I was to use it to collect all the supplies for the officers mess also all the others so had quite a decent job, also whenever we had rations to collect I was
accompanied by a WAAF which was a nice change from a load of lads.
I was checking tyre pressures and as these vehicles were equipped with its own air pump driven by the motor it was quite simple, but as I was checking one of the front tyres the wind blew the drivers door open and I stood up and hit my head on a corner and finished up flat out, not very long though but decided I had better go to sick quarters and get patched up as it was bleeding a lot. I passed a few people who asked if I was okay but I just said yes and they carried on. At sick bay they patched me up and I went back to finish the job and the motor was still running. So switched off, locked up and retired to the mess prior to catching the train.
[underlined] Egypt??? [/underlined]
Next day I was back into camp and was informed that I was moving on. It was that I was being posted to Egypt, l made a request to see our commanding officer who was an ex aircrew Squadron Leader, saying that I wasn't happy being posted abroad and that I had done my bit for the country and thought it most unfair as there were lots of people who hadn't left England.
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He listened to me and yes, he saw my complaint but he didn't think he could alter the decision and if I gave it a bit of thought, look at it as a holiday paid for by the Government for what you went through. So, yes that sounds reasonable and I'll go along with that, and thanked him. He said he wished me well and try to enjoy your cruise. He would have liked to have joined me, he said.
Went home for a spot of leave and got ready for my next forage into the unknown.
I was then sent a travel warrant for an air force camp situated at Newhaven to be kitted out with my overseas uniform, two khaki shirts and shorts plus long trousers and socks, then some inoculations for tropical diseases then were claimed ready for travel.
We were then told we would be travelling by the Medlock route that is from Newhaven to Dieppe in France by boat and thence by train down to Marseilles where we would be shipped across the Mediterranean to Egypt.
After the trip across to France at night we then continued through Switzerland and snow, it was very cold, but the villages on the mountainsides looked like the one on postcards very romantic amongst the snow. The French trains were not the cleanest but must have moved a lot of British service men since the war had ended over here.
At Marseilles we left the trains at the docks and boarded an American Liberty boat for the next part of the journey. We were shown into the first deck which was fitted out with beds in tiers of three the whole width of the ship and about forty or fifty foot in length. I managed to get one of the lower ones. When we settled in I was told and shown to the bakery, and was put in charge of 6 airmen which was very good as we had very new bread at our meal times. The six airmen worked well and we got along very well with the American crew.
We set sail in the evening and had a quiet evening up on deck, the weather was calm so after supper decided to turn in but couldn't sleep, the motion of the ship wasn't helping me and it took ages for me to eventually nod off.
Our second day went well and my lads and I ate well, but this next night we had a storm and Liberty boats are welded together not riveted and creaks in every joint. I wasn't very happy but just kept lifting the bows up after it went down in a trough. Didn't get much sleep and was glad to reach Alexandria and then taken to a camp at Damunbur and it was very hot and our accommodation was in tents that were built over three foot deep dugouts which gave you a bit more head room than just a tent. We stayed here for about three weeks.
[underlined] To Italy [/underlined]
But apparently there was nothing for us in our line of work required here so we were shipped back across the Mediterranean to Naples in Italy, where we stayed for a couple of days. We made the most of it seeing a part of the world and some of the Roman era, also there were plenty of young and very beautiful senoritas.
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[photograph]
Stanco, Dick's dog
We stayed in Naples for two days and were then told that we would be moving on to any [sic] airfield a few miles outside of Udine in a northern village of Potsuolo, which was the desert air force headquarters known as D.A.F.H.Q. Here were 3 squadrons which flew Mustang fighters. We were attached to DAF headquarters transport section and did all the movement of materials and stuff. This was very good as it entailed collecting the rations from stores which was about twenty miles away, but the roads in places was awful and stony. One item was an open top tin of jam which an Italian was carrying in the back, unfortunately a back tyre exploded like a bomb going off, my poor Italian thought he had been shot as he was covered in jam. After changing the wheel we continued back to camp.
[photograph]
Potsuolo
Another job we had was taking personnel up to our leave hotel up in the mountains for a week at a time and the driver stayed with them and drove them to scenic places, one of which was a lake about thirty miles trip, but was well worth seeing. It was but the road was very rough running along the side of the mountains our wheels were on the very edge of a few thousand foot drop and were running on
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a log which had been built into the road where the edge had fallen away, very bad for the nerves. Other places were when crossing over the bridges from one side of the mountain to the other. These were just planks of wood about three inches thick and about ten or twelve inches wide about fourteen feet long spaced about six inches apart on wooden beams. There was just enough room to get the vehicle around the ends onto the bridge, I only bent the tool box that was on the chassis when we were going.
[photograph]
Dead Slow Ahead!
It was a wonderful place called Cortina quite scenic we stayed for lunch and then I decided to return knowing it was a long way back and I would be on the outside looking down into the valley.
I said to the chap sitting next to me when we get to the logs set into the road edge, tell me how much room I've got your side, his remark was that my side mirror was about two inches from the rock wall which meant when I looked out that my wheels were running on the top of the logs, my legs shook a bit but I thought we came through this way so should be okay going back hopefully.
[photograph]
Dick's leave hotel in Forni Avolti, to the left of the church with a cross marked on the roof
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The hotel was very good and there were quite a few locals and there was a lady there with her daughter, the mother worked in the hotel and her daughter who was about 10 or 12 decided that when a few of the locals and us went for walks she would come and hold my hand and look after me, her name was Tina. We walked across one field and the melting snow had made a three or four foot wide stream down the grass, there was about twelve in the group and it was decided to jump instead of finding a place to cross. We all decided it was no problem just a short jump should do it, but it didn't. I think we all had very wet legs far the rest of our walk, but we all enjoyed it.
[photograph]
Tina and Friends
Most evenings there were four musicians who would play for us, sometimes a good old sing song of tunes of the times, and that led into dance music which was very tiring, as the girls that worked there kept going most of the evening and made sure we kept up with them. Lana the Austrian girl if she got hold of you your feet hardly touched the ground. But they were all good fun. The week passed very quickly and it was drive them back to camp and back to work.
Every other week we were duty driver for a day, which meant servicing the commanding officers vehicles; that he wanted to use that day. You had to knock on his caravan door and go in and ask him which of his three vehicles he required that day. From a jumble of blankets a voice would say either Merc or Jep or Util, which interpreted was either Mercedes or Jeep or his Utility, so you checked all three to make sure you got it right. You were busy taking officers to meetings and also running them into town to various places sometimes just so they could do some shopping.
[underlined] On the Road to Bari [/underlined]
Some days I was office boy handing out jobs to the drivers, this I didn't like as I would rather be out driving, and I was very lucky, our M.T officer who was also ex aircrew said he had a job for three vehicles to go down to Bari, where they were closing down an airfield and we had to bring back the furniture from the officers mess. Would I like to be one of the drivers? Of course that would be very nice, he then said and I shall be going as well to make sure we bring back the right things. So my friend another ex aircrew now a driver and the third driver was a corporal who had spent quite some time in Italy and knew his way around. We also had three airmen armed with rifles as guards, on to each vehicle so we had all the bodies required for the trip.
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[photograph]
On the Road to Bari
So it was up early one morning, pack the essentials for the trip which we had no idea how long we would be, so we took a change of clothes for it [sic] we went out in the evening at some stage of the journey.
Out [sic] first stop was at Rimini which was a holiday resort on the coast and there was an air force station there where we could find a bed for the night.
We left Udine and passed by Venice into Padova then for Ferrari, the roads were quite good but the towns and villages had been taken quite a bit of damage. From here we headed for Ravenna on the Adriatic coast. It again was a holiday resort; like most places took a lot of damage, then on to Rimini and a well earned rest. Out [sic] mileage for this leg of our journey was approximately 432 kilometres.
Some of the vehicles we passed on the way were rather weary, the loads they carried were unreal some were the width of the lorry but finished up twice the width at the top. The tyres were smooth and the engines were held together with bits of wire. The Italians were noted for have good mechanics, we had one of them in our section who could just listen to an engine running and get to the cause of the trouble straight away.
Back to our trip, we left Rimini the next morning after checking our vehicles and filling up with petrol heading for our next stop which was to be Rome. Our next road was heading inland across Italy into the more agricultural part of Italy, the traffic was very mainly bullock carts with four of them in the shafts pulling very large loads which hung over the sides and took up a lot of road space. Also we kept passing a lot of women and children carrying canes on their heads and shoulders, l thought that if one turned to chat with another it would cause chaos down the line if we hit them.
One thing that we noticed was the lack of bridges crossing the roads, mostly the countryside was very flat and were either agricultural or cattle. The towns and villages we passed through were a bit showing the signs of war damage and were trying to get back to normal. In the villages there were always lots of children on the streets and all were begging for chocolate, no doubt remembering the times the Americans were there.
We reached Rome in the evening and found the army barracks were we to stay the night, we all decided we would have an early night as tomorrow was a shorter trip and we could spend a little more time in Naples which we did. The road from Rome was fairly good although there was plenty of damaged buildings everywhere and not much building taking place although it was mainly getting the
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places ready for residents to return to repair jobs mostly. Although in Naples we found that the night life was very much alive, and we spent a few hours around the night clubs, and the officer and we two warrant officers were quite happy after consuming numerous bottles of wine with some very good food. And so to bed quite happy, not looking forward the next day's trip which was going to be a long one.
Up early the next morning and had a good breakfast and refuelled our vehicles and away on the road to Bari which is situated on the North coast of Italy, known as the heel of Italy. The road out of Naples was very busy with most vehicles having enormous loads and engulfed in a fog which we were glad to leave behind and over to our right was Mount Vesuvius but only a trickle of smoke from it. We were then heading North East and the road was less busy, and was pretty rough, villages we passed through had been very heavily damaged. We stopped for a meal or I should say a sandwich, and a family in a nearby house were having their spaghetti, there was an old lady with a plate full which was devoured in a very few minutes, guess she was hungry.
[photograph]
Still on the Road to Bari
We pressed on as it was starting to look like we were going to head into some rather wet weather, we did, and finding the place we wanted was not easy. The leading lorry with our officer and corporal driving, found what they thought was the right track to the airfield which turned out to be a very narrow road just wide enough for one lorry. After about a mile the road finished and we were left with the prospect of reversing all the way back to the main road in the pouring rain. There was no where we could have turned round as the fields had been ploughed on both sides. So about half an hour later three very wet headed drivers, a very wet officer and a guard who had walked back along the track with torches to guide us. We found the right road and got to our destination, and a good hot meal was very welcome.
I seem to remember that we didn't need much rocking to sleep.
We found out the next morning after breakfast that what we were collecting was a lot of electrical equipment which was too valuable to leave and could be useful elsewhere along with quite a lot of furniture from the officers quarters some of which turned out to be large mirrors about 5 foot high by 3 foot wide with a very ornate surround, and I don't recollect whether they survived the journey, it would have been very lucky if they had. Our three young guards did alright and had an armchair for the ride back. After we had packed everything into the lorries it was dinner time, so we had a very
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good meal and washed down with some very nice wine, and decided to stay the night here and start at 8am the next morning, so we had a look round Bari which had a good port for ferries to Yugoslavia across the Adriatic. Retired to our beds ready for the start back.
The trip back to Naples was uneventful but in Naples our guards had their hands full keeping loads of youngsters from climbing up the sides of the Lorries and stealing anything. Most of what we had was furniture which was stacked on top of the wireless equipment so they left empty handled.
It was evening time when we finally arrived in Naples so didn't go very far around the town just had a drink or two and then retired to bed.
Next morning it is up and away on our next leg to Rome where we hoped to spend a little time looking around the place as there is plenty to see, and walked around the centre of the Coliseum where the gladiators did their acts, and I was glad that I wasn't acting in it, and I think the lions that did an act had already eaten that day.
[photograph]
Coliseum Rome
Later on we found a good restaurant where we had a good meal washed down with a very good Italian wine, and walked back to our billets in an army barracks and so to bed.
Not looking forward to our next trip as it is a long run and not very scenic from Rome up to Rimini, mainly farming country and only a couple of towns on the way, the one consolation was that it stayed fine all the way.
Rimini was an army controlled town so there were lots of tanks and all types of weaponry around and we stayed in army barracks that night and we were up early the next morning as it was a long trip back to Udine.
We took the road out of Rimini for Rarenna along the coast, hence our next town was Venice where we stopped for a short rest and found a restaurant for a meal which was steak mushrooms and tomatoes washed down with a red wine, very nice too.
We were then only a couple of hours from our destination and our own beds. The whole trip had taken us about ten days, but that said the items we brought back was it worth it.
Overall we had a good look at how the Italians lived and were good mechanics, as they managed to keep their Lorries on. the road tied together with lots of wire and a lot more faith.
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We had a football team made up of NCOs and we played against teams from other ranks and also from the squadron that was stationed here. I was given the position of right wing and was usually up against a six foot left back of the opposing team, I don't think we won many of our matches, but it was a bit of good fun.
[photograph]
Military Transport Football Team
It is now getting into September and we are still living in tents, and have had a lot of rain recently and the camp was rather badly flooded, my other occupant and I were lucky our tent survived the storm, we had a lot of tents blown down and the roads were flooded and it took quite a while for everywhere to dry out.
Our leave hotel in Grado on the coast was popular and we ran an evening bus most nights, and it was one of my jobs as a driver to take the bus down to the town at 5pm and collect them again at 10pm from the town square. Most made it in time and on my trips we seemed lucky and didn't have any missing bodies, most of them were quite happy. I had four days leave and stayed in our leave hotel, very nice food and comfortable beds also there were grapevines where we had breakfast, so grapes were on the menu every morning. First thing after breakfast I went down the road and at the store shop used to buy a melon and take back to the hotel and have a waiter cut a square hole in it and put in a good portion of wine then put it in the fridge and have it with our evening meal, very nice finished the meal with it.
[underlined] Mercy Mission to Egypt [/underlined]
it was around September 15th that I had a call from the office of the Adjutant to tell me that I had been given ten days leave to go to a hospital in Egypt where my brother Bob was ill, and it would help him return to good health if he had a relative to see him. I was staggered and amazed as I had no idea of his whereabouts and that he was ill.
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18.9.1946. So I had to sort my kit out what I would require and managed to pack it in my small side pack. I then had to collect the pass and papers needed and so to Udine airport, arrived there at an early hour as flight was at 9.00am in a Dakota aircraft next stop Rome. Had a hotel for my overnight stay and very nice too, good food and bed and a very good night sleep.
My flight next morning which was to be about nine hours leaving Rome at ten past seven in the morning and we landed in Malta at 9.45 to refuel the aircraft had a drink there then left for our next stop which was El Adam in North Africa. Only stayed fifty minutes again to refuel and left at 4pm for our next stop at Almaza which we arrived at 6.30pm which was my stopping off place for Cairo.
I was driven to the Heliopolis hotel and shown to my room and then taken to the dining room and had a good meal.
I was very hot after being quite cool in Italy so changed into my shorts, but it was still very sticky hot, so decided to have an early night see what tomorrow brings.
! was up early as the night was very hot and I didn't get much sleep. I had a good breakfast and had to sit around and await my transport to the hospital.
20th September a car arrived and I was driven to the Helmieh hospital, where I was taken to meet the colonel of the hospital, who welcomed me and hoped my presence would help in Bob's recovery. He then told me I was to be accommodated at the Sergeants mess of the main hospital. There were numerous sections to the hospital, a fracture unit, dental unit, isolation unit which Bob was in eye and ear unit, it was quite a large place.
I was issued with a pass the [sic] to the isolation ward in which Bob was in with note to say the above named warrant officer was permitted to visit his brother signalman Curnock in isolation ward 1 and full preventative measures should be taken.
The sister I gave the note to just laughed gave me back the note, took me by the arm and gave me a hug, and said how lovely it was that I was able to have leave to go there, and then she took me to see Bob. He was surprised as he had no idea where I was, but he was very thin, white, and I looked like an Indian next to him as in a photo of us together.
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[photograph] [photograph]
Dick and Bob at Helmieh hospital, Egypt
My time at the hospital was spent on visits to Bob every day, having a game of snooker with some of the other members of the mess, or at other times some of the nurses and sister would ask me to escort them into Cairo to do a spot of shopping which I did quite willingly.
My ten days leave passed rather quickly, but when I rang the air booking centre in Cairo, I wasn't on any of the flights so had to wait another week. In fact it was the 25th October before my flight for Italy was finally here, so I had about 6 weeks of a 10 day leave.
Each unit had its own Sergeants mess and most evenings there was entertainment in one of them. Once or twice a week there was horse racing in one of them, and in the dental mess one night they had a Derby meeting, the horses were bid for at the start and I bought number two for two pounds after bidding against the colonel. And it won the race and I was twenty two pounds richer for a while, but lost a bit on the following races, good fun though.
The other entertainment was a quiz night which was quite hilarious, with answers to some questions quite ridiculous but funny. Others had classes which were well attended by all, as we had lots of nurses and sisters to make a good evening of it.
At another sergeants mess they held a bingo night with some other entertainment as bingo wasn't very popular.
In the sergeants mess some of them had nicknames, one was known as bash he was a boxer in Civvy Street; we also had a slash as he was always cutting himself when shaving, so I had to have one and was known as the parachute kid.
We had a snooker table in the mess and I had plenty of practice on it as I had quite a lot of time to fill in.
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Time passed and I finally had my seat booked for my return to Italy. So then I had to say my farewells to all the friends that I had made during my stay and to Bob of course and also I went to see the colonel and thanks him for all they had done for Bob and also making my stay a pleasant one.
[underlined] Dakota back to Italy – Treviso [/underlined]
So on the 26th October my flight was at 6.30am so was up early for the return journey. One of the sergeants had said the night before that he would take me to the airport as he was duty driver for that day. So once again I joined up with a Dakota of the South African Air force at Almaja airport stopping at El Adam to refuel then on to Malta where we stayed the night. The next day we were away at seven am on the last leg to Rome.
At Rome airport I was informed that the personnel of the 239 Wing Desert Air Force; had been moved to a place called Treviso so that where I was being sent. They said my kit had been transferred already so I had to get to this place, but found out that I was booked on a flight to an aerodrome just outside of Treviso.
[photograph]
Sergeants Mess Treviso 1945, Dick and friend
There was transport at the aerodrome and I was taken to our sergeant mess which was a town villa in Treviso and was shown to my room and where I was reunited with my kit bag.
This was luxury after living in tents for a long period with wash basins and baths and there were ladies to do your laundry and any repairs to your clothes.
I certainly enjoyed having a nice hot bath and retiring to a good bed and hoped that I wasn't to be moved again, as I had had enough of travelling for a while.
At Treviso it was usual routine doing runs into town and around the airfield, towing petrol trailers around to the aircraft for refuelling. Also fetching blocks of ice for the bars of the officers and sergeants also messes of other ranks. By the time you got back to camp there was a lot of water in the back of the truck and you had to lift blocks of wet ice into the various messes, a cold job.
From Treviso it was only a few miles into Venice and we spent a few weekends there, and got to do a lot of walking, you could have a gondola ride but they charged the earth, so we usually walked.
St Marco's square was very popular with lots of shops and cafes around. There was an abundant supply of jewellery shops and also the square had hundreds of pigeons, making it quite messy.
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There was a bell tower in one corner which had a large bell on the top. Apparently an Italian gent decided to inspect it too close and his head flattened by the bell hammer, very nasty.
There were lots of bridges over the canals and as you went into the centre where they had warehouses it was a rather different place, the canals were not so dean, and people living alongside them just threw rubbish out of the windows, not a good healthy environment to live in.
We found a very good restaurant in Treviso down a back street a very smart little place, who did beef steaks, which you could pick from a large selection and then you could see them being cooked and you then selected what you wanted with it.
Time passed very quickly at Treviso and was January before we realised suddenly that our demob numbers would be coming up soon. And it was January when we were told that some of us were going home and that we could be going to Villach in Austria to catch a train for the trip across Austria, Switzerland and France and home.
The day arrived when we were notified that we had reached the final week in Italy and would travel by train to Villach, and thence start our journey home. We cleared with all the necessary forms as was needed, paid any mess bills and said our farewells to rest of the transport department and was then taken to the station.
It was an uneventful journey to Villach where we had to stay overnight and there was thick snow there and rather cold with long icicles from roves [sic] of our huts.
[photograph]
Villach - with icicles
I met up with some of the other lads who had travelled with me on our trip out earlier, when we were leaving; waiting on the road for transport to the station a whole lot of youngsters arrived with sledges, so all we had to carry was our small kit, the kit bags were loaded on the sledges and so on to the station.
Our train was in and so we went aboard with kit bags on the corridors and rest of our kit on the racks, it was then that we all got into the spirit of finally going home. The trains were French so the toilets had no seat, just two places for your feet and a hole in the middle, not very comfortable.
With it being January everywhere was very white with snow and I took some pictures of the mountains as we passed into Switzerland which was wonderful. Coming out of a tunnel on the
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mountainside and there was a village and it appeared to just be hanging on. It went on like this from many miles as we went through Switzerland and into France.
[photograph]
Switzerland from the train
We stopped in Paris station for a hot drink and a sandwich and managed to have a wash and brush up before our next stop which was to be Dieppe and a channel crossing to Newhaven.
The trip over was uneventful but the sea was rather rough and there were one or two heaving stomachs to prove it, and we arrived in the dock, and then when we had sorted out our kit bags from a very large heap, the train was waiting in the station to take us to the demob centre, which was at No 101 Dispersal centre at Kirkham in Lancashire.
This was the place where you returned to civilian life once again. It is now the 21st January 1947 about to sort out from a large selection of shirts, underwear and suits and find some that is a reasonable fit. After which you went and tried on the items you had selected and handed in your uniform, well most of it, l remember that there was a shirt, a pair of shorts and some desert socks along with the boots that I wore during our sight seeing tour of Germany. Then you had to see numerous sections who dealt with your pay due to you and the amount of leave which turned out to be eighty days from the 21st January 1947.
You then had to collect your travel warrant, your pay also was entered in the back of your service release book and you had to collect it from the post office when it was due, and they would date stamp it in the back of your pay book.
My return home was a wonderful feeling after all my travels. At the station the neighbour of ours who had a taxi cab saw me and had me in his cab very quickly.
Upon arriving at Minehead Street the first thing I saw was the street still decorated with flags and bunting after the end of the war in Japan and not for me.
Mr Shuker sounded his horn and slowed down and there were a lot of people came out to welcome me home and of course Mum, Dad and Mary and our close neighbours were all waiting and I was smothered with their welcome.
And so I looked forward to a nice long holiday and getting used to civilian life once more.
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[underlined] Reunions [/underlined]
Dick's mother (Arabella Curnock) had welcomed several of the Canadian crew members into her home, and had corresponded with members of their families back home in Canada during the war.
Bob Friskey's wife Isabella in Abbotsford also wrote to Dick and Barbara after their marriage, as well as continuing to correspond with Dick's mother. It was from them that the news came that "Chuck" committed suicide some time after returning home.
Rob died sometime after, but Isabella continued to write to Dick.
Wes and his (Scottish) wife Mae made contact again sometime in the 1970s, when Dick received a phone call at the Thurmaston plant of Thorpe and Porter where he worked. The call was from the railway station in Leicester where Wes and Mae were - accompanied by the youngest of their five sons!
Dick went to pick them up, and they stayed overnight with [sic] at Queniborough before carrying on their journey to Scotland. Wes and Mae paid a short visit to Dick's mother, as Wes had stayed with her during the war when on leave.
In 1984 a lady who lived on Upperton Road (Mrs Tobin) was clearing out a house on Minehead Street (no 59) which was formally the Curnock family home. Amongst the papers was an unopened letter from Eugene Fullum in Montreal. She looked in the phone book and found a R Curnock and rang and this got Dick and Eugene back in touch.
[photograph]
Eugene and Dick 1985 (Leicester Mercury photo)
Eugene came over the UK in 1985, and when Dick and he met it was the first time they had seen each other since the police station in Germany the day after they had been shot down.
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[photograph]
RAF Prisoner of War insignia
[photograph]
Gordon, Eugene, Dick, Wes, 1987 Reunion
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[photograph]
Dick in the rear gunner position of a Halifax bomber; at Elvington, Yorks. 2004
[photograph]
Dick exiting the Halifax, the last time he did this, the Halifax was on fire and he was about to parachute into enemy territory
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Appendix 1 – Dick’s RAF flying log book – 17.7.1943 to 25.8.1947
i) Gunnery course results
[document]
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Appendix 1 - ii) gunnery training
[flight log book document]
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Appendix 1 – iii) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
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Appendix 1 – iv) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
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Appendix 1 – v) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
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Appendix 1 – vi) 22 O.T.U.
[flight log book document]
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[page break]
Appendix 1 – vii) 1664 Conversion Unit
[flight log book document]
58
[page break]
Appendix 1 – viii) 1664 Conversion Unit
[flight log book document]
59
[page break]
Appendix 1 – ix) 425 Squadron – shows the last mission Dick flew to Augsburg
[flight log book document]
60
[page break]
Appendix 1 – x) Flights to and from Egypt to visit Bob
[flight log book document]
61
[page break]
Appendix 2
[drawing of Berlin War Cemetery]
Ginger Wheadon is buried in 6.B.19
62
[page break]
Appendix 3 -The March - source Wikipedia
"The March" refers to a series of forced marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. From a total of 257,000 western Allied prisoners of war held in German military prison camps, over 80,000 POWs were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in extreme winter conditions, over about four months between January and April 1945. This series of events has been called various names: "The Great March West", "The Long March", "The Long Walk", "The Long Trek", "The Black March", "The Bread March", and "Death March Across Germany", but most survivors just called it "The March".
As the Soviet Army was advancing, German authorities decided to evacuate POW camps, to delay liberation of the prisoners. January and February 1945 were among the coldest winter months of the 20th century in Europe, with blizzards and temperatures as low as -25 O C and even until the middle of March, temperatures were well below 0 O C Most of the POWs were ill-prepared for the evacuation, having suffered years of poor rations and wearing clothing ill-suited to the appalling winter conditions.
In most camps, the POWs were broken up in groups of 250 to 300 men and because of the inadequate roads and the flow of battle, not all the prisoners followed the same route. The groups would march 20 to 40 kilometers a day - resting in factories, churches, barns and even in the open. Soon long columns of POWs were wandering over the northern part of Germany with little or nothing in the way of food, clothing, shelter or medical care.
Prisoners from different camps had different experiences: sometimes the Germans provided farm wagons for those unable to walk. There seldom were horses available, so teams of POWs pulled the wagons through the snow. Sometimes the guards and prisoners became dependent on each other, other times the guards became increasingly hostile. Those with intact boots had the dilemma of whether to remove them at night - if they left them on, trench foot could result; if they removed them, they may not get their swollen feet back into their boots in the morning or, worse, the boots may freeze or be stolen.
With so little food they were reduced to scavenging to survive. Some were reduced to eating dogs and cats and grass-anything they could lay their hands on. Already underweight from years of prison rations, some were at half their pre-war body weight by the end.
Because of the unsanitary conditions and a near starvation diet, hundreds of POWs died of disease along the way and many more were ill. Dysentery was common; sufferers had the indignity of soiling themselves whilst having to continue to march, and being further weakened by the debilitating effects of illness. This disease was easily spread from one group to another when they followed the same route and rested in the same places. Many POWs suffered from frostbite which could lead to gangrene. Typhus, spread by body lice, was a risk for all POWs, but was now increased by using overnight shelter previously occupied by infected groups. Some men simply froze to death in their sleep.
In addition to these conditions were the dangers from air attack by Allied forces mistaking the POWs for retreating columns of German troops. On April 19, 1945, at a village called Gresse, 30 Allied POWs died and 30 were seriously injured (possibly fatally) in a "friendly-fire" situation when strafed by a flight of RAF Typhoons.
63
[page break]
As winter drew to a close, suffering from the cold abated and some of the German guards became less harsh in their treatment of POWs. But the thaw rendered useless the sledges made by many POWs to carry spare clothing, carefully preserved food supplies and other items. So, the route became littered with items that could not be carried. Some even discarded their greatcoats, hoping that the weather did not turn cold again. As the columns reached the western side of Germany they ran into the advancing western Allied armies. For some, this brought liberation. Others were not so lucky. They were marched towards the Baltic Sea, where Nazis were said to be using POWs as human shields and hostages. It was later estimated that a large number of POWs had marched over five hundred miles by the time they were liberated, and some had walked nearly a thousand miles.
64
[page break]
Appendix 4 – i) Stalag Luft 357 – long march route, and camp numbering correction information
Red Cross map of prisoner of war camps
[map]
65
[page break]
Appendix 4 – ii) Stalag Luft 357 and long march route
[map]
66
[page break]
Appendix 4 – iii) Blue cross in circle marks where Dick was shot down. Red Cross near Frankfurt where he was moved to
[map]
67
[page break]
Appendix 4 – iv) Red line shows routes taken by Dick. Torun (Thorn) camp shown
[map]
68
[page break]
Appendix 4 – v) Poznan – Stalag XXI
[map]
69
[page break]
Appendix 4 – vi) Stalag Luft VI – Lithuania
[map]
70
[page break]
26th April 2014
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
My War Story
Description
An account of the resource
A memoir written by Dick Curnock. It covers his wartime service and also his service after the war for the RAF. It covers his brother Sam and his accident as a pilot. Dick started his training at Lords in London, Bridlington then Bridgnorth and Dalcross. Next move was to Wellesbourne where he crewed up and practised bombing from a Wellington, then Dishforth for conversion on to Halifaxes. His squadron was 425 at Tholthorpe and he undertook night flying training. On his second operation he was shot down near Augsburg. He was taken prisoner and interrogated before being transferred to Stalag Luft VI. He describes his life there. As the Russians got nearer they were transferred by cattle truck to Stalag Luft 357 at Torun. Next they were subjected to the Long March in April 1945. During this the flight engineer, Ginger Wheadon was shot by an RAF Typhoon. After being liberated and returning to the UK he served briefly in Egypt then Italy as an RAF transport driver. During this time he went to Egypt to visit his brother, Bob who was ill in Cairo. Eventually he was demobbed from Italy via Austria and Paris.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dick Curnock
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-04-26
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
71 printed 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
BCurnockRMCurnockRMv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Austria
Austria--Villach
Canada
British Columbia--Abbotsford
Québec--Montréal
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
France
France--Paris
Gibraltar
Germany
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Schweinfurt
Great Britain
England--Bridlington
England--Horsham
England--Leicester
England--London
England--Melksham
Italy
Italy--Bari
Italy--Cortina d'Ampezzo
Italy--Naples
Italy--Padua
Italy--Ravenna
Italy--Rimini
Italy--Rome
Italy--Udine
Italy--Venice
Malta
North Africa
Poland--Toruń
Germany--Lüneburg
Poland
Lithuania
Poland--Żagań
Lithuania--Šilutė
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
England--Christchurch (Dorset)
Québec
England--Dorset
England--Leicestershire
England--Yorkshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Bradbury
22 OTU
420 Squadron
425 Squadron
431 Squadron
434 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
arts and crafts
bale out
bomb aimer
C-47
Caterpillar Club
crash
crewing up
Dulag Luft
final resting place
flight engineer
ground personnel
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hurricane
Ju 88
lynching
mess
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
P-51
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Cosford
RAF Dishforth
RAF Elvington
RAF Gaydon
RAF Inverness
RAF Manston
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Wellesbourne Mountford
Red Cross
sanitation
service vehicle
sport
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
strafing
the long march
training
Typhoon
Wellington
Whitley
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1385/25434/SBakerDA19210428v1.2.pdf
71e513893c2b39fd3b2a2e4f79b1d545
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
Baker, Donald Arthur
D A Baker
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
2018-11-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Baker, DA
Description
An account of the resource
187 items. Donald Arthur Baker (b. 1921) travelled from Southern Rhodesia to England in 1940 to join the Royal Air Force. Trained as a pilot in 1941 he was operational with 144 Squadron at RAF North Luffenham flying Hampdens. He was shot down on 5 November 1941 and remained a prisoner of war mostly in Stalag Luft 3 until 1945. He return to farm in Southern Rhodesia after the war. The collection contains letters to his mother throughout the war as well as other correspondence and documents including his prisoner of war log with photographs and notes.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by June Baker Maree and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[ink stamp lion] A WARTIME LOG
[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]
[ink stamp lion] THIS BOOK BELONGS TO DONALD A. BAKER. (123/5) Gef. 665
[Y.M.C.A logo]
[page break]
[list] W. G. Grisman Leslie Bull R. A. Marks L. Kerfoot Brownson H. Daffern-Seal Norman Shuttleworth F. Wellburn N. W. MacLeod S. S. Jock Fielden Ken Pollard Somerton Somerset N. J. Lewis K. Pollard
[page break]
[ink stamp lion] 1 [ink stamp lion]
[underlined] ENGLAND [/underlined]
[list] [underlined] W. G. Grisman [/underlined] Cornwallis, Bodenham RD. Hereford [underlined] L. Bull. [/underlined] Godalming, Surrey. [underlined] R. A. Marks. [/underlined] Meadow Court, Guildford RD. [sic] Leicester [underlined] L. Kerfoot Brownson [/underlined] Collina, Heversham, Milnthorpe Westmorland [underlined] H. Daffern-Seal [/underlined] Westhorpe House Nr. Rugby. [underlined] Norman Shuttleworth [/underlined] 28 Revell Road, Coombe Hill, Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey, (Kingston 0385) [underlined] F. Wellburn. [/underlined] Rose Villa, 25, Eden St, Stanwix, Carlisle, Cumberland.
[page break]
2 N. W. McLeod, Wingrove
[list] [underlined] N. W. McLeod. [/underlined] “Wingrove”, Seahouses. Northumberland [underlined] S. S. “Jock” Fielden, [/underlined] Newton Cottage, Bracknell Berks. Ken pollard. Somerton, Somerset. [underlined] N. J. Lewis [/underlined] 27 The Grove, Ickenham, M.Sex. [underlined] K. Pollard [/underlined] 3 Langport Rd, Somerton. Som.
[page break]
3
[blank page]
4 [underlined] South Africa [/underlined]
[list] [underlined] C. D. Jackson, [/underlined] Broadwater. Via Belmont, C.P. [underlined] G. R. Haller. [/underlined] Barclays bank, East London. [underlined] G. A. Francey [/underlined] 134, 8th Street, Orange Grove, Jo’burg. [underlined] Hugh Keartland Jr. [/underlined] Valley View, Fairway Avenue, Linksfield (Nth) Jo’burg [underlined] Bush M. Kennedy [/underlined] [indecipherable word], Ocean View Drive, cape Town. [underlined] B. G. Roxburgh [/underlined] C/O J. W. Roxburgh, Tele Manager, Field St. Durban [underlined] W. J. Chase (Charlie) [/underlined] [underlined] Heaton-Nicholls [/underlined] [underlined] Tony Ruffell [/underlined] Box 4557 Jo’bg. Zul.
[page break]
5
[underlined] J. E. Parsonson [/underlined] S.A.A.F. C/O Garrison Officers Mess, [indecipherable name] Hts. TVL. S.A. [underlined] J. P. [indecipherable name] [/underlined] P.O. Box 1, Zwastruggend, TVL, S.A. [underlined] D. N. Tweedie [/underlined] Eldoret Estate, P.O. [indecipherable name] Kenya.
[page break]
6 AUSTRALIA.
[list] [underlined] A. M. Edwards. [/underlined] Royal Auto Club, Queens St, Melbourne [underlined] H. E. Holland. [/underlined] Rampsbeck, Armadale, [sic] N.S.W. [underlined] H. G. H. Roberts. [/underlined] 98 Grand Parade, Bedford Park, W. Austr.
[page break]
CANADA. 7
[list] [underlined] G. D. Hughes. [/underlined] 514 Riverside Drive, Toronto, [underlined] J. A. Ferguson [/underlined] 380 Van Norman St. [deleted] Toronto [/deleted] Port Arthur, Ontario.
[page break]
8 U.S.A.
[list] John P. Lyons Portland Oregon. Howard Parton 108 Sth Portland Avenue Brooklyn 17 N.Y.
[page break]
9
[underlined] Syd Smith [/underlined] [indecipherable word] Caixa Postal, Sao Paulo Brazil
[page break]
10
[weight & account summary]
[page break]
[missing pages]
13
[weight & account summary]
[page break]
14
[weight & account summary]
[page break]
15
[weight & account summary]
[page break]
[weight & account summary]
16
[weight & account summary]
[page break]
[missing pages]
19
[weight & account summary]
[page break]
20
[calculations]
[page break]
21
[calculations]
[Page break]
[missing pages]
52
[blank page]
[page break]
London. 53
Rhodesia House (Fags, Chocolate, Fly Concession? Tobacco, Clothing, Opera Tickets. Lloyds Bank. (Transfer to Rhodesia, Bonds & Certificates. Statement 133 Regent Street. (Hadaways). Covent Garden
[page break]
54
National History Museum, Kensington
[page break]
[photograph 7 aircrew] [underlined] Barth [/underlined] Self, Roxy, Bill Kloster, George Francey Steve, Les Bull, Piotr Kowalski.
[page break]
South Africans at Barth. Stalag Luft I Winter 41/42
[photograph 8 aircrew] McGarr, [inserted] (Killed) [/inserted] Charlie Chase, Eric Clyde Marley, John Stevens, Roxburgh, George Francey, Ray Wilkins, Self.
[photograph 4 aircrew] Stevens (N.Z.) Bill Houghton (N.Z.) Vic Saunders (Can) Don Webster (Can)
[page break]
Room 17, West Block, Barth [photograph 4 aircrew] Piotr Kowalski, self, Les Bull, Grisman [inserted] Killed Mar. ’43. [/inserted]
[photograph 7 aircrew] R. J. Stevens, Grisman, George Francey, Self, Roxy, [indecipherable name], Hughes
[page break]
South Africans at Schubin. Oflag XXIB. Winter 42-43
[photograph 19 aircrew] Reg Allwood (S.R). Bush Kennedy, Ken Davies, Jim [indecipherable name], Heaton-Nicholls, Taylor, Eustace Newborn, “Pop” Wright, Tony Parker, George Haller, Tony Ruffell, Tiger Catzee. Front Row. Small, C. Chase, Jackie Perkins, Jacko Jackson, Self.
[page break]
[photograph play scene 1 airman] [indecipherable word] Play 1941
[photograph 10 aircrew attending burial service]
[page break]
[photograph 14 aircrew attending burial service]
[photograph 14 aircrew attending burial service]
[page break]
[photograph aircrew carrying coffin] Rt. Hand Side Back to Front. Jack [space] [space] Willis Charlie Chase Don Lush Rusty Hawthorne Left Ken Toft
[page break]
Rhodsns [sic] at Stalag Luft III North Compound, Dick Bennett & Ray Hill not present.
[photograph 16 aircrew] Ken Wilson, Grew Sodden, Jack P’Wood, Butch C. Cooker, Chain Spence, Jim [indecipherable name], Ron Michell, Nev Banker, Tony Parker. Front Row. C. Chase, Dave Hogg, [indecipherable name] Stewart, Bill [indecipherable name], Self, John Travers, Hugh [indecipherable name]
[page break]
[photograph 2 civilians on property steps]
[page break]
[photograph group of 8 civilians]
[page break]
[photograph group of children on property steps]
[photograph 19 aircrew]
[page break]
[photograph 19 aircrew]
[Page break]
65
[underlined] Das Völkischer Bëobachter [/underlined] (The National Observer) [underlined] Deutsche Algemeine (sic) Zeitung [/underlined] (German General Newspaper) [German text] 5 lines
[Page break]
66
[German text] 10 lines
[page break]
67
[German text] 16 lines
[page break]
68
[German text} 10 lines
[page break]
69
[German text} 7 lines
[page break]
112
[missing pages]
[blank page]
[page break]
113
[table weekly rations by weights before & after 2/3/45]
[page break]
[non-descript text]
[Page break]
[non-descript text]
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
Donald Baker's wartime log for British prisoners
Description
An account of the resource
A gift from the war prisoners aid of the YMCA, it contains notes in German and English, and names and addresses of people in Australia, Brazil and Canada, tables, figures and calculations, weekly rations with list of food, and photographs of prisoners of war at Stalag Luft 1 and Stalag Luft 3.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SBakerDA19210428v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
South Africa
Switzerland
United States
England--London
Germany--Barth
Poland--Szubin
Poland--Żagań
Switzerland--Geneva
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945-03-02
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Donald Baker
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Robin Christian
aircrew
entertainment
final resting place
military living conditions
pilot
prisoner of war
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40567/SAnkersonR[Ser -DoB]v20007.jpg
92a5c1c33d06b75244eca2093df57614
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40567/SAnkersonR[Ser -DoB]v20008.jpg
d62fedc33bfc1ad2630028dc8cafe8f4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40567/SAnkersonR[Ser -DoB]v20009.jpg
8996c8383aaf55f53b5ee24cb808590c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40567/SAnkersonR[Ser -DoB]v20010.jpg
e1daac9ebeb389e3bb6f0d709412e1e0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association
Description
An account of the resource
97 items. The collection concerns Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association and contains items including drawings by the artist Ley Kenyon.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Ankerson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-29
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RAF ex POW As Collection
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Dorothy Wilkinson from Donald Flett
Description
An account of the resource
A letter and transcript to Charlie Warner's sister from Donald Flett. Donald was the sole survivor of the Lancaster crash.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Donald Flett
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-07-08
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy
Great Britain
England--Cambridge
Germany--Peenemünde
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Munich
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Lingen (Lower Saxony)
Poland
Germany
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten and one printed sheet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]v20007, SAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]v20008, SAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]v20009, SAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]v20010
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-03
1943-09-04
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association. Charlie Warner
air gunner
aircrew
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
final resting place
killed in action
navigator
pilot
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/235/3378/PConacherG1701.1.jpg
1abb9d4268fb6cb9872a86d3d0d927bc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/235/3378/AConacherG170411.2.mp3
e612302f57e8a4a63c3d121033230c2c
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
Conacher, Geoff
Geoffrey Conacher
Geoff Conacher
G Conacher
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Geoff Conacher (419799 Royal Australian Air Force) and a course photograph. He flew operations as a pilot with 622 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Geoff Conacher 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
2017-04-11
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
Conacher, G
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DM: Ok. We’re off. So the microphone is just up there.
GC: Right.
DM: So, I don’t know exactly how you want to do this.
GC: No. I don’t know what, what you want really.
DM: I just want a story from where to go. So starting on maybe why you joined up and when you joined up and so the reasoning behind it. And then what happened to you.
GC: Oh, I see. I see.
DM: Maybe that’s a good start.
GC: Yeah. Well I could talk for a while on that I guess. Well, I joined up mainly because — well the war was on and if you didn’t join up the army called you up and that was it. So I had a [pause] I always wanted to join the air force. I thought I’d join the air force. I knew that eighteen was coming up and I’d be called up so and I told my mother and father that, ‘If you don’t sign these papers I’ll finish up in the army.’ But they wouldn’t sign the papers. They didn’t want me to go overseas so they didn’t want me to fly. So, I did finish up in the army for about, oh it must have been about eight months I think before I could get out and get into the air force which I went in to in November 1942. Went down to Somers where the ITS was. Number 1, I think it was. Number 1 ITS. And did the three months course down there and was fortunate enough to be categorised as suitable for pilot training. And then I went to Western Junction in Tasmania and learned to fly Tiger Moths there.
DM: Ok.
GC: I was just, I was just turned nineteen then ‘cause I was in the army for most of my eighteenth year. Yeah, and so that all sort of went ok. Went well and I managed a solo and then the required seven hours I think it was. Or seven and a half hours tuition. And then when we graduated from SFTS as they called it — no. Not SFTS. EFTS. Elementary Flying Training School I was posted to Point Cook here in Victoria. Where it was number 1 SFTS and we flew multi engine, two-engined Oxfords down there and learned to fly those and graduated in July, I think it was, of 1943. And was fortunate enough to be posted to embarkation depot which meant you were going overseas and we went to [pause] went to England and went across. Went across to America actually by ship. American ship. USS Mount Vernon I think it was. And that took about two or three weeks. And then we went by train across to the east coast of America in, to Massachusetts. A place called Camp Myles Standish. Unfortunately on the train journey across I contracted scarlet fever and when I lobbed there I was put straight into hospital. I was the first or second of what was an epidemic that went right through the, through the camp and which upset everybody who was looking forward to going on leave to New York which didn’t, didn’t happen for most of them. But for those that did get scarlet fever we served our three weeks in hospital. Then we came out and went on leave to New York so —
DM: Right.
GC: It worked all right for us. We were, we were the main cause of other people missing out. But anyway, then we went by, by ship across the Atlantic on the Aquitania. USS Aquitania. No. Not USS — SS Aquitania and landed at Greenock in Scotland. And from there we travelled down to Brighton on the south coast where we were domiciled. All Australians when they arrived, initially they were, they were going to Bournemouth but then they changed it. Due to some enemy action they changed it to Brighton and so we all went to Brighton and stayed in either the Grand or the Metropole Hotel.
DM: Very flash hotels.
GC: Which were lovely hotels.
DM: Nice.
GC: Right on the, right on the waterfront. And we were there for oh [pause] see the trouble was when you went to England the weather got crook. At that time in the year — November, December, January. And of course all the training starts to bank up because they can’t fly. But anyway we eventually got back in to the air. It was about three months afterwards though since we arrived. After we arrived. And we did our training there which was mainly on [pause] we went on Oxfords again and did a course there. And then we went to OTU which was Operational Training Unit on to, on to Wellington bombers. And did our training there. It was whilst I was there my navigator who — we selected our own crews. They put you in, in a big hangar with umpteen aircrew and said, ‘Well now find yourselves a crew.’ So that went on and anyway it turns out that the little navigator that I got was English. They were all Englishmen. He, he obviously well didn’t make the grade. I didn’t have anything to do with it but the leaders, the navigation leader said, ‘He’s just not up to scratch so we’re going to remove him. So they took him away and I had to wait about six weeks before I got another navigator. And that put me all back right through the [pause] all the fellas I’d trained with, they all went ahead.
DM: Right.
GC: And so it was upsetting at the time. But anyway, to offset that I managed to meet a girl who made some sort of an impression on me and I must have done the same to her because we married within six months.
DM: Crikey. Yeah.
GC: And in ’44 that was. Late ’44. And so when I did get training again, when I did get a new navigator we got through there went on to our next training school which was over in Yorkshire. Which was, they called it a Heavy Conversion Unit. We went on to Halifaxes. Learned to fly Halifaxes. They were four-engined aircraft and from there we were posted to a squadron. Or they did another little course in between called Lancaster Finishing School but that was only about ten hours of flying and then I went to the squadron and it wasn’t until January 1945 that I got to the squadron whereas most of the fellows that I trained with they were, they were operational in November.
DM: Ok.
GC: But because of my holdup — but anyway that’s beside the point I suppose. But so I got, I was operational. I had a bit of bad luck on my first trip which — it was the custom to do what they used to call a second dickie. When a new pilot went [pause] and somehow or other I didn’t do one. I just went straight on to operations and had a bit of bad luck. Not through enemy action but just through mechanical problems and the aircraft finished up catching fire and we had to bale out.
DM: Crikey.
GC: So that was [pause] that caused a bit of an upheaval of course and we got back to the squadron about. We were posted missing but that was only because we didn’t get back in time. And we got back about two or three days later and flew the same. We baled out in liberated France.
DM: Ok.
GC: So we flew back to, we knew we were across the border and then we got out there so that was alright.
DM: So what sort of aircraft was that?
GC: Lancasters.
DM: Lancaster. Right.
GC: Yes. So that was a Lancaster squadron. 622 Squadron. And so then I just kept on. Well that was [unclear] they sent us on survivors leave which was the general practice. And that was a few days leave and we came back and we went operational again of course. I finished up doing another — I think I did fourteen. Fourteen or fifteen trips. And war finished for which we were all truly thankful.
DM: Very happy.
GC: Yeah. And so and then of course we, when the war finished we flew for a few days we were flying across to Europe and flying back POWs from, from France. The Americans were flying them out to France and then we were flying them from a place called Juvincourt in France back to aerodromes in Kent mainly where we unloaded them. And we did, I did about eight of those I think. Which was, you know was very rewarding.
DM: It would be. Those guys.
GC: To see those guys who had been POWs for up to five years. Some of the English army fellas had. And they just couldn’t believe it, you know. I don’t think they were all that impressed with all these young looking kids that were flying them [laughs] that were flying them over there. Because we were all about, you know, twenty one.
DM: That’s right.
GC: Twenty two. That sort of age. But they — to see the smiles on their faces when they got to England was just incredible yeah.
DM: [unclear]
GC: Yeah. And then, you know, we went on leave of course. That was one long leave for months until we got ships to bring us home. I came home. I think the war finished in May and we, we all left for Australia in the October I think. We got back in November.
DM: Quite a long time.
GC: Yeah. We got back in November. But of course those of us that were married it didn’t matter whether we were, but anyway the wives were not allowed to travel with you. We had to leave them behind and it was six months after that before they came out.
DM: Right. They came separately. Yeah.
GC: And so then when that happened of course we were getting back to Civvy Street. Back to living life as whichever way we found it. Yeah.
DM: To normality.
GC: Yeah.
DM: So what the base that you flew from?
GC: Mildenhall.
DM: Mildenhall. Whereabouts is that?
GC: Mildenhall’s near Cambridge. Newmarket. Closer to Newmarket. Yeah. Suffolk.
DM: There’s a flat bit there of course.
GC: Yes. It’s all very flat. Yeah. Yeah. I think they, what do they call it? The Fens, don’t they?
DM: Yeah, I think so.
GC: Yeah.
DM: So was that a proper RAF base? Or was it —
GC: Yeah.
DM: It was.
GC: It was a permanent RAF base.
DM: Yeah.
GC: It was built it was quite interesting really. It was built in about 1935 and was, and was opened by the [pause] the, well it was Goering anyway that opened it. And he was, he was chief of the German air force.
DM: Oh right.
GC: Luftwaffe. So and —
DM: That’s a claim to fame.
GC: Yes. Yes. And it was also the start of the Melbourne Centenary Air Race which was a race from England to Australia in 1934 or ’35 to celebrate the [pause] the — Melbourne was a hundred years old so it was the hundredth anniversary of Melbourne.
DM: Right.
GC: They flew from London to Australia. The race was won by a couple of Englishmen. Black and Scott. And they flew in a — it was like an early [pause] early Mosquito type of aircraft. A Comet.
DM: Oh yes. I know the Comet.
GC: Yeah. The Comet. And I think it was about two days and twenty hours it took them to and they won the race.
DM: Right.
GC: Of course a bit slow compared to what they do now.
DM: So there would have been a fair few squadrons at Mildenhall together would there not?
GC: Only two.
DM: Only two.
GC: Only two at Mildenhall. There was 15 Squadron and 622 Squadron.
DM: So you never flew the Stirling because that was what they originally had.
GC: No. I didn’t fly the Stirling. Yeah. That’s right. They did at Mildenhall.
DM: Yeah.
GC: They were, they did have Stirlings and then they converted to Lancasters I think in about ‘43 I think it was.
DM: Ok.
GC: They all, they all converted from Stirlings. So they all had —
DM: Yeah. They gave them away.
GC: They flew throughout the war but Stirlings didn’t have, they had a bit of a height problem. They couldn’t get up. Beautiful aircraft. People who flew them said they were just a lovely aircraft to fly. But I can’t imagine it being better than a Lancaster.
DM: No. Certainly the Lancaster has the reputation as the best. So when you found a crew what sort of a process was it that you — I mean how did you get on? How did you connect with people?
GC: Well we were — course you stood around with other pilots, we were. Because they were pilots and, ‘Who are we going to get? Do you know anybody?’ ‘No I don’t know anybody.’ So you’re just sort of standing there and looking around didnt quite knowing how to go about it.
DM: Like a dance almost.
GC: Yeah. And then these, these couple of young blokes came up to me and they said, ‘Have you got a crew skip?’ So I said, ‘No. I haven’t got a crew. I haven’t got anybody.’ They said, ‘Well we’re a couple of gunners. We’d come with you,’ you know. Or, ‘We’ll go with you.’ And I said, ‘ Oh well we’ll see about that,’ but we’ll, you know. I met them and so and then they said, ‘Well we know a bloke who’s a navigator,’ or a bloke who’s a bomb aimer. I forget which. Anyway they rustled around and found these fellows and brought them up and we finished up getting, getting a crew and apart from the navigator that I said we lost, unfortunately the wireless operator when we got to a squadron or just before we got to the squadron actually and we were using oxygen, oxygen masks, he had a problem with a rash. He used to get a rash all around his mouth.
DM: Oh so he was allergic to the rubber.
GC: Allergic to it.
DM: Right. Yeah.
GC: So they, you know they had to scrub him which was very sad. He was an officer too. A young officer. He’d been commissioned of course and so he had to go but anyway we got another one and away we went. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So I guess the training you did together was fairly limited then, so you’d done virtually all your training as individuals and then you gather at the end.
GC: Well, yes you do. You, you, we formed up as a crew in [pause] I think it would have been May. May I think it would have been in 1943 and we flew together in training until the January before we went to a squadron?
DM: Right. Ok.
GC: Yeah. So, and so and you probably did a fair bit of flying in those.
DM: So a lot of training flights.
GC: A lot of training flights. Yeah.
DM: So by the time you got on operations you knew each other pretty well.
GC: Oh yeah. Yes. We did. Yeah. And I’ve got, there’s only one of them left. The flight engineer who came to us. Flight engineers joined the crew only when you got into four-engined aircraft. And he was only a young bloke and he’s still alive. He’s —
DM: Ok.
GC: He’s ninety, ninety one I think he must be. Yeah. Ninety one. Lives in Manchester and we still are in contact with one another.
DM: Ok. So you kept in contact with all of them over that.
GC: Well I tried to. Yes. I tried to. I went across. We went back to England in 1956. We had a couple of children then and my wife’s parents hadn’t seen them of course. So we took them back to England and we were going to stay for, oh you know, a while. Twelve months or a couple of years or whatever. It didn’t work out anyway. My English wife — all she wanted to do was get back to Australia.
DM: [laughs] right.
GC: As quick as she could. And that particular year, in the December I think it was or the November, the Suez Crisis came up and she couldn’t get out of there quick enough because she thought there’d be another war.
DM: Yes. That’s right.
GC: So anyway —
DM: So have you don’t any flying since those days?
GC: No.
DM: No.
GC: No. I didn’t do any flying. I just went back. I worked in the bank. In a savings bank in Victoria before the war or early in the war. When I turned sixteen I suppose it was. Yeah. And I went back to the bank. Stayed there for four or five years and so and then I resigned. I thought, you know, I can do better than this. I can make more money doing something else.
DM: Right.
GC: But I fiddled around and went into retail. General stores in the country. [unclear] Port Welshpool down here. Victoria. But I didn’t, didn’t make any fortunes.
DM: Right.
GC: I went to work for a living and sold, sold biscuits with Arnotts Biscuit Company for about nine years. And then I switched over to wine. And we sold wine in Victoria for Seppelts.
DM: Ok. And is that why you live in Wine View Street or is [laughs] that accidental?
GC: No. It’s just sheer coincidence. Yeah.
DM: Right.
GC: And I’m still very interested in wine.
DM: Right. Ok. So when you joined the air force and you said you would prefer that to the army. Was that the principal reason? That you just didn’t want to be in the army or was there something else that attracted you to the air force?
GC: Well it wasn’t, I wasn’t sort of, you know, very keen to be a flyer.
DM: Right.
GC: It wasn’t that. It was just that I thought that, I thought the army was a pretty uncouth sort of outfit.
DM: You’re quite correct, I think [laughs]
GC: And that being, being in the air force, you know, you wore shoes and wore respectable clothing. So I guess it was that that influenced most of us to join the air force. There were some that were, you know, really wanted to fly.
DM: Yeah.
GC: But as far as I was concerned you had to do something in the war and I thought well you might as well choose what you like. You think you’d like.
DM: That’s right.
GC: And that was the air force. Which, I was very happy in the air force — it was. The whole, the whole period, you know for nearly four years I suppose it was. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I know we, you know, and of course I enjoyed all the more because the war finished early and I didn’t have to complete a tour or try and complete a tour. So it was, it was a very happy part of my life. Yeah.
DM: Which parts of Europe did you fly to on the operations you did?
GC: Mainly, mainly Germany.
DM: Right.
GC: Pretty well. I didn’t do many into France because that was, that was sort of after D-Day which was June the 6th ’44 and I didn’t get to the squadron until the end of the year. And so it was mainly the Ruhr.
DM: Right.
GC: And places further east.
DM: Ok.
GC: I didn’t do the infamous Dresden raid because I was on leave.
DM: Right.
GC: That particular time. We used to get, you’d fly, you’d be operational for six weeks and then you would get six days leave.
DM: Ok.
GC: So it happened that my six days leave was up and I went. When I came back I heard all about, about Dresden.
DM: Yeah. So even at that point people talked about it a bit.
GC: There was a bit of talk about it. Yeah. There was a bit of talk about it and you know I feel that at that part of the, that time in the war there was a quite a lot of feeling amongst some pilots anyway that they [pause] it was becoming almost abhorrent to them, you know. To go over and drop all these bombs on and there was no, there was no, well there may have been an attempt to say this is the aiming point and what it is but it was just an exercise in, as far as we were concerned in obliteration.
DM: Pure destruction. Yeah.
GC: Yeah. And that, that got to a lot of the fellows you know. They –
DM: Yeah.
GC: I know I had quite good friends that, after the war it played on their minds and to the extent that they eventually they didn’t deny it because it happened but they, they never talked about the war. They didn’t, you know, so —
DM: Right.
GC: And a couple of them had DFCs but they wouldn’t, wouldn’t face them. Wouldn’t acknowledge them even.
DM; Right
GC: So it was, it did [pause] but you know. It was still the air force and you were, you were, you did what you were told.
DM: Yeah. That’s right.
GC: Yeah.
DM: The rules of the game.
GC: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Right. So mostly over Germany. Ok. I guess that last few months of the war they were concentrating back on the German cities.
GC: Yes, they were. They were. Especially in the Ruhr, you know. Oil plants. Synthetic oil plants in, in the Ruhr. Gelsenkirchen. Oh I forget the name of them all. And occasionally there would be something else. You know. We did a raid. A night raid I remember on Potsdam.
DM: Ok. Yeah.
GC: And I don’t know what that was for. Why they picked Potsdam but anyway they did.
DM: There were no raids down into Italy by that time were there? Or —
GC: No. No. They’d all finished. Yeah. They’d all finished. That would have been in ’43 I think they were going down there.
DM: Right.
GC: Yeah. I think ’43.
DM: And I guess when you went on leave because you were married at that stage you went to your wife.
GC: Yes.
DM: While these other guys –
GC: Oh they all went home to their –
DM: Because they were all English I guess –
GC: Yeah and they would, they had their homes.
DM: Yeah.
GC: A couple of them were married fellows, but four of them weren’t. Three or four of them I suppose. And they used to go home. Have their leave at home and then come back.
DM: Yeah.
GC: We didn’t go off on leave together.
DM: Right.
GC: Because it was circumstances. Yeah. I was married and that’s where I went on leave. To Wolverhampton where I was married and where Alice lived. And I was there for [pause] ‘cause we got weeks and weeks and weeks of leave, you know while we were waiting for ships.
DM: Yeah.
GC: And I spent a lot of time in Wolverhampton. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So where was your favourite place in England apart from –? Would Brighton be a sort of highlight?
GC: Well, you know, Brighton always, always had an attraction for me yeah. But certainly, you know, down, down the south of England but of course you got, you know we were posted to Operational Training Unit was a place in, in [pause] called Hixon which was in Staffordshire.
DM: Ok.
GC: Not far out of Stafford and it was from there that I got to Wolverhampton and met my first wife. Yeah.
DM: Ok. So —
GC: They used to have, they used to have a dance at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton every Thursday night and aircrew came from far and wide to this, to this dance which was, had a reputation and was one to be looked forward to so —
DM: Ok. Was there much competition between army and air force?
GC: Not a lot.
DM: No.
GC: Not a lot. I didn’t strike it anyway. The army was evident but not [pause] and Americans of course. They were [pause] they could be dominant in an area. But no, I never really, we certainly didn’t, never got into fisticuffs or anything like that.
DM: Not like that.
GC: It was like a reputedly did here in Melbourne between the Americans and the —
DM: Yeah.
GC: And the Australians.
DM: There was a little bit of history there.
GC: Yeah. But no, nothing like that.
DM: Ok. So generally everybody got on fairly well under wartime conditions.
GC: Yes. I think so. Yeah. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience, you know. From mainly because I was fortunate in that I met this girl and got to live with an English family.
DM: Yeah. You got to know people.
GC: And spent time with them and you just got such an understanding of the nature and the calibre of the English person. They were just incredible. Just accepted everything that was dished out to them without [pause] well that’s the way it is, you know. That’s the war. It was, it was a great experience. Yes. So, that’s, you know.
DM: I think I’ve run out of questions.
GC: You’ve run out of questions. Oh well. Yeah, well that’s alright.
DM: I don’t know enough about it though. I see you’ve got a model up on the [unclear]
GC: I had, it’s been for years. Yeah. There’s a couple up there I think. But isn’t that a nice painting?
DM: Yes. My dad had that one.
GC: Did he?
DM: Yeah.
GC: Yeah. That’s Cheshire.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Signed. Autographed. Signed. Signed by Cheshire.
DM: I’m not sure if his was signed.
GC: Yeah.
DM: But it had the same colour.
GC: Had the same. Yeah. Yeah. Was your dad in the air force?
DM: Yeah he was on Lancasters as well.
GC: Oh was he?
DM: He was a gunner.
GC: Maybe I’ll just —
DM: Oh right.
GC: Stop the recording.
[recording paused]
GC: We had to take some of these aircraft, not very many but we had one on the squadron I think where they had a hole cut in the floor and a .5 machine gun used to be mounted on this.
DM: Yeah.
GC: And we, you had to take a spare gunner if you happened to be allotted that aircraft. And this particular trip, which was our furthest, we got that aircraft. Q-Queenie. And the, the gunner was a fellow named Edwards. Flight Sergeant Edwards. Didn’t know him really at all, you know. We just, we were allotted him and he turned up at briefing and that was our first trip and it was his last trip.
DM: Oh right.
GC: Which I thought was most unfair. The flying commander to sort of work it that way that surely [pause] but anyway he came with us and we ran in to trouble with an oil leak which we didn’t know where it was coming from. It was coming from an engine. From the port inner engine. But I kept saying to the flight, the flight engineer, you know, ‘Is everything alright?’ He said, well the revs are this, this and that and the other. He said, ‘I don’t know where the oil is leaking from.’ And because we didn’t have the experience, you know. Perhaps I should have known but I didn’t and it turned out that it was coming from the constant speed unit which is a motor type arrangement which governs the pitch on your propeller.
DM: Oh yeah.
GC: But I didn’t know that at that time. I couldn’t work out where the oil was coming from. And it got to such a state that we had to turn back. We were only, we weren’t that far from the target but the outside of the aircraft where the turrets were covered in oil. So we decided we’d have to turn back and we’d feather, we’d feather the engine. As soon as we touched the feathering button the engine just was, you know, the propelling part of it just ran up to four thousand revs a minute and we couldn’t control it in any way.
DM: Right.
GC: So and obviously there was, we thought it was going to overheat. It was going to get hot and with all this oil around. So — and it became uncontrollable, it was – the vibration was so bad that I couldn’t control it. Couldn’t do anything about it. Anyway, we got back to, as I said over liberated territory and we got out. But the Flight Sergeant Edwards wouldn’t jump. This is what the crew tell me.
DM: Right.
GC: Because he was lined up with them to go but he kept stepping back and saying, ‘No, you go.’ Because they were going out the back door and I must admit when you stand at the back door of a Lancaster in flight you’d swear that if you jump out you’ll smash into the tail plane.
DM: Right.
GC: And he must have had that in his head plus the fact that the recommended drill was to – if you had one of these .5 machine guns that you released the gun and went out the bottom.
DM: Right.
GC: They couldn’t release it for some reason or other. I don’t know what the problem was but they couldn’t. He couldn’t release the guns so of course he kept going back to the door. And he wouldn’t jump. I didn’t know anything about this until [pause] well until we got down to the ground. The drill is of course that you, you keep in communication with the pilot.
DM: Yeah.
GC: You plug in to, and he must have not done that. He must have come back to the .5 machine gun again to try and of course from, when you turn around in your seat and look down the back of the aircraft you couldn’t see down there because it was down the step that the main spar ran across and you couldn’t see. And I didn’t know he was there. When I got out I called up, you know, ‘Anybody here?’ ‘Anybody here?’ And I knew there was nobody there because I knew the others had gone. I’d seen them go. So I got out and he was still in there.
DM: Right.
GC: And but he hadn’t plugged in. I didn’t know he was there. Nor could I see him. And he did jump eventually but his parachute was on fire.
DM: Oh dear.
GC: When he jumped. Yeah. So that was a really sad occasion.
DM: Yeah. On his last trip
GC: On his last trip. Yeah. His last trip. He’d just got married. And only a young bloke like we were all young.
DM: Yeah. That’s right.
GC: He was, he was only in his early twenties I think. And we were over, went over to England again in 2012 and we were touring around through France and the area that we baled out in. He’s in [pause] buried in a cemetery in Belgium. Cemetery, [unclear] Mille, Mille, M I L L E.
DM: Yeah. It could be. Yeah.
GC: So anyway we went to the cemetery and found it. Found it. I had the engineer was with me and we found his grave in the War Cemetery there. So, you know it was all sad. That was sixty years ago. You know, not sixty but fifty years after it happened.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Anyway that’s war.
DM: That’s right. So the reason for that machine gun was because of the night fighters that had the cannon that fired up.
GC: That’s right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
DM: To combat that.
GC: It was supposed to help combat that.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Not that we saw any of those up-firing machine gun cannons that they were using but that was the idea.
DM: Yeah.
GC: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: Yeah. I hadn’t recognised that somehow. I’ll have to look up again to see what his extra trips were.
GC: Yeah. Yeah.
DM: I did record that.
GC: Oh did you. Yeah.
DM: So you’re happy with that?
GC: Yes. That’s alright. Yeah.
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AConacherG170411
PConacherG1701
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Interview with Geoffrey Conacher
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Sound
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eng
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00:41:18 audio recording
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Donald McNaughton
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2017-04-11
Description
An account of the resource
Geoffrey Conacher grew up in Australia and after a few months in the army he joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1942. After training he flew 14 operations as a pilot with 622 Squadron. His aircraft was shot down and he bailed out over liberated France.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
France
Great Britain
United States
England--Suffolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
622 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
crewing up
final resting place
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
love and romance
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Mildenhall
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
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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
Taplin, J A
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-05
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
Taplin, JA
Description
An account of the resource
128 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant John Albert Taplin (b.1919, 1268696 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, documents photographs and two audio interviews. He flew operations as an air gunner with 408 Squadron before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Kevan Taplin and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to John Taplin from Mrs E Fitchie
Description
An account of the resource
She writes that Ron has died and asks him to write back. If John wishes to visit his grave then she will assist.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E Fitchie
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One double sided handwritten sheet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EFitchieETaplinJA800514-0001, EFitchieETaplinJA800514-0002
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.
final resting place
prisoner of war
-
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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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-05
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
Wareing, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
2, Mepal Rd,
Sutton,
Ely,
Cambs.
19.1.45.
Dear Mrs Wareing,
It may perhaps come as a surprise to you that I should write. S/L Hill very kindly gave me your address. In common with my Father & Mother, may I extend our sincere sympathy to you, that S/L Wareing & Flt. Leiut[sic] King should be prisoners of war. I trust that both he & Bob King are well physically. We have had the pleasure of meeting Bob, but never your husband. You may probably have heard of FO Blaydon
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
(he was W/O in your husbands[sic] crew), and my brother. Poor old Reg did not come through & is buried with 3 others of the crew in a churchyard just out of Le Havre.
According to the information we have received so far, it would seem that S/L Wareing was probably the last one to see Reg alive. I don’t suppose you have heard a great deal from your husband so far. I would esteem it a favour if you would give them both our kindest regards, & trust they will soon be safe home again. If you should hear anything from them about Reg, I would be
[page break]
[underlined] 3. [/underlined]
pleased to have knowledge of it. I would like to write to them if you would be kind enough to let me have their addresses. This letter may not be all that I would like to say, but our feelings are rather low at present.
Well, I wish you all the best Mrs Wareing, & bear up, as I am sure your husband will soon be home again.
Yours Very Sincerely,
Edwin George Blaydon
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Joan Wareing from Edwin George Blaydon
Description
An account of the resource
He sends his sympathy to Mrs Wareing on her husband’s capture. He mentions that his brother was the wireless operator in her husbands crew and was killed in action. He would appreciate if anything her husband could tell them about his brother was passed on to him.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
E G Blaydon
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-01-19
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page handwritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EBlaydowEGWareingJ450119
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Ely
France
France--Le Havre
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-01-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
final resting place
killed in action
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1918/45591/MCrawfordJ416818-170808-11.2.pdf
21e349bda35334992b54472f39ed9541
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
Crawford, Jack 416818
John Crawford
J Crawford
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
2017-08-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Crawford, J
Description
An account of the resource
18 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer John "Jack" Crawford (416818 Royal New Zealand Air Force) and contains his diaries, documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator/ air gunner with 189 Squadron and was killed 4 March 1945. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by john Herbert and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.<br /><br /><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW220471175 BCX0">Additional information on John "Jack" Crawford</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW220471175 BCX0"> is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/105207/">IBCC Losses Database.</a></span>
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
So short a time
Description
An account of the resource
Jack's wife recollecting meeting Jack, their marriage and her later life. She describes meeting with Jack's surviving crew members, pilot Tom Dykins, Sergeant Bert Price, Sergeant Doug Looms and Stan Jones, who had been held as prisoners of war after baling out. She explains the circumstances of the deaths of her husband, wireless operator and air gunner Warrant Officer John 'Jack' Crawford, rear gunner Flight Sergeant D F 'Red' Cook and navigator Flight Lieutenant Paul E Thompson who died in the operation.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Edna Ruth Crawford-Harris
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1974-06-11
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-03-03
1943-03-04
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Oxfordshire
Germany
Germany--Hörstel
New Zealand
New Zealand--Hamilton
Canada
Alberta
Alberta--Calgary
Québec
Québec--Montréal
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
11 printed sheets
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MCrawford J416818-170808-11
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
final resting place
ground personnel
killed in action
Lancaster
love and romance
missing in action
navigator
Operational Training Unit
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Barford St John
wireless operator / air gunner
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force