2
25
34
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/542/8782/AHardingV150520.2.mp3
73090ff7946ff4451cdd82def306eea2
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
Harding, Victor
Victor Thomas Harding
V T Harding
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harding, V
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Victor Harding (1234463, Royal Air Force). He served as an airframe fitter.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Claire Bennett; the interviewee is Mr Victor Harding. The interview is taking place at Mr Harding’s home in Queen’s Court, Retford, on the 20th of May 2015. Well Vic, would you like to tell us the date and place of your birth?
VH: Er, 05-03-22. We was in Middlesex.
CB: And can you remember your early childhood?
VH: Yes because I was born outta wedlock, and my mother sent me down to a home in Kent, to, to join the forces.
CB: And you stayed in a – you were in a –
VH: I stayed in a home – what you call a home for little [unclear], my daughter knows it ‘cause she took me there. And I was there ‘till I was nineteen ‘till I volunteered, joined the Air Force.
CB: And do you remember much about it? What are your memories of it?
VH: What the home?
CB: Yes.
VH: It was marvellous. It was run by ex-military people and they’re very very good to you. Plenty of discipline and everything, oh yeah. And when I was eighteen, that’s when I volunteered to join the Air Force then.
CB: What –
Other: You learnt, you learnt a trade in the home, didn’t you?
VH: Pardon?
Other: You learnt a trade in the home.
VH: Oh yes, in the – they, after you finish your schooling age, they had different trades there. They had the printing department, a cobblers, carpentry, tailoring department, trades to learn when you’ve finished doing your schooling.
CB: And you went in for –
VH: Tailoring. Because the war broke out, and then I volunteered for the Air Force.
CB: What made you choose the Air Force in particular?
VH: I don’t know really [laughs]. I just fancied it, you know. And they asked me if I wanted to be aircrew or ground staff, so I thought ‘I haven’t got the brains to be aircrew’ so I volunteered to be in the ground staff to maintain the air craft.
CB: You were mechanically minded?
VH: I was flying mechanic air frame lot of the time. Everything by the engines, yeah,
CB: Would you have liked to have flown?
VH: I would have done if I had brains, yeah. [Both laugh]
CB: But nobody said you didn’t have any brains, this is what you perceived. [VH laughing]
VH: Well, I didn’t think I would be qualified for it enough sort of thing.
CB: So where did you start your training? Where did you join up?
VH: I went to Blackpool, and I done my – I can’t remember whether it was six months training at Kirkham for a flight mechanics course. When I passed out, I was sent to Cottesmore to Operational Training Unit.
CB: And what was your training, you know, like? Did you enjoy it?
VH: I did, really enjoyed it.
CB: How did you get to the, the training place? Was it on the train?
VH: No the Air Force took me there, you know. I went to Cottesmore –
CB: Yes.
VH: And I was on old Southampton’s [?]. All the old stuff sort of thing ‘till I was qualified, and then when I was paid, I was put onto Bomber Command then.
CB: But, you would get your posting wouldn’t you, and then you’d have to get to your posting destination –
VH: That’s it, yeah they –
CB: Did you, did you go on the trains during the war?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Did you go the trains during the war?
VH: Trains?
CB: Mm.
VH: No.
CB: No?
VH: No, never went on trains.
CB: So how did you get around? Did the –
VH: The Air Force took me around, you know.
CB: Right.
VH: To different stations, yes.
CB: Right. So, so you’d, a group of you would go perhaps and they’d take you to the stations?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And what was your, you know, your time training? You know, what kind of accommodation did you have?
VH: Well, sometimes I was in Nissan huts, sometimes I was in buildings, you know. All depends where you were stationed sort of thing.
CB: Where was, where do you think your best station was? You enjoyed the most?
VH: Oh, best place was at Lakenheath. It was a brick building, but when the Yanks came and saw it they took it over. So we were putting Nissan huts [laughs].
CB: Well the Nissan huts I think were pretty sparse weren’t they?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And cold, is that your –
VH: That’s it, yeah.
CB: Is that how you remember them, or?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Am I wrong?
VH: That’s it [laughs].
CB: So you went – so your first main posting –
VH: My first posting was at Cottesmore.
CB: Right, and what planes would you be on?
VH: I was on the Anton’s, Oxfords, and just the, all the things to tinkle about with, you know. ‘Till I was posted on Bomber Command.
CB: And the planes, were they easy to maintain, or?
VH: Yeah, they were quite easy really.
CB: You learnt quickly?
VH: Yeah I did, yeah.
CB: Was it good training?
VH: Oh yes, I had six months training at Kirkham.
CB: And what were you –
VH: I was flight mechanic air frames on everything bar the engines.
CB: Right, so you would main – so what would that entail? So, tell me about, you know, all the details of it.
VH: Well, you looked after the runners and the balance and everything, you know.
CB: Right. And then you entered Bomber Command.
VH: That’s it, yeah.
CB: So your first, first job would be, or your first posting rather, would be –
VH: Ah [pause]. Cottesmore was the first one I went to with Operational Training Unit.
CB: Yes.
VH: Yeah.
CB: On OTU?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And, where did you go to after that?
VH: I went to quite a few stations. I went to Bardney for a while, Woodhall Spa, er, Lakenheath, Marham, all different stations you know. With all different squadrons that I went with.
CB: Yes, and what was your work there? Same sort of thing?
VH: Flight mechanic airframe. I done that everything bar the engines.
CB: What planes were you working on?
VH: I worked on Wellingtons, Mosquitos, Lancasters, Hamdy Hamptons [?].
CB: Did you ever go for a flight in these, any of these?
VH: Oh yes. So when they used to do something to the airframe or engines, you used to, we used to go up with them for an air test [emphasis]. Yeah.
CB: So you did you go for any long [emphasis] trips in them?
VH: Not really long trips, no. First I went I think was Peterhead, when we went up there to refuel them.
CB: And did you enjoy the flight? Do you think – did you –
VH: Well I love flying.
CB: Did you regret not going for aircrew?
VH: I don’t, no [laughs]. I think I would have enjoyed it, you know, but I might not be here today [both laugh].
CB: So where was your accommodation, say at Bardney? Where was – were you still in the Nissan huts?
VH: No, I think I was in buildings there, I think, I’m sure it was.
CB: Was it, were you, did you have accommodation with a family. Were you –
VH: No didn’t have it with no family.
CB: It was in an Air Force –
VH: Air Force quarters, yeah.
CB: Air Force quarters.
VH: Yeah.
CB: And what did you do, where did you go for relaxation in Bardney? Do you remember?
VH: Not really. Used to go out with the lads, you know, and have a drink and a smoke [laughs].
CB: Pubs? [VH laughs]. Dare I suggest? Do you remember Bardney at all?
VH: Not a lot, no.
CB: So your, was your life mainly in the, on the camp basically?
VH: It was on the camp, yes.
CB: So, the planes – explain to me how it works. So what would be your typical day?
VH: Well you go out on the dispersal plane [?]. The aircraft was there and you had to test the rudders, the elevators, the wings and everything. Then you had to test your hydraulics, make sure they are working and everything.
CB: And then you’d –
VH: Then you had to sign a form, Form 700, detailing what you had done and everything, and the pilot used to say ‘okay, I know that you’ve checked it.’
CB: And what planes would these be? Would these be –
VH: I used to be on Lancasters, Mosquitos, Hamdy Hamptons [?], Wellingtons –
CB: And what – but what about Bardney? Was it – what was it at Bardney?
VH: Bardney?
CB: Mm.
VH: I think I was on Lancasters there.
CB: Mm.
VH: Yeah.
CB: What did you think about the Lancaster as a plane?
VH: Marvellous aircraft, lovely.
CB: Did you think, you know , when you first saw it, overwhelming really? Like the size of it.
VH: Well, the size of it yeah [emphasis]. I mean, the wheels were bigger than me [both laugh].
CB: But was it a case of just, you know, getting on with the job as it were?
VH: Well it – true, yeah. I enjoyed the job, I did really.
CB: What was the food like that you had there?
VH: Very good there.
CB: And can you remember –
VH: And I met some very nice people, you know. Ground staff and aircrew and everybody and, I got on well with everybody.
CB: So you enjoyed your time there?
VH: I did [emphasis]. If I hadn’t got married I think I would have kept in the Air Force [both laugh].
CB: When did you meet your wife?
VH: In forty, forty-six, yeah.
CB: So after the war?
VH: No, just before I finished the war, yeah.
CB: Oh right. So you – I mean, good food in Bardney –
VH: Oh I had good food all the time I was in the Air Force, I can’t complain.
CB: Well, ‘cause there was rationing on wasn’t there?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Rationing on.
VH: Oh yeah, but we weren’t rationed [laughs].
CB: No?
VH: No.
CB: So you just had your normal food then?
VH: Yes, well, our food was lovely. Very good.
CB: Did you have a bike to go around on, or?
VH: I used to have a bike yeah, ‘cause when I was at Woodhall Spa I used to bike to Boston most nights, you know, if I wasn’t on duty and things.
CB: Right. So, ‘cause these, these airfields were spread out, weren’t they?
VH: Yeah.
CB: A lot of them. And you needed a bike.
VH: Oh yeah.
CB: So you were dealing with Lancasters, and where did you go after Bardney? Can you remember?
VH: No I went to that many. I went to Theddlethorpe [?], Bardney, Lakenheath, quite a few all local. All round Lincolnshire way, you know, most of them.
CB: Mm.
VH: The first I went away was at Marham in Norfolk.
CB: Yes?
VH: Mm.
CB: And what did you make of that? Did you –
VH: Marham?
CB: Mm.
VH: Quite a nice place. That’s where I had my first squadron of Mosquitos there.
CB: Right.
VH: Mm.
CB: So you worked on the Mosquitos there?
VH: Oh yes. I liked them I did [both laugh].
CB: The wooden wonder. [?]
VH: We had the first squadron of Mosquitos and first day we got there at Marham the Germans came along and dropped flares. I thought ‘oh there we’ve had it.’ But we got away with it [laughs].
CB: Is that the first time you’d had any –
VH: We had Mosquitos, yeah.
CB: Is this the first time you’d seen enemy action as it were, dropping bombs?
VH: Well it was, dropping flares over the place yeah. We thought ‘we’re in for it’ that night but we got away with it [both laugh].
CB: Oh dear. And do you remember anybody in particular, you know, friends?
VH: In the Air Force?
CB: Yeah, friends.
VH: Oh yes. Guy Gibson.
CB: If we’re – erm yes, that was at Woodhall Spa.
VH: Yeah.
CB: Did you work with him, or on – well, you were on 627 Squadron.
VH: Yeah. I was with Guy Gibson, I worked with Richard Attenborough, Group Captain Cheshire.
CB: Yes.
VH: Mm.
CB: So at Woodhall Spa, which is – did you finish at Woodhall Spa? Was that your last one before the end of the war?
VH: I think it was. I’m sure it was, yeah.
CB: And you were on 627 Squadron there –
VH: Yeah.
CB: Is that right? Were you, you were with other squadrons. 149 did you say?
VH: Yes, I was, yeah 149 Royal Canadian Air Force –
CB: You worked with the Canadians?
VH: Yeah, and [pause] a Jamaican squadron, I don’t know whether it was 139, I can’t remember what that was but whatever squadron it was I got on well with all of them. Canadian and the Jamaica squadron.
CB: Excellent. So at Woodhall Spa, how did you get there? Did you, did the Air Force take you there?
VH: Air Force. Wherever it was the Air Force took you.
CB: ‘Cause I think –
VH: Transport, you know.
CB: Right, ‘cause I think most people arrived at the station didn’t they?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And then they’d be picked up.
VH: Well I did. One time I was posted to, er, where was it, Oakington was it? Yeah, and I got a transport ticket to Oakham, yeah, I got the wrong place [both laugh]. I don’t think, I made a blunder [?].
CB: Well it can’t have been easy travelling around in the war.
VH: Oh yeah.
CB: You know, on the trains or whatever.
VH: Well it’s true.
CB: So you arrived at Woodhall Spa, and, on Mosqutios?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Did, where did you live at Woodhall Spa? Were you on –
VH: In billets.
CB: Again, what is –
VH: Woodhall Spa.
CB: - what is now Thorpe Camp? Was that where you were?
VH: Where?
Other: Thorpe Camp. You know where they’ve got the museum and that.
VH: Oh yeah.
CB: That’s where you were?
VH: Yeah.
Other: Yeah.
CB: What did you make of it, or what did you –
VH: Of Woodhall Spa?
CB: Yes.
VH: I loved it. Nice place.
CB: Did you go into the town very often?
VH: Yeah, I used to walk to Tatteshall and places like that which was nearby.
CB: Did you, you know, how did you relax there at Woodhall Spa? Would the, would the ground crew ever, you know, mix with the aircrew?
VH: Oh yes, quite often, yeah. I had a good mate there, Canadian chap, and I can always remember one night in the – he sat awake, the crew generally get together chatting before they go on a raid, and he was a rear gunner, and he was chatting [?] that night and I went over to him and I says ‘what’s wrong George?’ And he says ‘we’re not coming back tonight,’ I says ‘well don’t talk stupid.’ They didn’t.
CB: Wow.
VH: He had that premonition they weren’t coming back.
CB: Did you ever –
VH: That did upset me, you know, that did.
CB: Did you get that a lot, or was that just one you remember? Do you, you know –
VH: Ooh no, I remember quite a few who didn’t get back.
CB: Mm. But then, did they –
VH: Waited for them, but they never returned.
CB: Did they had the premonition though before they went?
VH: Yeah, one or two did.
CB: And how did you feel about that? It –
CB: Well I felt awful really. When you’re waiting for them and they don’t return, you know, really hits you.
CB: Mm. What was the atmosphere at, in the, on the airfield?
VH: Oh, it was very good really, yeah we all got on well together. The ground staff and the aircrew, you know.
CB: And you would, as you say, you would relax together, and –
VH: Oh yes, I mean, if you had no raids on and everything you’d go out and have a drink with the lads and the aircrew, you know.
CB: Do you remember the, where you would go in Woodhall Spa?
VH: No, I can’t remember, you’re going back –
CB: I think, I think it was the Mucky Duck, wasn’t it?
VH: Oh that, I was gonna say the Mucky Duck! [Other speaks in background but is unclear what is said. VH replies but this is also unclear.]
CB: Yeah, I think that was quite popular there wasn’t it?
VH: It was, yeah [both laugh]. Then I used to cycle sometimes into Boston.
CB: Yes. So you’d cycle into Boston did you say?
VH: Yeah, cycle into Boston, yeah.
CB: Right, that’s a fair way.
VH: Well, it was really, but –
CB: And, on your own, or with your friends?
VH: Yes, with a girl from there.
CB: Oh right [both laugh]. And what would you do in Boston? What did you think of Boston?
VH: I liked Boston I did. Boston Stump and all that. It’s quite changed from what it used to be, but it, I thought it was a lovely place at the time.
CB: And what did you do, where did you go?
VH: Go for a drink [laughs].
CB: Did you go to the glider drome? I think that was a popular place. No? Perhaps for the aircrew.
VH: Was it Withamgate [?]?
CB: Yeah.
VH: We used to go round there, and the Boston Stump and all round that way, hmm.
CB: So you enjoyed that?
VH: I did [laughs].
CB: And what would, ‘cause – there was some famous station commanders, well not, commanding officers at Woodhall Spa. Do you remember Cheshire?
VH: Group Captain Cheshire, yeah.
CB: What do you make –
VH: Guy Gibson.
CB: What did you make of Cheshire? What did you think of him?
VH: I got on well with all of them, yeah.
CB: Can you remember –
VH: They were quite good to us, they were really good to all the ground staff really, you know, ‘cause they relied on us sort of thing to look after them, didn’t they? [Unclear, both laugh].
CB: Indeed they did [VH laughs]. Especially I think, erm, Leonard Cheshire, he was particularly fond of his –
VH: Yeah. Cheshire [unclear] at one time didn’t they?
CB: Yes. And he would come and talk to you at, you know, when you were mending the aircraft?
VH: Yes, I mean, when there was no raids on or anything and things were easier, we used to go out and have a drink with them sort of thing, you know, they were just like talking to anybody. Except when you’re on the parade ground it had to be ‘sir’ sort of thing, you know.
CB: Did you do much parade ground?
VH: Pardon dear?
CB: Were you on the parade ground very much? Did it, was that part of your life?
VH: Playground?
CB: The parade ground.
VH: Oh, we didn’t do a lot on the parade ground, no, because it was mostly time on the, looking after the aircraft, you know.
CB: So you missed some of that out?
VH: Yes, oh yeah, we didn’t have a lot to do on the parade ground really.
CB: What was the discipline like?
VH: Pardon?
CB: What was the –
VH: Discipline? Discipline was quite good, strict, you know. See, see, discipline didn’t really bother me because being in a home was run by all ex-army people, I was disciplined there. I had to march to school and everything, you know. So going in the Air Force, it didn’t really hit me.
CB: So your time in the, the children’s home –
VH: Made me more or less fit for the Air Force really.
CB: So you look back on those as happy days, and –
VH: They were, yeah. That home was very good. ‘Cause my daughter took me up there few years back didn’t you, and it’s not the same place now, it’s been taken over by retirement people, and when they knew I was one of the boys who had been there, ooh they shook my hand didn’t they [CB laughs] made quite a fuss of me.
CB: Were there girls there as well or was it just boys?
VH: No, just boys, yeah.
CB: And you made some good friends there?
VH: Yes I made some good friends there, yeah.
CB: Did you manage to keep in touch with them afterwards?
VH: One or two of them, but when I went with my daughter last time, and I saw one or two of the names in the church who’d been, passed away, and killed and that during the war. That really upset me.
CB: Hmm. So at Woodhall Spa, another CO was Tate. Did you, did you come across Willy Tate very much?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Willy Tate, he was –
VH: Willy Tate? I can’t remember dear.
CB: No.
VH: No. You meet that many people you know, you can’t remember all their names, sorta thing.
CB: No, no of course not.
VH: No.
CB: So tell me what you remember of Guy Gibson.
VH: I found him very very good. Very good to the ground staff. I think he was a bit trick [?] with the aircrew, but to the ground staff he was magnificent.
CB: Well, that’s wonderful. So, you got, did you have a relationship with him? Did he you know help you, or come and chat?
VH: Not really no. Just ‘how are you sir’ and ‘your aircraft’s ready’ and that sorta thing you know.
CB: When the planes came back from their raids, and they were –
VH: That was lovely seeing them come back [laughs].
CB: Yes.
VH: But when you’re waiting, and yours don’t come back you think ‘oh, has it crash landed somewhere’ or ‘has it landed at another airdrome?’ And eventually you hear it hadn’t come back. It really upset you.
CB: Hmm. And then it would be your job to, to mend them. And get them back right?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Hmm. So were there any events that you can remember at Woodhall Spa? You know, things like, I don’t know, collisions, or, you know –
VH: There been one or two crash landings. I seen crash landings, yeah.
CB: What did you – can you remember how you would –
VH: We didn’t do nothing to it, the air, er, the fire engines and everything used to go out to them.
Other: But you remember the – when they were training for the Dambusters don’t you?
VH: Pardon?
Other: When they training for the Dambusters.
VH Oh yeah, when they training for the Dambusters. We wondering what was happening because they was training for about two or three months before they actually done it, and they come over and did what we called hedge-hopping, just come over the hedge, just miss us, you know, and you think ‘what’s going on?’ [CB laughs]. And they kept it a secret right ‘till the night they went. When they came out that night they said ‘this is it,’ so we said, ‘what,’ ‘what we’ve been training for you know when we come back’ [CB and VH laugh].
CB: So they were –
VH: Very secretive, it was.
CB: Yes.
VH: But when they came back they said ‘we done it’ [laughs].
CB: Right [both laugh]. So was – that was at Scampton, were you at Scampton at all?
VH: No that was at, er, Woodhall Spa [emphasis].
CB: Right.
VH: I never went to Scampton. Only went there for my medals didn’t I? That’s all.
CB: Mm. So you – how do you remember your wartime career?
VH: Yes I can do, yeah.
CB: And you, how do you remember it, with –
VH: Well I think it was quite good really because the – I was disobedient at home so going to the Air Force, that was more or less the same, sorta life, sort of thing.
CB: Mm. So [pause] the – I think some of what the personnel, the aircrew at Woodhall Spa, they were, they were known for their pranks, some of them. And I suppose the low flying would have been one of them.
VH: It was, yeah.
CB: Did you have any, many air raids there?
VH: No not really, no.
CB: So you, the Germans didn’t attack you –
VH: No.
CB: At Woodhall Spa? It was [unclear]
VH: No, no, they came over when we were at Marham, Norfolk, when we had the first squadron of Mosquitos. I thought ‘this is it,’ flares came down but as soon as the gun fire opened up they went [both laugh].
CB: So do you remember any time – the time that Guy Gibson took off on the night he was killed? Do you remember anything about that?
VH: Er, he just came out, and he just said ‘I’m gonna take this aircraft’ and that’s it. Just didn’t come back.
CB: No, he was with Warwick –
VH: Mosquitos.
CB: Yes, because he wasn’t too familiar with them, was he?
VH: No.
CB: So –
VH: It could have been that you see.
CB: Yeah. Was he – do you remember what his manner was like, how he –
VH: He was – I found him quite good myself.
CB: But he wanted to get back flying, didn’t he? Do you remember anything about that particular night, as to how he was?
VH: No, he came out that night and says ‘do you mind if I take the, this Mosquito?’ and I said ‘no sir,’ and he just got in it and went.
CB: And what did you feel when he didn’t come back?
VH: Well I felt awful really, you know. I wondered what, if he really knew in his own heart whether he was going to do anything. You don’t know what’s in their mind, do you really?
CB: No, no you don’t. But you, you just thought it was just another, another plane that hadn’t come back.
VH: Yeah.
CB: You didn’t –
VH: That’s true.
CB: Did you know straight away that – I mean he could have landed somewhere else. When did you find out that –
VH: Ah, we didn’t find out for [pause] two, two, three hours after. They must have rung round to see if he’d landed anywhere else, but, he hadn’t, so.
CB: No.
VH: I think over the hills was it, in Kent I think, where he actually crashed, I think.
CB: He crashed in Holland.
VH: Yeah, oh was it Holland?
CB: Yeah.
VH: I knew it was somewhere –
CB: Yeah, coming back from an operation. So, you, you remember it with fondness, the –
VH: Pardon?
CB: You remember it with fondness, your time in Bomber Command –
Other: Fondness, you enjoyed it.
VH: Oh I, I enjoyed all my life [?], I loved Bomber Command.
CB: So –
VH: And everyone I worked with. We all seemed to be like a family, sort of thing, you know, we worked ever so well together, the ground staff and the air crew did.
CB: And you went to Lakenheath. Were the Americans there at Lakenheath when you were there?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Were the Americans at Lakenheath, when you were there?
VH: Was I –
CB: Was the –
Other: Were the Americans there? Were the Americans there?
VH: Americans? Oh yeah, they took over because it was a nice place, you see [CB laughs]. Better than where they were! It was all big buildings and they took over and we were put in Nissan huts! [Both laugh].
CB: What did you make of them? Did you, did you get on well with them?
VH: Well we, yeah they were alright [both laugh].
CB: Did you have better food when they were around?
VH: Oh yes, definitely yes. They got the best off [both laugh].
CB: And where were you? Were you in billets again at Lakenheath?
VH: Yeah.
CB: So erm, did you ever have to, you know, live in, with a family or anything like that, or were you always in billets?
VH: Er, in billets or Nissan huts, you know.
CB: Yes.
VH: Yeah.
CB: So, you’re coming towards the end of the war. How did you feel, you know, we’ve just had VE day. How did you feel? You know, was it a relief, or were you, how did you feel?
VH: Well, I don’t know really. I don’t know whether I was [unclear] in the Air Force, but I’d just got married before I came out, you see so –
CB: Right, so where did you meet your wife?
VH: In Nottingham.
CB: At a dance, or?
VH: Pardon?
CB: Was it at a dance? A dance?
VH: Dance?
Other: Where did you meet Mum?
VH: Oh, I was having a drink [both laugh].
CB: And you obviously looked, saw her, and, you know, liked each other. So how long was it before you got married?
VH: Only about six months I think. Yeah, wasn’t long [both laugh]. And I got lovely daughters and a lovely son, he’s passed away bless him, about three year ago innit?
Other: Hmm.
CB: And did you –
VH: I had two lovely children, they certainly looked after me, they still do [both laugh], don’t you chick? Somebody does.
CB: Do you remember getting married, and the rationing?
VH: Oh yes. I had a double wedding. That’s my wife up there.
CB: Oh, that’s lovely. Where did you get married?
VH: Hyson Green, yeah.
CB: Well, she looks very nice with her dress on. So, the rationing didn’t bother you very much?
VH: No. Said ‘are you gonna get married the usual?’ and I says ‘no.’ [Both laugh.]
CB: And where did you live after you were married?
VH: Nottingham, yeah.
CB: And when did the war – was the war finished by then?
VH: Oh yeah, it had finished, yeah.
CB: So you, you came out of the Air Force in –
VH: Out of the Air Force in 1946.
Other: You made your suit though didn’t you?
VH: Hmm.
Other: You made your suit.
VH: Yeah I made my suit.
CB: Oh wow! You made your own wedding suit, that’s –
VH: Yeah because, in that home where, that I was telling you about, there was all different trades, and I went in the tailoring department. I done four years at, four years apprenticeship before I joined the Air Force, so I made my wedding suit.
CB: You kept the skills going [both laugh]. So what did you do when you came out of the RAF?
VH: Er [pause], I went to the co-op [?], I was only there one day, and then, I went to Boots then and I was there for thirty year.
CB: Worked in Boots the chemists?
VH: Yeah.
CB: Oh, what did you do there?
VH: Making medicines and everything [unclear from Other].
CB: Oh.
VH: And then when they stopped making their own medicines, I went on security, and stuff like that.
CB: So you were there for a long time. In Nottingham all the time?
VH: Oh yes –
CB: You settled there.
VH: Never left Nottingham did I? I was at Boots thirty year I was at Boots.
CB: Did you keep in touch in your, you know, your friends and your comrades in the Air Force?
VH: No, no, never kept in touch with any of them.
CB: Although you had good relationships with them all? You didn’t feel –
VH: But we didn’t, we didn’t keep in touch with each other no.
CB: So, your thirty years, what did you – [unclear] didn’t work in those days did they, do your wife, your wife, didn’t work?
VH: My wife? Yeah she was working, yeah.
CB: Did she work?
VH: What was mum now?
Other: Machinist.
VH: Oh, machinist, that’s it [both laugh].
CB: And then you had your children.
VH: Yeah, two lovely children. And my grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, they’re all marvellous to me they are.
CB: What did you feel about how Bomber Command was treated after the war?
VH: In which way?
CB: Well, when Churchill made his speech, he didn’t, after the war, he didn’t mention Bomber Command.
VH: I know.
CB: Because of all the bombing, and –
VH: Yeah.
CB: How did you feel about that? And you’ve only just had your clasp that you’re entitled to. How did you feel, after the war, and how you were –
VH: I don’t think they treated them as they should have been treated, myself, because they’d done a marvellous job.
CB: And you – you’ve gone down, have you seen the memorial in London? Have you gone –
VH: No I haven’t, no.
CB: But you – have you gone back to any of your stations that you’ve been at, because –
Other: We’ve been to Conningsby, we’ve been to a few with you, I’ve taken you to a few haven’t I?
VH: Yeah.
Other: Woodhall Spa we’ve been to.
VH: Yeah.
Other: We’ve been to Scampton now but –
VH: Been to Scampton –
Other: [unclear] did you?
VH: Hmm.
CB: So you, you went back to Scampton recently, I think, when was that?
VH: Yes, er, that was when I had my [papers shuffling].
CB: Your medal. Your medal.
VH: In that book there. [Papers shuffling, pause].
CB: I think, er [pause] ah. And what did you [pause], how did you hear about this, did they get in touch with you?
VH: No, when I moved to here, to Retford, I lost my medals, so I wrote up to administrative ends [?] explained who I was, when I started and when I, when I got demobbed, and they dealt and sent them back, er, sent me a new lot.
CB: And how did you get to go to Scampton? Did they write to you?
Other: A gentleman from Scampton in the RAF came to us here, and said could they present them to him.
CB: Oh. So what did you feel about that?
VH: It was great, wasn’t it?
Other: It was lovely.
VH: All the family went, it was lovely.
Other: It was a very special day, yeah.
VH: Yeah.
CB: They made a fuss of you?
VH: Yeah [laughs].
CB: Well that’s a lovely, lovely thing to remember, isn’t it.
VH: It is, yeah.
Other: And they also presented medals to these gentlemen, they’d just come back from Afghanistan.
CB: It’s lovely. [Pause]. Right Vic, so –
VH: I went, I went out to get the aircraft ready, prepared because there was a raid on, when the crew came out, I was just sitting there, and I’d got this terrible pain, you know, they says ‘come on we want to go,’ and I says ‘I can’t get out!’ So they lifted me out, and they rushed me to Kings Lynn hospital, I got my appendix [laughs].
CB: Do you remember the hospital you were in?
VH: Er [slight pause], no, er, it was Kings Lynn, but I can’t think of the name of the hospital.
CB: And how long were you in there?
VH: I was only in there a couple of week, if that.
CB: It’s quite a long time these days [both laugh]. And then it says you were transferred to Addenbrookes.
VH: Yeah, yeah I had something wrong with my thumb –
CB: Right.
VH: And the Air Force made a mess of it, so I ended up in Addenbrookes to have me nail took off.
CB: So what do you remember about being in hospital?
VH: Not a lot really, well, when I came out I got a fortnight’s holiday, er, was a camp.
CB: What was the food like?
VH: Good [emphasis, both laugh].
CB: So you, they sorted out your appendix problem –
VH: Oh yes.
CB: And then you, you went back. So it was, [pause], that’s some sort of home, admitted to Stowe, erm, I can’t quite read that. Was it just some sort of home that just was like a convalescent home was it?
VH: Yeah.
CB: And you were in there for a little while.
VH: Hmm yeah, two weeks I think [chuckles].
CB: So they certainly looked after the –
VH: They certainly looked after you, yeah.
CB: [Pause]. So you’ve lived in Retford for, how long now?
VH: Ten years now, innit chick? My daughter got me over here so she can look after me [laughs], don’t you chick.
CB: Do you get involved in any Bomber Command, you know, reunions, or?
VH: Oh no –
Other: You’ve started to now.
VH: Started going to a bit now, haven’t we, yeah. Scampton. We’ve been to one or two dos there haven’t we?
Other: Mm.
VH: Where was it that we went the other week?
Other: Woodhall Spa.
VH: Oh yeah we went to Woodhall Spa the other week, at a reunion day.
Other: Scampton last week, and a Lancaster came over.
VH: Yeah [laughs]. The Red Arrows were there, giving a display weren’t they. Lovely.
CB: Well I think, think that’s about it Vic, that’s been very, very interesting.
VH: Thank you very much.
CB: Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Victor Harding
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Clare Bennett
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-20
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHardingV150520
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Pending OH summary
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
An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Victor Harding.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:38:26 audio recording
149 Squadron
627 Squadron
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
fitter airframe
flight mechanic
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
ground crew
Lancaster
military living conditions
Mosquito
Nissen hut
RAF Bardney
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Kirkham
RAF Marham
RAF Woodhall Spa
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/755/10753/ACourtPR171211.2.mp3
f5adb26711d51c0b4874459a61b47524
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
Court, Percival Robert
P R Court
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Robert Court (b. 1924, 1728924 Royal Air Force). He served as a rigger and airframe fitter.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-11
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
Court, PR
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the, Monday the 11th of December 2017 and I am in Reading with Bob Court to talk about his life and times and starting with what are your earliest recollections of life, Bob?
PC: I don’t know. Being [pause] at a place called Organford where there were floods. My mother was sat with her feet in the water and nursing me. Then the old chap was going off to work and he left his Hunter watch on the bed head so I could hear it ticking. That’s my earliest memory.
CB: What did your father do?
PC: He was a post office engineer. Linesman.
CB: Whereabouts?
PC: Dorset.
CB: And what did that involve?
PC: Well, in those days the, during the winter months the snow would bring the lines down and they had to go and put them back up. So it meant travelling about all over the place.
CB: Right. And where did you go to school?
PC: Poole. National school. National Boy School, Poole.
CB: Any exciting times there?
PC: Oh yeah. I thought they were all exciting [laughs] Yeah. It was ok. I managed to keep to the top of the heap all the time so life was pretty, pretty easy.
CB: Did you develop a main interest?
PC: Woodwork, I suppose. I don’t know. My mother wouldn’t let me go to the Grammar School. They wanted me to go and take the exam. But my mother wouldn’t let me go.
CB: Why was that?
PC: Probably she couldn’t afford it. But in, in retrospect I say she probably saved my life.
CB: Because?
PC: If you’d have gone to the Grammar School you’d have been aircrew.
CB: Right.
PC: Not many of them survived.
CB: Right. Right. And what age did you leave school?
PC: Fourteen.
CB: Then what?
PC: Then what? Well, I worked for this furniture company. And then when I was old enough volunteered for the Air Force.
CB: Yeah. But first of all what did you do?
PC: What do you mean what did I do?
CB: Well, immediately after you left school what did you do? Before you went to the furniture company.
PC: I worked for a friend of a member of the family who had a radio business. And I suppose, I don’t know when I turned up, when they packed up. And I went to the Labour Exchange because I had a suit on I suppose they thought here’s a chap for the shop, for this furniture store.
CB: So what did you do in the furniture business?
PC: Well, repairing, French polishing. All sorts of things really. Selling it. Delivering it.
CB: You said you were interested in carpentry at school. So did that put you in good stead for what you were doing for the furniture company?
PC: I suppose it did in a way. Yes. I suppose it did.
CB: So were you an apprentice there or —
PC: Yeah.
CB: Right. And how long were apprenticeships in those days?
PC: This one was three years I think it was. Yeah. Three years, I think. Three years, I think. Three or four years.
CB: So, you were born in 1924.
PC: Yeah.
CB: And that meant that when the war started what age were you?
PC: Fifteen.
CB: And what reaction did you feel with the start of the war?
PC: Pretty good [laughs] I didn’t think we were going to lose. Never entered my head that we might lose. I didn’t realise how close it was but at the time no you wouldn’t. Never thought of it.
CB: So, this is when you’re working for the furniture company.
PC: Yeah.
CB: What did you do that was related to the war at that stage because you were too young to sign up.
PC: I did a bit of firewatching. We had to do that every night. Well, not one night a week at least. Then they started introducing payment so I did two nights. Sometimes three. It wasn’t very onerous.
CB: What did you have to do?
PC: Well, just keep a watch out for incendiary bombs because they were using a lot of those at the time. And put out any fires they might cause. Fortunately, in my area they didn’t cause any. So I was alright. Not bad at all.
CB: So what did they, what title did you have for that task? Fire watching. Was that ARP or what was it?
PC: No. It wasn’t ARP. Just fire watchers or something.
CB: Right.
PC: I don’t know. Who was it introduced it? [pause] I think it was Morrison, wasn’t it? Morrison.
CB: Herbert Morrison [pause] But what did you actually have to do in fire watching?
PC: Well, keep, keep an, keep your eyes open for any incendiaries that might land near you.
CB: I was thinking did you have a base to work from or did you walk the streets or what did you do?
PC: No. We had a room over a shop that we used to sleep in. And any air raids we’d go out and wander around the streets.
CB: Right. And you had a supervisor or who controlled what you were doing?
PC: Yeah. We had a chap who owned one of the shops. Well, he owned a chemist shop and he was the chap in charge. Yeah.
CB: So what did you find in there?
PC: Hmmn?
CB: You’re looking in your book. What have you got in there?
PC: Oh, I’m just trying to remember what was going on. The Dunkirk business.
CB: Well, we can come back. Let’s talk about Dunkirk then. So you remember Dunkirk in 1940.
PC: Yeah.
CB: What do you remember particularly about that?
PC: Well, when was it?
CB: Because you’re in Weymouth.
PC: Germany attacked Poland. No. I was in Poole then.
CB: Oh, in Poole were you?
PC: The Phoney War. Holland. The occupation of Denmark and Norway. The evacuation of Dunkirk. I remember watching soldiers coming in to Poole Quay on any craft that could make the journey.
CB: Right. When they landed then what happened to them?
PC: Tea, cigarettes, beer and food being given to the bemused troops. Pitiful to see them. Did not appreciate —
CB: What sort of state were they in?
PC: Not very happy. Glad to be out of where they were though.
CB: Were they upright, bedraggled or what were they?
PC: Well, they were a bit bedraggled but apart from that they were ok. Glad to be out of there. That was all.
CB: Yes.
PC: Yeah.
CB: So after that you continued with your fire watching.
PC: Yes.
CB: Did you join the ATC or —
PC: Yeah. Yeah. I joined the Air Training Corps.
CB: Right. And when was that? That was when you were what age? Was it at the time of fire watching?
PC: Yeah. Obviously [pause] when were the ATC formed? When was that?
[pause]
PC: Yeah. Herbert Morrison was the one who said all persons between sixteen and sixty register for fire watching duties.
CB: Right.
PC: So, I, they used to pay four and sixpence. Twenty two and a half pence per night. I didn’t earn much so I volunteered to do two and sometimes three nights a week.
CB: Yeah.
PC: Which helped my salary immensely.
CB: Can you remember what you earned when you were working for the furniture company?
PC: Yeah. Twelve [pause] twelve and sixpence.
CB: Did you?
PC: Or sixty two and a half pence.
CB: Yeah.
PC: Per week. The Air Training Corps was in 1941. And I joined in March 1941.
CB: The ATC.
PC: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So, now you’re coming up to be old enough to join the forces. What made you join the RAF rather than the Army or the Navy?
PC: As I said, I couldn’t swim. And I didn’t like the brown jobs. They got too close. So, I thought the Air Force might be a bit safer.
CB: Right.
PC: Which it proved to be.
CB: So, what, what was the process then of joining up?
PC: I went to [pause] where did I go? I went up to Southampton I think. Volunteered.
CB: Did you go to Cardington as a start?
PC: Yeah.
CB: What happened at Cardington?
PC: I went to [pause] joined [pause — pages turning] Yeah. Cardington. Somewhere. I volunteered. It was possible to volunteer at seventeen and a half.
CB: Yeah.
PC: I did that in February ‘42. Volunteered for service as a flight mechanic.
CB: Right.
PC: Report to the centre of Southampton for a medical and attestation. Bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Sixth, his heirs and successors blah blah blah. Got the King’s Shilling in the form of a postal order.
CB: Oh, you did. Right.
PC: I was hoping to be given a shilling but they didn’t. They give me a bloody postal order. I should have saved it but I didn’t. So, I went to, and I was with the ATC at their Fleet Air Arm place at Sandbanks and I had to report to Cardington.
CB: Right.
PC: Yeah. Never been outside the county ‘til then.
CB: So, what did you do at Cardington?
PC: Got kitted out. Did some tests. We had to fill out, yeah fill out all these books. Tests. I was about to decide what we would do. Test booklets. Fill in name and number. Answer all the questions you could. Such things as mathematics, simple science, English diagrams to determine which way cogs might revolve around levers and pulleys operated. Seemed to go on for hours and days by the end of it. Afterwards when discussing with others how they thought they had fared I began to realise that not all of us were as well equipped as others. In fact, the lad I travelled with from Poole had found the exercise very daunting. Then we were interviewed by, about technical matters school, blah blah blah. Issued with uniforms and equipment. Everything. Dog tags and whatever. When all this was going on the, an airman came and called out your name. Gather up your kit and follow him. My friend from Poole was amongst us. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been selected for the RAF regiment.’ Soon our numbers were quite depleted. We slept soundly that night.
CB: So, are you saying not everybody was accepted in to the RAF?
PC: They were accepted into the RAF but not in what they wanted to do.
CB: Right.
PC: Like this chap that came with me was put in the RAF regiment.
CB: Yes. So, what other jobs would they have put them into?
PC: Well, there was cooks.
CB: Yeah.
PC: All sorts of things I think. Different. Different. I’m trying to think really.
CB: But you’d been identified as somebody to work, you said earlier as a rigger.
PC: Yeah.
CB: Is that because you asked for that or they suggested that’s what you should do?
PC: Well, no. What happens, you were sort of all lined up and said, I would say about sixty or so of us and those who wished to be air frame mechanics to cross to the other side of the room. Not a soul moved. Didn’t know what he was bloody talking about.
CB: No.
PC: ‘Right,’ he said, said to the group, he said, ‘All those on the left engines. Those on the right airframe.’ That’s how I became a flight mechanic air frame.
CB: Right.
PC: That’s it.
CB: Was this chap a corporal or —
PC: It was better actually than the engines. I thought so anyway. And we went from Cardington to Skegness for square bashing.
CB: What else did you do at Skegness?
PC: Just the initial training. Marching up and down.
CB: Yeah.
PC: Cracking the paving stones.
CB: Yeah.
PC: Then we were —
CB: Was there any classroom work? It wasn’t square bashing all the time was it?
PC: Square. Well, most of the times. Yeah.
CB: And from there?
PC: Didn’t have any rifles so we had wooden replica rifles. Bayonet practice with pikes. Scaffold tubing with the bayonets welded on. Bayonet practice we charged at straw filled sacks on wooden frames and around again. We were encouraged to scream and shout the meanest of obscenities as we charged forward. Urged on by the instructors. In, out, Oh God, out the ground, left, right, right, oh dear. Oh dear. Unarmed combat was taught. Be invited to charge the instructor with a rifle and bayonet, and we’d be tipped ass over head in no uncertain manner. How we would fare in real combat was never really put to the test. The assault courses, climb wire, barbed wire, rope netting. Crossing streams and, oh dear. Did guard duty. We’d sit on the seafront with a machine gun on the beach. Wend our way through the mines laid on the beach, ropes and tape. The odd mine was clearly visible in the sand so one was apprehensive when going backwards and forwards. The Butlins Holiday Camp was used by the Navy as a training establishment. Given the name HMS Arthur. The camp was full of Naval though we never seen any in the town. They must have kept them away. Perhaps the authorities in their infinite wisdom kept us apart. Many lectures on various aspects of service life. We had medical officer of the dangers of venereal diseases. This was my first introduction to sex education. For me it was a rude awakening. The MO marched on the stage in the lecture room and held up an unrolled French letter which he announced was a condom. In my ignorance I only knew it as the more familiar name. They were sold sureptisously in barber’s shops where male customers would be discreetly asked if they needed such things for the weekend. He ran to great length about syphilis, gonorrhoea, associated with women of a dubious character. If we did succumb to these wiles we’d be marching with a standing penis and no conscience. Returned to a room behind the guard room where prophylactic treatment was available. This lecture was reinforced by an American film of soldiers frequenting a brothel and the resulting liaison in full colour. Various venereal diseases in all its ghastly forms. Pretty shocking to my young senses. What kept most men on the straight and narrow was the exception that women were to be respected. The ultimate way was that the man would marry a virgin and young women accordingly kept themselves chaste. At home sex was never discussed. It was taboo. But nevertheless there were plenty of innuendoes bandied about between Babe, Benny and some of the lodgers. I was a little naive to appreciate what was going on. Films and books were played down as part of any stories so as not to offend the sensors. Songs adhered to a strict code of practice. Some comedians like Max Miller sailed pretty close to the wind. A popular song of the day was, “Doing What Comes Naturally.” And that was how people were introduced to sex. To suppress our sexual drive a cup of tea or cocoa we drank was laced with copious amounts of Bromide. Also we were kept so busy with square bashing and PT at the end of the day we were too exhausted for such dalliances. That coupled with our meagre pay did not leave us much for entertaining the opposite sex. As the course progressed so did our fitness. Jack London was training for his fight would delight in picking out likely lads to spar with him in the boxing ring. Fortunately, for me being I was slight build I was not selected for this ordeal. We could not avoid the forced marches that were his pet items. Be paraded in marching order with small pack. Gas mask we had to march at a fast pace for about ten miles or so. Periodically we’d be halted for a short rest but Jack would prance about shadow boxing while we looked on in awe. And off we’d go again at almost a gallop. After six weeks or so of this intensive square bashing we were deemed to be sufficiently proficient in parade ground techniques and arms drill, armed and unarmed bayonet, to be referred to the next place of our training. Come of some use in the overall strategy of the Air Force. And then off we went. Went to —
CB: Where did you go next?
PC: Went to a place called Brindley Heath near Birmingham. Just outside Birmingham. And we marched up to the camp known as Kit Bag Hill surrounded by an eight to ten foot high wire chain link. This was number school, number 6 School of Technical Training. It would be our home for the next five or six months. So that’s where I went.
CB: So, at the Technical School this was specifically was it for the trade you were put into?
PC: Yeah. Yeah. Number 6 School of Technical Training.
CB: Yeah.
PC: Very desolate. Looked rather gloomy after Skegness. I was accommodated in one of many of the wooden huts. In the centre was a coal burning stove. Iron beds that telescoped to give a spacious look to the room. On each bed was three square shaped mattresses called biscuits. Pillow. Three blankets all arranged in a precise manner which we would get accustomed to making before going on parade in the mornings. A corporal was in charge of the hut and the weekly inspections of the hut ensured was spotless before he allowed us to go to breakfast. Woe betide anyone who entered the hut after he’d pronounced it satisfactory. Not only were the trainees RAF personnel but there were the Fleet Air Arm, Polish and WAAFs which added a degree of rivalry to us all. Each morning we’d parade outside the hut at 7.30 am. Headed by the station band we would march to the workshop to the strains of, “Sussex by the Sea.” We would mutter as we marched along in the darkness, “Good old Sussex by the sea. You can tell them all we know sod all of Sussex by the sea.” How’s that? [laughs]
CB: We’ll pause there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: So, the RAF called this site you’re talking about RAF Hednesford.
PC: Yeah.
CB: What did you actually do there?
PC: That was the —
CB: Brindley Heath.
PC: Yeah. First two weeks dealt with basic engineering practice. I did on occasion metal, metals used in aircraft production. Types of drills, screws, tools, heat treatment, corrosion. Main practical work involved filing a piece of mild steel about three or four inches square, a quarter of an inch thick. Dead flat and square. Both faces and all surfaces. At the end marks were attained in the practical theory and oral examination we continued with the course. Otherwise we were re-mustered into probably the RAF regiment. Perish the thought. Anyone with ninety percent could go on to the fitter’s course. Those with marks forty or less would be re-mustered. Only one of our entry was. Which was a hundred and fifty eight passed with high enough marks and one failed. And he had the, as he had had office experience in Civvy Street he was posted to the admin section as a Clerk GD. We were rather derisory towards him but he had the last laugh because by the time we had completed the course he had been promoted to corporal. So he did well. None of us were concerned about going on the fitter’s course which meant another ten weeks of training and many were anxious to join a squadron and actually service aircraft. Once the basic training was over we got down to the serious business of the flight mechanic’s course. Sixteen weeks of instruction, preliminary rigging, knots, lacing of wire and rope. Fabrication, application, doping and painting, carpentry, hydraulics, pneumatic, wheels and tyre maintenance, marshalling of aircraft. Procedures for the daily inspection. At first I’d been disappointed in not being successful in being selected as an engine mechanic but once on the course I found it so varied and covered such a variety of activities I was glad. Later in life it stood me in good stead. Once we were, similar routine with our spare time spent in the NAAFI. Occasional visits to the camp cinema. One film I recall was the story of that guy who sold his soul to the devil. Was it a warning? Also got initiated in playing cards. Not Whist, Rummy and Cribbage that I was reasonable in but Brag, Pontoon and Solo. We did not have a lot of money to indulge in these games and after being relieved of my meagre pay by the card sharks among us I became more cautious about getting too involved. The only game officially sanctioned by the powers that be was Tombola or Housey Housey. Less stressful and you were unlikely to lose too much of your money. Weekends we’d venture in to town with Walsall being one of the favourite places. Many thought I came from Canada. Due to my West Country accent no doubt. So I would say I came from London, Ontario. I was intrigued by the accents of these Black Country people as they were known here. Hednesford itself was a mining village. We’d often visit the snooker hall and local pub. The younger miners a little hostile to us as many would have liked to have joined the Services from what was a Reserved Occupation from which there was no escape. Hence their frustrations. Shall I go on?
CB: Yeah.
PC: My best friend, Bob Matthews, a Londoner and I was a bit in awe of him because he was very streetwise while I was just a country boy who knew nothing of the big wide world. As I lived in Poole it was much too far for me to go home on a forty eight hour pass and I stayed with him with his parents in London. Fabulous. They lived in Woolwich and his father was security officer at the Royal Arsenal. They had a small cottage inside the Arsenal as part of the job. You would say that this was the safest place in London. Bob had a regular girlfriend. Sylvia, I believe. And he introduced me to her sister Vera. This made a convenient foursome for us. Also, Vera was my first really serious girl. We used to write copious letters to each other even when I was posted overseas. However, when I was abroad for a long separation of course there was a cool off a bit and she met up with another lad. When I came home in 1947 we did try to get together but I was very unsettled and did not know what I wanted to do so we drifted apart. Compared with Poole, Woolwich and London in general was a wonderland to me [pause] Pubs such as Dirty Dick’s were so different from those in Poole. We would meet Bob’s mother in one and she would proudly show off her pride and joy to her friends. Christmas I spent at the camp not wishing to go home as I wanted to enjoy service life to the full. I withdrew my name from the list of those wishing to go home to allow the married ones a better chance of selection. Periodically we used to do guard duty. This involved being on duty from 6pm until 8am the next day. One did stints of two hours on and four hours off and we usually slept in the guard room cells. Some did duty on the main gate and others patrolled the perimeter fence. The shifts 12 to 2am and 2 to 4am were in my opinion the worst. I remember on one occasion falling asleep in the sentry box and nearly falling over as I slept. God knows what would have happened if the orderly officer had come around. Tell that the circulated camp was that Naval Fleet Air Arm types who assisted their mates to enter the camp after the magic hour of 23.59 by fixing their bayonets to the rifles. Pushing them through the chain link fence to form a sort of ladder. Coming up this way one of the bayonets snapped off. What was the outcome I never did know or whether it was true. Completion of the course in February ’43 we attended a passing our parade, informed of our postings, given a travel warrant and sent home on a weeks’ well-earned leave. We had previously been asked where we’d like to be posted and I opted for Ibsley near Ringwood. A Spitfire fighter station. Whether they did this deliberately to post you as far from the location desired I don’t know but I was posted to 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit, Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire.
CB: Right. We’ll stop this for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: You mentioned the passing out parade from the end of your training. So how did that go?
PC: Well, the square bashing do you mean? After doing the foot drill.
CB: Yeah.
PC: Yeah. What did that involve?
CB: Yeah. When you’d finished your technical training you had your passing out parade.
PC: Technical training.
CB: Yeah. Before you were posted elsewhere. So what, what was the passing out parade?
PC: I can’t remember really. I think we just had to march past the CO and eyes right and off you go.
CB: Yes. And did they give you something in terms of certificate. Or —
PC: No. No.
CB: Families invited or anything like that?
PC: No. No. No. No.
CB: Right. And did you get a bean feast afterwards?
PC: A bean feast?
CB: A pub. Food.
PC: No. No. You were sent home on leave.
CB: Right. That was the reward [laughs]
PC: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
PC: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: So when you joined the RAF you were an AC2. How did the promotion go from there?
PC: Well, the next stage was AC1. And then LAC. Leading Aircraftmen. I think nowadays they follow the Army and they call them corporals.
CB: Well, I think they’ve still got LAC and SAC.
PC: Yeah. Have they?
CB: Senior Aircraftsman. So at what stage were you, did you become a Leading Aircraftsman? At the end of your technical training was it?
PC: After I’d been on the Heavy Conversion Unit for a bit.
CB: When you got on with it. Right. Ok. So you were posted to the Heavy Conversion Unit. That was at Waterbeach. So, what was your role there?
PC: Just —
CB: Because you are now technically what’s your description of your trade at that stage?
PC: I’m a flight mechanic.
CB: Right.
PC: Flight mechanic air frame. Yeah. Arrived at the camp at about [pause] it was quite dark. Reported to the guard room. Soon allocated a billet. Guided to the dining for a much needed meal. Quite bewildered. At the same time thrilled to hear the roar of aircraft engines as the planes were taking off from the airfield.
CB: What were the aircraft?
PC: Stirlings.
CB: Right.
PC: The airfield was about four miles from Cambridge. Only built during the general rearmament programme of the late 1930s. Officially opened in 1941. Earmarked to be a heavy bomber station. When I arrived it was equipped with the Short Stirling four engine bomber. I was a little disappointed to find that the unit was not on operational one but involved with the final training of aircrews before going on to an operational squadron. Stirlings were given this role because the Lancaster and Halifax heavy bombers coming on stream were far superior in Bomber Command in bomb carrying capacity and ability to fly at high altitudes. Stirlings had been designed in 1936 but its projected wing span of a hundred and twelve feet had to be reduced to less than a hundred to be accommodated in the hangars. This would seriously affect its ability to fly any higher than about eighteen thousand feet and was therefore more vulnerable to anti-aircraft and fighter attack. Its robust construction based on the Sunderland ensured that it would withstand serious battle damage. It was used successfully as the main bomber along with the Wellington. But as night fighter operations improved these losses were unsustainable. Stirlings last big operational roles was when it was used as a paratroop carrier. And the towing of gliders during D-Day and at Arnhem. It was at Arnhem that my brother Jim was captured and spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp. My first day on the flights when I was introduced to these huge monsters towering above me left me a little awestruck by its sheer size. This was certainly a big aeroplane standing about twenty feet high. Twenty eight feet high on its huge ungainly undercarriage. My job as a flight mechanic was to carry out daily inspections. Checking the tyres, tyre creep, leaks from the oleo struts, free working of the ailerons, rudders and elevators and inspect for damage generally. Checking the cockpit. The operational controls. The most frightening task for me was the cleaning of the cockpit windscreen and windows. This necessitated climbing out of an escape hatch midway along the fuselage, walking along to the cockpit and then lying down to clean the Perspex windows. At first I would crawl on my hands and knees up the fuselage much to the amusement of the old hands. After a few days I became as blasé about it as they were and would quickly clamber along the fuselage ignoring the height above the ground. Refuelling held its dangers too. The training of pilot and co-pilot to successfully take off and land at night and to get the rest of the crew to operate as an efficient unit. Night flying was the norm for this work and on its completion usually about two or three in the morning one of the jobs was to refuel the aircraft so that it was ready for immediate take off. The Stirling had fourteen tanks in the wings holding over two thousand two hundred gallons of fuel. On a cold winter’s night this was a gruelling task. To hold open the nozzle to allow the petrol to flow in to the tanks hands and fingers soon became numb with cold. Accentuated by the high octane fuel. I’d not been there long when my turn for night flying duties. This meant being, among other things being on standby on the flight hut to answer requests from the pilot for a supply of compressed air. In night flying operation the aircraft would be doing circuits and bumps continued throughout the night. The small engine driven pumps which fitted to the aircraft could not maintain enough compressed air in the [floor cylinder] to cope with the continual application of the aircraft air brakes. After a number of landings and take off a cylinder would need replenishing. My job was to meet the aircraft on the perimeter, top up as necessary. Rather than wait in the cold flight for a call out many of us would join the aircrews with a fully charged air cylinder and enjoy the thrills of night flying. Sans parachute I might add. When the top up cylinder was empty we would leave the aircraft. Turn to the flight and have to wait for the next call. At the end of the night flying the next task would be to meet the aircraft on the perimeter. Guide it to its dispersal point on the flight. On my first occasion the duty corporal took pity on me and told me he would delay my introduction to this task as long as possible. Whether he doubted my competence I know not. There was suddenly a flurry of activity and with the phone ringing continuously, airmen gathering up torches and disappearing into the night I found I was the only one apart from the corporal left in the hut. The phone rang and he reluctantly handed me two small torches and told me to guide G-George to its dispersal point with some brief warnings of the possible dangers. Out I ventured in the total darkness to meet this huge monster towering above me on the perimeter track. Along with my two torches waving them in the prescribed manner I gradually brought the aircraft with its roaring engines and red hot exhaust to its dispersal point. Now came the tricky bit where it was necessary to turn the aircraft in a complete circle on the frying pan to be ready for refuelling. One had to be careful to keep in full view of the pilot. Not to stumble or trip otherwise one might be run over by the tail wheels as the aircraft turned around in the tight space. With heart thumping and nerves frayed I managed this without a mishap. I’ve often wondered if the pilot ever thought how vulnerable the poor ground crews were when carrying out this type, this operation. Back in the flight hut I don’t know to this day who was more relieved. Me or the corporal. Periodically, as well as doing a guard duty on the main gate on the perimeter of the station we also had to do a kite guard. Kite being slang for an aeroplane. For this duty one would have a couple of blankets, go to a designated aircraft and spend a night guarding the aircraft. I cannot recall whether we were armed or not or how effective the guard was is debatable. Whenever I did this duty I would spend the time exploring the aircraft, playing the various roles of bomber crews. I imagined I would assume the duty of the pilot, co-pilot, flying over Germany and the North Sea to the target. When tiring of this I would then take on the role of the bomb aimer. Lie down in his position in the front at the front and guide the plane and drop the bombs. Other roles would be front, rear and mid-upper gunners. Sitting in their turrets and shooting down enemy fighters. Although I fantasised playing these roles I never felt I would be suitable as an aircraft member. Aircrew member. Partly as I did not consider my education, background good enough at the time. Aircrews were recruited from the universities and Grammar Schools and my basic elementary schooling was not good enough. As war progressed and a shortage of suitable candidates became apparent particularly for the flight engineers. I would probably have been acceptable. By this time I’d retrained as a fitter and was quite happy in that role. For sleeping there was a foldaway stretcher located in the fuselage but sleep was an uncomfortable experience, climbs in the aircraft on a cold winter’s night. And equally so on a hot summer’s night. At 6am in the morning loud banging on this aircraft would awaken one and you would stagger off to the dining hall for a cup of tea and an early breakfast. But the ordinary perk was the cooks were generally sympathetic and generous at that hour. I had not been at Waterbeach long when it came apparent getting around a camp site, a bicycle was required so I wrote home and asked my mother to send my bicycle to me. She did. Registered. And I was mobile. A cycle was as essential in those days as a car is today. Visits to Cambridge and the local villages was easily accomplished with the minimum of effort. This being the fen country it was very flat. Very few hills to negotiate. This part of the country was ideal for the location of bomber stations so that although heavy laden to take off safely. Cambridge was a beautiful city with its many fine buildings, colleges and the River Cam running through it and I spent much of my free time exploring its many features. Cambridge being a university with its teaming population of undergraduates I found it difficult in coming to terms with. I was brought up to the idea that one had to get out to work and earn a living as soon as possible. My mother did not encourage one in the value of education. In fact, by her intransigence she discouraged me from taking the entrance to the local Grammar School. At the time, 1943 Cambridge was full of American servicemen and I’m afraid us poor erks could not compete either financially for the favours of the local girls. We had to be content with the NAAFI, Toc H, Sally Ann, for entertainment. Plus the cinemas. I remember there was some trouble when some time expired servicemen returned from their tour of duty in North Africa and many confrontations occurred between the two factions. I found it more expedient to stick to the village and Waterbeach itself than get involved in any trouble. My father died in November ’43. Flight Sergeant Mills took me under his wing and helped me through the trauma and he often took me to the British Legion club in the village where he was a much respected and popular friend. As spring arrived the hours of daylight increased. The trainee aircrews were required to wear goggles with dark lenses in order that flying hours were maintained. The runways were illuminated with sodium lights to complete the illusion of night flying. This almost around the clock flying put quite a strain on the servicing ground crews. But with the increasing aircraft production losses of aircrews by enemy action it was necessary to maintain a flow. One day while working on the flights [unclear] came and said anyone would like to retrain as a fitter 2. This was an upgraded group 1 in trade structure in the RAF was highly regarded as it opened up the route to promotion. I asked when mine would be likely to be selected, know if to be selected and how that might be. He told me it would be several months before it would come about. Thinking to myself it would get me off the flights for the winter months I put my name forward. Rather than months, a couple of weeks later given a weeks’ leave and told to report to Number 1 School Of Technical Training at Halton to begin a fitter’s conversion course [pause] on the 2nd of July 1943. Number 1 School of Technical Training, RAF Station Halton. Halton was the home of the boy entrants in the RAF and affectionately known as Trenchard’s Brats. The terms of service was to fulfil twelve years of service from the age of eighteen when the option to sign on for a period if they so desired. The apprenticeship was four to five years duration and they seemed to be the cream of the tradesmen and indeed they were. The war was a Godsend to that force with the rapid expansion of the Air Force. Many were promoted to high ranking position both as officers and senior NCOs. So they did well. Volunteers and conscripts like myself after completing a flight mechanic’s course the period on the squadron required to do a conversion course of fourteen weeks to be brought up to the required standard. I think I was the youngest and certainly the lowest in rank at AC2, Aircraftman Second Class. Many were LACs, Leading Aircraftsmen with several years service to their credit. RAF Halton near Wendover in Buckinghamshire was situated uphill from the town. Every day we would form up on the square, march to the training workshops. The Brats would lead the parade with the mascot of a goat, a goat and the station band at the head. The Brats were distinguished by wearing cheese cutters. Peak cap, with a chequered brim on the edge whilst we wore the Glengarry type of head gear. One of our entry also wore a cheese cutter as he had had the devil’s own job to convince the RAF police that he was not a Brat. One night on the town he had been an aircrew member and lost all his hair as result of some trauma and had permission to wear the cap to avoid embarrassment. The course, like the flight mechanic’s was fairly intensive dealing with basic engineering, metal repairs, hydraulics, minor and major inspections. A lot of instruction involved American aircraft such as the Kitty Hawk, Tomahawk and the methods used in the servicing of these aircraft. Weekends we could not obtain a pass we were expected to take part in some sporting activity. The skivers among us would often choose the cross country run over the hills and through the woods down to Tring. At some convenient spot we would hide, enjoy a crafty smoke and wait for the main pack and rejoin them for the return to the camp. Those who declined to take part in any of these activities would find themselves detailed for spud bashing which involved the peeling and removing the eyes from the potatoes. Halton was conveniently placed near London. And weekends we could spend in the city. We used to stay in the YMCA hospital, hostel at Westminster. Therefore we’d be taken by bus to a section of the underground not used by the railway. Here three tiered bunks were provided at a shilling. 5p per night. You took pot luck as to who your fellow borders might be and hoped they would not be too drunk or awkward. Other times when I stayed in camp I would explore the local towns of Aylesbury, Rickmansworth, Tring etcetera. During wartime these were pretty boring places to be for a serviceman as with beer in short supply unless you were a regular you could not hope to get served in any pub. Whilst at Halton the forty third intake of Brats came to the end of their course. We were all given a forty eight pass and told to leave the camp or stay at our peril. When we returned to the camp we’d seen why we had been told to get out. The place was in a shambles. Beds and mattresses hanging from windows, forty free entry signs daubed on walls and general mayhem everywhere. Apparently it was a tradition that on the completion of a course the Brats were given a free hand to celebrate their final days at Halton. The new entry would have the job of cleaning up the ensuing mess. Which gave them the incentive that they could do better when they completed their course. However, when we finished the privilege [pause] however when we finished the privilege was not granted to us. I completed the conversion course and now fitter 2A still with the rank of AC2. This gave me an increase in pay and I was now in group one of the trade hierarchy of the Air Force. Sent home and then posted back to 1651 at Waterbeach.
Other: A rest.
CB: I think we’d better stop there. Thank you very much.
[recording paused]
CB: We’re taking a pause now because Bob’s getting a bit tired. We’ve got to the stage where he’s returned to Stradishall and there’s a lot more to be covered in the later part of the war and afterwards in the Far East. So we’re going to reconvene. Much of what he’s been speaking about he’s got directly from his own book, “Stirlings, Sentinels and Dakotas.” So, more later.
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 Percival Robert Court
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-11
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACourtPR171211
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:57:38 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
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Skegness
England--London
Netherlands
Netherlands--Arnhem
Description
An account of the resource
Percival Robert Court joined the Air Training Corps in March 1941, volunteering for the Royal Air Force at the earliest age of seventeen and a half. Training at RAF Cardington, he became a flight mechanic. He then moved to Skegness to continue into formal training, including lectures on sex education and venereal disease. He states that sex was never discussed and that it was taboo and rumours they were putting bromide in the water. Alongside this, he outlines several examples of social meetings within the base staff, including shared songs and daily prayers at RAF Hednesford, as well as when his father died in 1943 and he relied on his wing commander to help him through the tough ordeal. He then recounts his training and experiences at RAF Hednesford, explaining the very high marks that were required to continue on his mechanic course as well as commonly having to take guard shifts and night operations. Percival was posted to Heavy Conversion Unit 1651 at RAF Waterbeach, of which he then outlines his daily required workings and several experiences with Stirlings and Lancasters. He also sets aside time to remember his brother, who was captured at Arnhem, being imprisoned for the remainder of the war. Based at RAF Halton, Percival took a course that allowed him to be promoted, as well as higher pay, learning information about American aircraft and spending his weekends in wartime London. When the war came to an end, he was given 48 hours to leave the base and no celebration. Percival Robert Court believes his mother saved his life by not letting him go to a grammar school, explaining that if she had, he would have died in an aircrew.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-03
1943
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
1651 HCU
civil defence
dispersal
faith
fitter airframe
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
mechanics airframe
perimeter track
prisoner of war
RAF Cardington
RAF Halton
RAF Hednesford
RAF Waterbeach
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/619/8888/PPageTJ1606.1.jpg
b148aa18f4800cd0fb0c18a9acf80a81
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/619/8888/APageTJ160702.2.mp3
c8fe4cbafca04e08890102b6ebcd50da
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
Page, Thomas James
T J Page
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Page, TJ
Description
An account of the resource
Fifteen items. An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Thomas Page DFM (1922 - 2017, 922297, 183427 Royal Air Force), his log book, two autobiographies and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 49 Squadron.
The collection was The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Thomas Page and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-02
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: So hang on –,
TP: Why the hell didn’t I bring those things? In the drawer, in the ‒
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 2ndof July 2016. I’m in Hythe with Thomas Page DFM who’s going to tell us his story of his twenty-eight years in the Royal Air Force. So, what are your earliest recollections Thomas? Of life ‒
TP: Oh, of life? Not just the RAF?
CB: No, and then into the RAF.
TP: [Sigh]. My earliest recollections are of living with my mother and my grandparents just outside of Coulswood (?) beside Manston Airfield in the 1920s to the 19 ‒, which date? Which date did we move to ‒, I was ‒, I was nine years old, I was born in ’22, at nine years old we moved from St Peters at Broadstairs where I started school. My father then went to work for his uncle on a farm at Chislet. When I left school at ‒, oh at the age of thirteen I went to a village school, a church school, at Chilset. At the age of thirteen went to a new central school called Sturry Central School um, not very far, at Sturry, which is west of Canterbury, not very far from Canterbury, and I became the first school captain, boys captain of the school, and equally so a girl from Chislet School became the first girls school captain. Anyway, that was at thirteen, but by fourteen I had to leave like we did in those days and then I just went to work on a farm with my father and his uncle. That was up until the age of ‒, oh dear, in 1936. The farm had to be sold because uncle got too old and auntie got too old and we went to work on a farm at Westwell, which is about five miles from Ashford on the west side. And as time went on 1940 came my ambition rose to the fore and one day I got fed up with what I was doing, I just got on my bicycle and cycled to Canterbury to the recruiting office. That would be in April, April 1940, and then I had to wait until 19th of July when I had to report to RAF Uxbridge. I can remember having to travel from Chislet from Marshside, which is the area, on my own, through London to RAF Uxbridge. I’d never been into London, never been on a tube train. Anyway, I remember going through the barbed wire gate entrance saying, ‘Reporting for duty,’ and soon I was joined by the others that were reporting for duty on that day. That was on the Monday and the first words the CO said was, ’You do not walk across that square. It’s hallowed ground.’ Fair enough. We were kitted up and attested on the Tuesday and on the Wednesday the whole intake of airmen, having been kitted out, went by tube train to Morecambe in Lancashire to be trained as flight mechanics A. The course finished at the end of 1940 and I was passed out as an AC2 and I went to ‒, I was posted to number 257 Hurricane Fighter Squadron, whose CO was Squadron Leader Stanford Tuck of the Battle of Britain, and there I was on the airfield with the aircraft, turning them round, filling them up, doing repairs, doing the daily inspections, but that only lasted three months ‘cause off I went to Gloucester for another course to become a fitter. Er ‒, 1942, and then I was on 71 MU based at Slough, close to the Hawker factory, and there I was involved with mostly moving and collecting of aircraft between units and stations and picking up crashes, both German and our own, for salvage and, as I say, 1942 came and then there was this notice on orders, fitters required to volunteer to help fly the four-engine jobs and, having seen that Stirling on the ground at Manston where I was repairing an aircraft, I volunteered. I just wanted to fly. That was April 1943. A little bit before that we went to RAF Swinderby, not Swinderby, that was further up, just outside Newark in Nottinghamshire, Winthorpe [emphasis], Winthorpe where we were crewed up. The new um ‒. They wanted an air gunner and a flight engineer to join a Wellington Squadron, a Wellington crew that had just finished OTU training, and they pushed us all in a big room and said, ‘Sort out who you want to fly with,’ which we did and then we started off with flying Manchesters, training in Manchesters, four wall [?] things and then onto Lancasters until it was time we were considered proficient to go to a bomber squadron in, as you saw in that photograph, in 1943. I finished at 49 Squadron in April ’44. Er ‒, I was sent, I was commissioned and I went to RAF St Athan in South Wales to train flight engineers on the ground side. Yeah, I was commissioned at the end of my tour, that would be beginning of ’44, that’s right, I was commissioned and went down to St Athan and then it wasn’t until 1947 that I went to 44 Squadron Lincolns for a two-year peace time flying tour.
CB: I’m just going back a bit. When you volunteered for air crew where did they send you to be trained for being a flight engineer?
TP: [Sigh]
CB: Did they send you to St Athan then?
TP: Yes, I went to St Athan to learn all about the Lancaster inside and out and then of course from there to join the Wimpy crew at um ‒.
CB: So they’d done their OTU?
TP: They did their OUT somewhere down in the south, yeah.
CB: Yeah, so you crewed up and that was at the Heavy Conversion Unit?
TP: We crewed up and the first aircraft we flew as a crew, or trained as a crew first of all, was a Manchester because they were keeping the Lancs for bombing ops and the Manchester hadn’t been ‒, wasn’t good enough.
CB: No.
TP: Kept having certain engine failure ‘cause they were trying out a different type of H-type engine. Anyway, we finished flying training in April and that’s when we went to 49 Squadron.
CB: So how many ops did you do?
TP: Thirty.
CB: Right, OK and what were the most memorable of those ops?
TP: The first one [laugh].
CB? Oh, right, what was that?
TP: Well, we set off to go to Italy. The target was Spetzia, the docks at Spetzia in the north-west of Italy [laugh]. When the time for the target came up, normally you could see a raid from see from miles away especially at altitude but there was no sign of a raid anywhere. We suddenly realised we were lost, we found ourselves still over the sea, over the sea, and then they realised we were over the Mediterranean, we’d ‒, and I said to the skipper, I said, ‘If we don’t turn for base now, we return to base, we won’t get back there ‘cause I haven’t got enough fuel.’ So we turned to come back and after a series of changes in course we eventually came back out over the French coast, all alone, we flew alone across Europe on our own. Anyway, we were short of fuel when coming back. On the south coast and we just plonked down on the first airfield we saw because when we landed we could see the bottom of the tanks. What had happened on subsequent inspection was the main compass was thirty degrees out so every time the navigator made a course it kept going off to the right so instead of going towards the north of Italy we were going down into the Med. I think I saw, as we turned, I think I saw Sardinia and Corsica. Anyway, as I said I told the skipper, ‘If we go back the same way we’ll never get there. If we don’t turn now.’ So we dropped the cookie in the sea and after a series of various courses I think we went up around Paris at one stage before we managed to get to the coast, back to the coast. And, as I say, coming across the Channel they couldn’t be sure where they were and I was saying, ‘We’re short of fuel.’ But we did find the south coast of England. Misty it was when we called up Darkie for our positions and permission to land. There was no sign at all, nothing, they’d all shut down, so we took a chance, found the first airfield we could see and went straight in, when er ‒
CB: Where was that?
TP: At Dunsfold and when we looked in the petrol tanks we could see the bottom of the petrol tanks. All we had was what was in the back of the tanks when the tail was down. Well that was a salutary effect. Obviously the compass hadn’t been swung properly. Anyway, where’s the log book?
CB: It’s in the back of the car.
TP: The printed one or my log book?
CB: The printed one. You’ve got the other one here, have you?
TP: I think I saw it.
CB: I’ll stop this just for a moment. So that was your first op. What other memorable ops were there?
TP: I don’t know how many ops we did but very shortly, very early on we did a mining trip to the Frisian Islands. Er ‒, we lost twenty-two aircraft that night off the Frisian Islands. We were down at five hundred feet in cloud, couldn’t see a thing, but as with mines you have to record their position, where they’re dropped, so we had to drop them in the sea and come back to base. Yeah, then well, of course, the rest you will see, one after the other, mostly in the Ruhr, Essen, Dusseldorf, Nuremburg, Hamburg. Oh we set Hamburg alight. I was on the two big ones.
CB: You were on the two big ones then, were you?
TP: Yeah we really set Hamburg alight.
CB: That was the first night we used window.
TP: Oh right. So you were you unopposed?
TP: And we could hear the German people saying the aircraft are multiplying themselves [laugh]. Well, then as you’ll see from the log book there was a series was mostly into the Ruhr. I did two more, two more trips. One, two, two more trips to Italy.
CB: Now, going to Italy, normally it meant going through the Alps. How did you get on with that?
TP: The first time was very clear and we got over ‘cause we were at twenty thousand feet or more but the second time we ran into cloud and storms over the Alps and we were down to about seventeen hundred ‒, seventeen thousand feet and it was a bit dicey to say the least. Er ‒, we got iced up, ice on the wings, St Elmo’s fire on the windscreen [laugh] but other than that it was fairly straightforward.
CB: And what was the target then?
TP: Target then was ‒, what was those two big towns?
CB: Well, Turin and Milan.
TP: Turin was one of them.
CB: Was Milan the other?
TP: Pardon?
CB: Milan? Milan?
TP: Yes.
CB: And then the port La Spezia?
TP: Yeah, up on the north-east corner of Italy.
CB: North-west, yeah.
TP: The others went off very well indeed. There was no trouble there although some aircraft were lost and some aircraft landed in North Africa.
CB: Did the Italians put up night fighters?
TP: We never saw any ‘cause we never got there. Oh, you mean the two that we did get to there?
CB: Yes.
TP: We never saw any.
CB: No, and what about their flak? Was there a lot of flak?
TP: I can’t remember much flak at all, no.
CB: And on your raids against Germany, your ops against Germany?
TP: Pardon?
CB: On the ops against Germany what about the flak and fighters there?
TP: Well, the first time we went to the Ruhr, I think it was Essen, you’ll see it in the log book. I remember miles away you could see the target all lit up, ring of searchlights full of flak, searchlights. And I said, I gasped on the intercom, I said, ‘How the hell do we get through there?’ No one answered, each had his own thoughts. But anyway, we were soon amongst the ‒, in the target area, you would see aircraft catching fire, being shot down, you pressed on, smelling the cordite of the bursting shells around you, um ‒, we never saw much in the way of fighters that the gunners could shoot at, once or twice I think they did. Um ‒, in fact we were very lucky, the worst flak was the one up to the target ‘cause you had to fly straight and level and you waited for the bomb aimer to say, ‘Bomb’s gone,’ and I knew they’d gone because I could feel the flex, the floor of the cock pit would flex when they realised the bombs. We always had a cookie, a four thousand pounder, and about four or five or six five hundred pounders.
CB: Yeah, and how much flak did you collect on the way?
TP: We didn’t, the only time we collected flak was from the British Navy just off the coast of Cromer on the way home when we were about three thousand feet with the navigation lights on. That was awful. The wireless operator got filled with shrapnel and he was ill, invalided out. Um ‒, when it happened I was standing in the flight engineer’s position ‘cause I had to move about quite a bit and I saw flak going past me [unclear] going past me and the skipper called for reports and the navigator came up and said, ‘Ralph’s been hit.’ So I went back past the navigator, looked at Ralph, got the First Aid. He ‒, the wireless operator had his hand on his desk (you know the position of the wireless operator in the Lanc), he’d got a hole through his hand which was the worst one, and he got flak up his backside, up his back, and he was ‒. I put a tourniquet on his wrist to stop it and every so often I said to the navigator, ‘Keep an eye on him,’ ‘cause I had to go back to what I was doing. Every now and again I’d go back and release the tourniquet. And when we got back at ‒, this time we were flying from Dunelm Lodge ‘cause Fiskerton runway at one point was being resurfaced and it was pouring with rain and on the downward leg I tried to put the undercarriage down and it didn’t come down [laugh]. Fortunately, the emergency system, the air system did work and we landed. But Ralph got out of his seat and walked to the ambulance. God knows, we went to see him in Maudsley Hospital but never saw him again. The rear gunner disappeared of course ‘cause he got shot up, shaken up, on a flight where we returned early. We were over the North Sea, and I’d lost an engine, the starboard inner engine, lost the flame covers and exhaust stubs off the starboard inner and flame was working its way over the leading edge of the wing. Not only was it dangerous, it was also a beacon to night fighters and we were over the North Sea. Shut the engine down so then returned to base. We dropped the cookie in the North Sea and when we got back to base ‒. I don’t know if you’ve been to the airfield at Fiskerton?
CB: I haven’t no.
TP: They put us down on the short runway to save the long runway for all the other returning aircraft to save them from being diverted. Anyway, I got the undercarriage down, made the approach and there was a cross-wind and we floated [emphasis] and so it was a little while before we touched down and after a while the pilot said, ‘Brace, I’m gonna go off the end of the runway.’ Which we did, off the end of the runway, the undercarriage collapsed. Nothing happened, no fire, nothing like that. I remember getting the hatch off the top off the roof and diving straight out and running like mad. They all did. But fortunately nothing happened.
CB: It didn’t go up?
TP: No, nothing. Didn’t burn or anything and fortunately no bombs went off. That’s when the rear gunner got shaken up ‘cause being at the back end of the Lancaster he probably caught the main shock. He was invalided out. And then you’ll see how we went on. Look, target after target after target, mostly in the Ruhr. We went to Berlin two or three times, flew to Berlin with Wing Commander Adams, the CO, towards the end of my tour when ‒, ‘cause Jock Wallace had finished his thirty in October and we all had to fly as spares with other crew. When he left you see I ‒, in October, I stayed on as flight engineer leader until about ’44, ’44 that was when I was commissioned and then sent to St Athan. You interested in anything after the war?
CB: Well, I am. Just back on ‒, what was your role in the aircraft?
TP: Flight engineer. I was virtually second pilot.
CB: What did you actually do?
TP: Well if you think of it ‒
CB: From take-off.
TP: Pardon?
CB: So from take-off you do the throttles.
TP: I would select the fuel, air conditions, oxygen, see that all the engines were running perfectly and then, when the time came, apart from starting the engines, you know, um ‒. When you think of it the pilot just had his control tower and his rudders and his instruments in front of him, I was left to do everything else, speed of the engines, the air speed, the oxygen, everything. The petrol controls were down to the right, you had bunches of instruments to tell you how much fuel you got, what pressures there was, what coolant pressures were, looking after the oxygen supply, everything that the pilot couldn’t do.
CB: Yeah.
TP: So you could say you did everything the pilot could do but you never flew the aircraft.
CB: So just taking off you’re doing the throttle?
TP: Taking off the pilot would turn onto the runway, he’d line up by using the outer engines and once we were straight and level he’d say, ‘Full power,’ and I’d push the throttles right to the grate. We’d done our pre-flight check, of course, before and once we were safely airborne he’d say, ‘Undercarriage,’ and I’d lift the undercarriage up. Later on I’d bring the flaps up and then we’d settle down to whatver air speed he wanted er ‒, and then we were off.
CB: So what flap did you set for take-off?
TP: Fifteen degrees.
CB: And the tanks were managed by you, the fuel, so what tanks did you start with?
TP: We always started with the inner boards, the in boards, and as soon as you were airborne you went over to number twos, and as soon as number twos getting low enough you went into number threes into number two and then you emptied number two and then did the remainder on the number ones.
CB: Right, so the number three is out towards, is beyond the engine?
TP: Yes.
CB: Right on the wing tip?
TP: You had number three tank, you had one, two and three on both sides. It had lesser amount of fuel. That was emptied into number two when there was sufficient space in number two that had been used up.
CB: So the sequence of fuel flow was through tank number one because they were linked directly to that. So number two tank ran into number one, did it?
TP: No, you ran on number two.
CB: Oh you did?
TP: Until they ran out and then you went back on to number three, the inward boards, number ones, yeah.
CB: Right, so when you’re in the air what are you doing then? You’re airborne and got to cruising height.
TP: Every twenty minutes I was making a log.
CB: Right.
TP: Of engine interpreters. Pressures, everything, er ‒, and that was it, seeing everything’s alright.
CB: And so what revs were you taking off at?
TP: Three thousand per engine.
CB: And you’d pull it back after how long before you ‒? And at what level?
TP: Until we were safely airborne. We had an override. Normal engine speeds were three thousand plus twelve but we had an override. We’d put the boost up to fourteen, if not more, and then when you were safely airborne you’d take out the override and continue climbing at twenty-eight fifty, twenty-eight fifty. You never moved the throttles once you were airborne. You had your throttles fully open. You controlled your speed on the engine speed on the revs so you were there, you saw he’d ‒, the pilot had got the speed that he wanted.
CB: OK. What about the pitch on the propellers?
TP: [Sigh]
CB: So did you take off in fine pitch?
TP: Yeah, always in fine pitch, yes.
CB: Then what?
TP: And then you’d come back to whatever airspeed you wanted.
CB: And you’d change to course pitch for cruising, would you?
TP: Pardon?
CB: Did you change to course for cruising?
TP: It was automatic.
CB: Automatic.
TP: It was [uncear] and airscrews, yeah. Once you’d set your throttles fully forward you just controlled your airspeed by the revelations, revolutions [emphasis] of each engine.
CB: So you had to shut down the starboard inner?
TP: Yeah.
CB: When you got hit by the Navy ship, what’s the process for doing that?
TP: Turn off the fuel cocks to start with, turn off the ignition, just let it run down, feather the airscrew, that is feather the blades so that they’re straight on to the airflow and that was it. See that your fuel was turned off. We had a cross feed if we needed it on the mainplane [?] where you could transfer from one side to another. Fortunately I never had to do that.
CB: So with the sorties coming to an end ‒
TP: Pardon?
CB: With the sorties coming to an end, what did you do then?
CB: We’d join the circuit and you’d get a number to land and you’d follow one another round until it was your turn to land and you were given permission to land. At the end of the airfield I’d put the undercarriage down, the flaps down to fifteen degrees, we’d go round to the down-wind position, I’d put the undercarriage down, I’d adjust the webs er ‒, and the rest was up to the pilot. He then ‒, that was only then that he’d have his hands on the throttle for the actual landing.
TP: He’d do that himself?
TP: Yes.
CB: Because that was a sensitive task.
TP: That was a sensitive task yes.
CB: So here we are with one engine out, which upsets the trim of the aircraft.
TP: We’ve got trimming controls here. Trimming controls for the [unclear] and trimming controls for the rudder.
CB: Right and you’re doing that with the pilot or ‒?
TP: He would do that because he’d know what the feel of the controls was like.
CB: He had the feel on the stick.
TP: To make things easy on his controls.
CB: Right, OK, so he’s doing that, then you land so then what? So you’d taxi on all engines?
TP: Taxi on the two outer engines to the dispersal point and then you’d go through the routine of shitting your engines down.
CB: So what’s the routine for shutting down your engines?
TP: Oh, can I remember now? Obviously we put them into fine pitch, close the throttles, turn the fuel off, turn the ignition off and they went down.
CB: Right, so do you now hand over as the flight engineer, with everything shut down, do you hand over to the Chiefie?
TP: Oh always see the Chiefie. The ground Chiefie?
CB: Yes.
TP: Yes and tell him anything ‒, we always saw the ground Chiefie before we took off and the pilot would sign the log book, the aircraft log book, taking responsibility for the aircraft and then of course anything that we noticed wanted doing when we came back we’d see Chiefie and the ground crew, and then we were off to the briefing room.
CB: So with the Chiefie, what was the relationship between the crew and the ground crew?
TP: Only the pilot and me went to Chiefie for that sort of ‒, as part of our duties, the others just piled into their appropriate positions.
CB: So now you’re at the de-brief, so how did the de-brief run?
TP: [Sigh] Sit round a table asking what you’d seen or telling what you’d seen.
CB: This is with the intelligence officer?
TP: With the intelligence. I was thinking about the ground Chiefie.
CB: Ground Chiefie, OK yeah.
TP: We saw the ground Chiefie to say if there was anything wrong and anything ‘cause they’d take it over to service it, the aircraft, and of course it’s quite a way to the briefing room.
CB: Yes.
TP: The briefing room was in a little ‒, I went back there years later and it was being used ‒, there were donkeys in it. It was being used as a stable. I don’t know what it had been used for before, before we used it as a briefing room, de-briefing room. Mind you there was a big Nissan hut we used as the briefing room and then we had a hangar, or a tin hut, for a locker room. We had the inevitable bacon and egg sandwich before we took off in the evenings and when we came back, if we came back.
CB: What did you take with you to eat when you were flying?
TP: We were given a packet of sandwiches and a tin of orange juice and a bar of chocolate. Yep, I carried a small tool kit. Why? I don’t know, I suppose that was if we landed away somewhere. Um ‒, navigator of course had his charts and maps and instruments. Wireless operator had his codes.
CB: So in the crews, were you sitting in your seat behind the pilot or on the folding seat at the side?
TP: The folding seat at the side.
CB: So you could monitor the instruments?
TP: Oh yes but more often than not I was standing up, only now and again could I sit down.
CB: Yeah.
TP: It was a seat that folded down and hooked up to the side. Er ‒, I just had to keep an eye on the air speed and the revelations, and the boost pressures, oxygen supply, air supply, in fact do everything other than what the pilot had to do to fly the plane.
CB: So you did your thirty ops. How did you all feel having completed thirty ops?
TP: Well, it was different because the crew had previously flown Wimpys, doing their operational training as a crew of five, they even did one windows raid over Germany before they came to the Heavy Conversion Unit where we were crewed up with myself and another mid-upper gunner and, of course, we finished at different times. Once the pilot had done his thirty because he did two or three ops the second Dickie with an experienced pilot before he took his own crew. So Jock finished in October and I had four more to do, so I was kept on as the flight engineer leader, and it took me round to April 1944 for me to do the four extras or extra four with the other crews.
CB: Is that because there weren’t spaces with the other crews?
TP: That was because the others were short, short of a flight engineer, for some reason or other.
CB: Yes.
TP: Or it was a made up crew with the CO, something like that. One of my flights to Berlin was with Wing Commander Adams. He was an air attaché, apparently, and he’d been sitting at a desk late on and he’d volunteered for air crew. He said he couldn’t bear the thought of what I was and not volunteering or not getting onto an operational squadron. He was a fine fellow, Wing Commander Adams.
CB: Did he complete the war?
TP: As far as I know. He didn’t do a full tour of course.
CB: No.
TP: But he commanded a squadron. He was still there when I left it.
CB: So there was a point where the crew, because of the pilot Jock finishing early, there was a point when all the crew effectively dispersed.
TP: That’s right.
CB: So what was the feeling then?
TP: [Sigh] Sadness in a way because you’d flown together, you’d been through it all, you’d lived together, you were in the same tin-hutted barrack room.
CB: The Nissan hut.
TP: Nissan hut, yeah, you went out to Lincoln all the time together, you went round all the pubs together, not that I drank much, but you got to know one another quite well and then to suddenly find it’s no more, you’re out on your own, but that was life. It happened to a lot of crew members very often. When we went to the RAF [?] course we had to have a spare in the wireless operator’s position after the Ralph got hit we had to have a different man in the rear turret because Taffy, Taffy [unclear] got injured. So you couldn’t really ‒
CB: That disrupted the family.
TP: Pardon?
CB: That [emphasis] disrupted the family really. What was it like then for you working with other crews on a temporary basis? How did you fit in there?
TP: It just fell into place. I mean, you knew what you had to do and that was it.
CB: But there was no social link with that because it was a one-off.
TP: There was no social, no.
CB: So now you’ve finished your thirty and you went to St Athan as an instructor?
TP: I was commissioned at the end of my thirty and I went to St Athan to train flight engineers.
CB: What was that like?
TP: It was very good. You were teaching them all about the Lancaster. [Laugh]. Every now and again, there was a MU Maintenance Unit on the other side of the airfield where they were doing repairs, you know, on the Lancasters, and every now and then you’d get a telephone call, ‘We need a flight engineer to go with the pilot.’
CB: For the test flights.
TP: Not necessarily a test flight but to and from the factory, to take aircraft to and from the factory.
CB: Oh right.
TP: Yeah, that was great fun, just the two of you in the aircraft flying low over Wiltshire, the Malvern Hills, I’ll always remember that and then from there I went on, as I say, in peacetime in 44.
CB: So now you’re in peacetime and a new squadron, what’s the feeling of the crew then?
TP: You didn’t have a crew as such, although crews did tend to stick together. I became the squadron adjutant and the CO’s flight engineer so it was only when the Co wanted to fly I flew as his engineer. At other times I flew as and when required.
CB: What was the Lincoln like compared to the Lancaster?
TP: It was a wonderful aircraft in many ways. It was a larger Lancaster. We liked it. We went as a squadron on a goodwill trip to southern Rhodesia to show the Rhodesians, to say ‘Thank you,’ to the Rhodesians who’d flown on the squadron during the war. It was named the 44 Rhodesian Squadron.
CB: So it was more powerful, more manoeuvrable, what was it like?
TP: More powerful, bigger engines, bigger in size as well, yes, heavier. The only time we went and did practice bombing stuff was to ‒, in peacetime, was to the U-boat pens in Heligoland. It was mostly just training.
CB: What were you dropping?
TP: I think they had some kind of armour-piercing bomb that they had tried out.
CB: Was it a big one?
TP: We didn’t have any big ones, no cookies, or anything like that.
CB: No but was it a tall-boy, which was the ‒,
TP: I never flew with a tall-boy.
CB: Right.
TP: I know people who did.
CB: But this was a different type of anti-submarine pen bomb?
TP: Yes, that was later, yes. I served in Germany after the war, I served with a Wing Commander who flew one of the tall-boy aircraft and bombed the Bielefeld viaduct in [unclear] and crashed.
CB: That was a Grand Slam.
TP: Grand Slam yes but other than that the peacetime flying with 44 was absolute wizard.
CB: So you finished your tour on 44 then what did you do? Were you a flying officer then?
TP: I was doing my tour with 44 as is was in peacetime you get sent away on different courses and at some stages I was sent away on intelligence courses, PR courses, photographic intelligence courses, and so then from there, from 44 squadron I was posted via 3 Group Headquarters for three months in Intelligence, of course with the squadron leader, and then I was moved to Headquarters Bomber Command in the Intelligence Section of the ‒, 1,2,3,4 of us. I was then responsible for target information for exercises and they used to collect information as to what to use, what place in England to use as targets, and I’d work ‒, I’d work during the operation down in the ops room, which was quite a thing when I come to think of it. This was where Butcher Harris used to control me from.
CB: Yeah.
TP: Anyway me, then being a commissioned officer in the secretarial branch, I had to do an accounting course, so off to an accounting course to Hereford, and my first accounting post was at Bridgnorth in Shropshire and there I was collecting money from the bank, paying, doing airmen’s paper wage, and then became a flight lieutenant and I was then in charge of airmen’s pay at Padgate in Lancashire and then still as a flight lieutenant I was posted overseas to be an accounting officer at RAF Mauripur just outside Karachi in Pakistan. That was quite a job. I had to pay not only the three hundred-odd airmen of the unit (it was a staging post) I had to pay the airmen and officers that had been seconded to the Pakistan Air Force and also those RAF personnel that were seconded to the embassy in Karachi and I remember my first visit to the embassy, only to find out that the Wing Commander that had been my Wing Commander as intelligence officer at Headquarters Bomber Command, was there as the group captain air attaché [laugh]. Is someone at the door, did I see the door move?
CB: It’s just ‒
TP: Not to worry [laugh].
CB: Small world.
TP: Anyway, that was a two year posting and it was pretty hot, bouts of dysentery, fortunately it was close to the coast and we had a lido down at the coast and we could go and swim and stay the night. But the conditions around Karachi was horrendous. It was just after the partition of India and Pakistan, where they segregated the Indians, the Hindus on the east side and the Muslims on the west side, and the squalor of the camps was awful. I had a ‒, I had a Pakistani batman, Ashworth, he was very good, do your kit, your dhobi every day because you used to sweat a lot because of the heat. It was just a flat barren airfield.
CB: This is Pakistan as an independent country?
TP: Pakistan Air Force place, they were flying there.
CB: What did they fly?
TP: They were flying Harvards. They were the sort of things training’s for [laugh] and the admin officer on the unit was a pilot, he was a pilot, and at that time pilots were required to keep in flying practice so what he used to do was borrow a Pakistani aircraft, a Harvard, and I used to go with him and I learnt to fly Harvards. Oh, I had fun flying a Harvard with him until I sent in the bills to headquarters and then they stopped the flying [laugh], yeah.
CB: Yeah, amazing.
TP: I had fun flying Harvards.
CB: So back from Pakistan, where did you go then?
TP: I’d been out of the country two years. By then I was courting my second wife, bless her heart. Where do you think they posted me after three ‒, three months at an administrative course in Norfolk?
CB: Orkneys?
TP: Bircham Newton.
CB: Oh right.
TP: I was sent to the Isle of Man.
CB: Yes.
TP: Way out of England again to train officers [laugh].
CB: Quite a journey.
TP: Oh dear, and then as time went on I was promoted to the squadron leader, quite out of the blue, and told to report to the AOC of Maintenance Command. Hello, hello, come in.
Other: Sorry.
TP: Ah, can I have a cup of tea for my guest please? He’s a very important guest this man. The AOC, Maintenance Command, he says, ‘Page,’ he says, ‘I want you to take over a squadron of administrative personnel to support an airfield construction branch controlled by a wing commander and a squadron leader to the Isle of Kilda in the middle of the Atlantic.’ Oh how much time? Altogether I was out of England for five years. Bless poor Cecilia. Cecilia bless her, trained as a state registered nurse whilst I was away. Anyway, after that, after I’d finished that, believe it or not, I was appointed Senior Accounting Officer at Uxbridge, at Uxbridge, the station where I’d joined up. Imagine my feelings walking through the gate. Eighteen years before I’d walked through that gate to join up and now I was to be the Senior Accounting Officer in charge of all the finances. That was good, that was good anyway. At one stage I got a duty, a royal duty in St Pauls Cathedral, when the Queen was there, I was there as an usher. [Background noises].
CB: Thank you very much.
Other: Sorry, I spilled a bit, think I filled it up too much.
CB: Thank you love.
TP: And the squadron, the station got up a concert party and I got involved in that and we put on a Christmas show in St Clement Danes Church [laugh]. So what happened after Uxbridge? Three years in the Ministry of Defence, in the Personnel Department, and occasionally I was required to do duty overnight and weekends as duty Personnel Officer in case there was any flap on. And then I lived out at Watford at the time and commuted into London every day because you had to find your own accommodation. The three years passed very pleasantly and then again I was posted overseas, Germany for three years. I went as Senior Accounting Officer at Wildenrath in Germany just over the Dutch border. There, believe it or not, I had five hundred Germans on my payroll, plus all the RAF side of it. I was responsible for pay and conditions and court martial and everything to do with personnel B2, B3, B4 and that lasted three years and that was very enjoyable. It was.
CB: Cecilia was with you then?
TP: Pardon?
CB: Cecilia was with you then.
TP: No, she wasn’t. She was still in England. She was still at ‒. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes.
CB: Paying all these Germans and British people.
TP: I mean, going to places I’d been out to bomb, Gelsenkirchen. I was close up to the Ruhr you see. It was funny really. At one stage a collection of officers, Army and Navy, went on a goodwill tour to the Bürgermeister at Hamburg and we were in the Bürgermeister’s office. He’d got great big maps on the wall, a great picture of Hamburg as it was and Hamburg ‒, no, was it? As it had been built, Hamburg as it had been rebuilt and Hamburg as it was when we knocked it down. I was stood at the back of the blooming crowd of officers were listening to this story. I thought, ‘My God, I helped knock it down.’ [Laugh].
CB: Amazing.
TP: Oh dear, oh dear. Beautiful thing was I had a fortnight’s leave every ‒, each year, so Cecilia came out and the first time I hired a caravan because I had a car with a towing bar ‘cause I was doing a lot of gliding stuff and I picked her up at Ostend and we got in the caravan and we towed all the way down into Austria, stopping here and there. We parked in Salzburg. Oh what a lovely city is Salzburg. We had a wonderful fortnight’s holiday. The following year on the fortnight we just got in the car and drove where the car would take us and that too was wonderful. We went down to Bavaria and Switzerland and Austria and it was really wonderful. I learnt a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We both did of course. Then what happened after that? I got a home posting, OC Personnel at RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire, as the OC Personnel and then by then time was getting on and I got a letter from the Air Ministry saying there was no more promotion unless I was promoted to wing commander and I thought I can’t go on like this, Cecilia and I had been separated too much and too long, ‘I think I’ll take my retirement,’ and at that time, I don’t make a lot of this because ‒, oh yes, I was in my office one morning and the telephone rang. He said, ‘This is the bank manager. Have you any personnel coming out of the service who would like a job in a bank? I’m setting up a new bank in Lincoln.’ I said, ‘I’ll have a look at my records Sir and see if I’ve got anybody.’ Next day I thought of this and I’d just got this letter from the Ministry saying there was no more promotion unless ‒. I rang him back the next day and said, ‘I’m interested but,’ I said, ’You’ll have to wait six months for me.’ He said, ‘I’m prepared to do that.’ And so, much to my dismay and regret, I had to leave the service and join the bank in Lincoln. Mind you it was very helpful in the following years ‘cause I got two pensions, RAF pension, bank pension, old age pension. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for that. I can afford to pay for this now.
CB: That’s really good, isn’t it? Look, this is getting cold so
TP: I’ll just have a drink of tea.
CB: I’ll just stop for a minute.
TP: I hadn’t realised we’d run into tea-time. I was a founder member of the Gliding and Soaring Association and at one stage when I was at the Ministry of Defence I was the Treasurer.
CB: That was based at Bicester, wasn’t it?
TP: The first aero-tow. You’re talking about aero-towing.
CB: I used to do that, yep.
TP: I was running the ‒, I’d been on a couple of er ‒, gliding courses with ‒, at the gliding school and I was running the Cosford Gliding Club and we had a two-seater Sedbergh and as we were close within thirty miles of the Long Mynd in Shropshire we thought we’d get more flying on the ridge so we trailed the two-seater Sedbergh up to the Longmynd and parked it there but couldn’t get the airmen there. Transport, nobody had any transport. It was awfully difficult to get them to the Mynd so it wasn’t viable, so we pressed on at Cosford. I suddenly realised it was wind wasted so I thought we must bring it back to Cosford from the Long Mynd which is about thirty miles away so I thought, ‘How do I do that? How do I get it back?’ ‘Ah,’ I said, ’The only way to get it back is by aero-tow.’ Well, I’d never done an aero-tow. I’d read up the books, you know, and I got in touch with a tug pilot at Harden in Cheshire and I asked Tony about it and he said, ‘Yes, on a suitable day,’ he says, ‘I’ll take you there and we’ll bring it back.’ We flew up to the Long Mynd which wasn’t an airfield as such.
CB: No.
TP: There was a ground engineer there on permanent duty with him and there was one another. Anyway, we managed to get the Sedbergh out of the hangar, rigged it, put a bag of sand in the second pilot’s seat, positioned oneself back from the hedge [?] and all was ready. Off we went. First aero-tow. It was rough. It was [emphasis] rough but anyway soon settled down and soon find your position and then a very pleasant aero-tow for about thirty miles back to Cosford. That’s the first aero-tow I’d ever done.
CB: Amazing.
TP: Nobody taught me.
CB: No.
TP: And then we put it to good use at Cosford. And then I was moved from Bridgnorth to Padgate which was quite a way away from Cosford. I couldn’t get there and so I joined the Derbyshire and Lancashire Gliding Club at Camp Hill. Now that was wonderful. Wave flights up to six, seven thousand feet, smooth air, hands off the controls almost. Lovely. But then of course you didn’t prolong the flight because you only had an hour because there were a lot of other people wanting to have a turn. It was lovely civilian gliding club. At one stage, when was it? When I was at Bomber Command I crewed for two RAF pilots who were flying an Olympia in this championship, the 1953 Championships, and oh what was his name? Anyway, he finished up as a wing commander at Cranwell. We picked him up once. He landed from Camp Hill at Skegness, as far as you could go before being over the sea, and when we found him, when we as a crew we had an RAF MT [?] driver in an RAF vehicle, and when we found him the Olympia was de-rigged and standing up by the side of a pub. The pilot was inside with the local policeman drinking. Oh he trailed all the way back. Next time it was my turn. Er ‒, was it my turn? I can’t remember which way round it was now. I know I flew there two years running. In the meantime I joined the Lancashire, Lancashire and Sheffield. Sheffield, what County was there?
CB: Derby.
TP: Anyway ‒.
CB: Oh Sheffield, Yorkshire.
TP: Yeah, anyway, I joined the civilian’s club and I managed to do my thirty miles from Camp Hill to Lindholme in an Olympia. But one of my best flights was later on from the RAF Centre at Bicester, um, I did a hundred mile Gull flight from Bicester to Swanton Morley.
CB: I know it, yeah.
TP: In one of the more super jobs. Coming back on the Sunday morning, this was the Sunday, coming back the Sunday morning through Cambridge a wheel came off the trailer. Fortunately there was a gliding club at Waterbeach and so we got in touch with them and they lent us a trailer and in the streets of Cambridge we unloaded it from one to the other and I got in touch with Marshall’s Airfield, the engineering works, if they’d collect the trailer and repair it, and it was late Sunday afternoon when I arrived back at Bicester. It was quite a weekend that was. I’m talking too much.
CB: It’s alright. That’s really good. I’m going to stop you because your supper’s getting cold. Thank you very much Thomas. That’s been really useful.
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 James Page
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-02
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
APageTJ160702
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:07:38 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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Lincoln
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Wassenberg
Alps
Italy
Italy--La Spezia
Zimbabwe
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-04
1942
1943
1944
Description
An account of the resource
Thomas Page grew up in a farming family before joining the Royal Air Force in 1940, training as a flight mechanic. He was initially posted to 257 Squadron (Hurricanes) but soon went to Gloucester to train as a fitter from where he was posted to 71 Maintenance Unit at Slough. Here he recovered crashed RAF and German aircraft. Responding to a requirement for flight engineers, he went to RAF St Athan for training and then to a Heavy Conversion Unit to meet his crew. Flying in Manchesters, he recalls the engine problems that the type suffered from.
Posted to 49 Squadron, he began his tour with an operation to La Spezia. Thomas describes his various experiences during the tour including bad weather over the Alps, running off the runway at RAF Fiskerton and crew injury. He describes operations to Essen, Dusseldorf, Nuremberg and to Hamburg for the first use of Window. He details his duties during these operations.
Completing his tour, Thomas was commissioned and posted back to RAF St Athan to train flight engineers. After the war he flew in Lincolns and was part of a goodwill tour of Rhodesia. Trained in intelligence, Thomas was posted to No. 3 Group Headquarters and then Bomber Command Headquarters before retraining as an accountant and personnel officer. Then he undertook postings to RAF Bridgnorth, Karachi, and RAF Wildenrath.
Thomas describes touring Europe with his wife before his final posting, to RAF Swinderby as officer commanding personnel. Here he left the RAF to work in a bank in Lincoln. During his service Thomas took up gliding, a hobby he continued in civilian life.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
44 Squadron
49 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
fitter airframe
flight engineer
flight mechanic
ground crew
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lincoln
Manchester
military service conditions
mine laying
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Fiskerton
RAF St Athan
sport
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/521/8754/PMabeyBC1605.1.jpg
f01941cf3417c6042787116b14d105cc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/521/8754/AMabeyBC161128.2.mp3
30e7facd2dcd1fe4a70a1e84b92b8a42
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
Mabey, Bernard Charles
B C Mabey
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Mabey, BC
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman Bernard Mabey (b. 1925, 3008464 Royal Air Force), his dog tags, some service material, and two photographs. He served as an air frame mechanic at the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Marston Moor.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bernard Charles Mabey and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is Monday the 28th of November 2016 and we’re in Southend talking to Bernard Mabey and he operated in the engineering activities in the RAF. What are your earliest recollections of life Bernard?
BM: I was born in Canning Town in a small terraced house. My father was an electrician and I went to primary school in Canning Town until the age of, from the age of five until eleven and then I won a scholarship to a Central School in Forest Gate at the age of eleven and then that was 1936. And of course when war was declared my school, that Central School had been evacuated to Ipswich, just outside Ipswich. I went with them for, I was only with them a couple of months at Ipswich. In fact I was at Ipswich when war was declared so obviously we were evacuated before war started. And I had a sister who was also evacuated to Oxford so, and I had a brother. I was in a family of three. My brother who was working in London. The government decided that then all the evacuees our parents had to pay a contribution towards their keep. So my father, and all I was doing, I wasn’t being educated all I was doing was digging up the grass areas around this primary school in Nacton which is just outside Ipswich and my father said, ‘You’re no point in digging, or staying up there digging. You can come home and get a job.’ So on my fourteenth birthday I went up to London [coughs] up to London, to Snow Hill at Holborn which was a big like unemployment centre and I got a job in a small commercial artists’ as an office boy. I didn’t like it so then I got the job myself with a firm of estate agents and surveyors in Plaistow. This would be in the new year. That would be 1940, early 1940 at, I think, fifteen shillings a week and I stayed with them ‘til I got called up at the age of eighteen. The firm already had one person called up and what they were doing they were paying all the time they were in the forces, half wage. Well my salary when I got called up was about two pounds a week. So I was on a pound a week from the firm. It was a guarantee that you had a job to come back to. I went to Cardington to get uniform and that photograph up there of all the crowd is when we were got our uniform. And from there after about what four or five days we were shipped up to Skegness to do our square bashing for eight weeks and we were parked in all the empty hotels along the seafront and we used to use the old canteen that was at Butlins empire down the far corner for our food. And that was not a very pleasant time. It was in the winter. There was no heating on in these hotels. There was nothing on the floor. It was just bare floorboards and you used to wake up in the morning, my bed was along the bay window and you wake up in the morning your blankets were damp from the dew coming off from the sea ‘cause, you know, you could see it just out the window. And, but after eight weeks I was extremely fit because I used to, when I was at school, going back to that time I did box for the school. I became a member of West Ham Boxing Club and I boxed in the Great Britain Schoolboy Championships.
Other: Oh.
BM: But I was only what, about, oh under six stone. I was a very small lad. But apparently they thought I was good because I was fast and West Ham were a very good boxing club. One of the best in the country. Anyway, after passing out at Skegness I had, I was posted then to training down at Locking for air frame mechanic. If you were going on engines you would go to Cosford. If you were going on air frames you would go to Locking and that’s where we went and that was, but going back to what you were saying earlier the reason I chose to go in to the air force was because A) I had joined the Air Training Corps in 1941 because we’d moved out of London then down to Laindon because of the bombing. I mean people don’t realised I don’t think that when they started the Blitz it went on for about, oh, certainly longer than a month. Every night. You used to come home from work and my mother would have tea ready. We would eat that and by eight o’clock we were down in the shelter because by five past eight the sirens would certainly go and it was, you could more or less bank on it coming like that and it wouldn’t go all clear ‘til 3 o’clock in the morning.
CB: Fifty seven days continuous.
BM: Oh yes. And that went on, as I say, for well over a month. I think it went on for more like two months. And I was reading in an article since then that West Ham which, that was in the borough of West Ham lost twenty five percent of their housing stock during the blitz and when you consider that most of their housing stock were terraced houses, and small terraced houses it was quite a lot of damage done and, well during my time working there before I got called up. I worked for this firm of estate agents and there were people getting called up as well and so the rent collectors was not a reserved occupation and so they said, ‘Right. As part of your training Mabey you will do two days a week rent collecting. Which you look after the property and you collect the rents.’ So consequently you’re cycling around on a push bike around the East End of London and, with a satchel and you finish a day with about a hundred pounds in rents but all that few years up to the age of eighteen I never got troubled once, you know. Honesty then was quite prominent. But you saw the tragedy of a lot of women that were left alone with kids ‘cause their husbands had been called up and it was pretty gruesome because a lot of them couldn’t pay their rent and they just vanished overnight. And some of the properties vanished overnight as well because you would go around there the next morning you’d find a big hole. That was just part of my education I suppose because my schooling had finished at the age of fourteen and so when I go into the air force my brother already was in the air force. He was nearly, what, two years older than me. He wanted to be air crew but he was turned down because he was colour blind but I still followed him and I also went for air crew but I was similarly colour blind as well [laughs]. So he finished up a flight mechanic on engines and I finished up, it was not my choice, they just tell you, I finished up flight mechanic on air frames and that was it. And they taught me that down at Locking as I say. I think it was about an eighteen week course. It was after that you’d, then you could look upon the possibility of getting seven days leave. So you’d gone six months plus with no leave at all. And my posting was to Marston Moor, Yorkshire which was very enlightening because bearing in mind that at Skegness discipline was very very strict. To stand in front of a corporal you had to stand to attention. You didn’t speak until you were spoken to. And if you stood in front of a sergeant you felt you were seeing God and that carried on to some degree when you were doing your training at Locking because they were all corporals and sergeants, the instructors. So then you get your kit bag and all your gear and you go up to a squadron in, on Marston Moor which was a wartime ‘drome constructed with nothing of the niceties that you saw at say, ultimately I saw at Waddington anyway. But I remember there you got up to York Station and on York Station there was a shed that you report to and they would say, ‘Where are you were posted to?’ And they would have transport available for you to ship you up to Marston Moor. Go to Marston Moor, go in to the orderly room, hand over the papers, ‘Oh yes, you’ll be, you want to see Sergeant Edie.’ Oh yeah. So I walked over to the hangar and I see a chap there and I say, ‘Can you tell me where Sergeant Edie is?’ ‘Yeah he’s up there on the trestle working on that Halifax.’ So he then just turned around to him, ‘Harry. Someone to see you.’ So he got down from the trestle and I walked up to him. Of course immediately stood to attention and, ‘Sergeant. My name is Mabey.’ And he looked at me. He said, ‘What are you standing like that for? Cut that out.’ He said. ‘That doesn’t happen,’ he said, ‘And my name is not sergeant. It’s Harry.’ And that was suddenly from as I say living in a disciplined atmosphere to get to that and of course when you go to work they give you a bike in, at Marston Moor because the runway was built, a few office buildings, a control tower and things around it and a couple of hangars but accommodation was in nissen huts scattered around and I was in one of four nissen huts on the Wetherby to York Road. Side of the road. Public road. People going by. And there was, you were all and that was accommodated something over a hundred people and no toilets. No washing facilities. You got a stand by tap outside if you wanted water and you’ve got a bike. So you worked out that if you want to go to the toilet there’s the block over there but if you also want to go and have breakfast there’s a block over there and if you’ve got to go to the hangar there’s a block over there so you’ve got the bike and if you got up a bit late in the morning you’d got a choice. What do you want to do most of all? Then you finished up you wouldn’t have breakfast because you knew the NAAFI van would come around about half past nine, 10 o’clock and you’d get a cup of tea and a cake. And that’s what it was like. But you’re going to the canteen of a night time and you’d pull out a couple of slices of bread and a mug of tea which you would put on the stove and toast the bread and warm the tea. So you would ‘cause there were no other comforts. I mean I can say that I never ever had sheets until the last three months of my four years in the air force. All we had was blankets. No pillow cases. Just a bare straw field biscuit. You had three of those and three blankets and you’d sleep on one blanket and have two wrapped around you together with your great coat when it got cold. And on top of that clothes rationing had been going on in the country for a couple of years so pyjamas were a no-no. You couldn’t afford to use clothing coupons to buy pyjamas when you were at home and so consequently when you get in to the air force you ain’t got pyjamas so you just go to bed in your pants and freeze and it was, but the question of wearing a collar and tie never existed. You wore your battle dress with a sweater which you got from the Red Cross. A white sweater and you got white socks from the Red Cross. You know, thick socks which you wore with your wellington boots with the tops turned down and this is where you worked with overalls because the aircraft were always parked out on the dispersal points which were like circles of concrete sprung off the perimeter track. The only time they were in the hangars was when they were going through a minor inspection or a major inspection. Daily inspections, they would be done out in the open. And the daily inspections were the chap on the engines would just run the engines. If the crew had made any complaints about that was not right, that was not right all you did was a daily inspection on the air frame which consist of you’d check the tyres and there used to be a few splits in the tyres. You’d go and get a gun with a rubber handle you know to insert a patch into the tyre but then the next day you’d look at that. It’s been up and it’s landed and that’s gone, come out again. It was very, I wouldn’t say it was poor but the patches didn’t work and it was just like a liquid rubber that you pressed into it. And of course all the controls on those aircraft are in cables. They’re not like electronics now. And all along the fuselage inside you’d got all the cables. Like cables going from the cockpit to the rudder or the elevators and you’d just get hold of the turn buckles and you’d just have to check all those and tighten them all up and then it was ready to go again as far as the, as far as the air frame was concerned unless there was any dents or holes in them. Then you’d have to put a patch on them and that was it. And I lasted there right through ‘til D-Day. VE day because I remember on VE day we had some new chaps had come in from Chittagong. India. They’d been out there servicing aircraft that were dealing with Burma and places like that and they’d been out in the sun too long because they were potty. They’d just announced, you know, VE day. We weren’t allowed to come home and these were just running around the huts banging out the windows with a broom and things like that you know. But there was no celebration on camp really. We just carried on. Some of them said, ‘We’re going home,’ but we weren’t really allowed to. Whether they ever did I don’t know, but and then after that I was sent to, on a fitter’s course, a short fitter’s course to turn me into what they called a Group 1 Trade, Mechanics Group 2. You can get to LAC and you get no higher. That’s you finished. But if you go on to a fitter’s course that’s a higher grade, more money and you can go up to, oh, warrant officer if necessary. And the reason being that when they assembled the Tiger Force in Waddington, this is where they were going to be based, they wanted highly trained mechanics and fitters. They had more training and more competence so, and that’s when I was shipped after that down to Waddington and the Yellow Fever inoculation. But we didn’t have much work to do because it was the people who was doing all the work were the pilots doing training, landing, cross country runs you know and that sort of thing and so we got, I think oh, seven days embarkation leave. I got that about three times. In fact people at home were saying, ‘What the hell are you doing home again?’ And we were there as I say right until VJ Day and so they then asked for volunteers and they didn’t get any to take part in a Victory Parade so the group captain said, ‘Well just take two hundred men out of that lot.’ They had nothing else for us to do and so we were shipped down to Kensington Gardens. And then after that, yes they, my posting came through and I went to [Witney] which was just outside Cambridge and it was Group Headquarters. Lovely ‘drome, you know. Very modern like Waddington was but I was posted to work in the station workshop standing at a bench making modifications for Lancasters and so on. You know, small brackets that had to be modified and so on. Doing that from nine ‘til five with collar and tie on, looking very smart. I remember one day I came out of there and I started walking and someone then shouted at me and I stopped. He said, ‘Airman, you didn’t salute me.’ I said, ‘No. I didn’t see you Sir.’ ‘Oh. He said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘I work in the station workshop.’ ‘I see. Well you get a haircut. You need, badly need a haircut. You get a haircut and report to my office tomorrow morning.’ And I thought to myself well if that’s the sort of life so I put in a request and I think they thought they were doing me a favour because living in Laindon a posting to Cambridge is, you know, fairly easy. You could hitch hike home. So they said right if he doesn’t like it there we’ll send him somewhere and they sent me down to Somerset. And I was then servicing, it was a servicing echelon that I was on repairing or servicing Avro Yorks because after the war Avro Yorks were used by Montgomery, Field Marshal Smuts, his was there and they come in for a service and they were lovely aircraft to work on because you would walk all over them. Outside and inside. No problem. Very big. And there I was being a fitter on air frames and I was in charge of a small group of chaps. So one day a new Avro York arrived from the makers, Lancasters and so we had to do what they called an acceptance inspection and, ok. I looked over it inside and outside and the only thing I could find wrong with it was the fact that the undercarriage when it was parked you had what they called a jury strut. That is a metal pole that is framed between the spar of the main plane and also the leg of the undercart and there wasn’t one there. So, so I put it on my report and then the chap who was responsible for the engines he started running them up and well the chocks were there. Everything was all alright. He was running the engines over well they’d also done another modification inside the cockpit. There’s a blower switch. Don’t ask me what. It’s really hot air and cold blower for the engines. Now what that does I do not know but it was not my, more or less part of my employment so that was the engine bloke and there was the undercarriage lever. They’d switched them around for some unknown reason. So this bloke was running the engines and when he thought to select the hot and cold air he pulled the lever but unfortunately that was the undercarriage and so consequently you’ve got a lovely new Avro York. No camouflage on it, you know. It had come straight from out of the manufacturers. It slowly as we stood and watched it slowly go forward. The chocks held it back, the undercart had folded and then the props were going around. They started churning up the tarmac and then it stopped. Well you know where you get, I think the best way to describe it is a cottage loaf which has a bit with the crease in the middle like that whereas the fuselage was like that. Like that. That’s just simply how it went. Collapsed through the middle from the weight and then the circus began. The sergeant came out of the shed, did his nut, went running off to someone. And then a warrant officer came out. He did his nut. Went off to someone. Engineering officer, the flight lieutenant, ‘Oh that was terrible.’ And then the squadron leader came and of course then it finished up with the group captain came out and the person responsible for the engines who was, he was put under close arrest poor so and so. And we had very little work to do then so that’s when I got posted down to Membury which had a lodging, to join a lodging squadron. Still a squadron of Bomber Command but they were lodging on Transport Command territory and that was at Membury which is just outside Newbury. Now that was a terrible hole. In fact after a few weeks it was examined by the Air Ministry and they condemned it. Unfit. And so we were then transferred away from Membury which was a good thing because on the last couple of nights we were at Membury, I remember this quite clearly there were a few what I call rebels in the, in the camp as it were and we went in to Lambourn. The racing area you know to see what was in the nightlife. Having a night of drinks before we moved off. There wasn’t much doing except we came across a hall where they had a do going on and a couple of them went up to the door, knocked on the, ‘Could we come in?’ It was the local hunt ball. Now, you know [laughs] they don’t look kindly on yobs and they still, these ones persisted. I wasn’t looking for trouble so I came away but apparently, and I only learned this the next morning when we were getting ready to go off to our new station, they were allowed in but they were whisked straight through the hall into the back room where they were calmly knocked about in no uncertain way and they looked rough the next day. Bruised and cut because they had dared to, you know more or less visit the local hunt ball. But and then we went up to Netheravon and Netheravon that was a squadron there of Dakotas. The same squadron we had from Membury. We moved them across. And that was rather amusing. I mean bearing in mind I’d got back in to the squadron habit of being, not wearing a collar and tie, just wearing your sweater again and battle dress. So we flew in our aircraft, air crew were, carried us obviously you know. We went as passengers with our personal belongings and all our equipment went by road on truck and that’s how we moved out of Membury and arrived at Netheravon. Now, Netheravon had a complete boundary to it so in other words you had a gate, had a sentry and what have you but when we got there bearing in mind it was also headquarters for Transport Command. One of the units there. So we went straight in to the NAAFI to have a drink and you could see all the way around the NAAFI that the office staff there, the WAAFs all looking smart and elegant and drinking their nice cups of tea and suddenly about thirty or forty yobs come in looking not very smart, not very tidy and all they did was go to the beer tent and start supping beer. Then we had someone who could play the piano and that was it. We transformed the place but, and I was there for what, about nine months, twelve months, and I finished up there. I got demobbed from there. They sent me up but it was the best years of my life in the air force because I was an LAC then, fitter trade and I used to play a bit of cricket and I played for the local, our own squadron and ok they could do with more members so the station picked me to play as well and then part of the Group they picked me to play so I used to go in to the hangar on a Monday morning during the cricket season and the flight lieutenant engineering officer turned around to me and he said, ‘We’ll do the jobs rota. Well now, maybe. How many days cricket are you playing this week?’ I said, ‘Well sir, I’ve got a match on Wednesday, another one on Friday and I’m playing on Sunday.’ ‘Oh. So do you mind if we can fit you into work in between those days?’ [laughs] But that was the only time when I really enjoyed the company because you know the captain of the cricket team in most stations is invariably one squadron leader or a wing commander. Someone you never, you’d rarely get a chance to speak to and all the other are flight lieutenants, flying officers, several sergeants and that’s it. If you get a couple of airmen in it you’re lucky and so they make a lot of fuss of you and I got on extremely well with them, you know. We got to the Group final at cricket and we played at Abingdon in the Group final and it was drizzling with rain and we went out to field in the first innings and we had a, in our team we had a fast bowler who was a Middlesex colt. So a pretty good player and he started bowling with a new ball on a wet wicket, a damp wicket and it finished and I was filled in the slips. And of course this, this batsman he just clipped it slightly, came straight at me. Went right through my hands and hit me there, split it open. I went down on a bit of a muddy, you know, damp pitch in my whites, blood all over the place and then the rain came and so the match was abandoned. But we finished up, we re-played it at Kodak. You know Kodak the camera ground? They had a factory at Harrow just outside London and a big sports ground which large companies did and we played on that, the replay. I know it must have been around about the August time because that was the last match I played and they looked upon it as my demobilisation party. We stopped off in a pub just outside Harrow from the coach. All of us went in there and got really sloshed [laughs]. Now, I think most probably that is my, well the only other thing I can remember then is going up to Preston to get my demobilisation pack. And what I remember clearly then is getting on a bus outside the depot at Preston to go to the station wearing my uniform as usual but with a Trilby hat [laughs]. And that’s where, and of course I got eight weeks demobilisation which meant I was being paid up till almost the end of October which rounded off just about the four years. But my firm had been paying me a pound a week so I then went back to them and renewed my working life with them. But I was fortunate in some respects because at Netheravon they had a forces preliminary exam and I took, well I attended to classes of an evening and I passed it and in fact it’s on the book there. I passed that which enabled me to bypass my professional examination which I later took after I went back into civilian life. The preliminary examination. It was like the equivalent to what you used to call matriculation. So when I later started studying after I got back in to civilian life as a surveyor I didn’t have to go through the preliminary exam. I went straight in for my intermediate exam and then final. So I put it to good use and of course I was lucky enough to qualify and that would be in ’48/49. ’49. And I wanted to earn more money ‘cause there was the only way I got to qualify really was by working, oh what, four nights a week. Evening classes every night and then I got qualified. Bearing in mind my education had finished at the age of fourteen you know that was an achievement to get something but I couldn’t have got anything else otherwise and so, but the firm was still old fashioned and I said, ‘Well I was thinking about getting married,’ you know and he said, ‘Well maybe, you know when you’re married come and see me and we’ll increase your wage.’ I said, ‘Well I’ll never get married on that basis.’ So I joined, I did the horrendous thing, I joined a Ford Motor Company in their property department. In other words I broke out from being in practice but I became their property manager after a few years and from there my career rocketed, you know. I became in demand. I was head hunted twice and I finished up as a managing director of, well the share capital of the company was a million pounds fully paid up share capital and we were making, and I started that company for them. That’s what I was head hunted for. So I had a very very good life then but of course my wife became rather ill and so in the, what, in the early eighties I had a decision to make. Should I give up my job and take care of my wife or just carry on and let me wife, no. So I gave up my job and I was very gratified because my wife then lived for another twenty years. So, you know, that was the right thing to do. That’s, I never regretted it. It would most probably have killed me if I’d have carried on myself. So, you know, it was a very fast life ‘cause I was building, I became a specialist in development of industrial estates. Because, when you bear in mind that before the war factories were put up where the families of the owners decided it would be convenient. The planning laws were very limited. So consequently then war came and every factory in this country was expanded but in a what, a ship shape ad hoc situation and they were not very well designed and a lot of them got knocked out and consequently when war finished this country needed a base to prosper and that base was the development of industrial estates where you’d got a large industrial area where you put factories on it. They did it out to a little point where you could build warehouses on industrial estates but you could not put factories without permission from the Board of Trade and the Board of Trade wanted you to go where they thought unemployment was. In other word up north, Scotland, Liverpool, those sorts of places. So consequently we started persevering with buying large existing factories and modifying them to units. We worked on this principal that if you’d gone with a large factory, I mean I’m talking about factories of three hundred, four hundred thousand square feet and there were factories of that kind scattered around the country. If you’d have gone to the planners with a scheme to, you know, segregate them all in to smaller units say ten thousand feet, something like that, you’d never have got permission. They would never have granted it. So what we did, in other words we designed how we were going to cut that large building up into units and show what modifications had to be done to the elevations but not disclose the fact that the internal layout was going to be reduced to many units. So consequently then we could offer factories to people where they wanted them and that’s where, because you know in those days you couldn’t finance. Most factories that were built before the war they were built out of a loan from the bank and things like that. Whereas really they finished up under the scheme I had going with institutions, hedging funds and insurance groups and it worked very profitably. In fact I would say that I’ve been involved in building factories in most of the major towns in this country. I mean I’ve travelled a lot around this country. But it was a good life. You know. Anyway, I may have left out a lot.
CB: Where, where did you meet your wife?
BM: I met my wife in, very simply, my mum bless her. She used to be a dress maker and when we moved down to Laindon, when we came out of London and moved down to Laindon because our house had been in London had got badly damaged she used to make dresses and my late wife came to her through a friend of hers and my mum used to make dresses for her. Then when I got demobbed she was very friendly with my mother and she often used to come around there and I’d be sent out the room while these ladies started measuring herself and so on and so forth. I said I wanted to stay but they wouldn’t let me [laughs] and we got friendly and that was it.
CB: She was from, she was from the local area.
BM: Oh yes. She lived in Laindon. She’d lived in Laindon since before the war.
CB: What did she know about the RAF?
BM: She wouldn’t know. In fact she felt rather bitter about the RAF because she’d lost her husband and it took me quite a time, I mean we got married in ‘52 and if I tell you that the, although we went abroad on holidays we didn’t go by plane until the 70s. She didn’t like, didn’t want to fly. She had an aversion against flying and the way I got around it was we went for a weekend over to the Channel Islands. I said we’d do a short trip like that. We flew from Southend to Jersey and gradually weened her off it. But she wasn’t, she wasn’t very keen on the air force because she wasn’t treated very badly but she wasn’t treated very well I don’t think.
CB: So what happened to her husband?
BM: Well, he, he was buried in Belgium and –
CB: What was he flying?
BM: A Lanc. He was coming back from a trip, an operation over the Ruhr Valley and he was flying over Belgium back and they got shot down and all the crew were destroyed. But other than just the odd letter, the initial letter of, from the commanding officer she never had any conversation with RAF after that. You know, she went out there once I think before, this would be the ‘40s and saw the grave but she was, I suppose, in some respects, to put it very crudely she was almost abandoned you know, because in those times, I don’t know whether you’ve heard this before, it’s quite possible that there were squadrons that were used to take the brunt. Do what you’d call the bread and butter jobs and you know all the new, new boys coming out of qualifying as pilots would most probably be shipped down to those stations. They become almost like cannon fodder and if they were any good they would be shipped then across to 9 squadron or 617 squadron or a couple of other top squadrons.
CB: So what squadron was he?
BM: He was in 100 squadron.
CB: And how many operations had he done?
BM: Ten. He was on his tenth one when he got shot down.
CB: And when was that?
BM: That would be 1943.
CB: What was your wife’s name?
BM: His name?
CB: Your wife’s name.
BM: Armon. Her maiden name was Jee. J double E. But her married was Armon. A R M O N.
CB: Now you were in London during the war when the bombing was taking place.
BM: Yes.
CB: So, what was your first experience of bombing?
BM: First experience. It was on the Saturday that the Blitz really started and that Saturday I was going from, I’d taken a bus from Canning Town up to Stepney going to a cinema. I think it’s still up there on Commercial Road at Stepney, the Roxy, to see a film. I got as far as Poplar and the bus stopped because the siren had gone up and we were all offloaded off the bus and this was by a pub at Bedet Road in Bow and they had a surface air shelter there and we all herded in to that and first time then you looked up and the sky was full of black spots which were the aircraft all flying in formation and then they started dropping their bombs. There were a bit of hysterics coming from some of the females in this shelter and we were stuck there I know until about oh five, five, 6 o’clock. Eventually the all clear was given and we were allowed back out and I can remember walking down because the main road through Canning Town, we lived in a road that was right off the main road and I remember walking down that road about oh 6 o’clock and I could see my mother stood at the gate looking to see whether I was coming or not. And that’s what I, that’s the first memory I have of –
CB: And how close were the bombs dropping to where you were?
BM: Well they were dropping all around the place, you know. Not, not close enough to cause any damage to anyone around them but Stepney was just around the back of Limehouse where all the East India Docks were which is where they were attacking all the time. And it was quite, I suppose, continuous was about the best way to describe it. There was, you know, quite a lot of noise and so on and so forth.
CB: So the raids started at what sort of time?
BM: That would have been round about oh 2 o’clock I would think.
CB: In the, in the daytime.
BM: In the afternoon. Yeah.
CB: In the afternoon. Right. Ok.
BM: Yeah.
CB: And then on future days?
BM: On what?
CB: On the days after that?
BM: On the days after that never, not much during the day. It was always then around about 8 o’clock at night till 3 o’clock in the morning and that was continuous and of course then and when I moved to Laindon I still had to stay on duty because even, although I was only in my teens we were all on the rota to do fire watching. Although there was an air raid warden in that area our offices were in a parade of shops either side the road and so consequently we, they all had to provide two or three people every night to do fire watching.
CB: So would you explain what is fire watching and how did that work?
BM: Well fire watching was merely that you would, if they were dropping any incendiary bombs.
CB: Where would you be situated?
BM: You’d be situated in the office but when the warning went up you would then go to the front door and you would stand in the front porch and if there was any incidents take place then you would be, have to deal with them and get the fire brigade if necessary if it became too big or deal with it yourself.
CB: So your job was partly to summon help.
BM: Yeah.
CB: To deal with the fires.
BM: Yes. You were only there to be the eyes. To bring in the air raid wardens ‘cause there was always wardens about.
CB: So in the raids then, how much damage did you see and –
BM: You wouldn’t see, see much in the area I was at to be honest. I saw more of it when I went out during the day working.
CB: Yeah.
BM: But fortunately the parade of shops either side the road didn’t get damaged at all.
CB: So when you were out working your job was to collect the rents.
BM: Yeah.
CB: And just how did you do that and what were the reactions of the people?
BM: Well, when you say how did you do it? You’re just knocking on doors and each house knew which day they would be paying the rent. Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, something like that and they knew the time you were going to be there and consequently if you were going down one particular road you would hit the first door. Knock that and they would come to the door and within a few minutes you would see them all appearing all the way along and you just go through them, you know. But I never ever came up against people that were afraid of the future. They were quite, you know, loyal and quite brilliant in their attitude you know. They didn’t fear the bombing. They just thought it part of life. It’s quite amazing really.
CB: Families were quite close to each other in those day so –
[Phone ringing]
CB: Oh we’ll just stop for a mo.
[Recording paused]
BM: Yeah. Well their reaction was quite superb. You didn’t, they didn’t walk around in fear. They didn’t. They felt that as far as they were concerned you know, they, they couldn’t lose. It was quite amazing their attitude and these were all in poor, what you would call poor living accommodation. They were terraced houses. I think the rents used to be something like around about eight, nine shillings a week. So no cheap money. And they led a poor life. Most of their husbands were all called up.
CB: So the fact that husbands had been called up and were in the forces had what sort of effect on their ability to pay?
BM: It had a tremendous effect because a lot of them were really on the bone of their whatsits, you know. They just couldn’t afford to pay and some didn’t pay.
CB: What did you do when they didn’t pay?
BM: Well if you could find them. We always used to say they’d emigrated to Canvey Island. That’s where. Because they used to. I mean I can recall many cases that people who were owing the landlord. Some of them about thirty or forty pounds which in those days was a lot of money.
CB: Huge.
BM: And they just couldn’t afford to pay it and so what they did they just vanished overnight and you could never find them. It gets wroted off. Because I think they used to get an allowance from the military but that was poor compared to what they really needed. They had hard times and that was why, what used to amaze me, they were having a hard time but they still had a smile on their face. You know they were quite jolly.
CB: So you were living in Laindon which was slightly out of town but in their situation a number of them were finding that their houses had been demolished.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: What was happening then?
BM: Well they, [pause] I suppose, I don’t know, they really, they could always get repairs because during the war there was a government department, War Damage Commission which we used to have to apply to for repairing costs and ok you would get an immediate payment to cover for tarpaulins to go over the roof and also to put up windows. Cover windows. And then you would have to put forward a request for further monies when you had to do the permanent repairs which you didn’t rush to do because no sooner you’d done any further repairs they’d all be damaged again. So you know it was, in fact, that was there was more work. The collecting of the rents was limited to, say, what three hours a week. The work was getting the temporary repairs done to the property in that week. You’d have to sit down and work out with a contractor. You had a local builder that you’d employ to do these temporary repairs and so in other words you know it was all part of one’s training that you were looking after not only the collection of the rents but the management of the actual property. Because all those properties were most probably privately owned by family trusts and people like that or local businessmen.
CB: Now when you joined the RAF you came across a number of people from completely different parts of the country. How did your relationships develop?
BM: In Yorkshire, I found the people around Yorkshire were wonderful people. You know you would go out of a night time to a pub in a little village, villages like Spofforth. Used to go to Harrogate, Spofforth, Knaresborough and Boroughbridge and they would make a fuss of you. ‘You don’t want to go back to camp yet. Come back with us and ham and eggs. Have supper.’ Now, I’m saying this, I don’t want to upset you but you never had the same conviviality in Lincolnshire. You used to walk into a pub in Lincoln, they wouldn’t take no notice of you. You know. Used to call them a miserable lot of so and so’s. [laughs]. Now don’t get upset.
CB: I’m devastated.
BM: Are you from Lincolnshire?
CB: Rutland.
BM: Pardon?
CB: Rutland.
BM: Rutland. Oh well.
CB: Better place.
BM: Better. Yes. No Lincolnshire was recognised. We all used to say this and yet it’s strange because last year my eldest son on his computer he saw that a large hotel in Lincoln was offering a good deal. Luxurious hotel. Took up his lady friend. They went up there for three or four days and he said they had a wonderful time. I said, ‘Well that’s not my experience of Lincolnshire. Of Lincoln.’
CB: Lincoln town or other places?
BM: Lincoln town.
CB: Why did you think that was?
BM: I don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t go into Lincoln town very much because Waddington was such a well built and organised station as it were and you know you could get all the comforts you want in their NAAFI and so on and so forth and rarely did we go out.
CB: No.
BM: And certainly when I was at Skegness we never did go out. Well I say we never. I did on one occasion because on the seafront in Skegness there was a little sort of Esplanade café come dance floor and we were allowed out ‘til about 9 o’clock at night so I thought well I’d go over there. I used to do a lot of dancing before I got called up so, but I didn’t realise that there you had hobnailed boots didn’t you? During your training.
CB: Sure.
BM: And of course I went in to that place and asked a young lady to dance in hobnailed boots and I was very popular.
CB: Particularly when you trod on her toe.
BM: Precisely. So that was the only time I went out in Skegness. Yeah.
CB: And did you ever, did you get relationships with people that lasted throughout the war?
BM: No. No.
CB: You didn’t have a best friend of any kind who started with you?
BM: No. No.
CB: You played the, played the market.
BM: No, I didn’t, [pause] I got friendly with some of the females during my stint in Yorkshire but it didn’t develop into anything that really, no. Not of any consequence.
CB: Right.
BM: Never continued writing to them after I left or anything like that. When I left I left. You know.
CB: All the stations had WAAFs.
BM: Yeah.
CB: In their own area so how did the, how did you link together there in the NAAFI and –
BM: Well.
CB: In the messes?
BM: In the NAAFI they used to, you know we used to be friendly but if you had a dance they always used to go to the air crew. They were the air crew following you know. They wouldn’t dance with the likes of an LAC.
CB: Of the erks. Yes.
BM: I’m afraid to say that was a fact.
CB: Yeah.
BM: But no. The air crew used to come in. I was at a dance, on New Year’s Eve we’d have a dance and they’d take up all the birds. But er –
CB: Quite upsetting really.
BM: Yeah. [Laughs] although some of them used to work with me.
CB: Yes.
BM: You know they were –
CB: Did they?
BM: Some of them used to be flight mechanics. Certainly a lot of them on the electrical side of the trade. Wireless and so on. The cleaner jobs. But not on the dirty jobs.
CB: So out on the flight line what were you doing there?
BM: Pardon?
CB: Out on the flight line on dispersal what was your task and how did the, a day go?
BM: Well. The day. You used to [pause] you’d be always doing, check your aircraft and when it was all very clear, ok. You would be just tidying around your dispersal point. Make sure that the concrete area was clearly defined so that when they, they would go and fly into it, not fly but they would motor into it.
CB: Taxi into it.
BM: Yeah. Taxi into it. And then they would of course turn.
CB: Yeah.
BM: And you would guide them on that turn and so you would make sure that area was clear and ok. You would then go up to the dispersal hut and stay in there until they came back.
CB: So how many planes did you have a responsibility for?
BM: Well you’d only have responsibility for about two.
CB: Right.
BM: There was enough to go around from that point where we were.
CB: And you were in a section responsible for the two aircraft so what were the component parts of the people? You were dealing with what aspect specifically?
BM: What? Of the aircraft?
CB: Yes.
BM: Well I’d be responsible for the hydraulics like on the undercarriage. The oleo legs that used to, well the ones that go up and down inside the casing. The tyres. The wheels and the tail plane mechanics and also the ailerons and all the controls and that would be it.
CB: And the hydraulics were fed from one of the engines. Which was that?
BM: Well the brakes were operated pneumatically but the hydraulics were operated as you say from the engines.
CB: So there was a power take off from one of the engines on the starboard side was it? The starboard inner.
BM: I can’t remember. I can’t remember on that one.
CB: What other trades were there operating at the dispersal?
BM: There would be engines. And there would be wireless and there would be electrics but the, the munitions people they always used to load up. They’d come out with their trolley and put what armaments they had to put on in the guns and so on and the bombs. And that was it. That’s [pause] there was nothing else from that point of view and then as I say you would just sit and wait.
CB: So the aircraft would be prepared for use. Who was the senior person in your section?
BM: It would be a corporal. He would be, he would be the one that would sign up the air worthiness and so on.
CB: And he would provide that documentation to whom?
BM: He would see, he would show that to the pilot when he came out. In other words the pilots used to. People used to say did you have much contact? As an AC2, AC1 no. No contact at all. Even as a LAC no contact because the aircrew used to get there, go to their briefing.
CB: Yeah.
BM: And they’d come out to the dispersal point in their car, in their coach and they would just get out. You’d be standing there not far away but as far as they was concerned the coach would come up close to the entrance of the aircraft. They’d get out, into the aircraft and off. And ok the only people they would see would be the corporal or the sergeant. Whoever it was responsible that everything was all alright.
CB: Yeah. Did the flight engineer get involved in the signing off of the aircraft?
BM: The flight engineers I don’t believe really started operating until about 1945.
CB: No. They were there with the big aircraft. So there was a flight engineer in all the four engined aircraft. So your Lancaster, Lancasters had flight engineers and I was just curious to know whether they liaised with the ground crew.
BM: Well I was on Halifaxes.
CB: Halifaxes first.
BM: And I can’t remember ever seeing a flight engineer on a Halifax.
CB: They were always there. Yeah.
BM: In what year?
CB: Well from ’43. So the twin engined planes didn’t have flight engineers but –
BM: No. I accept that.
CB: Every four engine aircraft had a flight engineer.
BM: No but it was a concept that didn’t come out to till later.
CB: Yeah. So when –
BM: I’ve got a feeling they didn’t come out ‘til about ’44.
CB: When the, when the aircraft landed –
BM: Yeah.
CB: Then what happened? Were you all there to receive it as soon as it arrived?
BM: Well we we were in the flight hut.
CB: Flight office. Yeah.
BM: Which was up by the, and we would just go over to the dispersal point and then we would soon pick it up on the perimeter track and flag it in.
CB: Right.
BM: And that was it.
CB: Yeah.
BM: The crew would get out in to the coach and off and we would just then close it all up. Put the chocks down and so on and so forth.
CB: So the aircraft would always have the potential for developing faults.
BM: Oh yeah.
CB: So who would do the communication of that and to whom?
BM: Well the pilot used to if there was any faults on it the pilot would give that in his report.
CB: Right.
BM: To the sergeant.
CB: Ok.
BM: And ok they would decide whether then it was a major or a minor.
CB: Yeah.
BM: If it was a minor ok we would deal with it around on the dispersal point.
CB: Sure.
BM: If it was a major one it could go in to the hangar.
CB: Yeah. And what about damage? How often were your aircraft damaged?
BM: They got damaged but not very much. Not to that degree.
CB: What sort of damage did they come back with?
BM: Some of them came back with ammunition holes in it which you would do a little patch on it and things like that.
CB: How was the patch administered? Was it a fabric or was it a metal?
BM: No. Metal.
CB: So how was it attached?
BM: Attached with rivets. Used to use the pop rivet gun. Cut a piece of metal. It was very, I wouldn’t say shambolic but it was just to do it very quickly. You would cut a piece of metal to cover the area and then you would drill the four corners, pop rivet it and then go around later all the way through. You know, get rivets.
CB: Yeah.
BM: Quite.
CB: So you’d secure it first.
BM: Oh yeah.
CB: And then you put the extra rivets.
BM: Extra rivets in in between.
CB: Now what about painting afterwards? How did you do that?
BM: Well be able to just put a bit of a drop of paint on it but they didn’t worry too much about that. Some of those aircraft they looked horrible with the, with the paint job. I mean, you know, you just had some paint and you just brushed it, brushed it on.
CB: But it always had paint would it?
BM: Oh yeah.
CB: Because aluminium’s shiny.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: What would you say was your most abiding memory of your time in the RAF?
BM: I suppose that when I was at Netheravon the aircraft then had to be, they were all camouflaged, had to be stripped back to their bare metal again. What you would call peacetime and that was a so and so of a job because you had to put paint stripper. And getting it all off by hand it was not very pleasant.
CB: How long did that take?
BM: Pardon?
CB: How long did that take?
BM: Oh we had, what, a squadron of about twelve aircraft and it took quite a time.
CB: What were the planes?
BM: Dakotas.
CB: Right. So this is at the end of the war.
BM: Yeah.
CB: So they were taking the, because they war had ended they were taking the camouflage off were they?
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: And then what were they applying?
BM: Nothing.
CB: Right. So just aluminium.
BM: Just the bare aluminium and also at the same time we were fitting seats in to them. Like tubular seats. There was one other job that when I was at Marston Moor I had a petrol leak on one of the Halifaxes and I had to take out the petrol tank which was located in the wings and you’ve got to get up on a trestle to more or less get them and they are all, they were not rivets. There’s a sort of a square panel that is screwed into the main plane, main wing and they’re like cheese headed screws and then every, about oh half an inch apart all the way around and in those days you didn’t have [rapid?] screwdrivers and so me being an AC2 at the bottom of the ladder that was your job Mabey. Get that all off. So you’d spend ages getting every screw off, dropped the flap and then disconnect the tank and before you completely disconnected there was always some aircraft fuel still inside. You’d have to load that into a fifty gallon drum, the surplus and then you could drop the tank and when you dropped the tank you put a new one in and then go back again all good. The only advantage was that you knew then you had some cleaning material to clean your uniform because we used to clean our uniforms in aircraft fuel and then lay them out in the wings to dry and –
Other: Goodness.
CB: So you had a particular aroma that not everybody appreciated.
BM: I agree. Yes. That was most probably.
CB: They smelled you coming,
BM: [Laughs] That was most probably one of the worst periods of my life. Yeah.
CB: Now the fuel tank. That’s because it had had battle damage in it was it?
BM: Some were. Some were not but it was for one I particularly remember. It had, it hadn’t had battle damage it was just, it had become worn.
CB: Oh.
BM: And it had to be replaced.
CB: Now dealing with that was very dangerous so how, because of the potential for a spark so how was that handled with the screwdrivers and everything?
BM: Well it was, you just didn’t, you know I agree on reflection most probably it was a fire hazard but you didn’t consider it. You know, you just had to get that tank out because it needed, it needed to be replaced.
CB: I wondered if there were special procedures.
BM: No.
CB: For safety. Because the plane could be lost.
BM: Yeah.
CB: Never mind the AC plonk.
BM: Yeah. I don’t think there, most probably could have been but I can’t recall them quite frankly.
CB: Oh. After the war did you consider joining any associations? Squadron or RAFA. British Legion.
BM: Well. I joined RAFA when I was still in the air force at Netheravon. They came to you and this would be in 1947 because I used to wear the RAFA badge on my battle dress although that was not legal but I did join them. But when I ultimately got demobbed belonging to an Association regarding the air force was not foremost in my mind you know. I mean the point is that I had other things to think about then. In fact the strange thing is I only started, I had to go into hospital about, oh this would be about four years ago and in the next bed next to me was the chairman of the local branch of the RAFA Southend. And we started talking and spoke about the air force and he said to me, you know, ‘Why aren’t you a member?’ I said, ‘Haven’t had time. I’ve been busy.’ You know. I had a hectic life. ‘Well,’ he said, you know, ‘You should join. We could do with more members.’ And I did join and then my wife passed away and I became rather active but then the committee decided rather, in my book, foolishly that some of them were going to resign and meant that then the branch had to be closed. And the branch was closed.
CB: What sort of people were there? What backgrounds in the RAF were the people who were -?
BM: I could never find out. I could never find out because they were rather stand-offish a little. I could never really get to know them quite well. Not to that degree in those few years and they were, I don’t know. Most of them came from what we called Leigh area and they, I always talk about them that they were people who have curtains around their dustbins. You most probably get them in many towns and they and so consequently they seemed to prefer abandoning the concept of an RAF association and turning it in to a luncheon club and I didn’t. I said no. And I’ve been proved right because the silly fools, my membership was transferred to Basildon, right. Basildon now I know are doing exactly what Southend have done. They’ve got about five members that are active. That’s all. So really what should have happened is that, and there’s another branch that’s going to go exactly the same at Thurrock so you’ve got three branches there because the membership is falling, you know, we’re getting older. And so consequently what they should have done is said well look we’ve got when we still had about twenty five members attending meetings on a monthly basis. Keep Southend. Transfer Thurrock and Basildon into Southend. You’ve got your younger committee members and you’ll keep going and now they are going to finish off without any branch in this area at all. Rather foolish. But because some of them felt that well they didn’t want to carry on in their capacity as chairman because their wives were not in good health or something like that. I can understand it up to a point but don’t take the drastic action.
CB: No.
BM: And they did and so now they’ve got nothing.
CB: Did you get the impression that some of, that more of them were air crew or ground crew or what?
BM: Oh well with the RAF Association especially in Southend there was an aircrew branch of it.
CB: Oh.
BM: And they, they used to have their own little meetings.
CB: Oh [laughs]. Right.
BM: And you know, one particular chap I used to talk to who was in the Aircrew Association and the strange thing is, of my age, when he finished his training as a pilot they liked him as an instructor so they sent him out to Canada to finish his career in Canada teaching. So as far as he was concerned he’d been across the pond. He hadn’t seen any of the war at all.
CB: No.
BM: And to me it seemed a tragedy that they even split them because the aircrew in total should have still mixed with the others and that was confirmed at where we went the other day. I can’t think of its name now.
CB: What? At Aces High in Wendover.
BM: Yeah. At Wendover. I mean on that table there were two squadron leaders, one wing commander and a warrant officer.
CB: Yes.
BM: And also me.
CB: Yeah.
BM: A leading aircraft man. And they just treated me handsomely.
CB: They did.
BM: Oh yes. They had no side of it at all and this is the way it should have been.
CB: Yes.
BM: Ok. When you get in front of them in uniform you stand to attention.
CB: Of course.
BM: You recog, but you’re not doing that for the individual. You are doing that for the uniform and that was a little thing but they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t cause any segregation at all because –
CB: Right.
BM: It’s strange because I went to one particular meeting and there was a chap there. He came up to me and he started talking. He was an ex-major in the army and he said this, it was the, oh [pause] it was a special club that they’d formed that did the Normandy landings and he said, ‘You should join.’ I said, ‘Join? I didn’t take part in the Normandy landings.’ ‘What do you mean you didn’t take part? You said you were in uniform didn’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I had a couple of cookhouse blokes working for me. You could say they didn’t take part in the Normandy landings. No. I know they didn’t but we couldn’t have done it without their, them cooking our meals and we wouldn’t have done the Normandy landings without the air force as a back-up. Everyone in the forces at that particular time must have made some form of contribution towards that Normandy invasion.’ And this is was it’s all about isn’t it? They try and segregate it and well they always looked upon you, some of those air crew, a few in civilian life look upon you with an air of superior quality which is wrong. But –
CB: Hurtful.
BM: Well in business ok. As far as I was concerned you know I was top of the list so they, they didn’t worry me.
CB: No.
BM: Simple as that.
CB: I think we’d better take a pause. Thank you.
[Recording paused]
CB: So after the war you returned to civilian life in 1947.
BM: Yeah.
CB: From then onwards what was your perception of the general public’s attitude towards people who’d been in the RAF?
BM: They didn’t, on reflection of what I’ve seen lately I realise now that their reception was not as good as it should have been. We all just carried on and as far as I was concerned I don’t think I ever was approached from the time I got demobbed at ’47 you know because there was still a certain creeping in, an air of resentment that there had been a few people that had dodged their responsibilities either through religious grounds or other things and, or reserved occupation and I saw that particularly when I went to Ford Motor Company because I used to be in a specialised department so consequently I had access to a lot of places because I used to have to go to them. And I can remember on occasions when you would meet superintendents who were responsible for the production of cars in quite a large area and they would be an ignorant pig. And you’d think to yourself, well mister, I’m sorry I wouldn’t even employ you to stick stamps on an envelope but because they’d been in a reserved occupation they had a clear field to be promoted. Not because they’d earned it but there was no one else to fill the position and so consequently you had a a backlog like that there and they didn’t want to talk to you about what you’d done in the air force because they hadn’t done it themselves. So they didn’t. They had nothing to discuss. And that was the same in a lot of cases so I mean I can remember in fact the first when I got back the couple of conscientious objectors they’d risen within that small private company quite well because they used to read the bible every lunchtime. They’ sit in the office reading the bible whereas you would go and eat a sandwich they would read the bible but they couldn’t be touched. But they certainly took promotion when it was offered to them and I know, I know of one particular case where people when they went for their medical they pleaded on certain occasions. They got away with it. One particular prominent chap who lives in Southend he did anyway. He was in the medical when I went for the medical because I came to Southend to get my medical and he told me, he said, ‘I had a motor bike accident six months ago. I’m going to tell them I keep on getting headaches,’ and this is what he did and he was classified grade 3. Yeah. And so all the time I used to see him in Laindon when I used to come home on leave there was he you know running around in a flash car and everything else. I know. So the air force and the same with the army, same with the navy those who served they didn’t get the treatment that they should have got I don’t think.
CB: The recognition.
BM: Yeah. And [pause] but now and the strange thing is the recognition you get now is overwhelming. I mean, you know, I’ve only done two book signings and it’s opened my eyes. I didn’t realise the sincerity that goes in it. I mean people just don’t want you to sign their book. All they want to do is say hello, thank you and shake your hand. That’s more important to them than your signature which astonishes me. I didn’t, because that sort of feeling didn’t exist when you first got demobbed. Anyway. [laughs].
CB: Thanks.
[Recording paused]
CB: Victory Parade.
BM: Pardon?
CB: For the Victory Parade.
BM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
BM: And we had Lee Enfield 303 you know. We were carrying that around. And it’s a twenty mile area, route that we’d taken. We’d got up to Tottenham Court Road and we’d just turned into Oxford Street and we had the air force band in front of us and they played the Dambusters March and that was set alight all the people almost and the cheers and the applause was absolutely overwhelming. I’ll remember that till I pop off you know. It was really, it put a lump in your throat and especially in Oxford Street. It’s all these buildings with windows above them and there were people at the windows and they were throwing coins.
CB: Were they?
BM: And bars and chocolate. The bloke next to me got hit by a bar of chocolate of all things you know. And this, this was happening there. You couldn’t stop to pick the stuff up.
CB: No.
BM: You had to just had to carry on walking.
CB: Amazing.
BM: And then of course with all processions they do stop for a little while to more or less they get a bit of a backlog don’t they?
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
BM: And then you’re amongst it all and you’re more or less really –
CB: Yeah.
BM: Visibly making a fuss of you.
CB: Yes. The unleashed appreciation.
BM: Yeah. But –
CB: Extraordinary. Very touching actually.
BM: That was touching and but that is soon forgotten you know.
CB: Right. We’re stopping now.
[Recording paused]
CB: Raids. We’ve talked about civilians Bernard but what about RAF and military people’s reactions to the raids?
[Pause]
Other: Do you mean the raids that took place over Germany?
CB: No. The British. The German raids on Britain I meant to say. So where you were stationed.
BM: Well er as I say some of them it was –
CB: So at Locking for instance. At Locking.
BM: At Locking it was a novelty to them. Others who had experienced it in their own town I mean like they’d had, you’d had Coventry, you had Liverpool, you had Southampton and Plymouth. They’d all had a going over.
Other: The Midlands. The Black Country.
BM: Yeah.
Other: Where I came from.
BM: Yeah. They had some. Well they were attacking there. In some respects they were attacking the, I mean in the Midlands it was where a lot of the machinery.
Other: Where all the manufacturing took place.
BM: All the manufacturers. So therefore it was in some respects a legitimate target.
Other: Yes.
BM: But London wasn’t.
Other: No. That was aimed at the population.
BM: Yeah.
Other: To break the will of the population.
BM: So, and Plymouth I suppose it had naval history but not to that degree. And Southampton also but they were really docks areas. That’s what they seemed to want to go for.
CB: Yeah.
BM: And it didn’t –
CB: But particularly in your experience actually in the RAF you mentioned Locking so –
BM: Yeah.
CB: What? When there were raids in in the Bristol area.
BM: Well they, yeah. Well they didn’t –
CB: What was the reaction of the people in Locking?
BM: Well they were a bit afraid that the war was coming too close to them to some degree whereas others just seemed to think well it was a novelty idea because it wasn’t a consistent attack. It was just a spasmodic attack here and there. I mean the major towns where they hit in this, like you say, Liverpool, Coventry, the Midlands area, London they were continuous attacks for a period of time and they were solely, I don’t think they were other than to destroy the population.
CB: The will of the people.
BM: Yeah. They weren’t after the, ok that was their excuse they were going for targets but it didn’t bother them you know but –
CB: You mentioned other some of your fellow RAF people’s reaction at Locking.
BM: Yeah. Well they just became hysterical because it was something they’d never experienced and they were frightened and they were spoken very sharply by some of the non-commissioned officers in the, in the whats-the-name. In the shelters. As they said you know, ‘You’re a disgrace. Control yourself.’
CB: Oh you’re talking about actually in the shelter?
BM: Oh yes. Yes.
CB: The air raid shelter.
BM: Some of them like I say were hysterical and in tears. They were frightened. Simple as that. Because they had not experienced it but others you know who had experienced it it didn’t bother them. In fact they looked at it logically and said you know they’re not going to attack us they’re attacking over there. But this is life isn’t it?
CB: Yeah. Now you got leave every six months but you would get forty eight hour passes.
BM: Yeah.
CB: How far were you able to go and what happened to you then?
BM: Well in forty eight hour passes I came home. Mainly because I knew I would get warmly welcomed by my parents because my brother was overseas. I think he was over there for about oh three or four years.
CB: Where was he stationed?
BM: He was stationed in Egypt then Sicily, Italy, Yugoslavia, Palestine. You know, he had a pretty rough time of it but of course he was on Fighter Command so therefore that was where the fighters were operating.
CB: Yeah.
BM: I mean bombers could operate from this country to go places.
CB: So you were shift work effectively. Was, did you work on a seven day or a five day week?
BM: We worked normally on a five day week but there was an occasion when they suddenly decided that they would work on a shift principal. In other words you worked something like around about ten days on right the way through and this was some clown from the air ministry had come down and set this up when I was at Marston Moor. And so in other words we then, you worked say for about ten days and you would have about three days off. And ok some of those time is spent catching up on the sleep you’ve lost and I’ll always remember on this particular occasion when this system was brought in I had not slept during the period I should have been off. So I went on duty and we were sat in the dispersal hut. The aircraft had gone off. This was about oh about 9 o’clock at night and I was tired. It was a cold night and there was a nice big fire in the centre of this you know and I just nodded off to sleep didn’t I? And they tried to wake me when the aircraft came back and I wasn’t having any [laughs] and the sergeant was not very pleased. Yeah. By the time I did eventually come round the aircraft had landed, been parked up and that was it and I’d done nothing. But the only good thing about that scheme it was, it was a way to keep the aircraft, giving them more flying time but it didn’t work and really the only good thing about it was that you could in other words once you’d seen the aircraft off say at about 8 o’clock at night 12 o’clock you’d go into the canteen and you could get your meal.
CB: Yeah.
BM: And invariably it used to be steak and chips.
CB: Did it?
BM: Yeah. Oh they’d give you a good meal for that. That time in the morning. And that was the only good thing about it but on that particular occasion I even missed my meal as well. Yeah. But it wasn’t very successful because during the day you were expected to catch up sleep. Well in a nissen hut with about thirty blokes a few of you still trying to get some sleep was hopeless.
CB: Now technically you were part of a squadron were you?
BM: Yeah.
CB: What was that squadron number?
BM: It was a conversion unit, Heavy Conversion Unit.
CB: Ok. Sixteen –
BM: 1652 HCU
CB: Right. Heavy Conversion Unit.
BM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
BM: And they used to do, during the day, cross country, circuits and bumps, circuits and landings and then when they were needed they used to go on operations as well to make up the numbers. That’s the way it worked. This was just their training with heavy aircraft. In other words they’d done all their, they’d got their pilot’s licence wings working on twin engined aircraft but before they let them loose on a Lanc or a Halifaxe they had to do a couple of weeks.
CB: Yeah. So these were all Halifaxes.
BM: Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cause the Halifaxes were not looked upon as superior as the Lanc because the Lanc could fly faster. The Lanc could fly higher. Halifaxes used to fly at around about a hundred and eighty at around about oh ten thousand feet whereas a Lanc would go a bit faster than that and they could fly at twelve, fifteen thousand feet. Higher if necessary.
CB: How reliable were the aircraft?
BM: I would say I never had much experience, if any at all, where the aircraft reliability was put to question. You know, they say that the Stirling was crap. That was a bad aircraft. But I didn’t work on a Stirling. I nearly did. I got posted down to Stoney Cross at Southampton when I was, when I finished at Waddington. And I went all the way down there, kit bag all my gear and they said, ‘Well you’re about three weeks too late. Your squadron moved out to Italy three weeks ago.’ And that was a squadron of Stirlings. And so I was stuck at Stoney Cross in the middle of the New Forest whilst the Air Ministry sorted out where they would then put me. [laughs]. But that was –
CB: When did you go to Waddington and how long were you there?
BM: I went to Waddington it was most probably, VE day. A couple of weeks after VE day I should imagine. And Waddington I left soon after the Victory Parade in London.
CB: Because you were part of the Tiger Force.
BM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Good. Thank you.
[Recording paused]
CB: So at the end of the war Ron, you’d think, a number of people thought that at the end of hostilities then everybody could leave.
BM: Yeah.
CB: But actually it was spread out. Why was that?
BM: It was spread out I think for economic reasons because they didn’t want to flood the market with labour so much and secondly they devised a scheme which gave you a demob number which was calculated on the age, your age and your years of service. So if like me you were called up at the age of eighteen and you’d only done, what, about four years my demob number was 57. I always remember that as Heinz [laughs].
CB: Yeah.
BM: And that was, and when 57, in other words you were all given a number, what your demob number and that would then give an indication when you were going to be demobbed and you used to watch. Ok they’re working on 45 at the moment so it’s weeks before you got yours and I think it was just a question off pushing too many people on to the job market too soon. That’s the only reason I could see for it.
Other: But weren’t people tempted to desert when the war ended and just get home as quickly as they could?
CB: Good point.
BM: It’s strange you should say that because it never occurred to me. In fact when I was at Waddington we were under instructions that when VJ day was declared, you know, you do not go out of camp and we were still on duty but some of the chaps and I can recall at least three or four possibly said, ‘To hell with them’. You know. The war’s over now. And they simply went home that weekend.
Other: Yeah.
BM: Now whether they ever got caught at it I don’t know but they certainly went off and they hitchhiked because I remember one particular chap, he wanted to get to London. You know, ‘I’m getting there. That’s it.’ So there was that attitude among some but to me it never occurred because as far as I was concerned you know it was the wrong thing to do. You’re still under orders. You know.
CB: Yeah.
BM: It’s the same after the war was finished you would wonder why anyone would still, especially I had a job ready to go back to. Why can’t you let me go? Well I’m going to go myself then. What are you going to do? Well they had the power to court martial you and they had the power to punish you. So it never really entered my head you know.
Other: I suppose you’d got in to a frame of mind.
BM: Yeah.
Other: Where you accepted orders.
BM: Yeah.
Other: You know, you’d been in the forces for four years.
BM: This is it.
Other: And what you do is accept orders.
BM: That’s right. Yeah.
Others: Yeah. It’s interesting isn’t it?
BM: It is. Because the way, the way especially nowadays I mean the younger element today are much more belligerent and I can imagine them saying, ‘Well, you know, I’m off. That’s me. The war’s finished. I’m done. I’ve done my bit.’ But it’s not like that is it? Really.
Other: No.
BM: It er –
Other: But these days’ people don’t have a sense of duty like they used to. The population at large seventy year ago, eighty years ago.
BM: Yeah.
Other: Generally people had a sense of duty and a sense of public responsibility.
BM: Yeah.
Other: These days’ people don’t have that.
BM: No. No.
Other: They don’t have a sense of duty. It’s, it’s an old fashioned concept unfortunately.
BM: Well I was brought up by a rather Victorian father. You know. He was strict. It didn’t do me any harm though. But er –
CB: But that was only thirty years after the end of the Victorian era.
BM: Yeah.
CB: So it’s not surprising that that was the attitude is it?
BM: Yeah.
CB: Right.
[Recording paused]
BM: The night before there was a dance on again tonight and –
CB: This is the Knaresborough Caravan Park.
BM: A few birds around.
CB: Yeah.
BM: Yeah.
CB: Keep going.
BM: And anyway we went around on our bikes and we picked up these birds in this dance and of course two of us took these two birds back. They’d come from Leeds. Their parents owned a caravan and that was there and we went back to the caravan with these girls. Left our bikes parked outside, inside the caravan. I was a bit backward in those sort of activities because I’d led rather a sheltered life in London with Victorian parents so I didn’t really do anything I should be ashamed of. I put it to you as carefully as that but anyway we fell asleep. Woke up around about 5 o’clock and of course we were on duty at 8 o’clock. At Marston Moor. And so we just said, ‘We’re off,’ you know and we got out this caravan to walk across the fields with these [unclear] there was a bloody farmer who owned the caravan park. ‘Hey,’ he said, [unclear?]. ‘Cheerio.’ On the bike, down the hill out of Knaresborough fast got back to camp in time. Yeah. Quite a narrow squeak that was but –
CB: If he’d have had a pitchfork it would have been uncomfortable.
BM: But then the other thing is that I got friendly with a family in Spofforth in Yorkshire and the daughter’s twenty first birthday. So of course in the village of Spofforth they had the village hall for this twenty first birthday party and we went over there and we knew the parents but I’d been, you know, going casually around with the daughter, the other daughter who happened to be a married woman incidentally but it was all good and clean. So anyway they said, ‘Well, will you look after the bar in the hall? Would you do that?’ ‘Yes. That’s alright.’ So I got behind this bar in this village hall and there were people coming in and, ‘Yes. I’ll have one with you.’ And of course as they had a drink I was having one was well. So by midnight we were well and truly sloshed and of course the villagers use the hall with their own accoutrements as it were so therefore they had to clear the village hall after all the festivities had taken place and I can remember pushing a wheelbarrow up the main street in Spofforth with all these glasses and food and leftovers on and it was as we were pushing it along well and well and truly sloshed it was dropping off as we went. Tinkling away there. Yeah. They were happy days though really.
Other: Well you remember the good bits.
BM: Oh yeah. Yeah we were.
Other: You remember the good bits.
BM: As I say we had some. When I finished in the air force and I started having to come down to reality that you know I had had very little education. I had to think about what I was going to do with my life and I started studying and I started working. As I say evening classes four nights a week. I could still find time to play cricket and play football in the season and I used to think, I don’t know, we moaned all the time. I was four years in the air force but on reflection I’d had four good years and you miss it. In other words, you know, it occurred to me why didn’t I sign on? I would have been immediately made a corporal and a corporal fitter then you’re on the ranks of promotion and what have you so you do reflect. I mean people moan about it but you do reflect. When you look at it in reality you didn’t do so bad.
Other: Well the thing that you did was you went in and you made the most of it and ended up with a proper trade.
BM: Yeah.
Other: A lot of people did National Service and did nothing.
BM: Yeah.
Other: They wasted two years of their lives.
BM: Yeah.
Other: Did nothing at all but at least you actually learned a trade and got a lot of valuable knowledge and experience and enjoyed yourself more as a consequence really.
BM: Yeah.
CB: The, you mentioned married women.
BM: Yeah.
CB: Now the reality of course is that there were plenty of people who were married whose husband, the women’s husbands were at the war.
BM: Yeah.
CB: So how did this work? It was quite innocuous sort of thing but were they at the dances? And how did this work?
BM: Oh it used to. I’m talking about this lady at Spofforth. Her husband was in the Middle East and as far as I was concerned we used to go dancing. We used to drink and we used to play, they had that, in this pub where we used to go to they had the, the skittles.
Other: Oh I know.
BM: In other words, you know, ok, as far as I was concerned the only intimacy, if you like that took place was I kissed her and that was it. Didn’t go any further. And that’s that may have been I don’t know a bit naïve of me but I was most probably a bit naïve at that sort of thing and you know I was never a womaniser to that degree. In fact to be very, extremely personal is the fact that my late wife was the only woman I’ve ever slept with. So it’s as simple as that. I used to have a fling with these ladies but it only was kissing and that was it. So I didn’t do any harm.
CB: All honour was satisfied.
BM: Pardon?
CB: All honour was satisfied.
BM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
BM: I mean I remember going, and this would be at, at Locking, there was a corporal WAAF there and went to a dance and she was a good dancer and I danced with her. So therefore all the time I was there when there was a dance on she was there. She was available to be a partner on the dance floor but directly I got her outside, ‘Hey. I’m a married woman. Off you go.’ It was as simple as that. And ok nowadays this attitude is completely different but in those days it wasn’t.
Other: Yeah the worlds a changed place.
BM: Well, you know, you could, ok you were told even by your chief medical officer when you were first called up they showed you various pictures of the problems if you get any sort of disease and so on through sexual activity and so therefore you just kept clear of it and in those days you didn’t have the protection that these youngsters have today and that is a problem.
CB: Right.
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 Bernard Charles Mabey
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-28
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AMabeyBC161128
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending 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.
Description
An account of the resource
Bernard Mabey was born in London and experienced the Blitz at first hand. He was a member of the Air Training Corps in 1941 before volunteering for the RAF. He trained as an air frame mechanic at RAF Locking. His first posting was RAF Marston Moor which was a Heavy Conversion Unit. He was surprised by the change in approach to discipline between training and his first posting. He describes aspects of repairing aircraft. He enjoyed playing cricket for the station. After the war he became an industrial property developer.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Wiltshire
England--London
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1945
1947
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
02:05:19 audio recording
bombing
C-47
civil defence
demobilisation
dispersal
entertainment
faith
firefighting
fitter airframe
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
military discipline
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
perimeter track
RAF Locking
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Netheravon
RAF Waddington
sanitation
sport
Tiger force
training
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/PCoultonWA1608.1.jpg
15510534c70ff503e12c0b6afc5bca75
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/498/8388/ACoultonWA161020.2.mp3
cd9c3d503ae278ab9f2db39c0cf651f9
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
Coulton, William Arthur
William Coulton
W A Coulton
Arthur Coulton
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Coulton, WA
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. The collection concerns William Arthur Coulton (b. 1925, 3050209, Royal Air Force). He served as an engine mechanic at RAF Witchford and RAF North Luffenham before being posted overseas to Palestine. Collection includes an oral history interview, some artworks, a wedding photograph and a photograph album.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William Arthur Coulton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is 20th October 2016, and we are in Freemantle Court, near Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and we’re with William Arthur Coulton who’s going to tell us about his experiences in the RAF on the ground. So Arthur what are the earliest recollections that you got of life?
AC: The earliest – Twyford, at Twyford, the village of Twyford in south Derbyshire. Yes, I – the fourth, three or four – yes – south Derbyshire.
CB: That’s where you lived?
AC: That’s where we lived, we lived in the the holdall [?] of south Derbyshire Twyford had been put into two two houses. Yeah, two residence. Went to school, the village, the little village school, well a matchbox school I went back some years ago to see the place and I was surprised how small the school was. Yes. And we left, we left Twyford. My father worked, a farm worker and he got a job in Ash— Ashford or near Ashford. We went to live up there and he had the misfortune to get gored by a bull and he, he never worked the bulls for four years, and that that finished his farm working, and then he went to work in the foundry of all places. Yes, yes. [Background noise]
CB: And then where did you go from there?
AC: Where where did, where did the – we went to live at Holbrook in Derbyshire. Yes, ‘cause its two Holbrooks you know? One in Lincolnshire, and my parents stayed there for the rest of their lives. And actually I’ve got a young sister still lives in Holbrook and from there I joined the air force.
CB: When when did you leave school?
AC: 14.
CB: At 14?
AC: Yes.
CB: And what did you do then?
AC: When I left school? I went to work for Derby Co-op. Yes, I went as errand boy at Derby Co-op. and I stayed with Derby Co-op until I was 18, joined the air force. Yes.
CB: Why did you join the RAF and not one of the other services?
AC: To be quite honest, you want the honest there?
CB: Yeah.
AC: I didn’t want to be gun fodder. I didn’t want to join the army. I didn’t want to be in the front line. That’s me being honest about it.
CB: That’s good.
AC: Of course, I was in the ATC, so you automatically you got the preference to go in the air force and I enjoyed the air force. I trained as a flight mechanic. I –
CB: Where did you join up?
AC: In 1943.
CB: Where?
AC: At Birmingham. That’s where I went through the details, at Birmingham, and when I joined up from Birmingham we went to – oh, we went to Cardigan [?] and we got issued with our uniform at mob office yes. And then I got – where’d I go then? I got posted to me square bashing at Skegness. When they told me I was going to Skegness, I asked me Sergeant if I had me bucket and spade. He said, ‘You won’t have a chance to use it.’ [Chuckle].
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that though?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He said it a bit more bluntly than that.
AC: Yes. Yes yes. Yes he did.
CB: You horrible little man.
AC: Yeah I was a horrible little man.
[Shared laughter]
AC: Yes. I I — do you know Skegness?
CB: Yes.
AC: Imperial Hotel? I know that place very well. That was our mess hall and I know what the cellar was like. I got fatigues down there more than once. [Laughter]. Yes. I was a bad lad, I got caught you see. The policy is that do anything you like as long as you don’t get caught. That’s the —
CB: That’s a cardinal rule?
AC: Pardon?
CB: It’s a cardinal rule.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes. I got caught several times.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, I was —
CB: So what did you learn there? When you weren’t misbehaving.
AC: What did I learn? I was trying to find out how I could get away with it. You know to find the loopholes. [Chuckle]. Oh dear. I didn’t do too, too bad. No.
CB: So what did the course, this is a training course, Initial Training Wing, this is the training wing —
AC: Square bashing.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You know, up and down, marching like a lot of silly hooligans. Yes, and what they call the Commando course running around in a woods there with barbed wire, yeah and that, and one of you had to lie on it while the others run over you. That wasn’t very comfortable – you had to take it in turns. Yeah. You lay on barbed wire. Not very nice
CB: No.
AC: Yeah.
CB: What was worse the barbed wire or peoples feet on your back?
AC: I would say people’s feet on ya. Yeah.
CB: Okay, so what else did you do?
AC: Yeah. They put —
CB: They —
AC: They put — and that was at Skegness that was, where we did the training. And then we was what you was going to be, you was sent to them them units. And first of all they sent me to Newcastle-on-Tyne of all places. And I was there on me own, with you know, I didn’t go anyone else. Then I went on my own to Weston Super Mare to Lockheed, you know that?
CB: I do know. But just quickly what did you do at Newcastle-on-Tyne? What was the purpose of that?
AC: Just — just waiting patiently.
CB: A holding unit?
AC: Yes.
CB: Okay.
AC: Yes. Then I went to Lockheed and I did me engineering course there.
CB: How long did that last?
AC Pardon?
CB: How long was the Lockheed course?
AC: Erh. Was it? Was it 16 weeks? I think it was. I’m not certain now and then we went to — was posted and I was posted to to Newmarket. And the engineer — the sergeant said to me, ‘Where you going?’ I said, ‘Romney Marsh [?], Newmarket.’ He said, ‘You’re going to a holiday camp.’ I said, ‘As good as that?’ And it showed me how good it was. [Laughter]. It was it was — You couldn’t beat beat Newmarket. It was lovely.
CB: That was on the racecourse then was it?
AC: On the racecourse, yes.
CB: So, what was so really special about it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: What was really special about it?
AC: Well, you could just say. Freedom. You know you was in the forces but you had a free life like. Yes. And our billet was a Nissan hut in Frank Buttress’[?] paddock, one of his paddocks. There was about 12 Nissan huts in there, and he didn’t mind you going round the stables, looking at the horses. I went round one day and a blinking horse — I — [unclear] all at was it nipped me. I I, well that’s the end of my life with horses. [Chuckle]. Yeah. But I liked Newmarket. That was a good station to be on. I was there 10 months and then they posted me to 115 Squadron at Witchford, Ely and I stayed there right to the end of the war. And I was on A and B aircraft as a flight mechanic.
CB: So you’re a flight mechanic, and A and B were the tasks that you did, so what were those?
AC: A and B was the two aircraft.
CB: Right.
AC: A and B and the number — what you call it — the code number was KO. That was the aircraft, KO. And we went to, when the war ended and I went to North Luffenham. Have you ever been there?
CB: I know, lived there.
AC: Pardon?
CB: I used to live there.
AC: Yes. I went to North Luffenham and I remustered into the MT [?] as a motor motor mechanic. And I stayed there for about four weeks, I think. And I was working on an American claptrap[?] vehicle. And a chap came along out of the distance and waving the papers and said, ‘You’re posted overseas.’ Well I said, ‘If that’s if that’s the case I’m packing up here now then going.’ And I went overseas. I went to Palestine and I was with 32 Squadron Fighter Squadron. Famous 32. Yes, and they had Spitfires but I was in the MT then and I worked in the vehicles, and we went into Jordan on exercises with the army and from there, went back there. Yeah I was demobbed. I got my demob come through while I was at there at Palestine. Was it? No. Sorry no. At North Luffenham that was where I got me notification of demob and I got demobbed. I went to work in the local garage.
CB: Where?
AC: Ely.
CB: In Ely?
AC: Cambridge.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. And then I did five years in there.
CB: How did you come to do that in Ely when you were in from North Luffenham?
AC: What?
CB: Why did you choose Ely when you were stationed —
AC: I got married.
CB: — at North Luffenham?
AC: I got married. She come from Ely.
CB: Oh right. Sounds a pretty compelling reason.
AC: Yeah, I got a photograph of her there.
CB: Yeah, we’ll have a look.
JS: She’s lovely.
AC: Eh?
CB: We’ll look in a minute. Yeah.
AC: Yeah. I I was stationed at Witchford at Ely. You know the aerodrome. Witchford. That’s how I come to meet the wife and, of course, when I got demobbed, I went I lived in Ely, went to work at the local garage.
CB: Hmm.
AC: And I stayed there till one day a coal merchant who I knew quite well, he was only a bit older than me came in and asked me if I’d go and run a dairy business for him he’d bought. I mean all above all things from a mechanic to a dairy. I said, ‘Yeah I’ll go, Joe. I’ll have a go.’ And I stayed with the milk industry for 33 years and then I retired. Yes, I built up a good business. I amalgamated with another dairy. We we had a good business. We had nearly 6000 customers
CB: Hmm.
AC: We had quite a quite a business and, well, we had 14 men work for us.
CB: Hmm.
AC: Yes but I say we — that was hard work. It is hard working in the dairy trade. Yes.
CB: What’s the hardest thing about working in the dairy trade?
AC: Delivering the milk and satisfying the customers. Yeah you get a lot of dissatisfied people if you was a bit late. They never realised that they could have had extra milk and kept always had a bottle in hand. That’s what — there’s a lot of people like that. Yes.
CB: So you met your wife when you was at Witchford?
AC: I met her at Witchford.
CB: What was was she in the RAF?
AC: She was in the NAAFI.
CB: Oh was she, right.
AC: I was a canteen cowboy.
CB: What was her name?
AC: Hilda Elsie.
CB: Hilda and she was a canteen cowboy.
AC: That’s was that they called them you know. They called —
CB: Not cowgirl?
AC: If you was a NAAFI girl, you was a canteen cowboy. [Laughter] Yes.
CB: And was her tea any good?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Was her tea any good?
AC: Ehhhh. Not too bad. I did know one thing about it. I used to get egg and chips.
CB: Oh.
AC: The chaps used to say, ‘Where’d you get your egg from?’ I said, ‘Hilda brought for me.’ They said, ‘Will she get me one?’ They wouldn’t ask her. [Laughter] ‘Cause her parents got poultry.
CB: Oh.
AC: Yes. So I got egg and chips, I did.
CB: Interesting. So you settled down for the five years in Ely, but actually you continued in that area did you with the – with the milk?
AC: Yes. Oh Yes. Oh yes I continued in that area.
CB: Hm.
AC: But — and the dairy ran —we got progress — we got a bit of land and we build a dairy to — the purpose was to vehicles. And we had — eventually we had all electric vehicles. We had one electric vehicle that could 55 miles, around Cambridge doing 55 miles.
CB: Hm.
AC: Didn’t do —it was never more than 88 miles through the premises, but it got the capacity for 55 miles. Yeah.
CB: So what was the area that you were serving? It was Ely and the villages, was it?
AC: The villages, yes and Ely and surrounding villages. Yes.
CB: To what extent did you use your engineering skills —
AC: Kept the vehicles —
CB: — after the war.
AC: Kept the vehicles going.
CB: As well as running the business.
AC: Yes. Well I had a partners and I used to look after the vehicles. Yeah. I got a dab hand at the electric vehicles. Yes.
CB: Now, going back to the RAF when you went to your training at Locking [?], what did they do to train you from scratch to be an aero—engine mechanic?
AC: Yes. We we had in this big hanger, we had sections set off in bays and there was in our gang there was 15 of us. The the instructor, he was a sergeant who instructed us and he instructed us on engineering and I really really liked it there.
CB: So how many bays would they have in the hanger? Was there a different — did they do a different task in each bay?
AC: Of all the things what we had in the hanger, we had Blackburn Botha did you know about them?
CB: — Yeah. Blackburn Botha. Yeah.
AC: They got two of them. Yes. [unclear] Our job was to strip them and put them back again.
CB: Yeah.
AC: You strip the engine down. Rebuild it and put it back again.
CB: What were those engines? Were they radials? Or were they inline?
AC: Inline. Yes. Yes. Inline.
CB: And what other engines did they have as well.
AC: I I can’t think of what — a Sabre engine.
CB: A Napier Sabre?
AC: Yes. Yes. I can’t think what aircraft that was out of.
CB: That was off the Typhoon.
AC: Was it? I know it was a big engine.
CB: Yeah. 27 litres.
AC: Yeah.
CB: And did you have Merlins there or where was your introduction to the Merlin?
AC: Yeah there, but it was the early Merlin. The Merlin Mark I of all the things to teach us on. Yeah the really early — Christopher. Come from the Boar War I think. Yes.
CB: So, if you had — if there were these bays, you stayed in the bays did you, as a group of 15?
AC: Yes.
CB: And learned all the aspects of engine repair and maintenance. Is that right?
AC: Yes. Yes that’s right. We were instructed on it and you had diagrams and you drew diagrams, and — I can’t think how many was on there. But I but I really enjoyed it. I liked the job.
CB: It was a mixture of hands on and classwork was it?
AC: Yes.
CB: So, did you — you had a notebook that you kept?
AC: What?
CB: You had a notebook in which you progressed —
AC: Oh yes.
CB: — your training.
AC: Yes. I I, though I say it myself I think I was a good mechanic, but was I good? When I went into Civvy Street at the local garage at Ely. The first job the foreman said to me, ‘I want you to rebuild that engine there and put it in a car.’ And it was all in bits. And he’d re — it. So I rebuilt it. I’d never seen it before. It was all in tin boxes in bits. Yes. So I built it. I went [unclear], it went when I put it in the car. Yes.
CB: What was his reaction to that?
AC: Oh, he thought I was all right. Thought I was a good bloke.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well, there’s there’s about 12 of us mechanics in the garage. Three of them were ex RAF men. Yeah so — we did all right.
CB: And in your training, you had this group with you, so the 15 in the bay, were they — did some of them move along with you or did everybody go to somewhere quite different?
AC: Yes. Two of them — went, when we finished, two of them went with me to Newmarket. One was named Chris Rudge [?] and I can’t think of the other ones name. But but this Chris Rudge [?] had a bad reputation. He — nobody liked him.
CB: No?
AC: Instead of calling you a ‘B’, he called you a ‘Got blood like Rudge.’ That’s what they used to say. Yes.
CB: Right.
AC:Yes.
CB: So he was the one who was disruptive, was he?
AC: Pardon?
CB: He was disruptive influence in the —
AC: Yes.
CB: — in the bay.
AC: Yeah, nobody liked him. No.
CB: And what was you classified as? You were cadets at that stage, what rank?
AC: No, we weren’t classed as cadets. I was a — I was a LAC. Yes I was LAC then and, of course, the flight mate can’t go any more than a LAC until he remusters [unclear]. That was my biggest mistake. I didn’t remuster. See If I had remustered —
CB: Why didn’t you remuster?
AC: I never thought I was — I was young and silly. See I I was 19 and I hadn’t got a clue what – I was young and silly. Yes. I regret it but never mind I learnt more when I went in the garage job. I had a good experience.
CB: What time of the year were you are Locking [?]
AC: Locking? [Pause] Yeah, autumn. Yes, ‘cause I went down Weston—Super—Mare. Had a girlfriend there and we walked round the Winter Gardens. Yeah, and it was autumn. Yes. That brought back memories that does. Cor she was half —
JS: [Laughter]
AC: Memories, eh?
CB: So she wasn’t in the Air Force?
AC: No, she was civvy girl. Civvy girl. Yeah.
CB: So, she showed you all the excitements of Weston-Super-Mare?
AC: Very. Definitely. Weston-Super-Mare there’s not much there.
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: Eh?
CB: That you didn’t know about?
AC: No [Laughter]
CB: Particularly, the places that were difficult to find you in?
AC: Yes.
CB: Down the pier?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Along the pier?
AC: How long was I there?
CB No, no the pier.
AC: Oh beer.
CB: Pier pier.
AC: Yes.
CB: And when you travelled, how did you get around from Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare? Did you walk, cycle or bus?
AC: [Mumble] From Locking [?] to Weston-Super-Mare it’s only two miles.
CB: Oh right.
AC: You walked. Yes. Yeah. Then you crept in — when you crept into camp you went through the hedge, the hawthorn hedge. That was — there was a gap and you crawled through it. You missed — you missed the guardroom then.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Naughty boys. [Chuckle]
CB: What was the accommodation when you were at Locking [?]?
AC: Pretty warm. Wooden purpose — built buildings. They had wood corridors from the rooms. You never went outside to get a wash, you went down these corridors to the ablutions. Showers. Was — as I say it was pretty warm building. Yeah. Locking, I understand the Fleet Arm have got it now.
CB: And when you went to Newmarket, what were you doing there? Was is it an extension of your training or what?
AC: No, I went there as a fully blown mechanic.
CB: Right. So what were you called then? Your title.
AC: [Mumble] I was LAC. Leading aircraftsman.
CB: But did you were an aircraft mechanic or were you a —
AC: Aircraft mechanic.
CB: And what aircraft were you on there? Was there a squadron that you were —
AC: Spitfires.
CB: Spitfires right.
AC: Lovely old Spitfire. We used — used to love to get in them and warm them up in the mornings. Oh that was the best bit about that. Squadron Leader West was the CO. There was only six Spitfires. Was only a little group of u, but we had a good time until he decided to post me and he posted me to Ely, Witchford —
CB: Yeah.
AC: — on Lancasters, and I always remember I went you went into see the CO and he said to me,: ‘What do you know about Merlins?’ That was it. And I said, ‘Well, I was on Spitfires.’ And he didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like it at all.
CB: ‘Cause he was a bomber man?
AC: Well, the Spitfire has got the same engine, ain’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: [Chuckle] He didn’t like it. So,I made an enemy with him first of all.
CB: How well did you adapt to the bomber activity?
AC: Ohh lovely. I had a good crew. I had a good — I was with a good mob. I was with a real good mob. We had a Sergeant [unclear] Wakeman [?] He was a real a real gentleman. He was he was a nice chap [unclear]. We called him [unclear] we didn’t call him Sergeant. So we know how how good he was. But, of course, the Air Force had a better relationship with everybody than they did in the army. Definitely. Yes.
CB: So were you on the flight line or were you in a hanger?
AC: I was on the dispersal ramp side.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah. That was the best place to be to get the ‘flip-up’. Yes.
CB: So what what would get you the trip up in the aircraft? What what was the —
AC: Where’d we’d go in? Lancasters.
CB: No no. How did you manage to get the flights.
AC: Oh, we’d get one easy as pie.
CB: [Cough] For what reason?
AC: Just just as the crew said, as the pilot said, ‘Can I have trip up with ya?’ He’d say, ‘Get in.’ You weren’t supposed to but you get in.
CB: So why would he be flying at that moment?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Would he be flying for air test or cross country or what?
AC: Air test. Air test or — yeah, what’s it? Air gunners practice in the [unclear]. Yes. Oh, went up several times. Well well the — on dispersal when a Squadron Leader an Australian, Robbie, had — what ya got to do is say, ‘Robbie, can I come up?’ And he said, ‘Jump in.’ [Chuckle] You weren’t supposed to but we used to get in. He’d take one of ya. Two of ya. And then you — I got up to the front as a Flight Engineers seat to get a bit of practice. I thought it were quite nice. As I said, I enjoyed my life in the Air Force. I really enjoyed it.
CB: Yeah
AC: I wasn’t one of these that wanted to go home to mother. No. It it was nice. Yeah.
CB: What sort of routine did you have on the squadron?
AC: Maintenance.
CB: Yeah.
AC: Yeah just maintenance.
CB: But but what time would you get up? And were you on a shift or how did it work?
AC: Yeah it it – there was no such thing as shifts. You was all in a crowd. You know, you got —I think there was about seven of us in our mob. We had to look after two aircraft. Yeah, A and B. [unclear] What was that? And eh, what else was there? I was there I was there till the end of the war at Witchford and A carried a big bomb. You know the big 22000lb.
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The Grand Slam.
AC: Yeah, the Grand Slam. That big ‘un. Yes. I carried that —
CB: So that was a modified Lancaster to make it fit?
AC: Oh yes, it it – the bomb bomb doors was differently. They lapped around the bomb.
CB: So who did the modification for that?
AC: [Unclear]
CB: You did it.
AC: No.
CB: On the airfield?
AC: No, I did it — the Air Force did it in the hanger [?]. And that was a pity, I never I never — I should have asked to have gone in the hanger to make it work. I would have learnt more. But, as I say, I was young and silly and having a good time at the dispersals.
CB: So on the dispersal, what were the tasks you had to do in a day?
AC: Main — maintenance on the engine. Yeah, giving a check over and that.
CB: So would you have a ladder for that or a gantry?
AC: A gantry. Yes, yes used to have a gantry. And, course you, you walked over, over the wings and that and you sat [unclear] screwing the tops in. Yeah, wasn’t weren’t supposed to — you were supposed to use the gantry.
CB: But but nobody fell off?
AC: [Chuckle] Well you know [mumble] when you change the engine at the dispersal. They used say ‘Put the fan on and then they’ll think we’re finished.’ That was the propeller.
CB: Yeah
AC: [Chuckle].Yeah.
CB: So, you could do an engine change at dispersal, could you?
AC: Yes, yes. We used to change them there.
CB: What would be the reason for changing an engine?
AC: If it got over heated. Yeah, ‘cause they got over heated and burned the aluminium. The heads, the rocker cover, the nuts be melted — be melted into the aluminium when it got hot.
CB: So what would cause the engine to overheat?
AC: Well, lack of coolant. Yeah.
CB: So, it would be damaged by flak or enemy attack in some way would it.
AC: Oh yes, if it was leaking. Yes.
CB: And what was the coolant on those engines?
AC: Drycol.
CB: Right.
AC: Yes. The bloke who used to be in the hanger working on the Glycol tank. He had to take him into the sick bay and pump him out because he was drinking the stuff. You know it tastes like pear drops.
CB: And it made him high?
AC: Pardon.
CB: And it didn’t do him any good?
AC: Didn’t do him any good. No. Didn’t do him no good, but it tasted nice you see. That was the reason.
CB: So on the flight line, you’re — the aircraft you’re prepare it for an operation.
AC: Yes.
CB: What was the procedure for handing it over to the crew? How did they know that it was working?
AC: Well, they’d be notified by phone that — yes. It was when they expected it. It always come up with the kit. Yeah, I mean I changed one day while they were waiting — waiting to take off, I changed the hydraulic pump on the inboard — the starboard inner while the other engines were running. Yeah, yeah I did [unclear].
CB: So had this engine been running earlier?
AC: Yes.
CB: So it was a bit hot was it?
AC: Oh, yes it was well hot. But as I say I liked my job. I enjoyed my life on it. I used to volunteer to do it.
CB: And what was the link between the ground crew and the aircrew?
AC: Very close. Very close. They was very, very close.
CB: And was there one crew member more than the others or any of the crew members?
AC: All the crewmembers were like — I was on A and B, and they was flown by an Australian Squadron Leader, Robbie. We called him Robbie, and he name was Robertson actually.
CB: Right.
AC: We called him Robbie. And he, he was all right with us. You see the ground staff and the aircrew they had — well a close—knit unit, didn’t they? They they relied on you. Yeah, they were very close to ya. There was no ifs or buts about it.
CB: So you talked about clearance for their aircraft mechanically before it flew, when it came back what sort of debriefing did you have with the crew?
AC: Oh, we didn’t have any debriefing with the crew. All they said was if anything was wrong and that was done and the NCO used to ask us what was on the Flight Engineer and then that’s what we got set into. Yes.
CB: Was the main link between the Flight Engineer and the chief, the crew chief or would it be the other member of the —
AC: The Flight Engineer and the ground staff, he NCO and the ground staff was always very close. Yes, they consulted one another.
CB: And how many times did the aircraft come back damaged?
AC: Oh, I couldn’t tell ya. There was a lot of holes in it at times.
CB: And how did you feel about that?
AC: How did I feel? [Emphasis] I had the job of patching ‘em. You see I was on engines but I helped to do the patching. Riveting of a patch. Oh yes, some aircraft got real patchy. Yeah.
CB: When you say real patchy were there a number of — what sort of damage did the aircraft have?
AC: Well it, it would be shrapnel. Shrapnel holes ‘cause they were jagged. We put — just put a panel of aluminium over them. Yes.
CB: And how did you secure the aluminium plate?
AC: Pardon?
CB: How did you secure the —
AC: Rivet them.
CB: Right.
AC: Yeah, pot rivet them. Yeah the old pot rivets. Yeah. That was that was a regular job that. Yeah.
CB: There was a case in 15 Squadron of a Lancaster coming back without the rear turret because it had been knocked off by a bomb falling from above. Did you see that?
AC: We had the — I dunno whether if you read about the rear gunner what bailed out, well he come from Witchford. He was at Witchford, he was on ‘C’ flight and he bailed out and he shouldn’t have lived. When they got back, they found they got no rear gunner. [Chuckle]. And he was a prisoner of war. [Chuckle]
CB: So what had happened to him then? Why did he get out and how did he do it?
AC: I think he heard the pilot prepare to — you know, to bail out and he only gone to bail out and he didn’t hesitate. He opened the door and went. [Chuckle].
CB: With or without a parachute?
AC: With a parachute, but I’ll you what you looked a little bit sick when you saw the aircraft flying above ya and going home wouldn’t ya? And you was going down into captivity. [Chuckle] Oh dear. It wasn’t very nice.
CB: What other good stories do you remember about being at Witchford and 15 Squadron.
AC: Oh yes. That was one of one of them that — rear gunner bailed out and he shouldn’t have done. We — I was on A and B and they’re good, they do a very good [unclear] and I said Robbie was a pilot on it. Australian. He later went to make a Wing Commander and he was in charge of the Squadron. Yeah Robbie. We called him Robbie, that was something about it weren’t he?
CB: Well you were an ‘Erk’.
AC: Pardon?
CB: You were an ‘Erk’ and he was a —
AC: We called him Robbie —
CB: He was a senior officer.
AC: Yeah. You called Robbie. He didn’t mind. Well that was that the spirit between the aircrew and the ground staff, wasn’t it?. [Background noise]
CB: Absolutely. So that you got A and B aircraft —
AC: Yes.
CB: — the two aircraft, what about the other pilot? What was he like?
AC: Oh well, we had different pilots. It was mostly a Scotsman who used to fly. He was all right, but we did have a South African and he got his South African Air Force uniform. Khaki, and he always flew with his hat over the top of his helmet. Yeah.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Yeah, yeah he did. His name was Martin. He [unclear] was a Flight Lieutenant then. Flight Lieutenant Martin. Yeah. ‘Course we used to say he was dog biscuits, Martin Dog Biscuits, and we used to collar, collar the blokes when the NAAFI van used to come round. The officers were there and the aircrew used to collar them to pay for their tea. [Chuckle].
CB: How did you divide your time between the two aircraft?
AC: Well when we — if the aircraft had gone off you stayed in the the dispersal hut. You played cards. Gambled.
CB: No, but I mean that you had A and B aircraft, so how did you divide the work between them?
AC: Well you got to which either one it was. You went on, no matter which one. Flight Sergeant told you which aircraft you gotta do and you went on it. There was no difference. All, all I could say was B was a dirty aircraft . Oil leaks. You couldn’t stop the oil leaks. She used to leak oil all over the under cart. Yeah.
CB: So that was one of the inner engines?
AC: Engines yeah. Yeah. You naturally changed it.
CB: Right
AC: Yeah took the engine out. ‘Course the engines always went back to Rolls Royce at Derby.
CB: Oh did they?
AC: All the all the engines used to go back for maintenance. If you took one out that went to Rolls Royce. Yes.
CB: So one that you put in would always be new?
AC: Yes. Yes.
CB: And how long did it take to change an engine?
AC: About — I couldn’t truthfully say. Would I should imagine about four hours. Five hours.
CB: Taking one out and putting one in.
AC: Taking one out and putting all the connections in. Pipes and that. Yes.
CB: And was the engine raised by a lift? Or by a crane or how did it —
AC: We lifted them up by crane. We used to get, you know the, the coals —
CB: Coal cranes.
AC: We used to get him to come along and hook it up and hook it up and that’s how we did it. Just there’s only four bolts holding the engine in.
CB: Oh.
AC: That’s all that holds it in. So that the cradle, the engine’s on a cradle actually and they just pushed it in and put the four bolts in. Then you collected all the wires and hosepipes up, the pipes up. Yeah. Yes.
CB: Now in your quieter times and relaxation what did you do?
AC: Well, let’s say that I used to do a little bit of courting.
CB: Just one girl or more?
AC: Well, one or two but I ended up with one.
CB: Right.
AC: I married her.
CB: Fantastic.
AC: Yes. She a good girl to me. We was married for 52 years.
CB: Were you really?
AC: Yes. Yes she was good. She was the only child.
CB: And how many children did you have?
AC: One.
CB: Just David.
AC: Yes.
CB: Yes.
AC: I told them I’d lost the recipe. [Chuckle] [Shared laughter] Yeah. No, we only had the one.
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Pardon?
CB: And they believed you?
AC: Yeah. [Unclear]
CB: What would you say was the most memorable thing about your service in the Royal Air Force?
AC: Well comradeship was one of the best things, wasn’t it? There was something about during the war where you you was in a group of men and there was all youngsters like you. You know most of them was like all about 25 the oldest. That was a mess life, but it was a good life.
CB: And your accommodation at Locking was a pre—war shed, what did you get at Witchford.
AC: Nissan huts. Nissan huts.
CB: How many people in a Nissan hut?
AC: Twelve.
CB: And how was that heated?
AC: Heating was one of those combustion pot stoves in the middle. You know those cast iron things. You got nothing but fumes. I slept by the window at the end and I used to open the window but the lads didn’t like it, but if they come down and shut it, I used to get up and stop them.
CB: So, everybody suffered from the fumes.
AC: Oh yes, the stink of coke on the fire and the fumes was terrible.
CB: And even though you were all technicians you couldn’t stop the fumes?
AC: No, because they were all combustion stoves, you can’t stop it, can ya?
CB: What —
AC: Stinky things.
CB: What, what was it burning? Coke or coal.
AC: Coke. Yes. ‘Cause we’d run out of coke at one period and we managed to get some coke from the aerodrome from outside Bury St Edmunds. And I was in a gang of boys that went to shovel this coke onto the back of the truck to bring it back. Yeah. What a job.
CB: Did they did they notice that you’d nicked it?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Did they notice that you had nicked it?
AC: Yeah. Oh yes.
CB: [Laughter]
AC: Well we did nick it.
CB: How about the food? How did you feel about that?
AC: Well it just depends what camp you are on. Newmarket was a good, excellent. You couldn’t you couldn’t find fault in Newmarket, but Witchford was cruel. And I think the worse one — the worse one I think was Lockheed. It was — wasn’t anything special. They called themselves cooks but they weren’t anything special. No. Skegness. Oh yes, I forget Skegness. Now that was the worse. Skeggie was the worse food. We was at the Imperial Hotel that was our place and the food there was terrible. Absolutely terrible.
CB: And who were the people doing the cooking there?
AC: They had the people doing it.
CB: Civilians or RAF?
AC: RAF. It was all RAF. Yeah WAAFs cooking it. They’d have a couple of blokes probably and in charge was a Warrant Officer, and yeah that was terrible grub. And when we went to Witchford, we — I ordered — they supplied us, give us kippers for breakfast and they was off. They weren’t right. Everybody was throwing them away, and when the caterer – bloke came round, the officer came round and asked if there were any complaints. We said, ‘These kippers are rotten.’ He said he said, ‘They were in the mess. We complained about them in the officer’s mess.’ [Chuckle]. Oh, they were rotten things. I think the grub at Witchford was the worse one in the Air Force what I had. Yeah, definitely.
CB: So what was it that was so bad about it?
AC: It was the way it was cooked and presented. It was terrible. But the best place at Ouston, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne I was stationed up there. Now that was good. It was a trainer station that’s it and that was that was good there.
CB: So in today’s terms nutrition is very varied. There’s a huge choice. What did you actually have as a staple diet in the war as a ground tradesman?
AC: Well well, there was a potato, cabbage and you didn’t get peas that was a funny thing. See frozen peas came in after the war, didn’t they? So you didn’t get peas. We got cabbage, cauliflower, yes there was parsnips, carrots. I don’t eat parsnips. I think there are horrible things but —
CB: What about meat? What sort of meat did you get?
AC: Meat? I had beef. I reckon while I was in the Middle East we had camel. [Laughter] Yes. That’s what that was. That was stringy like. So, I reckon it was camel. Yeah. I brought back a lot of memories.
CB: Hm. That’s good.
AC: Pardon?
CB: And in your time off on the camp what did you do?
AC: On the camp? Time off?
CB: Yeah.
AC: Well well when you got your time off you didn’t stop off at the camp. You went out. You went out. I mean at Weston-Super-Mare at Lockheed there you’re supposed to book in at. Well we was bad lads you see. We came in late so we came through the hedge. [Chuckle]. Like real lads.
CB: But at Skegness because it was your initial training then you were more disciplined were you?
AC: Oh yes. Oh yes we had to off the street at 9 o’clock at night. Yes. I had the misfortune, I was eating fish and chips in the shop down there at Skeggie and these here two Military RAF police come by, saw me and it’d just gone 9 o’clock. He walked in, he said, ‘You’re not supposed to be out.’ They picked up my fish and chips, they took ‘em and told me to get back to the billet quick. [Chuckle] Rotten devils. I daren’t say nothing, dare I?
CB: It was a pity to waste them wasn’t it?
AC: Yeah, I daren’t say a dickie bird. Well, you see I was a raw recruit at Skeggie.
CB: Yes.
AC: Yes.
CB: So they kept you quite busy there?
AC: Oh yes, definitely. Oh yes. Yes. Marching up and down like a lot of hooligans and they took you on what they called an ‘Air Commando Course’. I could tell you, you had to go across these here three logs. Run across these three logs. Like — well like telegraph posts and they had barbed wire in the bottom of the water. So if you fell in it wouldn’t be very comfortable, would it? And you was with full pack and your rifle. I tell you what I didn’t like that. I run — when I got there I run over that. What they used to do, used to say, ‘Who’s the oldest in the mob?’ And I always remember there was a chap of 32. They sent him round, they said, ‘Right. Run round the [unclear] course.’ And they timed him and he told us we got to do it in that time. We — there was no slacking. If you if you didn’t do it in that time you’re sent round again. Yeah. So it wasn’t a holiday camp. Skegness wasn’t. No.
CB: Back onto the flight lines, so you’re working as an air mechanic, how did you link in with other people with skills like parachute packing, air traffic. Did you link in with people like that?
AC: We never come across the parachute packing and that. We never come across that. We we was more or less on the dispersal. I was just the crew there. You didn’t mix with any others. No. Well, you had —you was occupied. You was fully occupied. Then, of course, when the aircraft took off, you went out went out and got something to eat especially if it was night but you had a chitty and you walked into the messing hall, presented your chit and you got something. It was mostly egg and bacon. So we didn’t do too bad. It wasn’t too bad when it was night duty. It was quite good. Yeah.
CB: And when you did your initial training you had to do a lot of PT, how much exercise did they make you have on the airfields when you were serving there in the front line?
AC: We did get none. The only exercise you got your bike — your pushbike. You were given a pushbike and that was your exercise. Backward and forwards on the bike.
CB: So you got to dispersal on bikes.
AC: Yes. I had a Raleigh. My bike was. Yeah.
CB: How about NAAFI? How much did you use the NAAFI and what was it used for?
AC: The NAAFI? It was canteen, as I said I was a canteen cowboy. [Chuckle]
CB: Sometimes there was more attraction than others.
AC: Yeah, well I married her.
CB: Yeah
AC: I married the girl.
CB: Yeah, good move. So when did you marry?
AC: December the 1st 1945. Yes.
CB: And on that topic, before that you were de-mobbed, so what date were you de-mobbed?
AC: Well me de-mob leave went up to July, so I couldn’t tell ya exactly when I left the Air Force, but my de-mob leave ended in July.
CB: 45? [Loud background noise]
AC: Yes. And I got so fed with being at home I went to the local garage for a job and they set me on straight away. So I I was alright. Quite happy. Yeah.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you very much.
AC: Okay, thank you.
JS: What’s that? [Background noise]
CB: Your wife was in the NAAFI but what about the other WAAFs? How much did airmen link with the WAAFs?
JS: Lots [Chuckle]
AC: Oh terrific. Terrific.
CB: Were there dances on the airfield?
AC: Yes yes. Well those at Newmarket there was a WAAF there ‘cause I hadn’t met the wife yet, and there was a WAAF there and she was a CO’s driver and she was, oh dear, she was a — and after I thought I’m gonna click here. So I so I got to know her well, but she was engaged. [Chuckle] She was engaged to a soldier. Yes.
CB: Soldier? Crikey.
AC: So I thought I was going to make hay but I didn’t. She was she was a nice girl. She came from Ilford.
CB: Oh
AC: That where she come from. Yes.
CB: So, these hangers were quite big and so you could get quite a good liaison behind the hanger in the evening could you?
AC: You could get three Lancs in there.
CB: Right [Laughing]
AC: If you if you — the bloke that drove the tractor knew how to manoeuvre them, you can get three Lancs in. That was quite good weren’t it?
CB: Yeah.
AC: To work on them.
CB: And then in time off, the you’d be behind the hanger.
AC: Yes. No, no I wasn’t one of them. I used to go down, I used to go down to Ely to go down the town. I used to go down with a lad named Maurice and we’d have a look around town and see if there were any girls there that we hadn’t met before. We was hunters. [Chuckle] It was a good laugh, wasn’t it?
CB: Yes, and so clearly, you had some good friendships there. To what extent did you keep in touch with old comrades after the war.
AC: Not, not so much. [Background noise] I had one chap, he came from Northampton I think he was one of the closest but at Ely I had — there there was a chap who’d been in the Air Force at Palestine. He lived at, he lived at Newmarket but he’d come to Ely. Yeah, come to look me up. Yeah, Freddie Claydon. Yes.
CB: So, what were the old times you were thinking about then? Being in Palestine? We haven’t talked about that, so —
AC: Palestine?
CB: What what was the routine there?
AC: Well, I was on the aircrafts. Would it? No. I was in the MT, didn’t I?
CB: Yes.
AC: I was in the MT and we had this here Warrant Officer Smudge Smith. He was — had a mobile office. And it was a metal thing and used to get terrifically hot inside. And Smudge, we used to call him. Warrant Officer. [Chuckle] I’ll tell ya, the Air Force had a good going with the, everybody else. We had an army boy. He he he was a batman to the army liaison officer with the squadron. He couldn’t understand how we got away with so much. He said: ‘I can’t get away like you do with the officers in the army.’ He said, ‘You RAF blokes, you’re not in the forces. You’re having the time of your life.’ We did. After I left square—bashing, I tell you what I never looked back. I didn’t write home to mother and say I wanted to come home. No.
CB: When you remustered what happened to your rank?
AC: Well, well, when I remustered, I was LAC. No, I stayed as a LAC ‘cause I couldn’t get any further until I took another course and I didn’t, that was me mistake. I should have taken took up [unclear] course. That was my mistake. That was the biggest mistake I made.
CB: In the desert in Palestine, were you in the desert or were you in a fairly well cultivated area?
AC: At a RAF station. At an aerodrome.
CB: Yes. Which was that?
AC: Pardon?
CB: Which one?
AC: I was at Ramat David, Ein Shemer, and Kalowinski [?] wasn’t it? Kalowinski. Yeah Ramat David, I rather like that. Ramat David. Yes.
CB: Was that because — why was that? What was special about that?
AC: Well we was on a bit of a hill and the Jews had got a nice vineyard and we used to raid it. We used to go get the grapes [chuckle] at night.
UNKNOWN FEMALE : Hello. Sorry.
CB: Hello. We’ll stop a mo.[Restart] So they’d got all these nice grapes but but the trees —
AC: The bushes.
CB: — the bushes, I mean to say.
AC: Yeah, well you just stand there and pull them off.
CB: So what did they do about that?
AC: Well, they didn’t do nothing ‘cause they couldn’t catch us, could they? We, we took them when they weren’t around. [Chuckle].
CB: What was the airfield, the bases was a well—established airfield, was it?
AC: Ramat David?
CB: Yes.
AC: That was, that was a, that was off the living quarters we weren’t on the living quarters were separate from the airfields. Well they had to be because the Jews used to go down and break glass bottles on the runways at night.
CB: Oh did they? Right.
AC: Right you see, you did your duties, I always got searchlight duty, and I had to maintain this searchlight and you’d whaff the searchlight round and you’d catch them. There they were breaking glass on the runways, yeah.
CB: So what, what —
AC: And we weren’t allowed to shoot them. We had to let them do it and in the morning we had to go and sweep it up. Yeah.
CB: And what was flying from that airfield?
AC: Spitfires and, err what was the American aircraft?
CB: Mustang?
AC: Mustang?
CB: Was it?
AC: Yeah Mustang. Yeah 208 208 Squadron had the Mustangs and 32 Squadron had the Spitfires. Yeah.
CB: So you were dealing with transport, what, what sort of schedule did you operate in a day because it was pretty hot in the middle of the day. So did you start in the —
AC: Yes the middle of the day. 12 o’clock you packed up. You packed up. Then you went back at 6 o’clock at night.
CB: So what time did you start in the morning?
AC: In the morning? 7 o’clock.
CB: And back at six till when?
AC: Yours — 7 o’clock till 12 o’clock but you had about — a break for a meal and then you went back at 6 o’clock at night till 8 o’clock. ‘Cause you didn’t do much — there weren’t much flying at night.
CB: So where — what could you do in you off duty times? Was it quite remote in this place?
AC: In Palestine the off duty time was very very sparse. We used to go down to Jerusalem and Nazareth. Yeah. Nazareth wasn’t too bad. Jerusalem was — Jerusalem was a holiday camp. The Jews used to pop you off when you went up the mountainside. Yeah.
CB: Just shoot you?
AC: Yeah pop at ya. Shoot ya. Shoot at ya. They had they had a crafty idea to go up to Jerusalem, on the bend of the road going up the hill mountain there, they built a pyramid of stones, so you go along the road and you’ve all a sudden you got this pyramid of stones in front of you. Then they they let go at ya. So it — Palestine wasn’t a comfortable place. No.
CB: How many people got hit?
AC: I couldn’t say. But I do — what was it? Was it six? Six airmen got shot at in Nazareth walking walking along the street by the alleyway a burst of gunfire, they got shot at. They got injured. Yeah.
CB: Did any get killed?
AC: No no.
CB: What about the —
AC: I was — pardon?
CB: Go on.
AC: I was there when the Jews blew up the front out of — the what was it called?
CB: The King David Hotel.
AC: King David Hotel. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
AC: I was there then.
CB: Right.
AC: When they blew the front out.
CB: And what about the Arabs? Were they around or not it that area?
AC: Arabs? A funny thing was we got on well with them. We got well with the Arabs. I mean it was only later on that the Arabs turned because they didn’t get what they wanted. Well I couldn’t blame them. You see when the British forces moved out of Palestine like it was at our camp, Ramat David. The Jews was at the main gate when we was coming — gonna come out. They were waiting to go in and at the other side of the aerodrome there was the Arabs waiting to go on. So they had a fight. Well you know won, don’t ya?
CB: Hm.
AC: The Jews won.
CB: Yeah.
AC: The Arabs hadn’t got hadn’t got the ammunition and the guns like the Jews had. Yeah.
CB: So were you happy to leave or would you like to have stayed on in Palestine?
AC: I was really happy to leave. I was happy to leave. I didn’t think much of the place I can tell ya. No.
CB: Did you go on trips to other places in the area or did you stay in the camp?
AC: Oh yes.Yes, I was in the MT then, and we used to drive out to different places I was in I was near Damascus once, just on the outskirts of Damascus and we went all over the place, over the desert. One day we was off duty and the despatch rider said to be Geordie. He came from Newcastle, he said, ‘Arthur, I get— if I give you another motorbike,’ he said: ‘Shall we go out on the motorbike? In the afternoon, you see.’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So he got me an Indian motorbike? American Indian. Have you seen them?
CB: No.
AC: They’re like a Harley Davidson and he had the Harley Davidson, and we went in the desert and we had our revolvers and we were shooting at wild dogs until these wild dogs started to chase us. So we opened up and got out of the way. [Chuckle] It’s an exciting life in the Air Force.
CB: Clearly it was.
AC: I did enjoy it. I wouldn’t have missed it at all. I wouldn’t have missed it.
CB: Just going back to the wartime service at Witchford and Newmarket.
AC: Yes.
CB: Although you weren’t flying, officially, how many hours did you do in total?
AC: What flying?
CB: Hmm.
AC: I never took any recording — any record of it. If they were going up on air test, you say, ‘Can I come?’ and they said, ‘Jump in’ and you just jumped in. You didn’t get no parachute. So —
CB: Oh right.
AC: So you just jumped in. That was it.
CB: So where did you sit on take—off and landing?
AC: I I had the privilege of getting to the front of cockpit ‘cause I wanted to be a Flight Engineer. And I was always to the front with the pilot and the flight engineer all sat at the front there, on a canvas belt what the flight engineer sat on. Yeah.
CB: A number of people became aircrew because they had seen notices on boards in the army quarters and air force stations looking for — requesting people to apply for aircrew, did you never see one of those? What stopped you —
AC: Oh yes, I, I went originally for aircrew. I went originally for it and I passed me medical and I waited but never got called up for it.
CB: Oh. Oh right.
AC: They had too many didn’t they?
CB: They did [pause] ‘cause the losses didn’t continue as high as they thought they would.
AC: Pardon?
CB: The losses — aircrew losses.
AC: Yes.
CB: Diminished. So they didn’t have the demand quite that they had expected.
AC: There was no flying from Lockheed. No, Lockheed was a training camp.
CB: Yes, sure. Right, thank you very much indeed, Arthur.
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 William Arthur Coulton
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-20
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:14:51 audio recording
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACoultonWA161020
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending 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.
Description
An account of the resource
William Coulton was born in Derbyshire and worked as an errand boy for the Co-Op until he joined the Royal Air Force in 1943, aged 18. He trained as a flight mechanic and was posted to 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford where he worked on Lancasters. He was later posted to Palestine with 32 Squadron where he worked on Spitfires. He was demobbed in July 1945 and married his girlfriend Hilda Elsie who he had met serving in the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute. After the war he moved to North Luffenham and worked as a motor mechanic.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Gemma Clapton
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
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Israel
Middle East--Palestine
Israel--ʻEn Shemer
Israel--Ramat Daṿid
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Rutland
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
115 Squadron
208 Squadron
32 Squadron
dispersal
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Newmarket
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Witchford
service vehicle
Spitfire
tractor
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/484/8367/PBunceFSG1609.1.jpg
4fe6a915da9d42b5678afa0adccd7080
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/484/8367/ABunceFSG161108.2.mp3
c0704c95f5fe0c449e29736dbba3fd70
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
Bunce, Sidney
Frederick Sidney George Bunce
F S G Bunce
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bunce, FSG
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. An oral history interview with Sidney Bunce (b. 1925, 3006260 Royal Air Force) notes, service material and four photographs. He served as an engine mechanic with 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford and at RAF Wratting Common with 195 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sidney Bunce and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the eighth of November two thousand and sixteen, and I’m in the village of Thornborough near Buckingham with Sid Bunce, and we’re going to talk about his time as an engineer in the RAF. So, what were your earliest recollections of life Sid?
FB: My early recollections, well, I was born in Lower End, Thornborough and, from then on, I stayed there until I was, ten years old and then by this time I had a brother Harold, he’s eight years younger than me, and er, we moved out of the Lower End into Bridge Street in Thornborough, and, Mother died in September nineteen thirty-six. I stayed with my Father, my brother he was, he went around to the police house where my Grandparents on the Baker side, my Mother’s side, they lived, and he was bought up with my Grandparents and an aunt, who was still unmarried and living there [pause] I was, I started school at Thornborough and I stayed there until I was eleven years old and took the eleven plus, and I, and I failed the eleven plus in so far as I got half way through, and in those days, I think if you, there were so many, erm, seats set aside at the [unclear] school, so that if you, if you got, if you didn’t get the full, er, the full marks that were required you could pay to go to school, but obviously my Father he couldn’t afford to do that. So, I went to what was called then, the Buckingham senior school, I stayed there until I was fourteen. When I left school in July, the war broke out in September nineteen thirty-nine, I wanted to be a motor mechanic and one Saturday afternoon my Father and I went up on the bus from Thornborough to Buckingham and saw a Mr Ganderton, who had a small garage. Unfortunately, the job had gone by the time we got there, so, went up to Cantells in West Street where my cousin Cyril worked as a shop assistant, and from there, he, my Father asked him if he knew of anyone who wanted a boy, and he said, the only one he knew of was Bert Campion who was a manager of E C Turner. He said, he wanted an errand boy, and er, so, we went to see Bert Campion and he asked me a few questions and er, I, he asked me when I could start, and I started work there on the Monday. I had about, I think it was, [pause] roughly about four months and I used to have to do the rounds, the deliveries, on a, each day in any case, and on this particular Saturday, Mr Campion he said, I want you to go across to Adcock’s and I want you to get a white jacket and an apron, and I did that and when I got back he said, I’m going to start you off serving in the shop, so for about a month, or so, I can’t remember, about a month anyway, he, only had one shop assistant and he sacked him and he put me into the, promoted me into the, as a shop assistant. I was very grateful to him in actual fact, because he taught me the bacon trade, and if you, I think if you gave me a side of bacon I could still, I could still bone it and cut it up as a, anyway, I stayed there until, I started to work there at eight shillings a week, that’s 40 pence now isn’t it, and by the time I was sixteen, I was getting a pound a week, and one of my best pals he was at a different place earning more money than I, but eventually, when I started work my Father was concerned for what I would do for a midday meal, because I was working in Buckingham, and I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Buckingham, and I went there for my lunch, from then until I went and joined the air force. But, [pause] I was upset in so far that I wasn’t earning very much money, and eventually my uncle said that they wanted a boy up in the garage at the United Dairies at Buckingham, and I started there, and I was in, I started in the garage. I learnt to drive on a milk lorry, I used to round on the milk, collecting milk and from then on [pause] Where have I got too? [pause] Yes, I started work at the United Dairies and I stayed there until I was called up in the air force, but in between times, the ATC was formed at Buckingham and I joined the ATC, and er, when I was seventeen I volunteered for aircrew, but I wanted to be a flight engineer, and actually the flight mechanics engine course which I did, I believe that was one of the training for flight engineer. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I didn’t, I was put on the volunteer reserve, told to wait for my call up, and I was eighteen on June the twelfth and I was in the air force on August the twenty four, joining at Padgate where I did what we called the square bashing and after that I was er, went to Blackpool, stationed at fourteen eighteen, er, 48 Osborne Road [unclear] shore and erm, we were taken by bus or coach to Squires Gate where we did the training as a flight mechanic engines. When I, it was an eighteen-week course and when I passed I was posted to 115 Squadron at Witchford. [background noise] I stayed there until 195 Squadron was reformed and they took our flight, C Flight of 195, er of 115, and called it A Flight of 195 and after the squadron was fully operational, for a month there were two squadrons operating out of Witchford, and then, 195 Squadron was transferred to Wratting Common. Theres an interesting story about that because there’s a Wratting and there’s West Wickham and other villages, and apparently, this is true anyway, at erm, when Wratting Common was opened in 1940, 1943 they called it West Wickham, and from my understand, the signals were getting crossed with High Wycombe, which is Bomber Command Headquarters, and so they renamed it as Wratting Common. I was there until the end of the war, when we were, when 195 was disbanded, from then I went to Mildenhall for a month, then I was put on an overseas posting, went to Blackpool, but did, was taken off before we were drafted out. Then I was posted to Wing and when Wing was closed down I moved to Silverstone, and we were the last unit in Silverstone when they closed Silverstone. We went up to Swinderby and then that was the end of my service, I went to Kirkham and that was where I was demobbed on April the first 1947.
CB: Okay, we’ll pause there for a moment
[recording paused]
CB: So, that’s a good trail of what you were doing. When you joined the RAF you’d been in the ATC so how did that prepare you for what you, what came next?
FB: Well, in actual fact, I joined the ATC because I wanted to go in the air force, I didn’t want to go in the navy, into the navy I’m not a lover of the sea, not sailing anyway, and as far as the army was concerned and after what I’d seen of my poor Father went through in the First World war, in his health. I was interested in aircraft anyway, and so I joined the ATC. We had a very good warrant officer in charge, Mike Westly, he was a very good instructor and taught us the basics of learning to, er, foot drill, not rifle drill, we didn’t have anything to do with rifles, and so of course when I went on my interview for the air force I didn’t have any problems at all with the foot drill. Rifle drill came quite easy, and it, think it really put me on a good footing for service in the air force, in the air force
CB: So, when you were doing your initial training, erm, then what did you actually do in that initial training at Padgate, activities? You had to do the drill, but what did you do overall?
FB: Well, erm, [pause] let me see
CB: So, it was learning about the RAF?
FB: Yes, we had to, you know, get kitted out and obviously we had to do our spit and polishes, record it
CB: Of your boots?
FB: The erm [pause] I remember we have to make sure with our shoes that they were highly polished and the buttons, we used to have to clean our buttons and [unclear] issued with erm, a kit for cleaning and also for, if I remember rightly sort of doing simple needlework, in so far as sewing on badges or whatever, that kind of thing
CB: And cleaning your
FB: We had some, we had some sport, that actually, that, if I remember rightly, that was an eight week course, yes, eight week course, actually we were there, I was there ten weeks, but that was the fact that we didn’t start training straight away, for whatever reason, I don’t know, I also know that Warrington was the nearest town and we weren’t allowed to go in there, apparently there’d been some problems with the Americans, [laughs] think fighting or whatever, something like that, so I think it was actually, we were put out of bounds, I didn’t miss that anyway. But after the, after that, if I remember rightly, we came home on seven days leave and then had to report back to erm, Blackpool
CB: So, Blackpool was the base for technical training for you, for engineering?
FB: Yes, well yes, Blackpool, we were bused down to Squires Gate into the airfield, and we did our training in one of the hangars, which consisted of, that was eighteen-week course, it composed of fortnightly VV’s as they called it, verbal verification, and the first fortnight we were given [laughs] a lump of metal and a file, and we had to file this lump of metal into whatever shape we were told to do, and that lasted for a fortnight, and after the fortnight you had a verbal verification. So, asked various questions on the, what you’ve been doing for that fortnight, and if you passed you went on to the next stage, if you failed you stayed on and were put back for another fortnight, and if you failed you were kicked out. Fortunately, all of our entry, not one failed. But, after the first fortnight, um, oh I’m a bit hazy on how it worked now, but the next, the next fortnight you had another verbal verification and you had to get a percentage of the questions asked, right and then you went on to the next stage. And I well remember, that eventually, we got to where the stage where we had to dismantle an engine, and one of our entry, he always had the top marks, most of us used to struggle through, and get through the minimum marks required to continue. He was always on top and he, and when we came to taking the engine, dismantling the engine, and we were taught how to take it apart and put them all in sections so that you knew when you went to replace it and put them back, he, he was hopeless, but anyway he did manage to get through and eventually at the end, the last fortnight, I was, erm, revision, and so, we revised all that we’d been trained to do and erm, then you had to go and, if I remember rightly, there was all these various parts out on benches and you had to identify them and what they did, and all the rest of it, and I passed out as an AC2, which meant, the majority of us did, but this, this, funny enough, this chap who wasn’t very good at dismantling engines and reassessing them, he passed out as an AC1 [laughs] and he went straight on to train as an instructor. But, I was posted to 115 Squadron [pause]
CB: So, you come to the end of the course and what do they do as a formality in documentation and parade?
FB: Do you mean, I can’t remember having anything, anything to say that you, I can’t remember, I don’t think we had anything to
CB: I was just thinking of when you get posted to a squadron, they want to know you’re competent, and you might do that with a passing out certificate
FB: I can’t recollect having a pass out certificate
CB: Might be in your service record, we’ll have a look. Okay, so you passed out there, there was a marching parade was there, to mark the end of the course?
FB: Er, oh yeh, well of course, so yes, we were [laughs] during the course at Padgate, then you had the parades
CB: Yeh
FB: On the Sunday, you had the parade on Sunday and so forth, and the band, I used to like, we had a pipe band, I used to like marching behind the pipe band rather [laughs] than a brass band or a silver band
CB: So, you are formed up on the parade square, there are separate sections, and the ones who are passing out are supported by the following courses, is that right? And then you get reviewed by a reviewing officer [pause] and then you march past and the reviewing officer takes the salute, is that right?
FB: Oh yes, we had to march past and salute, yes, I think that was [pause] as far as I remember, and that’s all it was
CB: And then, after that, did they give you a bunfight?
FB: No
CB: Nothing, just disperse
FB: No, we just passed out and got on with it
CB: Yeh, how soon did you then report to the squadron, 115?
FB: I came, yes, but I think I came home on seven days, I think it was seven days leave and then [pause]
CB: So, when you
FB: Yes, I had to, I had to report to RAF Witchford [pause] now I had, had a railway pass obviously, and had to go from Bletchley to Cambridge [pause] I can’t remember the next station
CB: Cambridge up to Ely
FB: Ely, that’s right. Oh yes, then we, we picked up, erm, a lorry
CB: What was the rank and status that you had then?
FB: I was AC2, AC2. While I was at Witchford, I had to, for erm, sort of erm, promotion if you call it that. I had to, an interview and was asked various questions on, well, what you knew and what you were capable of, and I passed for that, and I was AC1. I was still AC1 when we left Witchford before Wratting Common, and there again, one of the sergeants after we’d been there, been there a while, I took another exam if you like, and I passed that and became a LAC, and I was an AC for the rest of my service
CB: When you arrived at Witchford, what process did they put you through in linking you with the squadron?
FB: Well, one, obviously gone on parade and I can’t remember, but I was sort of allocated to this group with a, I’ve forgotten the sergeants name now, but erm, so I joined this, I joined this, basically the group, the small group was responsible for two aircraft, you know the pans were sort of, not too far away from one another, based round the airfield, and
CB: The pans are where the aircraft are parked?
FB: Actually stand, yeh, yeh, and as I was a sprog, newly trained, the sergeant, he put me with an older fitter, not much older, but name of Malcolm Buckingham, and we worked together on the same plane, from then right through until the end of the war, but, the sergeant, he was a very, very, very good sergeant, he knew exactly what you were capable of and he wouldn’t let you do anything until he knew you were capable of doing it, and the one of the things that you did have to make sure of when you was pulling the chocks away, to take, that you run backwards and not forward otherwise you [bang noise] you run into the propellers. Well, we did our daily inspections, DI’s, and obviously we did all the checking. If there had been any faults reported, minor faults that we could do, out on the flights, we did, if they were major they used to have to go into the hangars. But, when, as far as the operations was concerned, when, if you, normal working time was erm, eight till five, but if you were on what they called take off, you still worked from eight till five, then you went down to, well to have your meals, but you had to get back on to the air, onto the airfield an hour before take-off [pause] The crew, when the air crews were bought out and left in their different planes, I worked on A4D-Dog and the other one was A4C- Charlie, they were the two planes, but basically what happened, the aircrew came out and obviously they would have a look around, to check that everything was okay, and also inside, and when it was time to start up, one of us used to get up under the undercart, as we used to call it, under the wheels where the [unclear] gas pumps were, and there was two [unclear] gas pumps, there was one for the starboard inner and one for the starboard outer, one for port inner and one for the port outer, and you jumped up and one of you went up there and primed it, the other stayed on the trolley where the batteries were on the trolley, and when the skipper was ready to start up, he used to, well, obviously they were all, all, night operations, so if it was dark we used to get the skipper to just put his Nav lights on and off, so when I used to do the priming and when I used to press the button, and the start all four engines up, and they did the run up, we used to, when we were doing the DI’s in the morning we used to take them up to about three thousand revs a minute and then test the mags, switch each magneto off one at a time, and if there was a revs drop more than one hundred revs, then we had to do a change, a plug change. When they done there, when they done they’re run off, well, we used to take and pull the chocks out and away they went and we used to wait up there until all of them had taken off, and then as far as you were concerned you were finished until the following morning. But, if you were on all night as they called it, then the same procedure happened in as far as I you get up an hour onto the airfield, an hour before take-off and when they’d all gone you were able to go back to your billet or to the NAAFI, you couldn’t obviously, you couldn’t leave the airfield, and then you were told what the ETA was, and you would get on up to the airfield, an hour before they were expected back. I used to say to erm, well you, the, whoever you, whoever you see [unclear] I used to say to them, ‘flash D in morse, or C for Charlie’, then you knew which pan to put them on, and when they came and you put them on, on, on the pan, you used to get the ladder out, and they used to come out and you used to ask them if there was any snags, and if there were any snags, then you went and reported them to the flight office. After they’d gone, you used to go back and put the locking bars in, chocks underneath and shut it up and that was your, then you were finished, then you could go back and you had the following day off
CB: When you talk about locking bars, these are the effectively the clamps that stop the control surfaces,
FB: Stop it, yeh
FB: So, in the wind they wont
FB: That’s right
CB: Flail around
FB: That’s right
CB: Right, okay. Now as an air mechanic, what was your specific role, because everybody mucked in, but actually you had a specific, which was engine was it?
FB: Oh, engines
CB: Yeh
FB: Yes
CB: Right
FB: So, you see there was erm, there was two engine mechanics if you like
CB: Yeh
FB: And, a rigger for air frame, sort of for each, and obviously the, all the ancillary, so the armourers, the electricians and all of those, and of course did their own, their own job [pause]
CB: For each aircraft, so that there would be a Chiefy, he’d be a flight sergeant?
FB: Well
CB: Or what? ’Cos the gang effectively
FB: The gang, it was a sergeant
CB A sergeant, yes
FB: Sometimes there was two sergeants and a corporal, it just all depends how it was, but erm, yes, there was a sergeant in charge of you
CB: Yes
FB: In your little gang
CB: So, in the team, the gang, you had a sergeant, two engine mechanics, a rigger, an electrician?
FB: Well, there was a, yes, an electrician and of course
CB: And the armourer
FB: But when they bought the bombs out
CB: Yes
FB: The armourers, they, they obviously, they did the bombing up
CB: Yeh
FB: Winching up into the bomb bays
CB: So, the bombs came on trolleys?
FB: [inaudible]
CB: How did they get the bombs up into the bomb bay?
FB: Well, they put them, obviously the bomb doors were open
CB: Yep
FB: One of the armourers would go up into the plane and they sort of winched them up, they’d draw them up on
CB: An electric winch?
FB: Yes, draw them up on that, and then when they were secured, erm
CB: Where was the winch operated from?
FB: More often, but it all depends what the target was going to be, where they were going, but generally it was, it could be a load of incendiaries
CB: Yep
FB: And then perhaps a four thousand pounder or an eight thousand pounder, and then they got larger, but that was generally the load. Sometimes it would be thousand pounders, it just all depended on what the target was going to be and obviously the crew would never tell you where they were going, you wouldn’t expect them to, but they might say where they’d been but very, very, very rarely, you could get a rough idea where they may be going or what area, because of the bomb load and the fuel load, because depending on, I think if I remember right, erm, Berlin it would be almost full tanks, if I remember right, I think the Ruhr, depending where it was, sometimes it would be about seventeen fifty gallons, coming er, coming nearer to home it would be fifteen, yeh, fifteen hundred gallons, if I remember when we were [unclear] up for D Day, we were doing two ops. We used to have to get up at four o’clock in the morning er, and get up on the airfield, 1944 that was a really cold winter [laughs] we had to, well, the engines, we didn’t, we weren’t too badly off because we’d put a load of lanolin grease on the leading edges of the props and the erm, main plane, but the poor old riggers they used to have to go and de-ice the Perspex and all the rest of it [laughs] What that consisted of, we engine ones used to have a can of antifreeze, a drum of antifreeze and a stirrup pump, and the airframe, they used to have to go up onto the, onto the, on the main plane obviously, and erm, they used to have to spray the Perspex to clear them, that was quite a job
CB: What did they do? How did they clear them, they didn’t just scrape them did they?
FB: No, it was just a stirrup pump, you see, you spray it
CB: Yes, but what were they spraying? Was that antifreeze as well?
FB: Oh yes, because they got to clear the you know, the cockpit
CB: Yeh
FB: And the mid upper gunner, and all the rest of it. Tail end Charlie he was [laughs] I wouldn’t have wanted to do that job
CB: The rear gunner?
FB: Hmm, no
CB: You mentioned about the leading edges, so on the props and on the leading edges of the main plane
FB: Lanolin grease
CB: Right, yeh, right, so you spread that on with your hands or best with stick, yeh, okay, and that worked, did it?
FB: Oh yes, that worked, yeh, yeh
CB: What about things like the Peto head, you really couldn’t put anything on that could you?
FB: No, no
CB: Okay, so starting, you’ve got a trolley ack
FB: Yeh
CB: How do you go about starting?
FB: Well
CB: So, the trolley ack being the trolley accumulator
FB: Well, that’s plugged in, its, its plugged in, as I say you go up
CB: Into the engine bay, is it?
FB: Hmm
CB: Right
FB: Then, one of you, as I say, went up on the on top of the wheel in other words
CB: Yes
FB: Undercarriage, and there are these [unclear] gas pumps, and when they, the skipper was ready to start up, you used, you used to prime them, er, basically it was more like a choke on a car I would think, but you used to give them, they probably need perhaps about six or eight pumps, each pump, and while you were doing that, of course the, your mate, he was pressing the button to, where it was plugged in, to turn the engines over
CB: What was this stuff that gave the extra urge, it wasn’t an ethanol something, what was the material, what was the erm, fluid that you were pumping in to give it that surge of
FB: Oh, that was, that was petrol
CB: It was just neat petrol?
FB: Hmm
CB: Right
FB: ‘Cos you got your, obviously you got your blowers as we used to call it, it’s at the trunk, that erm, built it up
CB: Yeh
FB: You got your mixture and, away she went
CB: So, what was the engine starting sequence?
FB: Erm, you start the starboard engine, starboard engine, inner engine first
CB: Right, what
FB: Where the hydraulics are, so if that didn’t, obviously if you hadn’t any hydraulics you didn’t have brakes or anything else. And er, [unclear] it all depended on what, on what the pilot wanted to do, but that one was first, then probably it would be the starboard outer, because if you started off on that side, well obviously, you’ve got to go round to the other side to start the others up, so, yeh
CB: So, you moved the trolley ack each time or was there one trolley ack each side?
FB: Well, no, you moved it and plugged it in
CB: Yeh, okay
FB: I nearly always went up on, I nearly always went up on the wheel and did the pumping
CB: Now, this is pretty close to the propellers, so what was the procedure to make sure people didn’t walk into a propeller?
FB: Well actually, when er, when all the engines were running and they were ready to move off, you had to make sure that your chock, it was no good you see, you had the rope
CB: Attached to the chock?
FB: From the, attached to the chock
CB: Just to explain, the chock is holding the wheel
FB: But, the point is this, it was no good if you, where the knot was
CB: Yes
FB: Where it was knotted, it was no good putting the knot and straight through there, because you wouldn’t move them, you could not pull it out, ‘cos normally the wheels would move just a little bit onto the chock you see, so what you had to do, you put your chock and you run your, from here, round the front of the chock and back there, and then when you pulled it, you see, that pulled it out like that, if you did, you couldn’t get it out, if you did, it was a straight pull, it had to go round and pull it out
CB: Right, so, the
FB: And when you did that, as you pulled it, you ran backwards, no good running forwards, you ran backwards and that was it
CB Right, and there’s a chock each side of the wheel?
FB: Oh yeh
CB: And when
FB: There was, just in front of the wheel, but each wheel had the chock obviously
CB: Not just at the front
FB: Yeh
CB: Okay, at what point would the chocks normally, would they have been put in? When would the chocks normally have been put up against the wheel?
FB: Oh well, you put the, when the er, a plane for instance would come back afterwards, you, you put the chocks on straight away
CB: When its landed?
FB: When its landed, yeh
CB: So, the plane is a light at that point and when you start it up its heavy because it’s got the bombs and the fuel on, so that pushes the tyre down onto the chock
FB: Well, just
CB: Making it difficult to pull away
FB: Yes, as I say it was straight pulled, it wouldn’t come
CB: No
FB: You had to do it then and there
CB: Right
FB: Yeh
CB: So, at that point what does the ground crew do as the aircraft starts up to taxiing?
FB: Well, the er, as I say, when er, when er, they started up, done the run up, it was out turn to go off round the perimeter track to the runway, then erm, those of you there, you always used to stop until they’d all gone off
CB: Watch them go?
FB: And er, well, there’s a little bit I’ll tell you about
CB: Okay
FB: Er, later on, erm, what else, as I say, if there were any snags, but you went back to the flight office anyway
CB: Right
FB: When both planes were back, and you went and you reported, and of course the crew had been taken off for debriefing, and, when you, when your two planes are back you were finished, you could go back. You used to go back and have a meal and then go into bed and have the rest of the day off
CB: Yes, I’m just trying to get the sequence here because, to give people an idea of just how it went. So, at take-off, you, they’ve done the run up, checked and tested the engine, run up, chocks away
FB: Yes
CB: And then, what do you do as a ground crew, do you watch them go and then go for meal or how did that work?
FB: Just watch them, yes
CB: ‘Cos the
FB: I think everybody, I was taken all round the circuit
CB: Yes
FB: We always used to stop and watch them go off until they’d all gone. There was one incident [pause] obviously they, when they took off they used to go round and then they used to rendezvous where they had to go before [unclear] rendezvous to go out on their raid, and one night there was a [laughs] an awful crump and er, they erm, there was a four thousand pounder, something had gone wrong and it
CB: A cookie fell out?
FB: It fell out, yeh [laughs] oh dear, well, these things happened. The worst thing that happened, I’ve got it, I marked it there to show you. German night fighters used to, would follow them back. When I was with 115, they shot two of our planes down, because obviously they didn’t always come back together, they’d come at intervals and you stayed there until your two planes had come back. Fortunately, touch wood, old Buck and I, we never lost a plane, but that was exceptional er, I suppose, but this particular night they, you see, what they did when they came back, well, they had to wait their turn to land, and so, obviously they used to do a circuit, and it was on one of these circuits that this plane was coming in to land and er, this night fighter shot it down, they were all killed, they all lost their lives, both crews, they both, but at different intervals, the same night, we lost two
CB: What was the reaction of their individual ground crews to the loss of their aircraft?
FB: well, I don’t really know because I never lost one, but I suppose they’d be, I presume they’d be allocated another, I don’t really know about that
CB: I wondered if it was spoken about when you were in the NAAFI or somewhere, or did people ever talk about it, or did they just keep on?
FB: No, no, they didn’t talk about it, no
CB: Right, now what about accommodation, what did you have in?
FB: We were in nissen huts
CB: Right, how many in a nissen hut?
FB: Oh, what would it be [pause] one, two, three, four [pause] about twelve I think
CB: And how was the nissen hut heated?
FB: Oh, a stove, a coke stove [pause] Ah, [emphasis] we used to have a stove, up in the, in the erm, [pause] in the hut, where we, you know, kept the tools and all the different stuff in there, there was a stove in there, to sort of, keep it warm, and [pause] there is, have this coke, I mean, sort of filled it up, lit it and basically that was [pause] I mean for a lot of the time, for a lot of the morning anyway, erm, you was still working, you know, you were doing your DI’s you see, daily inspection, coal was off and of course with the Lancaster, you had to get up on these gantry’s because there was no, it was different to when I was on Wellingtons, had to, when I got round to [unclear] and Silverstone, I mean you could get on there, used to slide down the back, down the main frame on the Wellington [laughs] we used to get up there, on a Lancaster you couldn’t, oh dear
CB: So
FB: 44, that was a cold winter
CB: So, how did you deal with the cold on the flight line, in other words, out on the dispersal?
FB: Well, you, you see, you had mittens on because you can’t really feel with gloves on, it, you had to keep your fingers sort of [inaudible] [laughs] the weirdest thing was ever, if you had to do a plug change, and if you happened to drop a plug down in the trunk, of course they were v engines, you see, you could drop one down there, and that used to be a dickens of a job to get the blooming thing back out [laughs] to put it in, ah, but, at least they say live and learn, and you did
CB: You talk about a plug change, that’s because you’d get misfire was it or was there a sequence where you changed all the plugs?
FB: Yeh well, if the er, if the, obviously your magneto, it’s like a dynamo, in so far as supplying the spark
CB: Yes
FB: But if er, they dropped back there, then obviously, it’s erm, you wouldn’t need a, it wouldn’t need a, very doubtful it would be the magneto, so it would be a plug or plugs, that weren’t firing properly to do that. We didn’t have a lot of trouble, I mean that old Merlin, it was a lovely engine to work on, no problem at all really
CB: In what way was it good to work on?
FB: Pardon?
CB: In what way was it good to work on?
FB: Well, it was [pause] the construction of it, mind you, everything it was bonded, so, when you, when you took your coverings off to do your, check them, you had to check them, every one of those, and if there was, if there was any bonding broken, then obviously that had to be replaced, you see, it was for erm, obviously for the electricity, for it was a static electricity, you didn’t want anything like that, with the petrol, I mean that was a hundred octane petrol, so that was green and that was pretty horrible [laughs] oh dear
CB: Did anybody get fires on the ground?
FB: Fires?
CB: Engine fires or any kind of?
FB: No, erm, now where was that? [pause] I think that was at Wratting Common. The plane had been, been in the hangers for overhaul or whatever, I don’t know what, and the, they’d obviously had the under propeller off for some reason or other, and when they bought it out and they started it, it come off, flew off, erm but I only, I didn’t actually see it, I heard that it happened, but er, say, that plane A4D-Dog, that’s the one where this crew did a complete tour of ops, actually, that went on to do a hundred and five ops
CB: Did it
FB: But, by the time that stayed behind on, because it was on C-Flight, by that time, er, when we were, 195 was reformed, we had worked on it, Buck and I worked on it and I think they had done, either fifty nine or sixty ops, but that went on, on the history of it, to do one hundred and five, which erm, when, well when the, of course I was at 195 at Wratting Common then, but erm, when the Dutch, when they were in that, after the invasion had started and they were liberated, we went on what they called Manna, which was dropping the food supplies to them. So, we went on that and then after that, when that had finished, we started bringing back the prisoners of war
CB: Operation Exodus
FB: Yes
CB: Okay, let’s just pause there for a moment, you just have a breather
[interview paused]
FB: There’s one thing
CB: These gantries you had to use?
FB: We never had to do was wear a ring
CB: Ah
FB: Because if you wore a ring and you slipped, that would rip your finger off, you see, so, I never wore a ring anyway, I’ve never ever worn a ring in that case, but you never wore a ring. It’s like a lot of things, its common sense, I mean, there are things but obviously you shouldn’t do but if you do, well you suffer by it, really. We used to, well, I mean, oh crikey, I was only eighteen [laughs] eighteen, nineteen years old, I mean, we used to clamber up them no problem at all [pause]
CB: How safe were these gantries you used?
FB: Oh, they, they were safe enough, if I mean er, it was just a matter of climbing up on the, onto and getting on the platform, yeh they were safe enough, you didn’t have, well I didn’t hear of anyone getting injured by falling off them or anything like that
CB: So, on the flight line on the dispersal, you had a team of people we talked about just now, what would make it necessary for the aircraft to go into a hangar?
FB: If they had a major, for instance if there, had been on a raid, and they were badly shot up or anything like that, well, obviously they would go in, into for repair, er, if an engine, well, if anything really, but engines in particular, if there any major fault or [unclear] then you couldn’t do that, that was somethings obviously, you could do minor repairs on the flights but if it was a major repair well it had to go into the hangar because you just wouldn’t have the facilities or anything else to do it
CB: What about engine changes?
FB: One thing you used, well, as far as engine changes were concerned, I never experienced an engine change because as I say, the planes that I worked on we didn’t lose any, that Malcolm Buckingham and I worked on, but erm, I remember, if, if, if they had been out on a raid and they couldn’t get back to their base, [background noise] there was at Woodbridge, there’s two airfields, one was the Americans on and the other one which was what, we used to call them the crash land station, basically it was one plane that couldn’t get back to their main airbase, but they could get down there, and they used to go down there. And, what happened in that er, base, although obviously I never experienced it, but if a plane didn’t get back to, for instance, Witchford or to Wratting Common, if they didn’t get back there then the crew that serviced them they used to go over to service them and put them right and then they flew back to the base
CB: And, did that ground crew take, erm, road transport or did they get flown there?
FB: I think they took road transport. I’m not too sure about that because as I say I never experienced it but that’s what happened
CB: How many times did you have the opportunity of flying, in the aircraft you serviced?
FB: Well, no, if erm, if we are doing an air test you could go up if you wanted to, but it just all depends
CB: Why were air tests conducted, what was the purpose?
FB: When you went on an air test, obviously they would test the engines, so what they used to do, was, switch one off, off at a time and you know, get the reaction of erm, for instance mag drop, things like that. They used to try and test all four, one at a time, and then they would feather them, you know, and of course when you feather them, then of course you un feathered them to start them up again and all that and the old Lanc, that would fly on one engine, but obviously it was forever losing height, but they did these air tests just to see that everything that had been done was working as it should do. I didn’t go on many, but erm
CB: Where would you sit when you went up on an air test?
FB: Well, of course, with the full crew there, you would sit on the floor kind of thing [laughs] that weren’t very comfortable
CB: No, thinking of the
FB: And the poor old, the rear gunner, he was the worse off really because he was so far away from the rest of the crew you see, you’ve got your pilot and then your flight engineer, er, your bomb aimer observer and then of course the wireless operator had got his own little bit and the navigator [pause] [unclear] because er, well it depended on where they were going, but you get eight or nine hours, stuck up in one of those and [pause] no, I don’t think its er [pause] It’s marvellous what they did actually
CB: You said you originally wanted to be flight engineer but once you got on the flight line
FB: I must, I must admit that when I’d done my training and I went out on a and saw what was happening, I thought, well I thank my lucky stars I don’t, of course I was on the volunteer reserves, so if ever they did want a [pause] sort of a flight engineer, I suppose I would have been called up, because the flight engineer, as I say, the flight engineer as far as I can understand, their engine training was similar to what we did as a flight mechanic engines, it was just the extra, erm, you know with the checking the fuel pumps and that, switching the switch in the tanks and er, and I think that they did a little bit of basic flying if the pilot, you know, got injured or killed or anything like that, to take over, and er, but, so no it must have been. You could tell and get quite a good idea of, I mean, no target was easy, I mean there was always a danger there, but you could get a pretty good idea, if they were quite chirpy when they came out it was one of the not so difficult raids they were going on, but if it were Berlin or anything like that or, always they were very quiet which you could understand
CB: Yeh
FB: ‘Cos they not only had to put up with night fighting, there was anti-aircraft guns, must have been horrible
CB: How often did your two planes return with damage?
FB: Er
CB: And what was it?
FB: [pause] Do you know I can’t remember, if they ever did come back with any damage that I worked on [pause] no, I know that was when we were at er, at Wratting Common, about 1944, one night I heard, when, when they started sending these erm, oh, doodlebugs over, but er, they sounded, their engine, it sounded like an old two stroke engine struggling up a hill, [laughs] up a hill, kind of thing, and er, and of course the thing was once the engine cut, they come down, and this particular night, I went to the Nissen huts and there was some windows at the end, but not the end in between sort of thing, and actually saw this old doodlebug going and the engine cut, and it went down and it fell, and it fell just outside of the airfield [laughs] oh dear, it was an experience
CB: What was the most frightening part of your service, which would you say?
FB: Most frightening? [pause] I don’t really know, I do recall one thing that was happening, now when they were winching, winching erm, [unclear] it was a four pounder,
[unknown inaudible]
FB: Four thousand pounder, I think that was when
CB: A cookie
FB: Loading a four thousand pounder up, and it dropped, and we ran, we ran, and then we suddenly realised that if it had gone off, if it had gone off, we wouldn’t have been there, but er, the trouble was with the, if the incendiaries fell, I think they only had to drop about nine inches before they, and they were in long canisters, and there was a sort of bars that when, I suppose, that when the bomb aimer pressed the tip, then I suppose these bars fell away and then they just fell down in a cluster, I don’t know
CB: And er, you saw the, you were there when the crew got in the plane to go
FB: Oh yes
CB: And you were there when they came back, what sort of erm, relationship did you have with your ground crew with them?
FB: Very good, very good, yeh
CB: And so, did they talk to you when they landed?
FB: As I say, they, [unclear] what they, you used to say, ask them if there were any snags, if there were they told you what they were, but erm, they didn’t say, they didn’t say a lot, I mean, they were just waiting for the lorries, or whatever they were using to take them back for debriefing and they would say they were tired and I don’t know what they experienced, you know
CB: Quite
FB: So, but er, other times, I mean, if they, sometimes they would come out, because they weren’t, if I think, I think that what they used to say that happen one day, two raids and then down one, of course they had the leave as well, they didn’t all have the leave at the same time, so they would, they er, say if the erm, pilot was on leave or something, there’d be another pilot take over. Quite often what happened, with a crew, when they come out and then, there was a new crew had been, er, sent to Witchford, the pilot would go as a, I think they call it, a second dicky or something like that, but they used to go out, they were taken out on their first raid
CB: Just the pilot?
FB: To get the idea that and what it was all about
CB: What about the social life on the airfield?
FB: Well, what we used to do if er, [pause] when you, well you see, you used to get up and have your breakfast and then get up back onto the flight, er onto the airfield and do your work, and in the evening you could go to the NAAFI, or down into the village into the pub, which quite often that’s what we did do, and erm, [pause] I can’t remember the other, we had a cinema, I can’t even remember going to the cinema anyway, probably we did, and of course we spent a lot of time in your billet writing letters, you know, home and that kind of thing
CB: Did they run dances?
FB: Erm, [pause] no, not that I’m aware of
CB: Right, so Witchford we’ve talked a lot about, what was the difference, when you went to Wratting Common?
FB: The difference? [emphasis]
CB: Was your accommodation different or the same?
FB: No, no it was still Nissen, still Nissen huts, much about the same as at Witchford, ‘cos erm, 115 of course that was one of the most successful and er, and suffered some of the heaviest losses during the war, but, at Wratting Common, I of course, I was nineteen, 1944, when we moved into, into er, Wratting Common, I can’t remember, I didn’t have all that long at Witchford actually, I’ve forgotten though. It was definitely 1944 when we moved over to Wratting Common anyway
CB: Yes, so, you were at Wratting Common until
FB: The war ended
CB: The war ended, that is to say the war in Europe
FB: Yes
CB: Ended
FB: Yes, yes
CB: Okay, and so
FB: I think we, I think, [pause] I think it was 1946 when we actually disbanded
CB: The squadron disbanded? Yeh
FB: [pause] I’ve got some [background noise] [inaudible]
CB: And so, everybody stayed with the squadron and until the squadron disbanded, is that what you mean?
FB: Yes
CB: Yeh [pause] we are just looking at timings. So, what happened, er, we can look that up later, what happened when they decided to disband? How did that get announced?
FB: Well, as, [laughs] as far as we were concerned, they said we were disbanded and that’s one thing I always regretted because I’d always worked with Malcolm Buckingham and we never exchanged addresses or anything else, meaning we didn’t keep in touch
CB: Did you never?
FB: No
CB: Know what happened to him at all?
FB: No, and when I, when we were on holiday, he came from a little village called Grundisburgh near er, that’s not that far away from Woodbridge, and we went to on holiday to er, Yarmouth or something, well down that way anyway, and I drove round, well, that was us and the two children, I drove round to this little village, and er, I went into the pub and I said does anyone know a gentleman called Malcolm Buckingham, and they said, oh no, never heard of him and that was as near as I got to actually ever finding him. The other one I palled up with, which is on the, on one of those photographs is erm, he was a Scotsman, ‘McKay the Jock McIver,’ and he lived at Thurso, and he used to get an extra days travelling for the distance he had to travel, but if the three of us were off duty at, at you know, we used to go down, generally used to go down the pub and have a pint or two and a sing song and that, ‘cos aircrew used to down in there as well you see. And erm, it was alright in the NAAFI, we used to go, you could go in the NAAFI. If I remember right, sometimes, and I think that was towards the end of the war anyway, if I remember right, they used to have this ‘housey, housey.’ as they used to call it in the old days, bingo, you know and that, but I think mainly we used to just go down the pub and have a pint. [laughs] I was trying to look see [pause]
CB: So, so you had no control over your demob, they just decided when that would be?
FB: Well, you, you had your group you see, I was fifty-five, when I, my group, when I got demobbed
CB: In your grouping, yeh, which was, so you were demobbed on the first of April 1947
B: 1947, yeh
CB: What did you do then?
FB: Well, I came home and erm, you had accrued, erm, what was it? Fifty, I think fifty-six days, fifty-six days leave, er, yeh, and I think owed fifty pounds demob money [pause] it all depends, I think, but erm, fifty-six days leave, I think that was a, er, minimum, I think it probably, if you did more service than that or where ever you’d been, they may, I’m not sure about that, that may possible have been longer, but I think fifty-six was a, sort of a general thing
CB: What did they give you in the way of clothing, when you were demobbed?
FB: Oh yeh, you handed in your suit and you got kitted out with the, well, with shoes, socks, pants, vest, shirt, erm, now I think I’m not sure whether you could have a choice of a suit or these sorts of flannels and a jacket, I can’t remember, what did I have? I know one thing, that when I, when I joined up at Padgate, of course we had to send er, send erm, civilian clothes home, and mine never, mine never ever arrived, they were lost, which I think happened quite often, but er, yeh
CB: So, you got your leave, you come back, then what?
FB: I think I, yeh, I think I had a fourth, two months and then I went back to the United Dairies because they were duty bound, or anyone went back to their old job, or wanted to go back to their old job, I think the companies were duty bound to take them for six months. So, of course, I went back and er, [laughs] Jack Hancock, he said, ‘are you coming back in the garage with me?’ and I said, ‘I’d like to go driving if you’ve got a driving job,’ and that’s what I did. I stayed there until I was thirty four, and that was November nineteen fifty nine, I moved then, the only reason I moved was for more money, and I’d got a brother in law who works at Calvert, and he used to say, ‘you want to get on, you’ll be far better off coming to work for Calvert driving,’ and I said, ‘ah well,’ I said, ‘the problem is you get up on eight wheelers and you’ve [laughs] got to do nights out, and he said, ‘well, that won’t hurt you will it?’ But, anyway, that’s what happens, you started off on the small lorries, on the little old Albion’s
CB: [inaudible]
FB: G wagons, they were about two, what was it? two and a half thousand bricks, and then you went up onto the D, and then a K, then a L, and eventually onto eight wheelers. I had ten years on eight wheelers, I came off, my father in law had, had a stroke and er, and Mum she, she passed away, and he was living with us and, well, they were both living with us for a time, and er, he was getting a bit of a problem at night, they was having a bit of a problem dealing with him in the night, and erm, we’d got the two children of course, so I asked if I could be excused nights out, and they said, no you, that would cause a precedent if we do that, and the only answer to it is if you don’t want to do nights out, is you’ll have to come off eight wheelers, so I said, that’s what I’ll do then, but erm, I went on the stores like, the stores wagon and various jobs around the yard, and erm, when the old chap, when he died, but, see we used to start work at six until half past five, we used to do eleven hours a day, that was Monday to Saturday, and then we went down to five days a week, and erm, and eventually, ‘cos there was no motorways when I started at the Calvert, there, there was that short stretch of M1 that had opened in. I think that was in June nineteen fifty nine, I’m not sure and we never used the M1 anyway, but when they built the M4, and the M5 and the M6, we used all of those, and er, [pause] you had, before, before they were built and opened you had to stop to, wherever you were going, you had to stop on your, the route that you were supposed, for instance, if we were going down to, down into Wales, well, we used to go from Calvert to Oxford, from Oxford we used to go then into Cheltenham, Gloucester, Chepstow and then wherever in Wales it was, of course when they opened the M4, we were able to go from Calvert to Swindon, get on the M4, went down straight there, and so, and of course you used to get, when you were on nights out, you used to get your night out money, well er, when these motorways were opened, what would have been night out journeys, it was still night out journeys as far as the company were concerned, but you could get back almost to, you could get back to Aylesbury or Weston on the Green, depending where, and you could thumb a lift home and get back in the morning or whenever, and you used to get your night out money, well of course the company soon got wise about that, and so what we, there was this particular, this big map put in the driver’s room, and there was Calvert there like that, and then there was a five mile radius, up to hundred miles radius, and so, the farther you went, the more you earned, the more you were paid, and but, a lot of them soon got wise, and they thought if they could get two shorter journeys allocated to them, then they could do two journeys and they’d get twice as much money, you see, but I never bothered, by this time I was about fifty one, fifty two and I said to them, I said, to them one day, I’ve had enough of this cowboy driving and I’m going to find another job. As luck happens, I’m out every night, there was, you were put, the list and where you were going the following day, well, on the Friday, on this particular Friday, there was a notice on the notice board advertising a vacancy for a garage maintenance clerk, and I said to Tom Ridgeway who was the foreman at that time, I said, ‘I’m going to put in for that job Tom,’ ‘well,’ he said, ‘you can put in for it, whether you’ll get it or not I don’t know but you’ll have an interview anyway,’ and anyway I got the job and I went, and went onto the staff and I didn’t earn as much money, er salary weekly, but there were one or two perks and the best one actually, it was a non-contributory pension scheme, so when I, when I finished with them, I came out with a lump sum and a small pension, which I obviously still get, so that did me a lot of good in many ways
CB: But had that pension started when you first joined?
FB: When I first joined you paid in, you had to pay in for a pension
CB: Oh right
FB: You had to pay in for a pension
CB: No, when you became staff
FB: That was sort of one of the perks really, because
CB: Non-contributory, right. So
FB: So, I had, well I had twenty-seven and a half years all told, seventeen as driving you see and ten and a half with the garage maintenance staff
CB: These eight wheelers were difficult to handle without power steering, were they?
FB: Er?
CB: The eight wheelers were difficult to handle without power steering?
FB: Yes, there was no power steering on the ones I drove. I came off the road and they went over to these Volvo’s [unclear] were the ones we, they were good but you had this big old engine by the side of you in the cab you see, and it went thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, but erm, the later ones, by this time I was already off the road, but they, they did have power steering, the old eight wheelers, I used to, I never, I never, really did enjoy going down into Wales especially in the winter time, er, because they were, you know, they were building sort of up on the side of the mountain, I supposed you call it, I don’t know or whatever, but that used to be a job turning round ‘cos what we used to do, you see, you used to go down and the, they’d take, take anywhere they wanted the bricks and you set up and er, with the, before they started with the erm, forklifts and that, er, it was all unloaded or off loaded, and you had seven thousand bricks on an eight wheeler, and so, what they used to call the stick up, which was one, one row in the centre, down, and then over the side, you build it up, and then three [unclear] we used to call them, and so you used to take off half, and then turn round and take the other half off you see, well, when you were on, on the these, it needed a bit of moving, handling [laughs]
CB: I can imagine. Before fork lifts, how did you load, who loaded the trucks in the first place?
FB: Oh, the, they, the night shifts used to do that, they were mainly, mostly they were nearly all Italians, they used to be up at erm, Aylesbury, and then they, they said that er, where the old royal, when you went up to the hill, where the old royal hospital was, the other side of the road there, that was, and they used to say the Itie, erm, Italians, and someone, when I got out of bed they [unclear] can’t hear you [laughs] I don’t know, but yes, and they had a place over, oh, Bedford way, somewhere I think. [pause] It was well organised, it was a, it was a good company to work, they used to, when I came everywhere, they used to say, you keep your nose clean and you’ll be alright [laughs]
CB: Well, the pay was quite good there, wasn’t it?
FB: Oh yeh well, the first erm, when I left the United Dairies, I think I was getting ten pounds a, yeh, ten pounds a week, and the, and the first pay day I had at Calvert, and that wasn’t a full, that wasn’t a full week, and I had erm, fourteen pounds, and as you, and as you worked your way up from the small to the eight wheelers, and course eight wheelers, that was top, top rate of pay, but erm, the last week that I was actually driving, and of course by this time they started this erm, radius miles, that first, that was the last week that I was actually driving, that I earned one hundred pounds for the week, but erm, some of them used to earn that, it all depends, as I say, whatever journey they gave me I did, I didn’t rush around to try and get another journey here and there
CB: Right
FB: What I did was, whatever time it took me I did, and that was it, you know, I said, as I said to my wife, I’ve had enough of this cowboy driving and that would have been used to it
CB: This is London Brick company?
FB: That was London Brick company, but before as you see, they again, that was a well-run company, a well-run company, but when Sir Ronald Stewart retired as chairman, it seemed as it going downhill, I can’t remember who took over from him, but I don’t, and they started with training on all the systems, they had sort of a foreman and, well, had a foreman and a charge hand but then they, then they used to have a manager, and a manager and so on and so forth and all this, and I remember that they, the London Brick company, they put in a bid for it to buy Ibstock, which is Leicestershire, and that was, that was turned down, and not many months later, Hanson, put in a bid for London Brick, and that was turned down, and it was turned down two or three times and they had, they put in another bid and that was the sort of final bid, and there was a deadline when it had only got to be accepted or rejected for good. Now, I don’t know if it was true or not, but there was this er, rumour that went around that 48 hours before the deadline, that Hanson didn’t have enough shares to buy it, but it said, now I don’t know whether it was true or wasn’t true, or not, but they reckoned that one of the directors sold him his shares that gave him enough to get the, to get the owning of, and from then it went downhill, because, although the man’s not alive now, but he was nothing more than an asset stripper. He closed, he closed er, London Brick erm, and New Longville, closed that, at Calvert where they’d started doing this landfill, erm, he retained the, he retained the ground, but he shut, he sold the, and that was two, Shanks and McKeown
CB: The dump, he sold too?
FB: Yeh
CB: Shanks and McKeown
FB: For landfill, for landfill
CB: For landfill, yeh
FB: Yeh, er, then of course, Calvert went, everything [emphasis] is gone, Stewartby which is the main yard, you used to have a stores, where they used to run from the Calvert to Bletchley, well, Newton Longville to take stores or collect stores and that, to Stewartby, that’s gone, apparently Stewartby from what I’ve heard is that erm, the reason why Stewartby closed mainly, was because, like, I mean, always getting complaints, even when I was working, that erm, depending on the wind direction, they get a lot of these erm, fumes and that, even overseas
CB: Yeh, in Scandinavia they were
FB: Scandinavia, yeh
CB: Yeh. When did you retire?
FB: I erm, [pause] nineteen, wait a minute, nineteen eight [pause] I started in fifty nine, so fifty nine, eighty eight, nineteen eighty, nineteen eighty eight, [emphasis] yeh, nineteen eighty eight and when they, when they started erm, closing down, making people redundant and that, well, I had to go to the labour exchange which was in School Lane in Buckingham at that time, I had to report there and that basically was a, they knew, I mean they knew I was, they knew all about it at the labour exchange, but, you had to go, report there to ensure that you, your stamp was made, you know
CB: Yeh
FB: Until you was sixty five, and I went there and wait my turn and they gave you a form and filled it in and said to come back in a fortnight. Well, I went back in a fortnight and they gave me another form and it said, do you want work, have you sort work, what wage do you want, what hours do you want to work? All this and I came home and I said to my wife, I said, ‘I’m going to find myself a little job because,’ I said, I hadn’t received any money in that time, not from there anyway, and so, as luck happens, there was an advert in, about the only time they ever advertised, a little firm, erm, Greens at Wicking, and they made these sort of these wooden er, light fittings
CB: Oh yeh
FB: Clusters and clock cases and things like that, and they were advertising in the advertiser on that Friday, and er, I phoned up and I said, ‘it seems like you want some labour,’ ‘oh yes, can you come over and have a chat?’ and er, so I arranged to go at two o’clock on that Friday, same Friday afternoon, well I got over there, funny enough, one of the, one of the sons, I didn’t tie it up but, I played cricket for, and I was secretary of the club for Thornborough for eighteen years, and Brian Green, he had just started playing cricket, more or less as I was coming towards the end of my cricket career, so, when I got over there, I saw, I went to the office and saw Sally, as it turned out, and she said, ‘oh, I’ll go and find,’ and she found Michael, well, Michael and Tony they were twins, and they were identical twins, but Tony he didn’t, he didn’t work there, he used to go over occasionally, he’d got his own business or something, anyway I went there and he took me into the, into the factory and erm, and they’d got these machines, you know, for cutting up wood and all the rest of it, and I wasn’t very, I wasn’t very impressed with it, not really, and Michael said to me, ‘let’s go over in the office then,’ and over in the office he said, ‘what do you think?’ and I said, ‘no, I don’t think that’s for me, thank you,’ he said, ‘we’ve got a little seven hundred weight van,’ and he said, ‘ we’re looking for someone, we keep getting these youngsters that come in to drive and we can’t trust them, they don’t know whether they’re coming or going, erm, would you consider that?’ and I said, ‘well, I don’t know.’ Anyway, I took it on and they’d got these outworkers, so I used to take stuff out and deliver it and the following day, used to pick it up and take some more out and that kind of thing, and then I used to have to deliver when they sold stuff, I used to, I used to go down to, well I used to go down in Essex quite a few times, Yorkshire, Birmingham, I used to go there Birmingham quite regularly and get stuff, and take it and so it all worked out very well and I, and I got to, by this time, I had my, I was due to have my holidays and I was seventy, and er, now Laura Ashley was one of their main customers and they were also one of the their best, because they were always sure of getting their cheque monthly, where as some of the others, they had to wait for the money, you see, anyway, [laughs] so I went on holiday, and Michael phoned me up on the Sunday that I was due to start back to work on the Monday, and he said, ‘Sid, we’re short of work,’ it was sort of a [unclear] seasonal sort of thing, now I’d been working flat out from about September right round to the May, June time, and then it used to slack off again, and then it used to build up again, in sort of like, Christmas trade they used to call it, so anyway I was due to start back on the Monday, Michael phoned me up on the Sunday afternoon, he said, ‘Sid, we’re short of work,’ he said, ‘we haven’t got much for you,’ but, he said, ‘we’ll give you a ring when we get, you know, when we have got some work,’ and so I thought, that’s a good opportunity to go, quite a lot of work I wanted to get done around here, and I’d got the allotment and all, and all the rest of it, and so I said to Bet, ‘I think, er, I think that, I’ll call it a day,’ so I wrote to them and said that I’d thought I’d put it in writing, and I wrote and said that I’d decided that I’d retire, I was seventy and thanked them for, you know, the work and all the rest of it, and two or three days later, Brian, Brian rang and he said, ‘you sure you’re not going to come back?’ and I said, ‘yes, I’ve decided to pack up,’ he said, ‘we’ve got plenty of work for you now , we’re expecting you back,’ but I didn’t go back
CB: You’d had enough
FB: I’d had enough, I was seventy
CB: Yeh
FB: And I thought, well that’s it
CB: How long have you lived here?
FB: Since the bungalow was built in nineteen seventy-eight
CB: Oh, have you really, yeh
FB: It’s a, these six bungalows, three either side and they actually they are council, er, let for senior citizens or old age pensioners, whatever you call it, and we were living in a four bedroomed house, number twelve up the road, and by this time, Dad had died, my mother and father in law had died, Geoff had, Geoff had gone to Imperial College, London, in the university, and Jill, she was going to Loughborough, and there was us two living in a four bedroomed house, so I wrote to the council and I said, would it be possible to, possible to rehouse us in a smaller, either a two bedroom or possibly a three bedroom house, and what I got back was a letter saying that they weren’t selling bungalows and they weren’t selling four bedroom houses, well [laughs] I didn’t want either, but anyway, they started building these bungalows and my pal who was on the council, he said, ‘I know you want to move, why don’t you put in for one of these bungalows because they said, five of them have gone, but there’s six and they’re supposed to be for local people you see,’ he said, ‘five of them have gone, but there’s one that’s still open, why don’t you apply for it?’ and I did and originally they said I wasn’t old enough, but in the end they did sell it, er, did let it to us, and when the right to buy came, I applied to buy it
CB: Because you’d got the continuity
FB: So, we bought it and that’s it
CB: Yes, that’s good
EB: You alright?
CB: We’re having a rest now, thank you
[interview paused]
FB: The most memorable time?
CB: Your most memorable time, memorable time, in the RAF would you say?
FB: [pause] [laughs] Well, I don’t know [pause] I should possibly think was when that aircrew completed their thirty ops, because that was, when I first got on 115 Squadron, if they managed to do seven, they were doing very well, so I think possibly that would be one of the stand out things that, I mean that. I can’t remember anybody else, not while I was there
CB: So, you were looking after two aircraft, one did thirty but you had a series of others, as the other aircraft
FB: Well, yeh, because, in actual fact, if you [background noise] [pause] that would, that was D-Dog, that was one of the, that was the one that Malcolm Buckingham and I worked on
CB: Yeh, that
FB: And that’s the one that did, the crew did their thirty ops on
CB: Yes
FB: Er, and that went on as I say, to do hundred and five, but er, by the time we left, it had done, I think it was sixty ops, and the rest of them of course, it was done after we left
CB: ‘Cos you got another crew, after thirty?
FB: Yeh
CB: After thirty, thank you, brilliant
FB: This one, that’s up there, that
CB: Your pictures on the wall
FN: That’s, that’s C-Charlie
CB: Yes
FB: C-Charlie, er and they were the two planes, you know, on the two pans as I was explaining. I don’t know how many operations that done, but that down there, what was it? Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, that done thirty, by that time [pause] [background noise]
CB: [inaudible]
EB: 1947
CB: Now, in the war, when you were in the RAF, did you ever have any serious illness and what was it?
FB: I had, I had pneumonia while I was in, at Witchford, I spent er, what did I, a few weeks in Ely, Ely hospital, and I was excused oversea duties for six months, ‘cos I didn’t go overseas anyway, but I was, and the other thing was that, yes, on January the 25th 1947, I had, I’d had an invitation to go to Bet’s sister Margaret’s wedding
EB: Why she wanted to get married
FB: And, I, and I at that point, I was a senior fitter on our flight and I couldn’t get a weekend pass, which as it turned out was just as well, because on the Saturday afternoon, I was sat on top of an old Wellington, doing a plug change [laughs] and I curled up, there was a young national service chap on the other one, I forget his Christian name, but Gaskins he was, a Londoner, and I said to him, we’ll go, we’ll go down into Lincoln and have a little bit of a celebration, [laughs] being as I can’t go over to this wedding. I slid down the main as I, slid down the main frame and as I straightened up, I had this pain across, and the sergeant he said
CB: Across your stomach
FB: Yeh
CB: Yeh
FB: He said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve got the cramp or something, I think?’ he said, ‘go on in the hut and stay there until we knock off and go down to tea,’ which is what I did do, and I said to old erm, Gaskins, I gave him my mug and I said, ‘get me a mug of tea, I’m going to get into bed,’ so I went to my hut and lay, and got into bed and he bought me this mug of tea, and I hadn’t got it down many minutes before I felt sick, and I shot out of there and ran into the ablutions and I heaved up, and I kept on, and went back into there every now and again, and kept repeating, repeating all the time, and he says, ‘well we shan’t be going down for a drink tonight, I’ll go across the sick bay and get the orderly to come and see you,’ and he did do, and the orderly said, ‘oh I’d better get the MO,’ he [laughs] tannoyed for the medical officer and they took me over to the sick bay, and he said, ‘oh you’ve got appendicitis,’ so they took me off to [unclear] hospital, and it was snowing, it started snowing you see, it started snowing , anyway, and I got to [unclear] anyway they operated on me and I’ve got an awful scar here, where I had a stitch abscess, and they sent me home er, on, I had a fortnights sick leave but I had to get into Buckingham every, every day to have this dressing changed, that was a bit of a problem, but er, but also, [laughs] when I was discharged to come home, I got down to Bletchley, station, railway station you see, and the old porter he said, ‘no trains to Buckingham until tomorrow morning,’ I said, ‘I know, I know that,’ I said, I’m going to,’ ‘well,’ he said, I don’t know whether you’ll have any luck because,’ he says, ‘we’ve heard that the road is blocked, somewhere along that road,’ and I said, ‘well, the army,’ of course there’s Bletchley Park, that we didn’t know anything about, but there was Bletchley Park, well, they were running from there to Whaddon and also to Lenborough
CB: What, the army trucks?
FB: Yeh, well, with the signals, you see, you know, and they would always stop and pick you up if you wanted it, you know, wanted a lift, and there was just one went past me, and that was before I got anywhere near to the Whaddon turn, and he went straight past me, and I never saw anything else, [background noise] and I walked and from Bletchley, what is it, to Thornborough, it’s about eight miles, I think it is about eight miles, something like that, but when I got round to Singleborough turn, the straight bit there, I could see this shape in the road and it turned out, it was one of the Coop tankers in there, and of course the, where Bet lived at Greatmore it, you needn’t open the gate, you walked straight over ‘cos it was about five foot deep, you see, it was, anyway I got back in, I got back home, I think it was about two or three o’clock in the morning, something like that, and rattled the door and my Dad came [laughs] ‘cor, he said, what’s happened to you?’ I said, ‘well, I’ve walked from Bletchley,’ and so, got into bed, and as I say, every day I had to go into, to have this dressing changed
EB: He walked four miles
CB: Can’t have done him any good to do that?
EB: No
CB: Because this, 1947 was one of the worst winters
FB: It was
CB: In living memory, wasn’t it?
EB: [inaudible]
FB: Well, there was still snow under the hedges in May
CB: Was it, in Rutland we couldn’t get out of the village for seven days
EB: Oh gosh
CB: Amazing
EB: Where was that?
CB: That was in Empingham
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 Sidney Bunce
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-08
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABunceFSG161108
PBunceFSG1609
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending OH summary
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
Sidney Bunce grew up in Buckinghamshire and worked in a butchers and a dairy. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force aged 18 and trained as a flight mechanic engineer. He served with 115 Squadron at RAF Witchford and at RAF Wratting Common with 195 Squadron. He talks about his daily life as a mechanic until his demobilisation in 1947. After the war he drove for United Dairies and the London Brick company.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Cathie Hewitt
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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
02:01:44 audio recording
115 Squadron
195 Squadron
demobilisation
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
medical officer
military living conditions
military service conditions
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
RAF Witchford
RAF Wratting Common
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/512/8743/PFranklinJB1616.1.jpg
795421ad1dfce4657298441a0a2fd3a6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/512/8743/AFranklinJB160331.2.mp3
f6e3050fce261c63a251a84f549d2b34
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
Franklin, John Brown
Jack Brown Franklin
John B Franklin
John Franklin
J B Franklin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Franklin, JB
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with John "Jack" Brown Franklin (1921 - 2018 1484256 Royal Air Force)and fourteen photographs of people and aircraft. He served in the Liverpool Home Guard before enlisting in the Air Force. He served as ground crew with 109 Squadron between late 1942 and 1944 before being posted to Burma with 28 Squadron in 1945.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by XXX and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-31
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing mechanic John Brown Franklin of 109 and 28 squadrons RAF at his home in Walton, Liverpool on Thursday 31st March 2016 and the time is 1.45. Also, with me is his nephew Neil Hayes and if you would like to start us off please Jack. You’ve asked me to call you Jack as -
JBF: Yes that’s right. Yeah.
BW: That’s how you’re referred to.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Would you give us your service number and date of birth please?
JBF: Yes. Ok. Service number is 1484256. Date of birth 28 6 1921.
BW: And have you always lived in Liverpool?
JBF: Yes.
BW: And do you, you mentioned you had, I think, a brother. Do you have brothers and sisters or did you have brothers and sisters?
JBF: I’ve got a brother and sister. My brother was world famous as a ballet dancer.
BW: What was his name?
JBF: Frederick Franklin. And if you want to get his history I believe it’s all on the –
NH: All over the web.
JBF: In the computer. And here’s Neil with his CBE presented by the queen to him at Buckingham palace.
BW: Right.
JBF: And unfortunately -
BW: Wow.
JBF: He died just a couple of years ago aged ninety eight.
BW: And whereabouts in Liverpool were you living at the time?
JBF: Oh at birth. Over a café on the corner of Wavertree Road and Durning Road. We were all three born over the café and my father ran it with his mother and it lasted ‘til about 1923 and then we went to live higher up Wavertree Road in Janet Street and then about ten years after that, it would be about 1933 we moved to Gordon Drive, Pilch Lane, Huyton and that’s where I married from and lived here. I’ve lived here since 1957.
BW: Wow.
JBF: We bought the house then with my wife Dorothea.
BW: And so what was your home life like? Was it -
JBF: Well it was great. We were, they were musical people. My mother was very musical and my sister and they were in to all sorts of shows like the Maid of the Mountains and The Chocolate Soldier and Rosemarie. That kind of show. They loved it. And when my brother decided he wanted to be on the stage they were over the moon simply because he wanted to be on stage and so -
BW: And did he get a scholarship for his dancing or anything like that?
JBF: Oh no what he did was he went with the Jackson Boys to, his first job was he joined the Jackson Boys, a troupe of people dancing and they finished up in Paris at the, I think it was the Casino de Paris and he was there ‘til the Germans, the war started in ‘39 and they were either threatening to overrun France or they had actually started but my mother lost touch and was worried stiff and then the next thing we heard about him was that he was in Holland with the company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo run by a fellow called Leonide Massine. He’s also a world famous performer if you care to go through the, and the next minute we heard he was in America so of course he was delighted that he’d got out of it ‘cause there was no way he would ever have made a servicemen of any kind. He was just, he was a piano player, played the piano, singing and dancing you know. One of the times he was playing the piano and Miss [Stangette?] whom you no doubt have never heard of, she used to sit on the piano and she was the toast of Paris and she used to come out in this café, Casino de Paris or whatever it was, a nightclub and do the singing while Fred played. My sister was also a pianist so we –
BW: And were you musical yourself?
JBF: Oh yes. I, I was the only one that didn’t get the lessons because the money ran out. My father had a stroke. My father was a veteran of the Boer war complete with medal.
BW: And you’ve got his medal here.
JBF: And -
BW: Which has got to be a rare item in itself.
JBF: Yes well its solid silver, unlike the tin ones we got from the last war.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: With bars and -
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And he was shot off his horse somewhere in South Africa and he said the worst thing about it was the two hundred mile trip in a cart, [bullock?] cart to get to the boat to come home. Well he came home and survived and they invalided him out of the army in 1900 and he was never called up for the ‘14 war. He was unfit for further service and that’s, and he had a stroke about, what, 1931 sometime in the early 30s. I never knew him as a man really. He was, like all Victorians he was here and you were over there, you know. That’s just how it was. He was a nice guy you know, it just -
BW: Yeah. More of a father figure.
JBF: A father figure.
BW: A strict father figure in a sense.
JBF: Exactly. Yeah. Mother did all the slogging, you know. Kept us all together.
BW: And what was school like for you?
JBF: Oh a bit disastrous because I just didn’t get on somehow or other. I just didn’t get on. I left at sixteen and a half and I was really contemplating. I thought well I’d better do something about it so I just started to do the school certificate rerun at night school and the war started.
BW: And what subjects were you studying in your certificate at night school?
JBF: I got credits in history, English, and geography and I failed in chemistry and math er French and chemistry. That was it. And as a matter of interest I had my French book stolen for the last nine months before the exam and so there was no way I was going to pass it anyway you know. I just. Anyway I got out of school. Got this job with paper merchants LS Dixon and Co Limited. Very old fashioned, very conservative Liverpool Company.
BW: And what were you doing in the paper merchants?
JBF: Clerking. Booking orders, arranging for the orders to get out to the warehouse, seeing that they were all packed up properly and delivered to whoever, you know.
BW: And so presumably you had this job for about year eighteen months.
JBF: That’s right.
BW: Until war broke out.
JBF: Well, the story about the war thing is sitting opposite us was a veteran of the war. He said, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’ll be over by Christmas,’ you know. It was exactly the same as the pre-war people. It will be over by Christmas and ‘course it wasn’t and then it got around to Dunkirk you know when the three hundred and thirty three thousand were being picked up in France and Eric, sitting opposite me, Eric [McKim?] he said, ‘You know, Jack. We should do something about it really. I know we’re underage.’ We was, I was eighteen I think or something like that and we went to the police station in Derby Lane and signed on and then from Derby Lane I got the call to report to the abattoir in Prescot Road and I was given that.
BW: And this is a card that says you’re joining the Local Defence Volunteers.
JBF: That’s right, yes.
BW: G division.
JBF: Yeah
BW: Dated 13th of June 1940. So this is right after the evacuation of Dunkirk. Right at the height of -
JBF: Well it was Dunkirk that, Dunkirk was the end of May.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: 1940 and we finished up in this abattoir with that and we had instructions when the church bells landed er sounded you know we were told to destroy our identity you know, and so we joined the Home Guard and, or the LDV as it was. We had neither uniforms nor rifles or anything you know and we used to do marching about and guard and such like and the one terrifying moment in the, as an LDV was that the church bells had rung. A corporal came around, 2 o’clock in the morning, ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘It’s on,’ so we get up to the orphanage and we’re stood in two lines at the back of the orphanage facing Speke in front of trenches full of water that we’d dug, you know in the 1914 style.
BW: Yeah. Zigzag.
JBF: And everybody was mystified but we were all looking from Speke for the parachutists you know and we were there for a couple of hours and then suddenly, you know, we, it all vanished. The whole thing fell apart. There was nothing. Nobody landed. And we, we’d been given twenty four hours rations which was hard tack and corned beef. Well we ate those in about half an hour. Just sat around and ate it all. By 3 o’clock we’d eaten the day’s rations you know and that’s how the, it’s perfectly right, I’m Pike in the Dad’s Army because I was that age and everybody else who carefully avoided guard duties and all the nasty bits were bank managers or foremen and something else or assistant managers in bread shops or whatever it was, you know and Mr Mainwaring is a dead ringer for the CO you know.
BW: Of your unit.
JBF: Ex, in the, ex in, he was a bank manager you know and he got the atmosphere you know. It was typical and that went on for fifteen months until I was called up and then finally I got the call up papers and joined the RAF on the 15th of September 1941.
BW: And did you see, during your time as an LDV volunteer did you see any raids over Liverpool because -
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: There were quite a few raids by the Luftwaffe on the -
JBF: That’s a separate chapter. We were formed by the company which was in town, Cable Street, into parties of three and we did night duty on the premises during the blitz and the most graphic one of the blitz was we were playing table tennis as something to do while it was all going crash bang wallop ‘cause we were near the docks and they were really and then this hell of an explosion. It shook the place absolutely, we thought and we were in the cellar so we managed, we decided we’d better go around and see everything was intact. Nothing. So we went outside. Went up Thomas Street into South John Street and at the junction of North John Street and Lord Street was a huge pile of debris, masonry and out of it was sticking arms and legs and so we went up like this, you know the real -
BW: Yeah. Sort of -
JBF: John Wayne, sort, you know.
BW: Covering your eyes. Yeah.
JBF: And on the, on the traffic light was a sailor trying to knock out the lights with a brick so we get up there looking and thinking oh my God what are we going to see and they were all tailors dummies. There wasn’t a person in it. The shops around that area were tailors shops and the bomb had hit Church House, blown that to pieces and the blast had blown all these dummies out of the shop windows and somehow or other they all arrived together in the middle. So we got over that. That was the most graphic of the, and then the next one was during the May we had, I don’t know if you know about the blitz but Liverpool, before Hitler invaded Russia he blitzed Liverpool as a good start to stopping the shipping in the May. The May blitz it’s called and that week we had a floating land mine drift over the house and blew up on the Swanside estate. Blew all those houses up and the blast took the windows out of the back of our house and holes in the roof, hole in the roof and all the celings had holes in where the draft had came down but the most awful thing was the soot because we all had chimneys and everywhere was covered in soot you know so on the Sunday my mother and I we started clearing up and I said, ‘I’ve got to go to work,’ you know so I got the bike out and we started down for the, for the town and I got to [Clatton] Street and the place was covered in glass. I thought well this is the end of the bike if I ride so I picked the bike up, put it on my shoulder and walked down to Lewis’ which was just a hollow wreck. There was nothing visible at all. It had been on fire and they’d put it out and there was just and they ground that down to Boots on the corner, round the corner and I got as far as the bottom of Lord Street, Whitechapel and Paradise Street and there was a tape across so I got to there and the strange thing was where what we could see of Cable Street which was right at the back of Lord Street you could see daylight you know. I thought well that’s funny, it doesn’t look too good so I said to the man, ‘My job’s around the corner.’ He said, ‘No it isn’t,’ he said, ‘It’s finished. You can’t go around there.’ And two four storey buildings that was the office, the warehouse, the factory and the second warehouse were about this high. It had just burned. The whole thing had gone because it was a paper warehouse. Couldn’t be better, you know, once, and it was fire that, on that particular blitz.
BW: Raised the building to about two foot high.
JBF: It was just about two foot high and I was standing there dumb. I thought, ‘Well ok the house has gone up now the jobs gone up. What do we do now for an encore?’ Sort of thing. And I got a tap on the shoulder. I looked around and it was the manager Mr Lloyd. He said, ‘John,’ he said, ‘We’re all around at the Allied Paper.’ So I hot footed it around to the Allied Paper in Hood Street and the entire office collection was sitting there looking at each other you know. So they didn’t know what to, ‘cause there was not even a place to go to. The place had vanished. Literally. Four storey buildings just vanished and Mr Packer was the export manager, he said, ‘Well John, if you need something to do come with me and we’ll see what’s happened to the shipping.’ So I was delighted, so, ‘Certainly Mr Packer.’ So off we set down to the pier head and we went around people like James Dowie, Gracie Beasley the whole line, that kind of thing, JT Fletcher’s and made enquiries to find out what was missing and what wasn’t you know and we made a list of everything because he had cargo on boats you know. He used to do business with the West Indies and the unfortunate thing for him was that Mr Woodley who was about, there was no pension scheme in this particular company and Mr Woodley the export manager was about seventy three and he was still coming to work because there was no pension and he got knocked down and killed in the blackout so that was the end of the, of the export information so they just had to start from scratch you know ‘cause even Sid Woodley had disappeared, you know, and then there was, I can’t really remember because it was the in-between but we ended up in the banana rooms in Fitzpatrick’s in Queens Square. That’s where I left to join the air force. The Banana Rooms, of course there were no bananas coming in during the war and there were just these big spaces and they started the firm from that that the lucky thing was they had a government quota for paper and that didn’t alter despite all that had gone on so they started with the quota that they had and they stocked these Banana Rooms with paper and started to carry on the business and the other intriguing thing was the books had been in the cellar in Cable Street and they were in fireproof safes which was great except they were cooked. They weren’t burned. They were just cooked. So the senior members of the accounts department were transported every day to Mr Dixon’s house on the Wirral and they each had an egg, an egg slice you know and they would lift each page up and turn it over and find out how much ‘cause the books were handwritten. It was just antediluvian but it was part of the course.
NH: The time. Yeah.
JBF: Antediluvian, you know, everything was by hand. We wrote orders in books by hand. The books were sent to the forwarding man and he’d organise the stuff you know and finally I got my call up papers and Mr Cook said, ‘Ok,’ he says, ‘Well as things stand, Jack,’ he said, ‘Your job will be open when you come back,’ and that’s exactly how it was. The job was open when I came back five years later.
BW: And during the time and this was all through 1940. The bombing raids and things.
JBF: Up to September the 15th 1941.
BW: Did you happen to see anything of the Battle of Britain? I know that was concentrated over the south east but there were raids and intercepts from squadrons up here. Did you see anything of that?
JBF: In Liverpool during the lunch hour when we were out there was a couple of times when German aircraft were over and everybody was out looking at them you know and there was a bit of fighting as far as I can remember but I don’t think there was too much this end.
BW: No.
JBF: It was the blitz for Liverpool. That was the thing.
BW: And were you on duty during the night time and sort of working during the day?
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Did you alternate your civilian job with your LDV duties?
JBF: The big plus factor was that after your night’s duty you went in to Brown’s, the café in Cable Street, and had a bacon and egg breakfast and then you went home you know from the day ‘cause there, there wasn’t really that much happening at that stage of the war. Everybody was non-plussed. Nobody knew whatever was happening. You know. It hadn’t settled down to anything. And -
BW: And what drew you to join the RAF? Did you apply to join or
JBF: Well –
BW: Were you offered a choice of which service?
JBF: When I went for the call up interview I said, ‘Well I’d like to join the RAF.’ They said, ‘What would you like to be?’ So I quickly said, ‘Oh I’d like to be a mechanic,’ you know. They said, ‘’Ok.’ Then the next minute I was sent to, what’s the local RAF place there?
BW: Woodvale.
NH: Woodvale.
JBF: No. Not Woodvale. Closer.
NH: Closer?
JBF: Yeah. Where, where were the Yanks locally?
NH: Oh Burton Wood.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: Burton Wood. It was in that area as far as I can remember and sat an exam.
BW: There was a recruiting centre or an RAF station at Padgate. Does that, that was near Warrington.
JBF: Well it might have been.
BW: Sort of Burton Wood area.
NH: Yeah.
BW: Ok.
JBF: I went in the Warrington area.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And took, and sat an exam and I passed that and so I was down to be a mechanic.
BW: And when you say mechanic were there different types of mechanic that you could apply to be? Did you have a choice in that or were you directed simply as -
JBF: I’ve no idea. I didn’t even know what a mechanic was -
BW: Right.
JBF: I just said I’d like to be a mechanic because if I played with anything it was with Meccano before the war and I think I had some sort of mechanical ability you know and so I thought well I’m going to be an office for the rest of my life. I’d just like to do something different never realising I’d be doing it for the next five years but there you are.
BW: Did, did the thought of being aircrew ever appeal to you at all?
JBF: Yeah. I volunteered for aircrew and got halfway through the medical until the eyesight test and that was the end of that.
BW: What would you have liked to have done as a member of aircrew? What do you -
JBF: Well -
BW: Think your preference would have been?
JBF: In the talk I was at Wyton at the time and the flight engineers were in vogue at the time. I thought well with the basic knowledge I’ve already got I think I could have passed the rest of it to become a flight engineer so when they asked me at the medical lark I said, ‘Flight engineer.’
BW: Ok. And instead once, once they’d done the assessment and found your eyesight wasn’t up to scratch you were then posted to another base for -
JBF: No.
BW: Mechanical training.
JBF: I just went back to being where I was in Wyton.
BW: I see. So while you were still working as a mechanic you then volunteered for aircrew.
JBF: That’s right. For aircrew yes.
BW: They said you couldn’t be selected for aircrew and you returned to your trade.
JBF: I went back to the trades and being a mechanic. Yeah.
BW: And what squadron were you at there?
JBF: At Wyton it was 109.
BW: And you say this was a Pathfinder squadron.
JBF: Yeah. This was a Pathfinder squadron, yeah. The sister squadron was 83 squadron. They were Lancasters.
BW: And they were on the same base were they?
JBF: Same base yeah.
BW: And –
JBF: We were there for about nine months at Wyton and it was at Wyton that the first Oboe raid by Mosquitoes took place which was my squadron and my aircraft was the first aircraft to do something with the Oboe. The pilot was Squadron Leader Bufton and the navigator was, I think it was a Flight Lieutenant Ifould, an Australian.
BW: So this was Squadron Leader Buckton. Is that -
JBF: Bufton. B U F yeah.
BW: B U F T O N.
JBF: They’re famous in the air force because he had a brother also in the air force and he had a son er another brother rather, a sergeant in the mechanical line.
BW: And his navigator was a flight lieutenant.
JBF: Ifould. I F O U L D.
BW: And so servicing this particular aircraft do you remember anything specific about it? Possibly even the registration or the -
JBF: Well it was -
BW: Code.
JBF: DK33, I think it’s four. The three three’s right but the fours and it was -
BW: Ok.
JBF: D-Donald.
BW: D-Donald.
JBF: Yeah it was D Donald. It was changed to L-Leather later on but it was D-Donald when it was flying when it flew to this, I found out later it was a power station in Holland right on the edge of the German border and that was the first time, I can confirm all this, these books, I’m in these books and pictures you know. This is Tim, you know, he just, ‘Look dad,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen this,’ so -
BW: And did you know Squadron Leader Bufton and Flight Lieutenant Ifould very well? Did they stay with that aircraft for -
JBF: Oh yeah they stayed for -
BW: For a period?
JBF: Quite some time. I mean Bufton became a group captain. I’m sure Ifould did because they were, they were dyed in the wool, I think, pre-war airmen if you know what I mean. They were really the real McCoy you know. This is how the air force won the Battle of Britain. With people like them really because they knew what they were doing.
BW: And I’m assuming that they had already done a tour on bombers prior to becoming -
JBF: They must.
BW: A Pathfinder.
JBF: I should say so. The squadron from Wyton came from Boscombe Down were all the experiments were done.
BW: And what kind of guys were they. These, these two?
JBF: Very nice. Very nice men. Excellent blokes.
BW: Did you have a good rapport with them?
JBF: All the time yes.
BW: And so this remained your aircraft, D Donald for –
JBF: If you want -
BW: Some months.
JBF: If you want a little anecdote with it being the very first raid with Oboe it was the very first Oboe raid for 109 Mosquitos and they decided that nothing should happen to the aircraft so we, they did the MFTs, they did the flying and then they carried the tractors, you know, hooked up the tractors and put the three of them in a hangar. This is, it’s dark at this stage and they’re busy doing and I’m on one wing and I’m bawling, ‘You’re too close. You’re too close,’ and the next minute we’d cracked the [?] on this wing. Pandemonium and, ‘Who’s,’ I said, ‘Look I’ve been bawling my head off.’ And the corporal who was doing the manoeuvring were all too excited to listen, you know. Anyway, it was superficial and in no time they’d got it put right but the interesting thing about this particular time was that the squadron was paraded in a hangar and addressed by the CO and he just simply said, ‘You are engaged in a very special operation and if I hear the word Oboe mentioned in any pub around this district,’ he said, ‘Your feet won’t touch the ground.’ And out of nowhere we were surrounded by plain clothes which I suppose were detectives and everybody was suitably terrified of course and I didn’t mention Oboe till about 1960 [laughs]. There was three types of bomb aiming equipment. There was Oboe, Gee and H2S and they were, they followed on, you know and I think by the time we got too Little Staughton we were in to the H2S or Gee.
BW: And did you work on these bits of kit or were you -
JBF: No. All the -
BW: You still on the airframe?
JBF: All the, the advanced kit, it was Canadians, they all, it was a Canadian unit. They were all Canadians. They all got drunk together, they went out together. It was just like that you know. They were told not to speak to anybody and they were all nice guys it’s just they’d been frightened like us, you know.
BW: So you never worked on these sets but you knew they were on the aircraft.
JBF: Oh yes. We, what we used to do, they did the NFT.
BW: What’s the NFT?
JBF: Night Flying Test. The -
BW: Right.
JBF: In the afternoon. We’d fill them up with oil, petrol and coolant and look at the engines. The big problem with the mark 4 Mosquito was because they were flying a lot higher than the bombers, thirty, twenty eight, thirty thousand feet they were prone to oil leaks so we got quite adept. What we used to do was they’d say that, a bit of a mess coming down and you’d see it everywhere and so they used to take the cowlings off and start the engine up and we’d all, before they started the engines up we’d crawl up the back of the aircraft and hang on and look in to the engine and see if we could spot the oil leaks because there was a million nuts there you know and quite, we did spot -
BW: And so were you, were you on top of the wing at this point?
JBF: You were on top of the wing with about, what, a foot off, well three foot off the propeller.
BW: I was going to say ‘cause you’re having to look over in to the cowling and the blade is spinning.
JBF: The blades are going around full pelt ‘cause they went up high they were at full throttle you know but it worked. It was primitive but there was no other way. The thing was leaking but when they got up that high and with the thing going and we just thought we used to see dribbles coming down. The carburettor was on the back and we used to see dribbles coming down and then we’d work it back. Well it was those nuts and Stan, the corporal, Corporal Wright when it stopped he’d, I said, ‘We’ll check this section,’ and he did do and they were loose you know. We got quite good at that really.
BW: And these, this is clearly in the days before any sort of protective safety equipment and goggles.
JBF: Oh no there’s -
BW: Ear defenders and things.
JBF: Well to give you an idea, when they, have you ever been close to a Mosquito? It’s quite tall you know.
BW: I’ve been to one in a museum, yes, but -
JBF: It’s quite, the end -
NH: Not with engines running [laughs]
JBF: The, we had ladders to get on the back, you know. Well of course within no time the ladders had disappeared because we’d no fuel in the huts so everybody chopped up the ladders and we used to use, when they, as you know you get in a Mosquito in the centre underneath and there’s a metal stair thing.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: Well we used to use those to get on the back and my souvenir was this finger.
BW: And this is on your left hand.
JBF: Yeah. There’s a stich here and a stich there, a stich there and a stich there because -
BW: On your little finger.
JBF: It was wet and being tall you know I was able to go it. I mean Handley, he was about five foot three, couldn’t even get near the thing you know ‘cause I could reach and put the ladder on and it was wet and the ladder slipped and my hand went around the engine nacelle and there’s, I went to the Chiefy, you know, Lendrum and he said, ‘You’d better go and get that fixed,’ so I went to the sick bay and they said, ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘Yes.’ They cleaned it up and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was that, you know. And they said, ‘Oh yes. We need a few stitches. Right. Stand by.’ So when I’d got over that he said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Two hours excused duties for bawling.
BW: And so they’d done the stitching in your hands without anaesthetic.
JBF: Well I did two hours excused duties. Well I didn’t do.
BW: That was it.
JBF: I went back to the unit and said to the chief, I said, ‘Sorry I’m on excused duties.’ ‘Oh, well, just before you go have a look at this’ [laughs]. So -
NH: Oh dear. Yeah
JBF: That was that.
BW: And the Mosquito clearly used Merlin engines. Do you know what -
JBF: That’s right. Merlin 20s.
BW: And how did you rate those?
JBF: Oh they were smashing. I never worked on anything else other than the, in Burma we had Hurricane, Hurricane 2Cs cannon and they were Merlin engines and then when they converted after the war to Spit 9s they were a very posh but we had to have training for these they were so posh. You know the latest Merlin engine that was in the Spitfire 9 which was of course was five years after the original Spitfires and we just, we knew how to fill them up with the oil and coolant and so on -
BW: And did you specialise in engine maintenance or were you working on the airframe of the Mosquito as well?
JBF: Oh no the air frame was a rigger called Alan Fraser, the rigger. Each aircraft had a fitter and a rigger as we were called. The airframe was a man who’d been trained as an air frame mechanic and I was on the engines as the engine mechanic.
BW: And so who was the air frame mechanic?
JBF: Alan. Alan Fraser.
BW: He was the rigger.
JBF: The rigger. That’s right.
BW: And is that the same.
JBF: That’s right.
BW: Same name as an air frame engineer.
JBF: Air frame mechanic, it was the rigger.
BW: Ok.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: And you had a corporal in charge of the team.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Stan Wright.
JBF: Stan Wright was the corporal.
BW: And did you mention an LAC Handley?
JBF: Oh he was my pal in Burma.
BW: Ok so he was -
JBF: LAC Handley.
BW: Not part of this particular -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Team.
JBF: He wasn’t part of this set up.
BW: And your chief tech, is that right, was, who was your chief tech -
JBF: Oh Chiefy Lendrum.
BW: Lendrum.
JBF: Yeah. Lendrum was the -
BW: Is that one, one word L E N D R U M.
JBF: I think so yeah.
NH: It wasn’t Len Drum.
JBF: He was the flight sergeant, you know. He was in charge. In fact I think without, off the record as you might say he was responsible for the ladders. [laughs]
BW: He was the one, he was the one who took them away to use as firewood.
JBF: And they were all, we’d burned them all. I mean there was quite, it wasn’t hilarious, you were working until you, you know feel asleep sort of thing and it was a real band of blokes you know. It was, I think that’s really what won the war was the fact that everybody just got stuck in. Churchill was marvellous. And everybody got stuck in, you know. I don’t think Hitler could have realised what he’d awakened in the British when he was busy refusing Chamberlain’s piece of paper, you know. He didn’t realise exactly because Goering said, ‘Oh you know we’ll subjugate the British. The air force will do this,’ that and the other you know and of course he didn’t. Battle of Britain. And they turned to Russia.
BW: And so just thinking about the maintenance unit or the mechanics involved on the base here.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: So there’s, there’s the two guys there’s yourself and the rigger responsible for the aircraft and a corporal. Was he over more than one aircraft or just -
JBF: No. Just the one.
BW: Ok. So there was the three of you assigned to the one aircraft.
JBF: That’s right.
BW: And the chief tech presumably looked after -
JBF: He was over the flight.
BW: The whole lot.
JBF: A flight yeah.
BW: Ok.
JBF: Yeah. The six aircraft.
BW: Did you know the other crews at all? The other flying -
JBF: Well we knew them but –
BW: Crews on the Mossies?
JBF: We stuck together really, you know. Yes we knew all of them really, by name but -
BW: And you you didn’t have cause to work on any of the other aircraft. Say if one riggers went down.
JBF: Oh sometimes. It depends. One of the features of the Rolls Royce engine was I think it was to do with the carburettor and there was this cup and it used to accumulate water so what we had to do was we had to take off the locking wire, unscrew the cup, drain the water out, put the cup back and put the locking wire on and the finished article had to be supervised by the corporal, you know, that you’d actually done what you were supposed to do and -
BW: And the paperwork that they use nowadays certainly was a form 700. Was that still in place then?
JBF: Yes. Form 700. Yeah.
BW: So that’s been right the way through the service.
JBF: That you signed to say that, yes, you’d done the -
BW: And you obviously knew the crew well in terms of the ground crew who you worked with. Did you socialise together and live together in the barracks?
JBF: We lived together in the barracks. The ground crew. Yes. We didn’t socialise, and it was discouraged, any of the air crew. The air crew were under strict instructions to say nothing when they got out of the aeroplane and in the five years the only time two aircrew ever got out and said something was when they were steaming along at three or four hundred miles an hour in a Mosquito and an aircraft went around them like this.
BW: In a circular motion.
JBF: And they got out of the Mosquito, ‘We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it.’ We said, ‘What?’ And it was the first type of German jet fighter.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: And it was doing five hundred miles an hour or something and it just went around them while they were busy coming home or whatever they were doing, you know.
BW: And so the aircrew never talked to the ground crew.
JBF: Never.
BW: About the mission that they’d done.
JBF: Oh no. No. You didn’t get anything off them. No.
BW: But they must presumably have told you about anything to you like oil problems in the engine.
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Or anything they’d seen.
JBF: There was a report you see. What used to happen was the air crew would come in and they’d get out the aircraft. Then they’d go and see the adjutant or whoever was in charge. They had to write a report on the raid and a report on the kite and that was relayed through Chiefy Lendrum to Stan Wright and Stan Wright would get it and say, ‘There appears to be a leak on this,’ and, ‘That’s not happening,’ or, you know. They were very reliable aircraft I must say. The only fault with them when the first Mosquitos came the cowling section of the construction hadn’t been talking to the body and so the cowling went up past the intake on the front so when you were getting, you could get it off but you couldn’t get it back in, you know so they very quickly instead of having the cowling to go that way they just had it below the intake because the two intakes are either side of the cockpit and the problem with that was they were having birds in them as they were flying. They used to get birds wedged in these.
BW: So they had regular bird strikes. Is what you’re saying?
JBF: Oh regular, bird strikes were fairly common.
BW: And did that happen during the raid or normal flying testing or was it mainly around the airfield?
JBF: Oh it was around the airfield. I don’t think it was in -
BW: No.
JBF: While they were bombing, you know.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: ‘Cause they went up at least, I think it was, twenty eight thousand feet and the Lancasters were all getting shot down and they were about what about, what, twenty six, twenty four thousand feet. What happened to the Mosquitoes was they’d come back with tiny little holes in and it was the, where the anti-aircraft shell had exploded as they were wooden they took everything. Nothing bounced off and when the chippies came, if there were holes they used to get to this and look through and see the other hole where it had gone straight through, you know. The marvellous thing about the Mossie was despite it being wood it was almost indestructible. It was marvellous, you know. Just a marvellous aircraft.
BW: Because it could take so much battle damage -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Without being lost if you like. It wasn’t going to -
JBF: That’s right, without it being. What, the chippies had this technique if it was a biggish hole they’d cut a kind of the top layer of the plywood or whatever it was off and fit.
BW: Yes.
JBF: A new piece of plywood in and put the tape, you know, around and that would and do it all up with the dope and it would, you wouldn’t know it was there, you know.
BW: So they’d sort of cut a square patch out around the -
JBF: Cut a square patch out around the hole, yeah.
BW: Around the hole and -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Replace that.
JBF: And if it was small enough they’d just cover it over and do the same thing. They wouldn’t take any wood out. They’d just cover it over.
BW: And the air crew found that quite satisfactory.
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: There were no difference in handling or anything like that?
JBF: It didn’t detract from the performances.
BW: So, I guess the most complex part of the Mosquito for you was actually the engine that you were working on.
JBF: That’s right. Yeah.
BW: You found them pretty reliable.
JBF: Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: Did you find them easy to work on or were they particularly complex in their own right?
JBF: Oh no once we’d learned the basics, funnily, the lucky thing for me was at Cosford we trained on Merlin engines and so when I was posted to a Merlin, I was first of all posted to an air gunners school with Blenheims and I’d never seen a radial engine because there were no radial engines in, we’d worked on Merlins you know. So I got out of there, I didn’t like it. I put in for a posting which is how I got to Wyton and the big thing about South Wales was the rugby. I was playing rugby for the station because it’s, you know it’s a, you know a big rugby area you know, miles away from the war. It was an air gunners school and the air gunners were carefully separated from the crew, the ground crew, and they were trained and passed out with all the pomp and ceremony and they went on to whichever squadron the were allocated to and lasted about ten minutes, you know, because the technique of downing a Lancaster was to get after the guns to start with so there was the one sticking out of the front, nothing underneath and the upper. The -
BW: Mid upper gunner.
JBF: W/Op AG you know, so the Germans shot underneath behind the tail so that the fellow, nobody could get at them, straight into the cockpit. I mean people go on about the Lancaster. How marvellous it was. It was a death trap and these books will illustrate how because the number, you know they lost fifty or sixty thousand men and they were sitting ducks once a night fighter, and they would never dream of, where you see on all the films where they’re all coming down this way they just went underneath and it was the same with the Flying Fortress. They had to stop flying daylight raids despite all the under guns. They had, they had a fella sitting in a thing with guns underneath. It didn’t matter. The first one that lost his lives was the gunner and then it was a sitting duck. They could do what they liked. I believe one German ace shot a hundred and seventy three Flying Fortresses down. Just one bloke.
BW: The sister squadron on the base you mentioned was 83 squadron.
JBF: That’s right, yeah.
BW: So did you hear back from ground crews and, and talk in the barracks let’s say or the mess about what was happening on their side.
JBF: No. Nothing. They was billeted in separate, 109 was billeted here, say. The other side of the aerodrome was 83.
BW: So completely separate squadrons
JBF: Completely.
BW: With own messes.
JBF: Yes. Well, with us being, they were Pathfinder bombers and it was secret at that stage, this Oboe thing so they wanted the least person that knew you know and they had you suitably terrified. You felt you had private men, you know under the bed sort of thing. As kids, we were only kids. I mean I was about twenty two or something, Twenty three.
BW: Thinking back then to repairing a Merlin what would you say was the most complex thing to repair? What was the most difficult -
JBF: Well -
BW: Sort of repair or work you had to do on it?
JBF: We didn’t do repairs. What happened was they went in after a number of hours for scheduled maintenance and they got the plugs changed and the oil completely changed and the coolant and they did tests on the engine itself to see that it was still workable because they were work horses you know, they was. I mean we never ever had an engine change in the Mosquito. I don’t ever remember one having to go in for an engine change. They all went in for repairs because of damage or wear or whatever. But just a marvellous piece of equipment, you know.
BW: And when they were brought back or once you’d finished the repair did you have to do engine run ups to verify that it was working alright?
JBF: Oh every day, part of the night, you had to run, you had to DI the engine to see it was, you know, add the coolant in and the oil and all the rest of it. Then it had a test run on the ground. The engines were test run on the ground and to start off only the corporal did the testing and then finally we did that, I did, you know I’d been there a couple of years finally and we did the test runs if they were on leave or anything. So you get to, you’ve got to run, a Mosquito is quite, you know, terrifying to start with. The corporal had someone sitting with you and that.
BW: And so this was done on, on a test bed presumably on -
JBF: No. No. Just where it was in the grass.
BW: Ok.
JBF: They didn’t go anywhere.
BW: Ok. And -
JBF: It was part of the night flying test to run the aircraft before it went up.
BW: And although you mentioned previously that when you were looking for a leak you got on the top of the wing to look in.
JBF: On top of the wing, yeah.
BW: Did you have to do the same once you’d repaired, once you’d serviced the engine?
JBF: It was only for oil leaks.
BW: Ok.
JBF: If they came back and mentioned any kind of leak we used to do this on the back of the aircraft and look in just to see if we could see, you know.
BW: Did you ever get to go in the cockpit to start the engines?
JBF: Yes. I’ve actually flown in a Mosquito. Wing Commander Green was going up for an NFT and Stan Wright fixed it for me to go with him and the problem was at twenty thousand feet there was a juddering. It was very slight, he said, but at twenty thousand feet down and it started to do this you know and it turned out a mixture problem. Something was going wrong at that particular height with the mixture and they fixed it up and it was ok. I only did the, I had one trip in a Mosquito.
BW: How long was that? How long did it last?
JBF: Well, basically the NFT about half an hour, three quarters of an hour.
BW: And what, what did you experience during a flight? What was it like?
JBF: Well I was just gobsmacked. I was absolutely, you know, like this, sort of thing.
BW: And he didn’t, did he let you have a go at the controls or not?
JBF: Oh no. No. They wouldn’t let you do anything. God. Strewth. That would have been it.
BW: But you got to sit next to the pilot while he’s –
JBF: You’ve got to, well the -
BW: Was doing the test.
JBF: The navigator’s here and the pilot’s here you know and –
BW: Yeah.
JBF: The throttles were in between.
BW: It was exhilarating I’m assuming.
JBF: Oh absolutely. Yeah. I was, I felt, you know, Group Captain Franklin, here we go, you know. Real Mr Mainwaring job you know. There’s one, I don’t know whether you want any story out of it but there was one graphic story that, that happened. I think it was at Marham and I was on the main plane waiting for the bowser to fill up and suddenly there were screams underneath the aircraft, ‘Help. Help.’ So I got off the main plane and got down and the armourer had primed a five hundred pound bomb and then he couldn’t hook it in so he was standing there so I got the bomb on my back and slowly, I was, you know strong in those days and I lifted it up.
BW: So you crouched underneath it, took the weight on your back.
JBF: I took the weight on my back and while he hooked it in. He said, ‘We’re alright now.’ I said, ‘Well we’re not being blown up at least,’ and the aftermath was I think the op was over because they were filling, we used to have to fill them up immediately they came back you know in case and Stan Wright came to me. He said, ‘You know, Jack,’ he said ‘Were you on the starboard wing?’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I got this scream from underneath and I went down and helped the armourer. We managed to get over the problem.’ When I came out everybody had vanished and the aircraft as far as we could make out had been to France or Germany and back with no petrol caps on the right side. So, he said, ‘You know,’ he said, ‘This is a court martial offence.’ I said, ‘Hang on.’ So I thought about it. So I got on the bike, went, cycled around into the hangar, all the lights were on and there were Mossies being maintained you know so I couldn’t see anybody so I climbed up on the back of this Mosquito, took off the two petrol caps, and the tops, put them in my jacket and got down. Nobody, didn’t see me so I, so I went to Stan. I said, ‘You’re alright, Stan. You won’t be court martialled.’ I said, ‘Here they are.’ [laughs] Gave him the two tops and the petrol. He was absolutely, you know, he was gobsmacked [caught the phrase locally?] and so hurriedly because the people that would have been up for the trouble were the mechanic that was on the other side of the Mosquito ‘cause he’d signed the 700 to say it was full and how the aircraft got to Germany and back with no petrol caps on we never knew and nobody else did because they didn’t know they were off.
BW: And the air crew normally do checks before they -
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Take off as well.
JBF: Well they start the engines up and all that you know you had to. The method of starting was you had the trolley acc and you primed the engine. There was a little flap on the side and you primed the engine and then you give the signal up to the bloke on the trolley acc, he presses the -
BW: Thumbs up.
JBF: Electrics and it starts up, you know and he, if there was any worry it was when we hadn’t enough ground crew to go around. You had to do the two engines so you had to prime the one on the port side shall we say and then you had to come and prime the one on the starboard side and then you give the, and fortunately despite you know, I think it’s the quality of the workmanship really because we never ever had a failure. You know. Overheating. They both started each time even when there was only one man doing it because we’d no people to do it.
BW: And in all weathers too.
JBF: Oh well it was, you know, Norfolk in the winter is quite something else. The thing they used to do when it was a long raid we knew it was a long raid because they’d come out with urns of cocoa and corned beef sandwiches about that thick.
BW: About two inch thick.
JBF: And you could get, there was an unlimited supply. You could do, if you felt like running around a lot as we were during the night and so we got stuck into these. You know it was fine. Didn’t mind. The, really you have to be the age we were at. Anybody else, it must have been, you know if you were thirty five or forty or whatever it was it must have been awful, just, and with a family you know. Well one corporal developed shingles and it was the family. He was on the phone to the wife and the kid had measles or whatever it was you know and he was beside himself. I was exactly -
BW: And yet -
JBF: The right age for the war. It couldn’t have been better.
NH: Yeah.
BW: And as a single man you were quite happily sharing a barracks with your mates.
JBF: Oh yes. I hadn’t got a girlfriend. I was just a single man, you know. In fact, one Christmas I gave up my leave for one of the married men who had kids you know. Which was nothing heroic. It was just common, you know.
BW: Did, did you feel that your efforts were appreciated by the crews and the -
JBF: Oh yeah.
BW: Officers on the base?
JBF: Oh everybody. It was a together thing. I mean working that close and their lives were involved. It was a very close knit, all the squadrons were the same. A very close knit unit. There was no Captain Mainwaring standing around, you know. I mean there was no saluting.
BW: Really.
JBF: You just got on with it and first names, you know they called you.
BW: So -
JBF: You always called them whatever they were like squadron leader, you know, Bufton and you gave them their rank but we were just Jack and Alan and Stan.
BW: Were there any, you mentioned an error in someone leaving petrol caps off? Were there any incidents that you knew of elsewhere in the squadron perhaps?
JBF: Well -
BW: Where there was something that had been missed that resulted, for example, in an accident or the loss of an aircraft.
JBF: Oh the only thing that we watched from start to finish was U-Uncle and two lads, they could have been more than twenty five, navigator and the pilot, you know and they were very excited. It was their first trip and we got them in and watched them and they took off and went straight, straight in.
BW: So the nose pitched up and they went straight down.
JBF: They went straight down and burned to death, the two of them. Big explosion. Bang. And I said that, there was this old sergeant and I said, he said they probably didn’t lock the throttles. They were that excited about getting up because they had to do a lot of homework in while they were in the aircraft to find out what they were going to do, you know. They just went straight in.
BW: And that was close to or over the base.
JBF: Well we just watched the whole thing. Yeah. And the ,our aircraft finally, when I say our aircraft this DK number 334 I think it was or 335 it crash landed and it was that old the aircrew hated it because it was absolutely on its tips you know. Did a hundred and eleven ops and it landed and the undercarriage went up into the -
NH: The wing.
JBF: Into the engine nacelle and just they weren’t hurt and that was it. They took us around and we were photographed, the three of us Alan, Stan and myself in front of this wreck.
BW: So moving on from Wyton and Marham.
JBF: Yes.
BW: You mentioned that later in your service you transferred to 28 squadron.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: So what happened in the period between -
JBF: Little Staughton -
BW: This would be -
JBF: Was the next thing after Marham.
BW: And did you request a transfer to another squadron?
JBF: What happened was I put in for overseas and said I’d serve anywhere because I I thought, well, realised, that we would never go anywhere else. We were, the war was well on from D Day. They were going into Germany, the armies, France and there was less, and it was rather backing up troops rather than bombing anywhere so I put in for overseas and said I’d serve anywhere and that’s how I came to go to 28 squadron. Next minute I was on a troop ship and then I was in North Western India at a place called Ranchi.
BW: How do you spell that?
JBF: I joined 28 squadron.
BW: How do you spell Ranchi?
JBF: R A N C H I.
BW: And this was in North West India.
JBF: North West India. Yeah.
BW: And so the attraction of going was really because you felt there wasn’t going to be that much more -
JBF: I was -
BW: To do on the squadron.
JBF: The age I was. Twenty four you know.
BW: And you fancied the opportunity of going abroad.
JBF: At least, I thought, yeah. The next minute the CO said, ‘Don’t unpack your kit you’re going to Burma.’ So I thought well this will be a change. So we gave in our blue, all the winter clothing and put in a kit bag and the marvellous thing was when it came back to us in Malaya it was intact for those two years. So with 28 squadron they were on rest and then they suddenly said, ‘We’re off. We’re starting off,’ and we went to Burma by road and rail and we got on the train. It went right up into the North West provinces of India you know, up to, by rail a change to the narrow gauge railway, Assam. That’s it. All that through I think it’s around the top of what is now Bangladesh you know and you go well India’s what you might call semi-primitive to absolutely basics. When you get up there the Naga tribesmen are still in the outfits, you know. I thought gee whiz if these fellas were in the Olympics they’d win everything. Their leg muscles were like this because they were hill men. Apparently, the English had civilised them and they were no longer head hunters. But they chased the Japanese. But what used to happen was you’d be standing there and they’d come down from the mountain and do what we called the shopping which was trying to get food, I think was the main thing. Then on the way back they had conical baskets which they put their provisions in and they each held the bottom of the conical basket and then they started a rhythm of steps and they went straight up the mountain like that. None of this we’ll climb here and all the movement was about fifteen of them all holding on. Nothing was out of place. Nothing. Must have been doing it all their lives. It was great.
BW: Just out of interest how did you get shipped out to India? Did you fly out there or were you -
JBF: No. It was the Cameronia.
BW: Troop shipped.
NH: Tell them about your Suez Canal.
BW: Well the Suez Canal was -
NH: I’ll make some tea while you -
JBF: The reason I’ve told it is on the boxes of dates before the war you always had an Arab pulling two camels and I’m just lounging on the side of the Cameronia and suddenly an Arab pulling two camels appeared on the side of the Suez Canal. So I’ve seen it. You know. Right off the box. So, we, we finally landed in Bombay. Worli was the transit camp and then we were on the trains going to our different placements.
BW: And this is Worli.
JBF: Worli that’s the transit camp outside Bombay.
BW: How do you spell Worli?
JBF: I should imagine it’s something like W R O R L and L I somewhere on the end of it. And the thing to watch out for on the Indian trains are the hookers because they are going that slow when they go up hill the hookers jump on to the train with hooks and hook all the equipment out of the windows which are always open and Handley, my pal gets out in his underwear with just shorts and he gets out with an officer in a dressing gown.
NH: All the gear had gone.
JBF: We’d lost it all with the hookers. And well a real introduction to India, on the floor on the station was this old man covered in flies. He was just covered in flies and I said to one of the Anglos, I said, ‘Well what’s that?’ He said, ‘He’s just dying.’ And that, that sums India up for me you know. That was it. Another time I saw a man, he was quite a big man, he was on a piece of corrugated and four men were holding him you know and I said, ‘He looks dead.’ ‘He is dead. They’re just carting him off. He’s just died.’ It was just like Fu Manchu you know. Flares and this one had been. And we finally we were taken by truck to Burma and it was along the Manipur Road and then it’s, it’s a flat road in between mountains where Kohima and Imphal where they did the fighting and then the road goes like this and suddenly it turns right and starts to go up called The Chocolate Staircase when the monsoon was on because it was, and we were in these trucks, you know, and just went up one side and the other side and these trucks were just and Tamu, that was the first airstrip. Jungle. It was thick jungle you know. Thick jungle airstrip and the first casualty of 28 squadron happened at Tamu. One of the, flight lieutenant [Hewlis?] an Australian, he’d forgotten, they said, to lock, you had to, because the trees, it didn’t taper off the airstrip it came straight up so you had to bounce along the runway and suddenly do this.
BW: Lurch in to the air.
JBF: Well his undercarriage caught on the trees, tipped him over and he was hanging upside down burned to death. You know. And we just, that was the first introduction. Watching him burn to death in Tamu.
BW: And 28 squadron, what did they fly? Were they [?]
JBF: Hurricane 2Cs they were. Clapped out Hurricanes that, I mean, by that stage of the war the government, I should imagine was penniless and you name it and they hadn’t the wherewithal to replace them and it was a reconnaissance unit and the issue, the side sort of activity, shall we say, was shooting up the Japanese on the ground and that’s where we lost most of the aircraft because they were, the Japanese were very good shots and they used to shoot them down when they were doing the ground strafing and we were in the jungle from January, February and we went down the Kobor Valley in a truck which was thick jungle full of malaria and you name it and one thing we learned at that particular, you can’t pee out of a moving truck. It was in a convoy so he couldn’t stop so we each went to the back of the, we had a competition, we each went to the, got off our toolbox, went to the back, hanged up, everything organised and nothing came out and everybody was the same. You can’t pee out of a moving truck.
BW: And what time of the war was this? This was after -
JBF: This was -
BW: D Day wasn’t it so was it late ‘44 when you transferred out there?
JBF: This was ’44. Yeah.
BW: Going in to early ‘45
JBF: Well forty, it was the end of ‘44 ’45.
BW: So this was after the Battle of Kohima when you’d gone through the -
JBF: Oh that was all.
BW: Towns yeah, yeah.
JBF: Oh all that would have been the ‘43 yes. All those, oh yes that was absolutely, the people that did that they should have been, what was left of them, they should be pensioned for life. They were fighting, they were fighting over a tennis court in one of the places.
BW: And so you say 28 squadron was a reconnaissance squadron.
JBF: That’s it. Reconnaissance and two cannon.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: That why they’re called 2Cs, two cannon, heavy, heavy machine gun, you know. What is it? Five?
BW: Twenty millimetre.
JBF: That’s it. Yeah. Twenty five millimetre. Quite heavy shells you know and when we got down to this Kalaymyo and it was just bush and we didn’t see an aircraft because the war was moving that quick. The next thing we were, by truck to a place called [Yau] which was an airstrip in the paddy fields.
NH: Do you want another cup Brian?
BW: Yes please. Thank you, Neil. And this is further into Burma.
JBF: This is further into Northern Burma. Tamu’s up here and you come across like this to Mandalay. Well we went down the Kobor Valley and across to [Yau?] and [Yau?] we went to Sadong.
BW: Thank you.
JBF: Sadong was the airstrip outside Mandalay. The Japanese were still in Mandalay and this is where we lost the aircraft. The aircrew. We lost two or three aircrew here because the Japanese could shoot them as they come over the fort. They were in the fort, you know. They lost them there.
BW: And even that was just down to small arms fire.
JBF: I think it was small arms, I never saw ackack guns or even, we heard all the row that was going on but I don’t ever recollect, I think it was small arms fire. The Japanese rifle is 256 the, the calibre. You know, ours are 303. Their rifles were 256. Smaller bullets but just as lethal but of course they’re all five foot three so carrying something lighter was part of the course for them. So we were in Sadong and we were there quite some time and they used to have the mule trains going up to supply the troops. Like Sadong’s here and Mandalay is there and thirteen miles I think was the difference and they came one day and said, ‘You’re not going to bed. You’re going to fly down to Meiktila.’ And so we didn’t go to bed that particular night, struck the tents, got in the Dakotas. All the Dakotas had no doors on. If you want to be frightened go on a Dakota with no doors. And we landed in Meiktila and they hadn’t cleaned up the airstrip. All the Japanese they’d killed were everywhere which was the first time really I’d seen what you might call a battlefield and well we just got stuck in from there with the aeroplanes.
BW: You mentioned that you’d struck tents.
JBF: Oh yes.
BW: Were all your accommodation presumably out in the Far East was in tents was it?
JBF: While the campaigning was on it was tents. You had a piece of coconut matting with two sort of slide holes and through that went two pieces of bamboo. Now I pinched two full sets of runway grating. I’d call them nails. They were pieces of metal and they were driven into the ground so that when it was the monsoon they had the metal over and the aircraft didn’t sink so I got hold of four -
BW: Pierced steel planking.
JBF: Of these and I drove those in the ground put the bamboo on, tied on and my bed was off ‘cause you couldn’t, they wouldn’t let you sleep on the ground because there were scorpions, you know. All the stuff that’s there. Scorpion. If you left your tent flap open you couldn’t get in because of the bugs. Somebody did to see what would happen and it was an absolute carpet of every conceivable type of flying bug you’ve ever heard of. So we never did that again.
NH: No.
JBF: We got down to Meiktila. It all went very well and we knew the war was going well because the Arakan forces who had taken Meiktila our, our army was General Slim coming this way. The Yanks were on the outside coming that way and the Indian army was coming this way along the Arakan and it was the –
BW: The opposite end.
JBF: Arakan that had captured Meiktila and so we got on to Meiktila and, you know, set up and they were doing everything as usual. It was exactly the same. Seven hundred. Oil, so on and then see them off, bring them in and run them and so on. Keep them -
BW: So even though you were working on different aircraft you were still working on the same engine to all -
JBF: That’s right.
BW: Intents and purposes.
JBF: Merlin 20s. That’s why I was posted to the Hurricane squadron, because it was home from home. We knew what to do and could do it right away.
BW: Even in those adverse conditions and presumably not as well supplied.
JBF: Well -
BW: Did you, did you have trouble with supplies?
JBF: Well we had nothing to eat. That was the trouble with supplies. But I mean hens eggs in Burmese is [ju ug?] [koplar?] is cloths. So you had a pair of underpants and you’d go [ju ug] like that [koplar] and so you’d get the hens egg and they’d get the underpants. So the net result it -
BW: So you’d trade.
JBF: We had nothing to wear either. [laughs]
BW: So you traded your under -
JBF: Not that it mattered ‘cause you never had a shirt on anyway. It was just a pair of shorts, socks and boots you know that’s the and with your boots you had to knock your boots out every day because the scorpions loved, it must have been the smell of your feet, they loved getting in the boots so we had to be, and tool boxes. If you, when you opened your toolbox the first thing to do is wait and see if anything moves. Then you’d know there was something in there that shouldn’t be in there you know. So we’re getting on with it and I think the most distressing part of Meiktila was a trench full of Japanese who’d been, they’d used the flame thrower on them. There was about anywhere between fifty and a hundred Japanese who’d been fried.
BW: All in a trench.
JBF: All in the trench. ‘Cause they, they were facing either this way or that way and the flame thrower had come this way and just fried the lot.
BW: And was this at the edge of an airstrip or near the airstrip -
JBF: Yeah. It was Meiktila airstrip.
BW: Where you were working.
JBF: There were shell holes with Japanese in. The first time we saw, there was one Japanese well over six feet. He was dead of course, in the shell hole. It was the first time I’d seen a big, they were all about this big but, anyway -
BW: And this, this was obviously all after the battle but you never came into a closer contact with the Japanese at any time.
JBF: No. Only as prisoners, not as - the next thing that happened with Meiktila he said, ‘Nine of you are being flown into the [Tongu] Box.’ Well I was picked as one of the nine so we were flown into the [Tongu] Box and I know when it was simply because we, over the radio that we heard that the Germans had packed up so it’s got to be the 8th of May. And we were in the [Tongu] Box and the laugh about that was we’d got two tents, we only had two tents. There was nine of us and suddenly the ants started, up and they had a procession going in no time. There was millions you know. Ants, you name it. They’ve got it. They were going up the guide ropes up to the top right up to the fourteen foot EPI down the other side so we thought we’ll have a bit of fun here so we got the lighted taper thing and we started chasing the ants off the, the next minute they was, your feet, being bitten and the fighter ants were biting, they were all over us, on the feet, biting. Some bad. So we’re in this in this Box thing and I could see the sergeant was getting a bit frustrated you know. The aeroplanes didn’t appear by the way. It was monsoon so they couldn’t land and take off anyway. The Dakotas had a job doing it and he said, ‘Right. We’re going to make a dash for Rangoon.’ So we thought ok, you know, ‘Rangoon. Great.’ So, so he got two West African trucks and we started off and it got to about 11 o’clock in the morning and we stopped and made a brew up. Put it on the tree and we got the fire going and the stuff out, the tea out and everything and as we were doing all this and thoroughly enjoying it out of the jungle came a patrol of British. So we just sort of, ‘Hello.’ He said, ‘What the f’ing are you,’ you know, he said, ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ We said, ‘Yes. We’re on route to Rangoon.’ He said, ‘Of course you are.’ The place was full of Japanese. He said, ‘Get the hell out of it now.’ So we never even got a cup of tea. It was like the keystone cops. The two trucks and drove off and we kept driving and it got, you know it goes dark at 6 o’clock at night there so we’d got to half past five, quarter to six and even the sergeant was getting a bit worried you know. Finally we hit an army emplacement. I don’t know how we managed to do it but they must, the sergeant must have known and he said, ‘Thank God for that,’ so we drove and he asked the officer could we bunk in for the night so we got on the floor there and at least we were surrounded by the military, you know. And so we started off the next morning and finally around about midday, 2 o’clock or something we arrived in Rangoon and they were living in a bombed out hospital at the time. The squadron. There were no buildings. Everywhere was flat, you know and the only question that was asked was, ‘Where the ‘FH’ have you been?’ They thought we’d already died. And so we arrived there and I think the most graphic thing that happened to me then, we still had Hurricanes and they used to do the cooking fires in front of this building that had no roof, no windows, no doors, nothing but at least it was, you were on the flat and it was not, it wasn’t raining you know. Marvellous and a jeep, a jeep drew up. The adjutant and two sergeants, ‘Who’s Franklin?’ So I said, ‘I am.’ ‘Get in.’ So no breakfast. Get in with the cup and the plate, you know. Driven to the flight and there’s a Hurricane standing there and the CO said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘Start that machine.’ So I knew it was tricky because the, it wasn’t one where you just, they press the trolley acc and you had to do clever stuff with the accelerator. You know.
NH: Throttle. Yeah.
JBF: And so I got in and just eased it and it was making funny [ch ch ch], the engine you know and then I just eased it on ‘cause I’d done it before, it wasn’t and it started and I did the, you had to go up to two thousand seven hundred revs to test the engine and then you test the magnetos. You switch one off and it works and you switch the other off and it works so I went through the procedures, came down and got out. So I was utterly relieved. You know, at least the thing had worked and this, Blackie his name was, he was the sergeant. He said, ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘You’ve just made me look the biggest f’ing fool in Burma.’ I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said. ‘I’ve been half an hour trying to get this thing started. You come down and it starts first time.’ First time. So I was driven back. They said, ‘Get out.’ Back to the squadron. No breakfast. That’s the only thing that happened to me out of that lot.
BW: So much for their thanks. And within a few weeks or months the squadron transferred to Spitfire 9s you said.
JBF: That’s right. What happened was from Rangoon we were suddenly changed over to Spit 9s it was. The Hurricanes, by the way the aircraft were just thrown in the bushes. Hurricane aircraft I mean. You know. When you went to dig a hole for the lavatory you went behind one of these because at least you had some sort of privacy. They were just there upended and that’s the other joke about Burma is that there were no toilets of course and when you had to go you had to go so the first, to start with you think oh that’s a nice piece of grass, at least it looked like and everybody in the Japanese army had already been there before. It was black. You were waist deep in it you know. That was one of the Burma experiences that you can forget about. That and the bread full of ants. I thought they were currants to start with. I thought that’s unusual, you know currant bread for breakfast and you handled, it was all ants, dead bodies of ants, they couldn’t get them out of the flour so they cooked them.
NH: Oh right.
JBF: And finally we went, the most graphic thing that happened in Rangoon was we were sitting there and the adjutant came through and he just looked at the four of us and he said, ‘The war’s over.’ [long pause] Seventy years late.
[machine pause]
JBF: And I said, ‘Where are we going?’ He said, ‘You’re going to Malaya,’ So, it was a terrible camp. It was a transit camp and we got in these kites and suddenly the kite I was in developed engine trouble and so we locked in to Siam and we spent oh at least three weeks, four weeks in Siam, at the, waiting for replacements or whatever it was you know and then we were flown in and became garrison squadron on Penang island. That was the next RAF station.
BW: So this is obviously -
JBF: This is after the war now.
BW: August. August ’45, September ’45.
JBF: This is ‘45, yeah -
BW: Were you getting news of being demobbed at anytime?
JBF: Oh nothing. What happened was we were, we were supposed to be, it was an army pre-war barracks beautifully built. Nothing, nothing there. The Malayans had pinched everything you know which was what happened to the cockpit covers. They came down with the new aircraft and all the cockpit covers disappeared overnight. So these Chinese detectives appeared out the woodwork you know and all the kids in the surrounding villages had got new clothes which was our cockpits covers [laughs]. And so we were there six months on rest and then we were transported by train along with thirty million cockroaches. The cockroaches are everywhere on the trains and the way to get them out is not to have a light so there’s no lights and you hear this [tapping noise] and the place is covered in cockroaches about so big. Cockroaches. So once they got the petrol mix and the lights they all went back and hung underneath. Fantastic. Even the loo which was a hole in the ground you know, shoulder to shoulder around the hole where you’re supposed to form are cockroaches waiting.
BW: Strange.
JBF: And we went down to Kuala Lumpur and we were in tents and it was, the thing was there was no aeroplanes and then some aeroplanes arrived and then they started educational vocational courses. We thought we’ve got to be on one of these, you know, sort of thing.
BW: This was preparing you for civilian life presumably.
JBF: This was, yeah. I had, I had an interview and I said, ‘Well I left a job and the man promised me I’d have it when I came back,’ So I didn’t need, really need the interview I felt. And there was a football team and I played in that. And things went on and suddenly the demob, the demob numbers started appearing. Well I was number forty and just one day right out of the blue six years, five years later you know they said, ‘Your number’s up.’ Forty. So within a week I was on the train going to Singapore and stayed at that, what is it, Changi is it?
NH: Changi. The airport. Yeah. Well and the Japanese camp of course.
BW: [I was there?] last year.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: And we handed the weapons in to the armoury. All Japanese. Japanese took the weapons.
BW: That must have felt quite strange.
JBF: Well it was ridiculous you know. Well it was ordered but what I’ve forgotten, I’ve just remember was the armistice in Rangoon. The rumour went around that the Japanese were coming for the armistice for Southern Asia. That bit. So they, a Japanese, they got a Japanese bunker and whereas when they captured Singapore they had all the military, the troops lined the Streets and the Japanese commander standing up in a motor car commanding, you know. All the poor squaddies were just stood there you know. We did, they had officers on the runway but everybody, it was like a football crowd so we all crowded around. I tell you what it’s like. General MacArthur on the boat where he accepts the surrender of Japan. It was like that, like a football. Well I sidled around the side and they had a desk a bit bigger than this and two of our generals were standing there and the aircraft, they were like Dakotas only much smaller pulled up and into this compound thing and this general said, ‘Do we salute?’ He said, ‘We don’t f’ing well salute them.’ So they pulled the, and there was the Japanese generals, the Japanese in full evening dress. They climbed out, marched over to the table and they just nodded and pointed to the trucks and they were put in trucks for Rangoon for the surrender and that was the surrender in Rangoon. It was just like a football match.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: There was no ceremony at all. It just -
BW: And that was it.
JBF: As it was, you know.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: Then finally the final news was the boats arrived so of course we couldn’t wait so that’s the only time I saw Raffles Hotel was in the truck going past to the troop ship.
BW: I was there myself in November.
JBF: And came home to Liverpool.
NH: What? You docked in Liverpool.
JBF: Docked in Liverpool.
NH: Marvellous. Yeah.
JBF: Then we got on the train and went to [Worley?].
NH: Back to the beginning.
JBF: Just outside Blackpool and were demobbed from there and so we had the kitbag with your uniform in and bits and pieces. You were in your RAF and your, the bag was your civilian, you know. They kitted me out with a suit, a shirt, a tie, socks, underpants, vest and shoes and it came in a series of boxes it seemed to me, just holding. We were all the same, holding up these boxes and then they just said, ‘Ok, your train’s arrived,’ and we got on the train to Liverpool and I caught the tram home.
NH: They found shoes to fit you did they?
JBF: Yeah. Got, got to Gordon Drive. Nobody’s in. Nobody in the house so [Winn Roth?] called over, ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘Come in for a cup of tea.’ So I sat in there until my sister came back from work and when I got in the house was full of mice because nobody had lived in it you see and all the scratches were on the sideboard and the various places. The meat safe thing. So I started and I caught mice every night for seven days and the technique was we, we, we had a ewbank cleaner and we chased them out of the dining room and I realised they all went in this ewbank cleaner. Every time. No change. So I said to my sister, ‘Fill up the sink.’ So she fills the sink up and takes the bowl out. I lift up the ewbank cleaner and depress and of course the doors open and out drop the mice. I killed eight in one night. The final night. So that was the trick. You know you see these pictures where there’s a party and -
NH: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
JBF: All the relatives. I never even got a party. My mother was in America seeing my brother.
BW: Who must have been in a show in America presumably.
JBF: Oh well he was –
NH: He was touring with his -
JBF: At that stage -
BW: Right.
JBF: He was with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and they, Agnes de Mille, you know the, what is she? A sister of de Mille himself you know.
BW: Cecil B.
JBF: You know.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: She was a choreographer and she choreographed Rodeo, was the name of the ballet and my brother was the champion roper in Rodeo and that was, and it was, well it was you know he was famous and it wasn’t in England.
NH: He was famous over there.
BW: Quite a showman.
JBF: Yeah.
NH: Never over here but he was in America, you know. Well known in the ballet world.
JBF: Yes. So basically I think and oh just one nice touch. I hadn’t been paid. Nobody had been paid you know all the way through from India I can’t remember. We got nothing in India.
NH: I suppose you couldn’t do anything with it anyway.
JBF: And these cheques started to appear. I thought, the five years I’ve worked so I didn’t go to work. I didn’t tell them. So the cheque came through and I said to my pal Tom, who was also demobbed, I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘Let’s go to London. Just to see what it’s like.’ So we get the cheque and off we go to London. He was the same. And it went on ‘til the week before Christmas when the cheques stopped. I said, ‘I’ve got to go to work Tom,’ I said. ‘There’s no more cheques.’ So I started work about the 15th of December that year having had off September, October, November and part of December. I thought well that’s all the leave.
NH: Yeah. That’s it. Well you’d earned it hadn’t you by that stage?
BW: And were you able to go back to the job that you’d been -
JBF: Oh yes I went back.
BW: Left.
JBF: I was the last in ‘cause I was, I was the last out the youngest and I was the last in and they’d taken, I went back to the Banana Rooms but they’d already taken a building in Sir Thomas Street and built and extension to it so we went back to reasonable offices and started to build up the business from that moment and that’s how it was. I finally retired forty seven years from Dixons.
BW: So you stayed at the same firm -
JBF: Yeah.
BW: For forty seven years.
JBF: Yeah. Well what did I know? I was twenty six you know. I had to learn to play tennis and badminton and in fact be normal. It was something I’d never experienced you know actually coming home at night and sitting down to a meal. We thought it was wonderful, Tom and I, you know. Marvellous.
BW: And subsequent to that there have been in recent years a bit more prominence and commemoration given to Bomber Command.
JBF: There has been hasn’t there? Yes.
BW: How do you feel about that?
JBF: ‘Cause they, well you’ve only got to read those books to know the price paid by the people who actually did it. When they say there’s fifty five, fifty seven thousand aircrew killed in those books that I’ve got.
NH: They’re on the chair there.
JBF: They’re talking about. There they are. Seven or eight Lancasters disappearing in the night. That was fifty six blokes. And it was every night. It wasn’t just [next?] and then there’s a month’s delay. I mean the Mosquitos, we lost about three. One received a direct hit of an anti-aircraft shell and blew up and the others were just shot down. But the rest of them, I mean, our kite did a hundred and eleven ops –
NH: Yeah good.
BW: Not with the same crew though presumably -
JBF: Oh no we had all kinds of crews.
BW: Just thinking back to your time in the Far East did you get to know the pilots on the squadron, 28 squadron at all well?
JBF: Oh yes very much so. They were very, one pilot wouldn’t let you touch his aircraft. He used to, Eddie Hunter was a Canadian. He said, it was my turn to DI his kite he said, ‘Look Lofty,’ he says, ‘I know about aircraft.’ he says, ‘I’ll do the necessary,’ and he filled up the, I filled up the juice and he checked the engine and did the oil and the coolant and that and he got shot down that day. What happened was he, from his, they used to go in twos you know. The second man, the report was, Eddie went down strafing the Japanese and as he was coming up he hit a tree, just caught the tree coming up and he crashed and killed him.
BW: Just clarify a couple of expressions if you don’t mind. DI what does that stand for?
JBF: Daily inspection.
BW: Daily inspection.
JBF: Each aircraft has a daily inspection and it was very important because it’s always after a raid, you know or a flying test or whatever and you have to sign the form 700 to say it’s, your bit’s ok.
BW: And trolley acc. That’s a trolley accumulator is that right?
JBF: Accumulator. There’s twenty four volt is it?
NH: Yeah. It’s like a –
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And they’re on two wheels.
NH: Generator thing isn’t it that they charge the engine with instead of having a starter motor.
JBF: Plug it into the aeroplane.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: You’ve primed with the pump, there’s a little hatch and you open that. Prime and screw up and then press the trolley acc. It starts. And the Merlin 20 was like that all the time.
BW: How did you rate the Spit 9s that you worked on?
JBF: Sorry?
BW: How did you rate the Spitfire 9s that you worked on?
JBF: Well they were very interesting. Not that we knew anything about them but there was nobody to tell you anything. They were just dumped on us you know and we just sort of –
BW: Were they Merlins 66s in the 9 mark 9.
JBF: They were much, they were engines we’d never seen or we knew where the oil was and we knew where the coolant was but the rest of it was just totally different.
BW: Did you feel that they were more reliable then the Mark 20 engines?
JBF: Oh yes. Well it was the, what you might call the essence of all the experience because the Lancasters had, you know, starting with Spitfires, Lancasters, Mosquitos all had Merlins in.
NH: So yeah.
JBF: I mean they were all, the Merlins underpinned the whole shooting match you know.
NH: Right. Yeah.
BW: And you still found the 66s to be pretty reliable.
JBF: Oh yes. Yeah.
BW: And they had a supercharger on them.
JBF: Yeah.
BW: Didn’t they?
JBF: That’s right yeah.
BW: Did you know much about those or work on those?
JBF: Oh no. They were just stood there you know. One thing I haven’t mention was watching a B17 fly into the ground if that’s of any interest. Is it? At Little Staughton which was very close to a lot of American bases I was DI’ing this kite and I looked up and I saw this aircraft low flying. I thought God strewth and they did a lot of low flying and it kept on flying and then it dipped and I just watched it coming towards me and it dipped into the ground and suddenly everything started to fly off it and it finished about eighty yards from me. It finally disintegrated and blew up and I’m mesmerised. You can’t, I don’t know what it is, you can’t run away and then I heard a voice, ‘Lofty’ he said, ‘Come here,’ he said, ‘Get under this,’ and so we hid under a Mosquito with six hundred and forty gallons of petrol [laughs] and we’re under the engine, you know, because it was the most protection but what I remember of the, of that was one of the cylinders complete, when the explosion of the engine it blew the cylinders out and you recognise it mid-air, ‘Oh yes there’s the’, and it just came out and dropped just short of where the Mosquito we were under you know.
BW: And so you watched this bomber coming towards you -
JBF: Yeah just watched it and -
BW: Disintegrate as it hit the ground.
JBF: Into the ground. Nothing. Not one of those.
BW: Yeah not going straight in. Going in at a sharp angle.
JBF: There was nobody in it. It was on glide, you know. It was on pilot. The Yanks came around, ‘Oh is this where it fell?’ You know.
NH: Autopilot.
JBF: All our aircraft were full of holes but -.
BW: So they must presumably have baled out.
JBF: They’d baled out. Yeah.
BW: And left it to fly on.
JBF: Well I wouldn’t say it was common baling out but we could look in, we watched the Liberator on fire in the air and suddenly five or six of the crew jumped out in parachutes and you know it was all part of the course if you know what I mean. It wasn’t, and the flying bomb was the same, we were walking into, at Staughton walking into the cookhouse, 4 o’clock in the morning. We’d done the op. It was all buttoned up and ready and there was an erk leaning on the side of the door smoking a cigarette. He said, ‘Do you want to see a flying bomb?’ So we said, ‘Ok,’ you know so he said, ‘Just turn around and watch that,’ and there was a light and a putt putt putt putt putt putt putt and then suddenly it stopped. The only flying bomb I saw was just that one.
BW: So thinking back to your experience of Bomber Command and looking back at it how do you feel the service has been commemorated? Is it, it is getting better or -
JBF: I was disappointed to start with because I did hear that somehow or other Bomber Command was pegged out, you know. Pushed around the back because it wasn’t right bombing Germans you know. Bombing civilians and all that. And I was delighted to see that they’d got this commemoration up to the air crew in London and of course Eric Brown, my cousin, he was killed and my friend Eric [McKim?], he was killed. Both aircrew. Both on these.
NH: Missions.
BW: And so from the Green Park Memorial to the Centre that’s going to be at Canwick Hill did you get to the unveiling of the Memorial -
JBF: Oh no.
BW: Last year.
JBF: I’ve never been in any kind of Association like, you know, old comrades and all that. I’ve been to two or three reunions but you were only friends in that, once you’ve, you were all looking at each other. Perfect strangers.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: You know, solicitors were looking at accountants and accountants were looking at clerks and clerks were looking at petrol attendants or –
NH: Yeah.
JBF: Garages.
NH: Had nothing in common by then did you?
JBF: I remember two.
NH: Who was the guy that you, there was the fella with a ‘tache wasn’t there that sort of set himself up as a, as a leading light in that thing and you said he was, you knew him anyway, there was a guy that sort of ran it or tried to get -
JBF: Oh yes. Yeah. Well -
NH: That organised the reunions.
JBF: Organised the reunions. Yeah, well.
NH: Who was that fella?
JBF: To be honest except for Handley and Dom and Clive and Bill Gill, that was our little gang, and we all went to the reunions, we went to two reunions but there was nothing in common.
BW: Right.
JBF: We had nothing in common. Pat Handley was a big lorry driver on the motorways. Dom worked in a garage. I don’t know what Clive did. And I went back to office work.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: And the friendship was just at the time you know. In Meiktila for instance Handley had the brilliant idea. Japanese built the bunkers for their aircraft and of course there’s a trench around where they got the air to make the bunker so Handley has this brilliant idea he won’t bother with pegs and that he’ll just put the tent over one of these bunkers which is great except for the monsoon started. He’s standing in two foot of water and instead of rushing to help him we all died laughing, you know.
NH: Yeah.
BW: And so you’ve yet to see the memorial spire to Bomber Command crew at Canwick Hill at Lincoln where -
JBF: Is it really?
BW: So you’ve yet to go and see that.
JBF: Do I?
NH: Well he can’t get around much these days.
BW: Yeah.
NH: That’s the problem.
BW: Yeah.
NH: He’s not very mobile.
BW: Yeah.
NH: Are you? So you -
JBF: Oh no. I’m housebound you know.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: I can’t go out.
NH: Yeah.
BW: Yeah.
NH: He gets to his art.
BW: That’s a shame.
NH: He painted all these.
BW: These pictures on the wall.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: There’s, there’s -
BW: [?]
JBF: The one that’s see the latest underneath that see that one.
BW: Yeah.
JBF: Of the skyscrapers, right at the bottom, beside the little girl.
BW: Yes. This one.
JBF: That’s, Tim’s got that one. That was the last one I painted.
NH: So that’s, that’s as far as he gets these days.
JBF: You know they’re sort of this size.
BW: They’re wonderful paintings.
NH: Yeah.
BW: Ok.
NH: They’re his.
BW: Ok. I think that is all the questions that I have for you Jack unless there is anything else that you want to add.
NH: The only other thing is you mentioned my mum. Didn’t you used to meet up? She was at Bletchley and you used to meet up.
JBF: She was at Bletchley Park and I was at Little Staughton and we arranged to meet and I used to go to Bedford I think it was, catch the train and we’d meet. She’d bring a WAAF friend and invariably we went to the pictures and I never ever saw the film. I fell asleep immediately because I’d come off duty to get there so I’d got myself washed and dressed and in my best blue and out and we used to go to the pictures and I never saw a film because I just fell asleep.
NH: Did you ever know what she was doing at Bletchley? I mean.
JBF: No. I only knew what she was doing about 1960.
NH: You knew she was there though.
JBF: Yeah.
NH: Yeah.
JBF: It was very very -
NH: Oh absolutely.
JBF: Yeah.
NH: That’s right.
JBF: It was like the Oboe. The start was very, you know.
BW: And they were told not to speak about it and many of them didn’t for you know sixty years -
JBF: Well 1960.
BW: Let alone thirty.
JBF: The first time I even mentioned the word you know. I don’t even like to say it now to be honest.
BW: Different times.
NH: Absolutely.
BW: Right. Ok. I think that is everything for the interview so on behalf of the Bomber Command Centre thank you very much your time Jack. It’s been a pleasure.
JBF: Here’s the, do you want to have a look at some of the pictures?
BW: I’ll have a look at some of the -
JBF: Let’s see what’s in here.
BW: Items.
NH: So what is this centre?
BW: It’s going to be a digital archive for the audio and any documents that -
NH: Yeah.
BW: People hand over.
JBF: That’s the kind of terrain in Burma.
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 Jack Brown Franklin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Wright
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-31
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:51:22 Audio recording
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AFranklinJB160331
PFranklinJB1616
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending OH summary
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Brown Franklin grew up in Liverpool and worked in a paper merchants. He discusses Liverpool being bombed and his service in the Local Defence Volunteers. He joined the Air Force in 1941 and trained as an engine mechanic. He served with 109 Squadron, Pathfinders before being posted to 28 Squadron in Burma.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Burma
Great Britain
Burma--Meiktila
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Liverpool
England--Norfolk
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
109 Squadron
bombing
civil defence
crash
demobilisation
fitter engine
flight mechanic
ground crew
ground personnel
home front
Home Guard
Hurricane
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Oboe
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Marham
RAF Wyton
Spitfire
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1122/19948/BSharrockRSharockRv2.1.pdf
1f7f1c8901c36dd903c87e4757a4c783
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
Sharrock, Bob
Robert Sharrock
R Sharrock
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Flight Sergeant Bob Sharrock (1924 - 2019, 2210141 Royal Air Force), his log book, a photograph and documents. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 428 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Sharrock 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
2018-03-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sharrock, R
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Memories and Reminiscences of Bob Sharrock
I was born in 1925 at a small village called Digmoor in Upholland near Wigan. My father, Joshua, known as Jos, was a coal miner working at a coal mine in Bickerstaffe.
Mother, Alice worked hard looking after the house and the children.
I had an older brother called Eric and a younger brother called William or Billy who died when only three years old. I went to school at the age of five.
We lived in a small terraced cottage in Spencers Lane, which had two bedrooms, a parlour (front room), a living kitchen and a back kitchen. It had a back yard in which Daddy had a wooden hut in which he carried out his hobby of fretwork and other woodwork. The living kitchen had a coal-fired range, which had an oven on one side and water heater on the other. Alongside the fireplace was a brick built boiler for washing clothes. The back kitchen had a slopstone and a cold water tap. All hot water came from a kettle, which was permanently on the fire or from the wash boiler, which was only used on washdays.
Daddy would come home from work covered in coal dust and would wash all over in a galvanised bath in front of the fire or, if the weather was warm, in the backyard.
Sundays were spent going to chapel and Sunday school. We had no transport and Daddy went to work on his bike having to go over a fairly large area called the Moss. He fitted a seat on the crossbar of his bike and would take me for rides on it.
Times became hard when the Bickerstaffe pit closed and father was out of work. He and some other miners went to work in Kent but the conditions were so difficult that they came back to Lancashire. In 1935 he got a job at Cronton colliery and the family moved to Whiston, renting an end terrace house in Brook Street.
I went to a primary school in Prescot, in the final year class.
At the age of 11 I went to Whiston Central School until Easter 1939
1
[page break]
when I left school at the age of 14. I then started work as an errand boy at the Rainhill branch of the Whiston Co-op Society. I earned 11 shillings per week and gave my mother 10 of these and had one shilling as spending money. I could get to a cinema show for 9 pence.
War broke out on the 3rd Sept 1939, and we were then living in a small semi-detached house 121 Dragon Lane. Whiston, from there, over ensuing months, we could see the effects of air raids on Liverpool, about 9 miles away. A few stray bombs fell on Rainhill but did no significant damage.
Some communal air raid shelters were built in the streets but as they were brick built and had concrete roofs it was doubtful if they would have been very effective. We were issued with an Anderson shelter, which Dad installed, in our back garden. He dug a pit about 3 feet deep, installed the corrugated shelter in it and covered it with the displaced earth. We only spent time in it when the air raid sirens went off. It was cold, damp and cramped.
Men were getting called up to the forces and as a result I changed to milk delivering. This meant being up at 5-30 a.m. 7 days a week. Loading a handcart with half a ton of milk bottles and pulling it around Rainhill. It was hard work but I think it did me some good physically. Eventually I was equipped with a pony and milk float, which made the job easier.
One day I met an old school acquaintance who was working for the local Gas Company. He told me that they were short-handed and it may be worthwhile making enquiries about a job. I followed this up and called at the office. The Manager interviewed me, asking a few questions on maths and general knowledge and then asked if I would like to start as a laboratory assistant. I accepted willingly and was soon involved in doing routine lab tests on calorific value, flue gas analysis, retort temperatures and other similar jobs. I started night school classes on maths, physics and chemistry, which lasted for two years until it was time to join the armed forces.
With a war going on these early teenage years didn't give much
2
[page break]
opportunity for normal teenage activities. In addition to my three nights a week at nightschool time was taken up by joining, with my friends, the Air Training Corps and the Police Auxiliary Messenger Service and it was the A.T.C. that stimulated my interested in flying.
3
[page break]
The A.T.C. took up one night per week when we did aircraft recognition, elementary navigation and drill. There were two occasions when we went on a week's camp, once to Blackpool airport and once to Crosby on Eden. One day at Crosby I was hanging around aircraft that were being serviced when a pilot told me that he was taking a Beaufighter on a test flight and did I want to join him. I sat in the observer's seat and we flew over the Lake District, I was thrilled.
When it came the time for registering for the armed forces. I made it clear that I wanted to join the RAF as a flier. I was eventually called for interview at the Aircrew Selection Board at Padgate, Burtonwood, near Warrington. I was asked what job did I want to do in aircrew and I said PNB or Flight Engineer.
PNB stood for Pilot, Navigator, Bomb Aimer. They all started their training together, the latter part of this in Canada or Rhodesia. As they went through their training selection was made. The best continued as Pilots, the next Navigators and the rest Bomb aimers.
When I mentioned Flight Engineer there was little further discussion. I was told I could train for this job. Whether it was because of my vaguely engineering background or because they were desperately short I don't know.
I joined the Air Force in June 1943, aged 18, and reported to the Lord's Cricket Ground in London. We were billeted in blocks of flats nearby. Here we were issued with uniform, given numerous inoculation jabs, initiated into drill exercises and introduced to canteen food. Not a bit like home cooking.
About 2 weeks later we were posted to Torquay for Initial Training. Here we endured physical training, some theoretical training into navigation, drill, Morse Code, even skeet shooting on Daddy Hole Plain. When we moved from one site to another it was either running or at a marching pace faster than the army used. This lasted for about six weeks and we were fortunate to have good hot weather Most of the time it was very enjoyable.
4
[page break]
The next posting was to St Athan in South Wales. Here we started our technical training. Most of us were allocated the Halifax bomber, others the Stirling, the Lancaster and a few to Sunderland flying boats. I was disappointed not to be one of the latter. All these were four engined aircraft and it was only these that had a Flight Engineer. Most of the time was spent in lecture groups and my notebooks give an idea of the type of information we were given. We also had drill, P.T. swimming and other recreational activities
It was about this time that, when on leave, I went to a dance at the Parish Rooms at Prescot and met Dorothy Marsden.
The following March (1944) I was posted to 1664 Heavy Conversion Unit at Dishforth. This was where we met up with aircrews that had trained on two-engined aircraft and were moving on to heavy bombers. In this case they were Halifax bombers. We had further practical training and were attached to a crew. They were all Canadian with a pilot by the name of Willard MacKeracher. The unit was in 6 Group, operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force, which occupied the area of North Yorkshire.
We did six exercises of Circuits and Landings. These were a series of take off, fly round the airfield and land. They were mainly to familiarise the pilot and engineer with handling the aircraft. This took about 10 hours. A further hour was spent doing three engined landings. Three further trips were made to give the Gunners and the Bomb Aimer some practice but it was on this third trip that we crashed on landing. It was apparent and subsequently reported that we had suffered an engine failure which slewed us over to miss the runway.
It was a miracle that not one of the crew was killed. All I remember is being knocked about and then opening my eyes to see that I was a few yards in front of the nose of the aircraft.. [sic] The first person to reach me was an Italian prisoner of war who helped me to get out my parachute harness. Help soon arrived and four of us were taken by ambulance to Northallerton hospital.
5
[page break]
Examination showed that I had a compressed fracture of the vertebrae in the lumbar region. A plaster of Paris jacket was applied which extended from the groin to the neck. I had a few days in bed while the jacket hardened and dried and then I was able to walk about fairly normally. The only difficulty was that I could not bend down. I was then given a couple of week's leave, which I spent at home.
I was then posted to a convalescent home in Hoylake on the Wirral. This was called The Leas and was previously a girl's school. It was provided to recuperate injured aircrew and there were a number of chaps wearing plaster jackets similar to mine.
We were made to keep quite active and spent most of the time doing exercises, playing games such as softball, (an easy version of baseball), tug'o war, football, cycling, etc. I was there for just short of three months. I was fortunate in that in weekends off it was quite easy to get home.
Whilst I was there the Normandy invasions took place.
In August 44 I was posted back to Dishforth and joined another crew. The skipper was R. Anderson. We knew him as Andy.
Over a period of about four weeks we did 98 hours of flying time in Halifax Bombers.
Then we were told that future flying would be in Lancasters so, after a few lectures and 10 hours flying time in three days we were considered to be fully trained.
The next posting was in October to 428 Squadron based at Middleton St George, which was where we were to do our operational flying. In the 6 months that we were operational I did 28 ops and was “screened” on the 17th April 45, some three weeks before VE Day.
My flying logbook lists every flight that I made, including training flights and operational trips. The operational flights were mainly at nighttime, bombing German cities. We were fortunate to evade being attacked by night fighters and being hit by flak. Only on one occasion did I find, on
6
[page break]
returning, a piece of shrapnel embedded in the fuselage.
With the war in Europe ending in May 45 and operational flying finished it was apparent that the authorities had to find something for aircrew to do before demob and I was posted, along with other Flight Engineers, To Credenhill, near Hereford and put on a Flight Mechanic’s course. After that I was posted to Kinloss where we spent time inhibiting engines on bombers in case they were needed again.
Whilst I was there the manager of Prescot Gas Company applied for my release from the R A F and I was demobbed on the 1st Feb 46 on a “B”class release. I had served 2years 8months.
Some time later I learned that the Institute of Gas Engineers had arranged some courses for employees who had their technical education interrupted by war service and I made application.
I went to Aston Technical College for 6 months to get my Ordinary Grade Certificate in Gas Engineering (Supply), then to Liverpool Gas Company for 6 months practical training followed by a further 6 months at Birmingham Central Technical College to get my Higher Grade Certificate.
On 19th July 1947 Dorothy and I were married.
Soon after finishing the course and going back to Prescott Gas I got an invitation to apply to Liverpool Gas Co. for a job in their Industrial Sales Department. This I did and started with the company later in 48. The job involved visiting manufacturing firms and getting them to use gas for their heating processes. These included space heating, water heating and various manufacturing processes such as furnaces, tank heating etc.
From getting married we lived in shared accommodation in various places, usually the homes of widows and consisted of a bedroom, a ground room and shared kitchen and bathroom. Whilst working at Liverpool we bought a small semi in Cable Road, Whiston. This cost
7
[page break]
£900 and we lived there for about a year until we moved to Burnley.
The Gas Industry at that time was formed from towns having a gasworks run either as private companies or mainly as Departments of local councils.
In 1951 the Industry was nationalised and these undertakings, apart from bigger towns like Manchester and Liverpool, were formed into small groups. This gave the opportunity to create special departments specialising in a particular activity. One of these was sale of gas to Industrial and Commercial premises. One of the Groups was known as the Burnley / Colne Group and I got the job of Industrial Engineer, starting in June 51. This also coincided with the arrival of Robert, our firstborn.
We bought a house in Sycamore Avenue, Burnley. Finances were tight but we managed. It was here, in 1953, that John was born.
My job involved selling gas to Industrial and Commercial customers and I had to get around in a small van but after a while I got my first car, a Ford Prefect.
In 1954 The North West Gas Board reorganized and larger Groups were formed. One of these was The Northern Group which took in Lancaster, Morecambe, Kendal, Barrow-in Furness and other smaller undertakings in the Lake District and as far away as Millom. Harry Robinson, the Manager of the Burnley/Colne Group was made Manager of the Northern group and I got the job of Industrial Gas Sales Engineer. Among the customers that I had dealings with were Jas. Williamsons and Storey Bros. of Lancaster, K Shoes of Kendal, Vickers Armstrong, Barrow Steel, Barrow Iron works and Millom Iron works.
The Gas Board bought a house, which I rented, in Beaufort Road, Morecambe and I got a decent increase in pay. Life was comfortable.
Whilst living in Morecambe Jeremy and David arrived and I got involved in various activities including the Masons, Round Table and Scouts. Also whilst there I bought a second hand dinghy, a GP 14, called
8
[page break]
William Younger with the sail number 347. I joined the Morecambe and Heysham Yacht Club and took part in races with Dorothy as crew. This lasted some time and the boys also took part. John and I sailed together at the Southport 24hr race as part of the MHYC team a couple of times, one year using our boat as the team boat. One year we took part in the Race Across the Bay to Gibraltar (the one near Jenny Brown's Point) and managed to come last as our launching trolley had broken the previous day so we were loaded down with the canvas cover and all sorts of other heavy gear. John was the keenest sailor and eventually he decided I was too slow to act as his crew so he got various girls to crew for him, including Dorothy's niece, Patricia. His main crew was Rosemary Cole with whom he won many trophies. We did do some work on the boat, when we first got it it had a jib and mainsail in white cotton, this was changed for red terylene sails including a genoa.
I joined the RNLI as crew on the inshore lifeboat and acted as survivor on more than one occasion to give the holidaymakers a thrill.
We spent several holiday [sic] at Fell Foot Park a National Trust site on Lake Windermere. We would travel towing the boat with all the camping gear in it and two canoes perched on top of it. We had a wonderful French six berth frame tent which seemed the size of a small marquee.
I also had a go at gliding with a club near Tebay. This didn't last very long though. Dorothy, Robert and John used to hang around whilst I was doing circuits.
I tried all sorts of activities golf, various musical instruments and even started to build a hovercraft, up to the point where I needed an engine.
The church of the Ascension in Torrisholme had a well-organised rambling club. Every month they had a day in the Lake District, travelling by coach, and splitting into three groups. Hard, Medium and Easy. Dorothy and I enjoyed these outings.
I was very keen on walking and kitted myself up with light weight camping gear and did a few long distance walks.
9
[page break]
After living in the house in Morecambe for 12 years I realised that to be financially secure we ought to own our own property so, in 1963, we bought a house in Bolton-le-Sands. This was an old stone built semi-detached in St. Michael's Lane named Thistlebrake. I spent about 6 months getting it into reasonable shape for living in. I rewired the electrics, and with help installed central heating and got a contractor to install a water closet and drains to a soakaway in the rather big garden. Each bedroom had a sink and there was an upstairs bathroom and a downstairs toilet in the utility room. For a few years we retained the copper under which you could light a fire to do the washing. We put in a solid fuel rayburn which heated the water and did the cooking and it was wonderful producing the most wonderful food, Dorothy helped of course.
Robert went to Lancaster Road Primary School as did John. For John's final year we were living in Bolton-le-sands so he was taken there every day. Jeremy and David both went to Bolton-le-sands Primary School. Unusually John and David went to Lancaster Royal Grammar School whilst Robert and Jeremy went to Morecambe Grammar, no-one can remember why this was the case.
It would be about 1972 that further reorganisation took place and the Northern Group expanded to take in the Blackpool and Preston areas. The headquarters was based at Blackpool and I was put in charge of a sales department dealing with Industrial and Commercial customers. I was given the title of Technical Sales Manager.
I was given the opportunity to be provided with finance for removal expenses but to avoid disruption of the education of the boys I decided to stay ay Bolton-le-Sands and commute. This meant doing about 50 miles a day in the car. It was during this period that Robert, John and Jeremy left to go to university.
It would be about 1975 that Dorothy got a job at Preston Hospital as a phlebotomist so we were both commuting, in two cars. We needed to move nearer to our jobs but it would have upset David's way of life so
10
[page break]
we continued to live there until he went to university.
We moved to Garstang in 1982.
At some time in the eighties some of my colleagues invited me to join them on a sailing holiday on a thirty-five foot sailing yacht owned by the British Gas Sailing Association.
We set sail from a port on the south coast in the evening for an overnight passage to Cherbourg. The weather deteriorated and progressed into a storm. We sailed under heavily reefed sails, secured ourselves with harnesses and tielines and suffered seasickness. We eventually reached France, about a hundred miles east of Cherbourg, and found a sheltered port where we sorted ourselves out. The rest of the week was in good weather and we visited the Channel Islands. There were many more trips. Later we sailed around the Western Isles of Scotland. I was enthusiastic and attended evening classes at the Fleetwood Nautical College to learn navigation. These sailing trips went on until the Sailing Association folded on privatisation of the industry.
In 1986 the Gas Industry was privatised and I was made redundant. I got redundancy pay and could also be paid my pension. Dorothy continued to work for a couple of years.
I was not very involved in politics but had voted for the Liberal party. I got to know a few people in Garstang and learned that there was a particularly active Liberal group so I went to their meetings and in 1987 put my name forward for election in the town and borough elections. Five of us gained seats in the Wyre Borough Council and I was elected to Garstang Town Council. The following year, 1988 I was made Mayor of Garstang. Elections were held every four years and I was re-elected on the next two. In the last year, 1998/99, I was Mayor of the Borough of Wyre and with Dorothy, who was Mayoress, had a wonderful time, being entertained by many organisations and making many friends. May 99 saw the end of my time in local politics and, at the age of 74, just as well.
11
[page break]
In June of that year Dorothy and I celebrated by taking a lovely holiday doing an Alaskan Cruise.
Some three months later I was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and had a gastrechtomy [sic] at Chorley Hospital. Recovery from this was slow but with great care from my dear wife I made gradual progress.
In August 2005 Dorothy died of cancer of the pancreas.
The commemoratory address given at her funeral by her sons gives a better record of her life than I can give
“Dorothy did many things throughout her life and looking back it seems that nearly all of them carried a sense of public or private duty and that in doing them she gave real pleasure to those around her.
She was, perhaps above all, a mother and a wife. She somehow found time even during the busiest years, when she was raising four sons, to channel her energies into other activities.
But she never lost sight of a belief that her primary responsibility was to her family. I suppose that everybody believes that they have the world's best mum: and I am no different.
Dorothy was born eighty years ago in February 1925, not far from here, in Longridge. She trained as a confectioner – which probably accounts for the fantastic scones which we will all now miss so badly – but with the outbreak of the war she moved into war work.
She used to tell us great stories about those times, some of them involving a dashing Lancaster Bomber flight engineer called Bob. She met this young man at a dance in the Parish hall in Prescot while he was on leave from the RAF.
They married shortly after the end of the war and, with Dad making his way in his new career as a gas engineer, there began a peripatetic
12
[page break]
period during which they lived in Birmingham, Whiston, Burnley, Morecambe and Bolton-le-Sands.
Dorothy gave birth to four sons, the first in 1951 and the last in 1962. It's true to say – because she did and why not, she was proud of the fact – that she taught each of us to read and write BEFORE we started primary school.
I think that says it all about her determination to give her children the very best start in life, in which she succeeded. Thanks mum. She gave us all a well-rounded view of life and the world and she did it with a real enthusiasm, which was truly infectious.
We were all inveterate hillwalkers, often even before we had taken our first steps! Mum must have walked every fell in the Lake District ... and run back down every one of them as well. She was still walking her beloved mountains well into her seventies – and giving her fours [sic] sons, six grandchildren and three great grandchildren a run for their money.
But she was also active in other areas, dinghy sailing and scouts among them as well as working as a volunteer with the Citizens Advice Bureau in Lancaster.
As her boys grew up and learned to fend for themselves, Dorothy decided she wanted to resume her working career. She trained as a phlebotomist and worked in hospitals in Lancaster, Morecambe and Preston. I think that she got a lot of satisfaction out of this valuable service – especially when she was mistaken in the hospital wards and corridors for a doctor because of her white coat!
In the mid-70s Bob and Dorothy moved to Garstang, nearer to Dad's job in Blackpool, and her job in Preston, and a new era began in their lives, now that their sons had all left home for university. David refused to move from Bolton-le-Sands until he went to University so the move to Garstang was delayed. I suppose you might call this their “Golden Age”, because they have had such a wonderful time living here and making such good friends.
13
[page break]
She supported Dad in his political and civic roles, becoming Mayoress for Garstang and Wyre Borough Council. She also threw herself into a host of activities, including support for the Leonard Cheshire Home and the St John's Hospice and Meals on Wheels with Cabus WI.
Dorothy was active in the bowling club, she swam once a week and she continued to walk. She was fit and active right up until the end, her enthusiasm for life undimmed.
As we remember her this morning, the word, which most aptly comes to mind, is “selflessness”, because she always put the needs of others above and before her own needs. She was the least selfish person I know, she was always ready to help in any way that she could. She was – and is – our mum, Dorothy,”
That gives a summarised account of our lives, which, on the whole was a happy one. Good fortune, in many respects, came our way. My career started modestly as a youngster from an elementary education but a series of events led to me having a well-paid job and a comfortable retirement. Family life was pleasant, bringing up four boys who have done well in their careers and kept in close contact with us.
Another part of my life was my association with Scouting.
This started with Robert joining Cubs and me offering to assist with transporting the pack members to their various activities. The Scout Group was attached to Church of the Ascension at Torrisholme and I joined the Parent's Committee.
About 1964 the Senior Scout Unit needed some help so I took the necessary training and became the Senior Scout Leader, my scouting career was as follows.
March 65 Senior Scout Leader 16th Morecambe
Oct 67 Assistant District Commissioner (Venture Scouts)
14
[page break]
May 71 District Commissioner – Morecambe & Heysham District
April 74 District Commissioner – Lonsdale District
June 80 Assistant County Commissioner – West Lancashire
In 1984 and then living in Garstang, I had retired from the Lonsdale District and was appointed Assistant County Commissioner (Personnel) for the West Lancashire County Scout Council. The County had two full time campsite wardens and I made arrangements for improvements to their conditions of employment including salaries and pensions.
June 93 Assistant District Commissioner (Venture Scouts).
I took an active part in training these teenage lads in various outdoor activities such as Rock Climbing, Hill Walking, Orienteering, Sailing and Canoeing, some of them gaining the Duke of Edinburgh Award.
My scouting involvement was for about 28 years and I enjoyed it immensely.
ROBERT SHARROCK C.Eng .. M.I.Gas E.
D.O.B. 12 February 1925
Whiston Central School Left 1939 aged 14 years
Started work as an errand boy Whiston Co-op Society.
1941 Started work at Prescott Gas Co. Jumior [sic] on general duties in the laboratory, works and distribution Dept
June 1943 Joined R.A.F. Trained as Flight Engineer (Aircrew) complted [sic] one tour in Bomber Command. Attained rank of Flight Engineer then Flight Sargeant [sic]
March 1944 Crashed in Halifax Bomber on training flight and ended up with a broken back
Sept 1944 Resumed training
Posted to 428 Squadron (Canadian) Ghost Squadron at Middleton St George. Flew 28 operational flights
Feb 1946 Released from R.A.F. on a B Class Release. Returned to work at Prescot Gas Co. manager of gas works applied for Bob's release
Jan 1947 Started intensive course in Gas Engineering at Aston in Birmingham Technical College sponsored by Institute of Gas Engineers
Nov 1948 Joined Liverpool Gas Co.
15
[page break]
June 1951 Appointed Senior Industrial Engineer – Burnley following Nationalisation
June 1954 Appointed Group Industrial Gas Sales Engineer – NWGB North (Lancaster)
Feb 1971 Appointed Technical Sales Manager, West Lancs (Blackpool)
April 1986 Early Retirement due To impending privatisation of British Gas 42 years' service in Gas Industry
FAMILY
16
[page break]
Married to Dorothy 19th July 1947
Children – Robert Eden 16th June 1951
John James 18th May 1953
Jeremy Mason 1st June 1958
David William 19th Feb 1962
Stomach cancer Aug 1999 stomach removed
Moved to Abbeyfield House 2011
d:\sharrock family\dad bob documents\memories and [inserted] 17 [/inserted] reminiscences\memories and reminiscences of bob sharrock v5 31-8-14.doc
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
Memories and Reminiscences of Bob Sharrock
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Sharrock's story. He was born near Wigan, his father a coal miner. He worked locally until old enough to sign up. He trained at Lords cricket ground, Torquay then St Athan. Posted to Dishforth, he suffered a compressed spine during a Halifax crash. On recovery he returned to Dishforth, followed by Middleton St George. He completed 28 operations unscathed. After the war he continued at Credenhill then Kinloss as a flight mechanic.
He got his old job at the gas works back and married Dorothy. They had four boys and he spent a lot of time dinghy sailing.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bob Sharrock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
17 typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BSharrockRSharockRv2
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
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Wigan
England--Warrington
England--London
England--Torquay
England--Hoylake
England--Hereford
England--Liverpool
England--Burnley
England--Morecambe
England--Bolton-le-Sands
England--Garstang
England--Yorkshire
England--Cheshire
England--Devon
England--Herefordshire
England--Lancashire
England--Preston (Lancashire)
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
Roger Dunsford
1664 HCU
428 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
Beaufighter
crash
flight engineer
flight mechanic
ground crew
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
RAF Credenhill
RAF Dishforth
RAF Kinloss
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Padgate
RAF St Athan
RAF Torquay
recruitment
shelter
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/359/5527/PFraserDW1504.2.jpg
e83b7596b2100cb8c2b204db7e6daf7f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/359/5527/AFraserD150713.2.mp3
8a9fa28cd8459c111675c687c272ffe4
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
Fraser, David
D Fraser
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.
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Warrant Officer David Fraser.
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
2015-07-27
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Fraser, DW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Ok, so this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is myself Annie Moody and the interviewee is David Fraser. The interview is taking place at David’s home in Winchelsea in Kent. No.
DF: Sussex.
AM: Sussex.
DF: East Sussex.
AM: In East Sussex.
DF: Yeah.
AM: On the 13th of July 2015. So if you can just tell me just a little bit about your, your family background, schooling and childhood?
DF: Yeah.
AM: Schooling and what have you.
DF: I was born in Northumberland. And I was there until I was seven. Then we moved to Wales and that’s where I was educated, in Wales. But, but education was nil. Just the three Rs and I didn’t get to grammar school or, I sat the scholarship but failed [laughs]. Then pressed on and left school at fourteen. And I was too young to join the RAF even as an apprentice but I was determined to join the RAF from an early age. From the time I was a toddler I was always interested in aircraft. And so I had to wait till I was seventeen and a half, which I did.
AM: So what did you do in between?
DF: Oh.
AM: Between fourteen and seventeen?
DF: I had various, I had a great time ‘cause there was plenty of jobs about and I just went - I had a factory job in a radio factory. I had one in a motorcycle factory. And I just bided my time until I was seventeen and a half and then I joined the RAF.
AM: So when you say I joined the RAF. Just talk me through that. How? What did you do first? How did it work?
DF: Oh I just made an application and they gave me an appointment up in London – Kingsway and I had this exam to be done which was easy and wrote an essay about my experiences in London and I joined as a flight mechanic. I thought, I was under the impression that a flight mechanic would be associated with flying and, but I wasn’t. I was a humble mechanic.
AM: Did they give you a choice or did they say that -
DF: I could have had any choice really. When the flight sergeant read this essay he said are you sure you want to be a flight mechanic? I said yes. So I enlisted as a flight mechanic.
AM: And this was in? 19 -
DF: 1939.
AM: ’39.
DF: February ‘39.
AM: So before the war had started.
DF: Yeah and -
AM: So then what happened?
DF: And then I went on a flight mechanic course which involved a lot of filing metal and God knows what and I, I tried to fail the course. I just wasn’t interested in flight mechanicing and at the end of the course I saw the CO and I explained that I was not interested in the thing and they passed me with forty percent, the lowest possible pass mark. He said when you get to your squadron when you’re posted you’ll [remaster?]. So that’s what I did and what they wanted pilots, navigators and gunners and I volunteered for the pilot’s course but the waiting list was three or four months and I was afraid I might miss the war so I got the gunners course.
AM: Where, where, where were you living at this point?
DF: Cranwell. I was at Cranwell then.
AM: Ok.
DF: Which is not far from Lincoln. And -
AM: So you went, you went on the -
DF: Went on the gunnery course in Scotland.
AM: In Scotland?
DF: Evanton Gunnery School.
AM: And this is still just pre-war or?
DF: No the war was on then. That was 1940.
AM: Was on. Oh right. Ok, so what was that like?
DF: Great fun. Flying about. We had lumbering pre-war aircraft and in a high wind they’d fly backwards.
AM: What, what aircraft were they?
DF: They were Harrows, Handley Page Harrows. They were so slow that coming back one day I was in the rear turret and we were trying to fly over the High Street parallel with the high street and which was rather, which was forbidden and I saw the local copper get his book out and take our number [laughs]. He took our number. When we got back we got reported and hauled up before the CO for low flying.
AM: And this was still, so this is while you were in training
DF: 1940.
AM: And this is while you were training?
DF: Yes. While training, yes.
AM: Ok, so what, what was the training actually like? What did that consist of?
DF: Oh. Firing. Air to air firing from air to air firing and air to ground firing. Stripping guns and learning all about the mechanism of them and how they worked and we had a month. That took a month and then after that we went to operational training unit which is another three months.
AM: So where was OT?
DF: That was in Scotland.
AM: That was in Scotland as well?
DF: Yeah. Yeah. Lossiemouth, Scotland.
AM: So what did you do there? What did that consist of?
DF: We got there and one morning we were told to report to the hangar and the hangar was full of bods just milling around. The idea was to just mill around and find people you had something in common with and that’s how you crewed up. It was a marvellous system. And you, you found chaps you took a liking to and they reciprocated and that was the way a crews was formed. There were six of us in the crew.
AM: Who chose who?
DF: Hmmn?
AM: Who actually chose who? Who took the lead in it?
DF: Oh pilot, one of the Australian pilots. We had two Australian pilots. They’d been around the offices and seen who got the best marks. And that was what happened. I had good marks at gunnery so they, ‘well he’s a good bloke’ and picked me and that was it.
AM: Were you with anyone else that you’d done the gunnery training with? Oh no you would all have been together wouldn’t you and milling around as you put it.
DF: Oh yes we were all there and we just formed up crews at that, on that morning.
AM: So you’ve got your crew. Then what?
DF: Then we started training as a crew.
AM: As a crew.
DF: Yeah.
AM: In what kind of aircraft?
DF: Wellingtons.
AM: In Wellingtons.
DF: Yeah and -
AM: So how did that go? What was that like?
DF: Well it was a bit dicey because we used to lose on average one crew per course. There were six crews per course and we used to lose one, an average one, one every course. Weather conditions primarily, hitting mountains or getting lost, snowstorms and God knows what, not and aircraft maintenance wasn’t the best ‘cause they were rushing things through and I think things got missed and -
AM: So as a rear gunner training?
DF: Ahum.
AM: What were you shooting at?
DF: Oh whatever they – sometimes they’d send a spitfire up and we’d have cameras, and have camera gunnery and they would develop later on, see how we’d got on. And and other aircraft again drogue, with a drogue towing - you’d fire at that and it was good fun really. We were there for about three months – November, December, January, February, March – yes just over three months. Then we went to the squadron.
AM: And at -
DF: At Marham.
AM: At Marham so -
DF: Norfolk.
AM: Which squadron?
DF: 115 squadron.
AM: 115.
DF: Yeah and we were only there just over a month, then we were shot down. [laughs]
AM: So how many operations did you actually do?
DF: Four.
AM: Four.
DF: Yeah.
AM: Where did you go on operation?
DF: Emden was the first one. Then Brest after the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau battle ships and the last one was Hamburg when we were shot down.
AM: And this was in, still 1940?
DF: ‘41.
AM: We’ve moved to ‘41 now.
DF: ’41. May 10th ‘41 we were shot down.
AM: So describe that to me. The shooting down, and what happened.
DF: Well we were, went up and approached the target and just before we got there we were knocked off course by a, with a blast of blasts so we went around again and that was our undoing. If we’d just got out, got out of it we’d have been ok but went around again doing the job properly and then caught in a cone of searchlights. There was one pilot beam which, and that latches on to you and the rest follow and you’re caught in this cone of lights like a sort of gnat [laughs] and they shot the hell out of us and hit, hit the hydraulics so I couldn’t operate any guns. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t operate, I had no gunsights which was electrical had been knocked out so I was useless. Nothing. I couldn’t manipulate anything. The gun, nothing would move ‘cause we rely upon hydraulic pressure for movement. And there I was. And then there was a silence. That meant a fighter was coming in and come in he did and he proceeded to sort of knock the hell out of us, set fire to the flares in the flare rack and she started blazing and that was the start of the, the whole thing.
AM: So then what happened? Describe it to me if you can.
DF: Of course, normally as a rear gunner you could just turn, turn the turret around, jetison the doors and just drop out but of course I couldn’t do that because the damned thing was jammed up so I squeezed back in, went up the fuselage towards the nose and there I saw Alex the second pilot, Aussie, he was lying bleeding profusely. He was bleeding in the arm and chest and I got him, stuffed him through the hatch, put my hand through to the rip cord. I said, ‘pull for God’s sake’ and anyhow I pushed him out and I looked out and saw him. His parachute opened so that was ok [laughs] and he recovered later on but he was badly wounded.
And then I bailed out and the country I landed in was very much like Romney Marsh. All level and no cover at all, there were no trees [laughs] or anything. I really felt exposed but I hit the ground and as I hit the ground I was swinging. I swung forward and landed on the base of my spine and I thought I’d broken my back. So I just lay there manipulating toes and hands to see if I was ok. Everything moved, worked. And a great herd of cows gathered around me. Friesian cattle. They all came out sniffing around the parachute so I just lay there for about half an hour ‘cause they were good cover and they just, they were nice and warm too these cattle, and I just laid there.
And then when I came to my senses I got the parachute and stuffed it into a dyke and sank it by putting a great, a bit of rock on top of it and I thought now where I shall go. The obvious thing was Denmark and that was occupied by Germans so anyhow I made, I was making for the Danish border. I thought I might have a bit of luck, get over it, get picked up by Danish patriots.
I hadn’t gone more than about a quarter of a mile and as dawn was breaking I came to a hut. It was a hut occupied by searchlight crews and there was a sentry outside and he saw me. He said, ‘ach Englander flieger for you the war is over. Come’. And that was it. I was hauled in to this hut and there I saw Alex lying on this table.
AM: Alex was the Aussie?
DF: Who was wounded, yeah
AM: Ahum.
DF: I thought he was dying. But he was breathing, shallow breathing and he said to me, “Look what they’ve done to my best shirt.” His shirt was all mangled and bleeding and then I was whipped away and put on to a lorry and taken away. And I I didn’t know what had happened to Alex. I thought, honestly thought he’d died until nine months later he turned up in the camp. He’d recovered.
AM: What happened to the rest of the crew?
DF: Well Bill the navigator, when I bailed out I put Alex through the hatch I looked across at Bill who was bent over the main hatch and I yelled, “Come this way.” But he made a gesture like that - so I left, at him waving, went out assuming he’d got out from the main hatch. But what had happened, I didn’t realise, what what had happened, when my turret caught fire Bill came down to give me a hand with the fire extinguisher by which time I’d got the fire out so on returning, he was returning to position and he got the second burst of machine gun fire, was hit in the intestines, went right through the back and right through the front and I didn’t realise he’d been wounded. Yeah.
Then the skipper called out and got no reply so he assumed we were all out and he bailed out and Bill was left in the machine on his own. He was a navigator, he wasn’t a pilot and he thought, ‘well I think I may as well, I’m wounded I may as well dive into the, dive into the deck and get it over with’ and he suddenly thought no he’d carry on. He took over and brought the aircraft down, the wheels, brought the aircraft down and he just came below some high tension cables, past a row of cottages in front of a hospital [laughs] and again they came and cut him out of the aircraft and whipped him into the hospital and this eminent French surgeon who was there, one of the the leading surgeons in France performed an operation on him and that saved his life. But later on he got dysentery and the stitches all broke and that was it. He never ever recovered properly. He always had this open wound and, but the skipper, Andy he bailed out and drowned in the river. He just didn’t release his chute obviously and there was - so one killed and two wounded and three whole.
AM: Three in one piece. So you’re on the lorry. You’re being taken away somewhere.
DF: Yes.
AM: Then what?
DF: And went, went to the officer’s mess, of the -
AM: The mess in?
DF: The squadron who’d shot us down. German officer’s mess but first of all we were interviewed by the couple of bods there and they were trying to get information out of us there and I just gave my name, rank and number. And they said, “Hang ‘em. Hang ‘em.”
Anyhow I didn’t say anything at all and they let me go into another room. Then they took us, a car came and took us to the mess and then we met the guy who shot us down. And he gave us Cognac and coffee and had a general chin wag with them and they said don’t worry the war won’t last long about another six months and the Fuehrer will be riding on a white horse down Whitehall and we said, “Wait and see” and this amused them this ‘wait and see’. And we finally left and they all came on to the front steps to see us off and they all said, “Wait and see” ha ha ha and we said, “Yes wait and see.” And I often wonder how many of them remained alive to wait and see.
AM: And you say us. So how many of you were there?
DF: There were two, there were two of us there.
AM: So, you because -
DF: Two of us and one was a bit further afield and he joined us later on. So there were three of us at [unclear] we were picked up and eventually made our way – or were taken to Hamburg station, put on a train and taken to Dulag Luft which was a reception depot.
AM: Ahum.
DF: And again we were interrogated by, by a guy speaking flawless English. He was, he could have been English and we gave our name, rank and number and he wanted to know what squadron we were from and they were interested in the Stirling. The Stirling at that time had just come operational and they had no information on it and they wanted to know about it. Anyhow, I didn’t give them any information and he pushed a packet of cigarettes and he said, “Didn’t I compete against you at the University Games in London?” I said, “No. No.” And he gave me these cigarettes which I politely refused. I was a non-smoker. After about an hour he, they let me into the compound with the rest, the rest of the bods and we met up in the, in the main sort of main hall. And there were about thirty aircrew there who had been shot down in the last few days. And they had permanent staff there who had been shot down way back. And we then went, the RAF camp wasn’t ready, hadn’t been built so we went around various other camps, army camps and we went to Austria, Poland a sort of cooks tour of Germany and we finally settled up and we ended up in Lamsdorf which an army camp near Breslau and there we remained until the RAF camp was ready which was Stalag Luft III.
AM: So how long were you at the one before Stalag Luft III? How long were you there for?
DF: Oh about, our wanderings, we were wandering about almost a year.
AM: On trains or -
DF: On trains yeah. We’d go, they’d take us to a camp. We might be there two months. Another camp we might be there for three months.
AM: And who was in, you said they were army camps.
DF: They were army camps yeah.
AM: So who else was in them?
DF: Well the last one, in Austria in a place called Wolfsburg, was a French army camp. There were about eighteen thousand Frenchmen. And -
AM: What did you do?
DF: We just -
AM: When you were in there?
DF: We just lived. Existed really. We commandeered the ablutions there and made them fit for use, our own use after the French had made a terrible sort of mess of them. The odd French peasant he doesn’t mind where he, where he sort of goes does he?
AM: But you were a bit more discerning.
DF: And we cleaned it up and it became our own, our own ablutions and everything.
AM: So then Stalag Luft III. Tell me about that.
DF: Oh that 1942 we got there. End of ’42. And that was where we really organised there. An organised camp. There were libraries there and skilled teachers. That’s where a lot of guys started their university experience. Qualified in the intermediate.
AM: Amongst the POWs?
DF: Yes.
AM: So they, who ran the -
DF: Ran the, ran the camp, yeah. Now my pilot, the one who was wounded, he took his intermediate economics exams on [?] university and he ended up being the deputy vice chancellor of the University at Perth.
AM: What did you do?
DF: What did I do? I did, I learned German. I read a lot and increased my knowledge generally and of course mixing with all different types of people what they knew rubbed off on you and I just gleaned information that way.
AM: And you were there for how long?
DF: All told four years.
AM: Four years.
DF: Ahum.
AM: I can’t imagine it.
DF: And we dug tunn, I was involved in five tunnels.
AM: Oh tell me a bit more about that.
DF: Well the first one we dug was what we called a moler and it was just, the actual tunnel was about the same size as your body, your shoulders and it was a question of knees and elbows and digging with a implement and the earth was shoved back like a mole does and after about a half an hour you had to give up and signal you were passing out. Of course you had a rope around your ankle and when you gave a signal they pulled you, hauled you back. Next man in and so it went on.
There was a brand new washhouse there the Germans had built, they weren’t using it, between us and the fence and we thought if we could get to that washhouse and crack a pipe and get some fresh air and I happened to have been digging with the pipe and there it was, this lovely salt glaze pipe and I had a bit of a rock with me and I gave it a couple of bangs and it broke and the fresh air came and, oh marvellous. And then the winter came along and the position we were in it was visible. We had dug during the summer by putting up two sticks with a blanket and just were sunbathing ostensibly but it was just that it was just the cover and there was just the blanket was just high enough so that the guard couldn’t see over it. And we dug this and yes carried on for some weeks and then we had to give up because winter started you couldn’t sunbathe.
AM: Don’t sunbathe in winter. So that was one tunnel.
DF: That was the first one.
AM: And what happened to it? Where did it, did it actually get to the outside?
DF: Oh yes it got about forty yards and we had to give it, had to leave it so I don’t know what happened to it. It probably caved in in the end.
AM: So that was the first one?
DF: The first one.
AM: And then?
DF: The second one was one from the one that had been discontinued, again in a washhouse and that was, that was quite a big one and I started on that and that’s when the Americans came into the camp then. American officers and I’ll never forget this ‘cause I was familiar with Roger and Wilko they were the sort of references to Roger and out or Wilco - will cooperate and this guy was a captain. I was handing up sand and he kept saying Roger. And I honestly thought he had two blokes up there - one called Wilkins and the other called Roger. [Laughs] You simply say passing the bucket to one guy Roger, Roger,
AM: And that was sand?
DF: That was compact sand really.
AM: So how did you stop the tunnel collapsing?
DF: Well we dug with, I had a big tablespoon just with the handle off and dug like that ‘cause it was easy digging. Too easy actually. Got some collapses and so had to retain a dome shape. So it kept its own shape and that damp got in to that and we gave it up. And the big tunnel, the best tunnel was the biggest one and that was again near a wash house, near a soakaway. We started on that. Dug down about ten feet down for the shaft and then along towards the wire and it hadn’t rained, we got about fifty yards, it hadn’t rained for about, nearly a month and suddenly it belted it down and it didn’t stop for about five days and we were digging near the soakaway so there was a subsidence in the soil and we saw a German ferret, we called them ferrets, snooping around and we saw him probing cause he saw the ground subsiding and so we went, we went to the barrack hut and the next thing we knew there was a hell of a commotion and there was German fire engine came dashing in and this guy had fallen in through into the soakaway and this fire engine came in and they got a special harness and put it around him and hauled him out and everyone cheered and they got their pistols out and started firing. I’ve never seen blokes move so quickly.
AM: Firing in what direction? At you?
DF: Oh in the direction of us, yes. So I saw blokes making for the huts, diving through windows and [laughs]
AM: Was anybody killed?
DF: No.
AM: Was anybody shot?
DF: No.
AM: No.
DF: No and then, it was then that they started issuing notices saying that all materials because you had we had to used beds and bed boards which in the German eyes was sabotage and they just said that anyone caught tunnelling in future and misusing German material would be guilty of sabotage and would spend a long time in prison or might, could even be shot. That didn’t dissuade us. We just carried on.
And then we went up to Barth a place called Barth on the Baltic coast and started a tunnel there cos the Yanks were there and we.
AM: So you moved up.
DF: Yes.
AM: From where you were.
DF: Yes.
AM: To a different camp. And what camp was that?
DF: Barth B A R T H
AM: It was actually called, right ok.
DF: And we started a tunnel there with the Americans and we were sent back to our own camp again then we started another one from a barrack, from a barrack hut which meant moving a big stove each time, each time and that got us, it was arduous so we gave it up and that was the end of the tunnelling really.
AM: So you never actually got any of them out?
DF: We didn’t no.
AM: Were you aware of what was happening with the ‘great escape’ tunnel?
DF: No we, we knew the Germans were getting trigger happy. They were very concerned about people using materials, sabotage and God knows what and they issued notices in the camp - escape is no longer a sport, it could result in death. And the first information we had was when we got – where were we then – up near Konigsburg. We’d all had to go, move camp and in through the gates came a convoy of motorcycles and vehicles all armed with heavy machine guns and they proceeded to cordon around us. We were out in the open some sort of roll surrounded us and this German, CO, German CO read out what had happened. He said that fifty, fifty officers had been shot and we all booed and then they clicked their safety catches and started getting - so our senior man said, “Cool it blokes, cool it blokes” don’t want any disasters but we knew. They said they were shot while trying to escape but they they’d been recaptured and then shot. We found -
AM: Did you know that or found out later on?
DF: Later on yes yeah. Marvellous, good men lost their, the whole secret organisation leaders were shot and there were several Germans hanged for it after the war.
AM: So what, going back to you and where you were then. So we’re getting towards the end of the war. What things started happening?
DF: Yeah.
AM: What?
DF: Well we ended up at a place called [Fallingbostel?] it wasn’t far from the main autobahn between Hanover and Hamburg and things were getting a bit tight and all of a sudden one day you’re going to march, got to get out and march. So everyone packed up their belongings and gathered, and carried what they could and assembled outside the gates. We thought to hell with this. This could lead to hostage taking so we said no we’re not marching so there were five of us avoided the Germans. They were searching the whole camp get people out of it. We hid up in various places and when the coast was clear we went out through the wire and made contact with our own army.
AM: How? How?
DF: We just went out into the open and we passed through the German lines and saw Germans laying mines in culverts and we met up with - we saw a tank coming towards us over the brow of a hill and the gun swung around and the gun, comms tower was opened and a black bereted head popped out. We said, “Don’t fire. We’re English.” So they drew up about twenty yards from us, the crew got out and gave us cigarettes and there we were smoking and -
AM: You were a non-smoker.
DF: No. No. I tell you what, when I was twenty one, on my twenty first birthday there was a consignment of Red Cross parcels. So everyone – ‘oh food, marvellous’ but it wasn’t food it was tobacco. Cigarettes. The issue was thirteen per man so I had my thirteen cigarettes. I thought well I can’t eat I might as well bloody smoke. That’s when I started smoking. Twenty one.
AM: So here’s the tank.
DF: And, and they drew up and we sat there chatting on a grassy bank and we’d earlier, before we’d met the tank, we’d come to a farm. Went into the farmhouse and there at a long farm table were the farmer’s wife and about six Germans – troops. So we questioned them and obviously they were no longer interested in fighting, they just more or less deserted, or given themselves up. And when we, when we spoke to the tank commander and told them about the guys in the farmhouse his eyes lit up so he sent a guy, one man up to the farm about a mile back and he came back not with six blokes but about thirty. They were all skulking in the cowsheds.
And this guy he’d sent up there was an Austrian and who’d been in England since 1936 and he joined the British army, marvellous bloke. And I always remember this squadron, this tank commander was called Major Hepburn and everyone called him Kathy [laughs] and when these, these Germans came down, he lined them all up and they put their packs in front of them and he said, “Right open them up” and they opened them up. There were tins of beef and pork and eau de cologne and cigarettes, cigars so he said, “There you are blokes take what you want” so we took, there were tins of meat and God knows what and put them in our packs. And then he said you’re running, you’re running a bit of a risk he said ‘cause there are still troops hiding up in woods. This was the SS. And so they armed us with rifles and ammunition and gave us a driver and a jeep and we went back about ten miles up to divisional headquarters and dropped us off there. So we were free once again.
We just we went back through the lines again everywhere like a lot of bandits with rifles and and yards of ammo wound around us and if we felt hungry we just caught up with the nearest army thing and they fed us and gave us a bed for the night and it was a marvellous week really. It was, was blazing hot sun. Marvellous.
AM: And you just worked your way.
DF: Yeah worked our way across the -
AM: Where did you end up?
DF: Well we saw six RAF blokes coming down the road so we said, “Where are you from?” And they said, “Oh we’re from a transport squadron he said but a bit further back, about a mile along there’s a fighter squadron flying Tempests,” and we thought they’re the boys so we walked up there and the sentry said, “Halt” and brought the guard out and took our weapons away and we made statements they gave us pieces of paper saying the bearer is an escaped prisoner of war.
And then we had a marvellous shower and then were, we were guests of the officer’s mess where we drank and oh I’ve never drunk before in my life and funnily enough it must have been because we hadn’t drunk for ages but we couldn’t get drunk. We just, it was a marvellous sense. But the CO, the group captain he went slowly under the table, just collapsed really under the table.
And then there was another guy who saw us - he turned around and embraced one of our mates. He was, Gerry Clark who was with us, he was bilingual French and this guy saw him who was a French, French ace and he turned around and he saw him and, “Oh Gerry” and they were from Biggin Hill. That’s where they’d last met. And Gerry had collided with a German in a dog fight and he and the German were in the same hospital. But Pierre Clostermann was the name of this, this French ace. He wrote two books Flames in the Sky is one and Big Show is the other one.
AM: Ahum.
DF: And he always wore, always wore a pair of guns like he was some old cowboy. He was quite a flamboyant creature and after the war he became an MP.
AM: Ahum.
DF: Alsace yeah from Alsace.
AM: So how did you actually get back to England?
DF: Oh then they thought there’s an Anson going back to Dunsfold tomorrow and oh lovely we can go back just as we are and just as we are dressed in scruff order but they had to, they had to inform Movement Control and we had to go through channels and they gave us army uniforms, all brand new and we had to go through, go through with the rest of the guys and we ended up at Brussels and they were flying in petrol in jerry cans and flying out prisoners of war. So we flew back in a Stirling and I flew back in the rear turret. And then we, we had, after that we went, we had, to Cosford to be debriefed at Cosford and given RAF stuff. RAF uniforms.
AM: Proper uniforms.
DF: That’s it. And then given pay, indefinite leave and that was it. Anti-climax.
AM: So what did you do?
DF: I went back. I went home and that was it. Show over.
AM: When you said they gave you your pay so that’s for all the time that you’d been gone.
DF: Oh they didn’t give us the lot. They gave us an instalment.
AM: Right. So what did you do afterwards then?
DF: What?
AM: You’ve had the anti-climax. You’re back. You’re home.
DF: Yes.
AM: Then what?
DF: I just remained in the RAF till my demob number came up and meanwhile I met my wife. Met her in June and we were married in October. And it worked out marvellously well and she was demobbed first and then I was demobbed and then I thought well what do we do now?
So I got a government grant and trained as a chartered surveyor but I failed the ex, again my mind wasn’t a hundred percent. I just went through the motions and I just failed the exam in one subject and then I gave it up. And I’m glad I did because the idea, in retrospect the idea of being in a routine job never appealed to me so what I did I joined, later on I joined a company selling farm buildings and it was marvellous. I was a freelance representative out every day, living in a place I wanted to live in – Cornwall. It was marvellous. That’s where the family were brought up. We were twenty years down there.
AM: Right. And here you are.
DF: Here we are.
AM: In Winchelsea.
DF: Yeah. In our second love, Romney Marsh.
AM: Ahum. Any other stories for me or shall we switch off?
DF: Hmmn?
AM: Any other stories for me or shall I switch off?
DF: I could go on forever I think but -
AM: Do feel free.
DF: No, then we were in Cornwall and the company, the company I was with, I was a freelance agent and the company I was with thought it was too far too come to erect buildings in Cornwall. They were, they were in Herefordshire so they just withdrew the labour from Cornwall and left me high and dry. So I thought to hell with it I’ve just about had enough of this bloody rat race so I gave it up and I started gardening and I’ve never had a more pleasant time in my life. Self-employed gardening. Marvellous. I used to do a bit of building.
AM: Out in the weather.
DF: Marvellous yeah.
AM: Wonderful so you had a good life.
DF: I had a good life. Very fortunate, very lucky. I had sixty nine years of married life. Marvellous. Got two nice daughters and a son in Australia. Good family.
AM: And you go swimming
DF: Yeah.
AM: When you can. In the sea.
DF: Yeah.
AM: At 94.
DF: Yeah.
AM: I think on that note.
DF: Yes.
AM: I’ll switch the recorder off.
DF: Ok
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 David Fraser
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AFraserD150713
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending OH summary
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
David Fraser enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1939 and was trained as a mechanic. He remustered as soon as he was able and flew four operations as an air gunner with 115 Squadron before his aircraft was shot down over Hamburg, in May 1941. He spent the next four years as a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft 3.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Moody
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:45:54 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
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Norfolk
Poland--Żagań
Germany--Hamburg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-05-10
1942
115 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bale out
bombing
crewing up
Dulag Luft
flight mechanic
Gneisenau
ground crew
Harrow
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Evanton
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Marham
Scharnhorst
searchlight
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 8B
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
Stirling
training
Wellington